The Best Question you can ask Your Customer

Written by: Don Miller

Posted on November 19, 2007 
Filed Under Starting your Online Business

After research and more research you have discovered you niche. Congratulations! You have decided you want own a Travel Business. Perhaps you chose to share your Photoshop knowledge with the world. You realized people are willing to pay for you knowledge and becoming an infopreneur is what you have outlined in your latest business plan.

There is no more important component to establishing your than building relationships with your potential customers. That may seem cliché to you. Perhaps you are thinking right now, here we go again, another relationship post. Maybe it is, maybe it’s not, you decide. So how do you open the door to do so?


You must consider every visitor to your business as a potential customer. I put the emphasis on potential for a reason. You now have an opportunity to pre-sell that potential customer. I wish I could tell you every person who contacts your business will be a paying customer, but as you know, it doesn’t work that way.

Back in the 90’s I owned a sports memorabilia store. I had chosen to locate my store within a larger hobby store. This kept my overhead to a minimum and I had traffic for my store from day one, albeit not necessarily customers for what I was marketing. However each person who managed their way to the back of the store to gaze into my display cases received a greeting from me. I dislike being asked, “Can I help you” with passion, so I generally greeted them with “How are you doing today?” It is important that you frame your question in a manner that conveys to the person that you really want to know. I have found it opens the door to a person’s personality like none other. Small disclaimer here. Be prepared for answers you won’t expect. Generally though, it will provide some quality follow- up conversation. It will also provide you with an opportunity to set the first block in building a relationship with that person. That’s your goal. Perhaps you will spend enough time to set a few more blocks, perhaps not, but make sure you get that first one down.

I remember a lady specifically to this day. The reason I do you will understand in a moment. She was the mother of two boys that appeared to be 10-12 years old. Apparently she used the hobby store like other moms use a park. She would push a cart around and let the boys roam the store in search of something they could beg for. I spoke with her the first day I saw her. We talked and talked and talked some more. It was not until her 3rd or 4th visit that she spent a dime, but that day she did so much more. She came to my store without the boys and in my ignorance I wondered privately why. She then began selecting products from the displays and since she had two boys she needed two of everything. She then handed me an American Express Card and politely said that will do it for me today Don. Her total was a bit over $2200.00. That makes for good day in any niche. Over the next few years Sandy, yes that’s her real name, would spend thousands of dollars in my store, but it all started with one simple question, how are you doing today?

 

 

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Comments

3 Responses to “The Best Question you can ask Your Customer”

  1. Building Rappore and Relationship with your Readers : Making Sales Making Money on December 27th, 2007 11:33 am

    [...] a retail store? Employees always ask, can I help you? They almost always say, I’m just looking. Now you know that’s not the approach I like, as I detailed in a separate post. Same thing with your blog or website, but when a visitor makes a comment, he is inviting you to [...]

  2. The Necessity of Networking : Making Sales Making Money on March 8th, 2008 1:18 am

    [...] have written on my site about the best question you can ask your customer. It is this, “how are you doing today?” My friends nothing opens the door to a conversation [...]

  3. The Lure of Easy Money, It’s Gotta Very Strong Appeal : Making Sales Making Money on March 27th, 2008 10:29 pm

    [...] I asked how she was doing today. The three of us talked, and each time she returned to the table, we talked more. She told us she works four jobs to make ends meet and has for years. She is the proud mother of two teenage girls whose father has never paid a dime in child support. Her side work was the one that interested me the most. She had moved form New York to care for her mother and apparently has a connection in the garment district. Once a month or so she orders women’s clothes and accessories and sells them to her friends and acquaintances. This gal is a go getter and I was impressed. I asked her had she ever tried to market her products online, and then I got a bit angry. She had recently attended a “internet marketing seminar” at a cost she would not reveal, that tried to sell her a load of crap. So here we go, another internet marketing scam and another victim. [...]

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