The abundance of business books, seminars and articles about identifying your “ideal customer” for your business is vast. There are many opinions and advisors who suggest that when performing strategic planning for your business, especially for marketing, that the more complete the vision for your ideal customer the more likely you are to reach them with your products, services and marketing communication.
In the time that Reflective Logic Systems has been operating, we believe this to largely be correct. The customers we’ve helped have demonstrated that to us in many different ways. What we’re found is that a good fit between business partners is orders of magnitude better for both partners in business to business relationships.
While some may think that we’re revealing strategic secrets here, we believe differently. We believe that transparency, clarity and honesty wins above secrecy and selective information disclosure. With that in mind, what follows is our vision for our ideal customer. We’re sharing this so that our customers know where they stand with us and where we stand with them in the realm of vision and perspectives on business partner compatibility. Additionally, for prospective customers, we want you to know what you can expect from us in a very clear way.
The Reflective Logic Systems ideal customer exhibits the following characteristics:
Character and Integrity
Our ideal customer has impeccable character and integrity. This means that the leadership demonstrates by example that the business strives for fair treatment of everyone they touch: employees, customers, suppliers and communities. Additionally, the products and services of the company are honestly advertised and are truly a good value to the consumer. Our ideal customer knows how to make good promises and keep them.
Financial Discipline and Stewardship
Our ideal customer is a good financial steward. They are not barely making payroll each month nor are they consistently behind on their payments to suppliers. They do not run razor thin margins that barely keep the lights on. Our ideal customer knows where they stand financially and can use that information to make wise choices as to how to deploy their capital and control their expenses while progressing towards their strategic goals.
Clarity of Business Essentials
Our ideal customer knows their business backwards and forwards. They know what makes it stop and they know what makes it go. They know who their customers are and how to deliver value. They know what must be done, what should be done and most of all what should not be done. Our ideal customer demonstrates this clarity consistently in everything they do.
Perspective on Technology
Our ideal customer knows that technology exists to further progress towards business goals. They know that what improves business performance is having the right information in the right place at the right time for the right cost. They are not dazzled by fads, buzzwords or “flavor of the month” products and services. If a prospect calls and says “get me in the cloud” or “I need to do big data” we’re probably going to pass on that business. Our ideal customer wants a clear lineage from the business case to the technology investment decisions in terms of opportunity, risk, reward, costs and impact. They also want to measure these results to ensure that the investments are wisely allocated.
Courageous Business Partner
Our ideal customer is courageous. We consider courageous to mean something like “cautiously bold” or “strategically daring”. We want to help our ideal customer take intelligent risks that grow their business. There is a critical division between courage and recklessness. We do courage. We don’t do reckless.
Uniquely Innovative
Saying you’re an innovator does not make you an innovator. Today everyone is an innovator which means no one is. Our ideal customer is a problem finder and a problem solver. Its important to distinguish problem solving verses problem displacement. A problem is not solved if you just moved it somewhere else. True innovation is difficult and rare. Simply projecting the image of innovation is not innovation. Our ideal customer walks more than they talk when it comes to innovation.
Well, there you have it. The Reflective Logic Systems view of the ideal customer. If you read this and were offended, that’s great. You know that we’re probably not for you. If you read this and found yourself cheering a little inside, this might be you. You could be the one.