Do you actually like your customers?
Sageworks CEO Brian Hamilton recently posed that question in a column for Inc.com, noting that if the answer is “no,” you may be dooming your business.
Dislike of customers can spread throughout your business and before long, sales and margins are falling, Hamilton said in his “Making Cents” column.
“When you like your customers, you get good at serving their needs, even anticipating them,” Hamilton says. “Helping them becomes a calling, not a chore.”
Hamilton says he does several things to make sure customers know his company cares about them. He hires people who “care about other people” and have shown that in their past.
“They’re going to take to our company’s culture a lot more easily than someone who doesn’t get what I’m driving at,” he says.
He encourages conversations with customers and says it’s important for business owners to avoid becoming too far removed from customers. “The company won't run well if you're too removed from the customers,” he says.
Read the entire article on Inc.com here.