The Must-Have Customer
Understanding your customers' values is key to target marketing.

By Jean Zimmerman

Title: The Must-Have Customer-7 Steps to Winning the Customer You Haven't Got
Author: Robert Gordman with Armin Brott
Year Published: 2006
Publisher: Truman Talley Books
Number of Pages: 320
Description: The Must-Have Customer shows you how to keep your best customers and how to identify, attract and forge long-lasting relationships with the customers you don't have-the ones who will take your company to the next level. Each chapter contains questions and a process for asking them that will enable you to drive sales and increase profits. The book also describes how to assess your company's position in the marketplace and carve out a defensible "sweet spot" against competitors.

The August Book Forum selection was "The Must-Have Customer-7 Steps to Winning the Customer You Haven't Got," by Robert Gordman with Armin Brott. Because most people were on vacation in August, the discussions of this book took place over a series of meetings with clients who had read the book and wanted to voice their insights and thoughts regarding it but who could not convene at the designated time.

As with many business books that offer advice to owners and management, Gordman lists his major points in 7 steps (in several cases, critical questions).

Step 1: Who Are Our Must-Have Customers?
Step 2: What is Our Market Position?
Step 3: Sweet Spots and Why You Need One
Step 4: Why Are Our Satisfied Customers Buying from Our Competition?
Step 5: Critical Success Factors: Do You Know What You Don't Know?
Step 6: Must-Have Employees
Step 7: Are We Communicating Effectively With Our Must-Have Customers?

The Must-Have Audit
There was general agreement among readers that on the surface, there were no earth-shaking revelations in the book. Business owners understand that they have to know their customers to keep their customers, but knowing and doing are two entirely different things. Marketing theory always makes sense-putting it into effective practice is the bear.

Everyone was struck (or terrified) by the quote early in the book, "Companies don't die of natural causes; management kills them. And death doesn't come suddenly; it happens one customer at a time."

Takeaways
For each step in the book, Gordman included examples based on his clients, and these examples added weight to his advice. Several of the business owners in the discussions have already begun to reformulate the questions they ask their customers in a concerted effort to redefine their must-have customers and locate their companies' unique sweet spots.

Gordman listed the types of questions that should be asked and answered, which the group members considered extremely helpful. The idea of understanding your customers' rules (values) and making sure your customers are a good match was a new way of viewing target marketing for many in the group.

The book is strong on doing your homework, and Gordman relentlessly emphasizes the importance of research. Being small is no excuse-there is always a way to gather critical information and use it intelligently, Gordman said.

Firing Bad Customers
Several people also commented on the sections that discussed firing your bad customers. There was general acknowledgement of the fear associated with losing any customer-even the ones that actually cost you money. Everyone knows the 20/80 rule-that 20 percent of your customers provide 80 percent of your business. The book encourages owners to turn those percentages around, so that your livelihood doesn't depend on so few customers. But to do that, the customers that are a drain on the bottom line and who are not loyal to your company or product need to be sent to the competition.

In general, there was strong agreement that marketing is fun, exasperating, easy to discuss and very hard to do well.

Jean Zimmerman is the executive director of the Missouri Women's Business Center. She can be reached at (816) 235-6141.