The oft-quoted business adage \u201cpeople buy from people\u201d might be a clich\u00e9, but that doesn\u2019t make it less true. This is particularly the case with small businesses\u2014and even more so in a service-based industry like ours.<\/p>\n
In recent years, the commoditization of IT services has led to a significant increase in customer churn. In hindsight, this isn\u2019t too surprising. We\u2019re all effectively selling the same product in the same way (as dictated by our vendors). Additionally, our suppliers are standardizing their product offerings and\u2014in some cases\u2014devising direct business models that allow customers to circumvent middle-tier service providers completely. So it\u2019s much easier now\u2014and less risky\u2014for a customer to move to a different supplier than it ever was before.<\/p>\n
To retain customers, we\u2019re told we should differentiate ourselves from our competitors. As managed services providers (MSPs) and retained consultancies, this could mean a multitude of things\u2014from offering a wide range of services from multiple vendors to custom offerings in the form of automation, or from concentrating on servicing one or two industries to competing on price. These are all worthy considerations\u2014but for smaller businesses, our widely accepted unique selling point (USP) is our people.<\/p>\n
To solve our customers\u2019 problems, we need tech\u2014but we also need to be approachable, flexible, straightforward, patient, consistent, and efficient. These are not really characteristics of a company, they are personality traits. Even so, your company often adopts the character of your staff. As a business owner, one of my softer roles involves defining the principles on which the company operates but I still recognize everybody plays a part in creating the culture. All employees represent the business and are responsible for making it stand out.<\/p>\n
I deliberately chose the title of this blog because changing the emphasis reveals multiple meanings. Consider \u201cyour customers don\u2019t\u00a0buy<\/em>\u00a0what your company sells.\u201d In 16 years of running my own business, I\u2019ve never sold a commoditized service. I\u2019ve sold lots of solutions to problems, but I\u2019ve never called a client and said, \u201cWould you like to buy SolarWinds\u00ae<\/sup>\u00a0Remote Monitoring and Management today?\u201d Instead, I\u2019ve asked them if they\u2019d like to know about potential issues in advance of them causing disruption to their businesses. We are\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0problem solvers. Perhaps we should amend the adage to \u201cpeople prefer to deal with people.\u201d<\/p>\n Consider \u201cyour clients don\u2019t buy what\u00a0your company<\/em>\u00a0sells.\u201d In my experience, my clients buy from me or from one of my people. A long-standing client and friend told me over coffee many years ago that he didn\u2019t believe any of my customers bought services from Dynacom\u2014they bought services from me as an individual. This can cause issues around scalability, but it doesn\u2019t have to. If your company culture is consistent, customers will soon find a natural balance.<\/p>\n