The Must Have Customer: 7 Steps to Winning the Customer You Haven't Got (1st ed.)

Citation

Dupree, J. (2006), "The Must Have Customer: 7 Steps to Winning the Customer You Haven't Got (1st ed.)", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 23 No. 5, pp. 306-307. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760610681718

When mining for diamonds, one moves tons of rock and dirt to be rewarded with gem quality stones; so too with The Must Have Customer. One needs to wade through a lot of verbiage, personal stories and self‐aggrandizement to reach them, but there are gem quality elements here. Philosophically and pragmatically right on the money, Gordman reminds us of the key elements of successful marketing and growing market share in seven steps. Within each chapter/step he provides groups of insightful valuable questions to assist in the execution of such successful.

Ultimately the book comes down to knowing your lifetime value customer, knowing your own business' “sweet spot,” understanding who should be among those lifetime value customers but is not, and using that customer's “rules” to get them to buy. He reminds us of the need to know not only ourselves (business) but also our customers' customer so we can help them succeed (value‐added marketing). A mix of market research primer, SWOT analysis refresher, Jim Collins' Good to Great (whom he cites and credits), and customer‐centric value‐added marketing, The Must Have Customer is a solid refresher of marketing basics. Its size, format, and content make it an easy read for a two‐ to four‐hour flight.

In fact it sometimes comes across like a marketing piece for Gordman's consulting firm. The book has a corporate, large firm orientation. The case studies are large firms, his clients and experiences are larger firms in fact. There are a few brief generic suggestions for the smaller firm with its smaller marketing budget on how to use his concepts. There is even a story about an individual financial planner using the core customer concept in his practice.

The author had two very powerful mentors, Posner and Clifton, and their impact is apparent in the book's customer focus and survey research methodology. Using seven questions, each in its own chapter, Gordman takes the reader through identifying the “must have customer,” and a process for making that person your customer.

In the first chapter a critical distinction is laid out between the core customer (who is doing business with you – profitably), the opportunistic customer (who does business on the basis of an incentive), and the must have customer (looks like your core customer and is not currently doing business with you but is the key to growing market share). Gordman reminds us it is not sufficient to ask “Why do you buy from us?” but to press to the next step, “Why do you buy from our competition?” The lesson is: Learn who your profitable customer is, understand this individual in terms of business, lifestyle, and values, and then extend your efforts to understanding your customers' customers. This process tells you who to pursue and who to “fire” as customers. Some are more effort and less profitable than you can afford.

The second chapter,“What is our market position?,” reminds us that to grow and move forward we need an accurate assessment of where we are in the market, market share, share of the customers' mind, and how we got there. Just as understanding leads to success, misunderstanding causes problems: Asking the wrong questions of the wrong people, and not knowing one's real competitors. Gordman's critique of American business' tendency to blame external circumstances rather than accept personal responsibility for a company's failures is an important wake‐up call. Competitors, changes in the market, and shifts in our customer base do not cause our business failure. Rather, it is our unwillingness or inability to track what is happening and proactively changing to meet these new challenges.

Chapter 3, “Sweet spots  … ” focuses on knowing our niche, our unique selling proposition, and competitive advantages, and then managing the firm and marketing efforts accordingly. Self(company)‐analysis is critical to successful marketing and business success. No matter how saturated a market, one can find or make a “sweet spot.” This principle is demonstrated by McDonald's recent move into premium coffee. Fast food is overly saturated, as is the premium coffee market. But the combination of location, efficient process (speed of drive‐up service), and hunger for the better cup of coffee, McDonald's has made its own sweet spot. Gordman provides another of many lists of very useful questions to ask your customer to help you identify why the customer buys from you, so you can build or reinforce your own “sweet spot.”

It is customer loyalty stupid, to misquote recent political candidate wisdom, that is the message of Chapter 4 “Why are our satisfied customers buying from our competition?” Do not read this chapter if you cannot stand painful self‐examination. Satisfying customer is no longer enough; we must use marketing strategies that tie them to us, thereby building loyalty. Over two‐thirds of customers who leave for a competitor have no specific reason to leave or to stay, it would seem. Knowing and integrating the customers' rules into your business model is the key to customer loyalty. Do not react to competitors, use your own sweet spot, your customer's rules, and build their loyalty.

Gordman provides a process for identifying “The critical success factors: do you know what you don't know?” in Chapter 5. This is one of the most valuable chapters of the book, wherein he forces the reader to wonder about what he or she does not know about the business and the customer. The solution is simple but not easy: ask. Central to Gordman's approach is gathering information, asking questions, and constantly scanning your business environment for information so that you have the pulse of your business, industry, and customer. He walks through ways to learn: “what's right not who's right” – it is not credit or blame; it is knowing that is important; “asking the right people” – are you talking to the core customer or yourself? – “digging into your data” – you already have a lot of data, do you really understand it?; “Not building consensus” – this eliminates critical disagreement; and “knowing what you don't know” – fresh eyes, asking questions, awareness that you do not know some critical things.

If I would fault Gordman on anything it is making “Must have employees” chapter 6 rather than chapter 1 or 2. He reminds us it is our people who make us successful. This is a key point, one he should make at least after identifying the core customer, at least if he really believes what Jim Collins says. A $100,000 marketing campaign can be undone in a moment by a $7‐an‐hour employee. Here he applies the first couple of chapters to the firm's workforce, asking who your best employees are, how their values and attitudes align with your company's, and who is not working for you that should be. How do we build loyal employees? It is the company's work environment in terms of culture, versus the opportunistic employee – they needed a job and yours will do. As with customers, loyal employees lower costs and increase profitability. And, as with customers, the key is asking the right questions.

Gordman concludes by asking the legitimate questions: “Do we know how effective our advertising is,” “How do we know that?”and “Are we communicating effectively?” Offering the standard critique of most marketing efforts, we are reminded to be clear on our goals, select metrics that measure to those goals, and be ruthless in holding our marketing people to achieving those goals.

Closing by calling on firms to conduct a “Must Have Audit,” there is no real summation or conclusion to the book. When you read the book, be sure to mark ideas that stand out to you because the book lacks an index, making it hard to relocate specific ideas.

An easy read, a solid reminder of basic customer‐focused marketing principles, and a compilation of insightful and painful questions to ask ourselves and our customers, The Must Have Customer, should prove a valuable book for you.