The key question: who is your customer?

Michael Gerber, on pp. 222, says one of the two pillars of a successful marketing strategy is knowing who your customer is.

Gerber focuses on demographic information, which is important. But beyond this, you have to have an idea of who your customer is as a person. You have to know more about your customer than your customer knows him or herself. How old is he? What does she like to eat? What kind of car does he drive? What does she want out of life? And so forth. Make up a questionnaire and answer it for each kind of customer you envision you will try to serve.

If I were to continue as a realtor, my customer would be married, between 55 and 70 years old, married or has been, kids grown, has a financial portfolio of $1.5 million or more, wants to move to Center City and experience good things in life, walking, eating in good restaurants, experiencing good drama and concerts, etc.

Write a descriptive paragraph of the most important customer for you. Then devise a questionnaire incorporating who, why, where, why, when, how, and how much. Once you know that you'll be able to go to Gerber's second marketing pillar.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs.

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Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.