# Choose Your Customers



## Woodi (Nov 11, 2009)

I subscribe to Seth Godin's blog. This morning, he said this, which I myself have been practicing for 8 years, for my soap biz anyway. Works for me; it's the way I like to do business.




> Choose your customers, choose your future
> Marketers rarely think about choosing customers... like a sailor on shore leave, we're not so picky. Huge mistake.
> 
> Your customers define what you make, how you make it, where you sell it, what you charge, who you hire and even how you fund your business. If your customer base changes over time but you fail to make changes in the rest of your organization, stress and failure will follow.
> ...



How does this hit you?


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## rubato456 (Nov 12, 2009)

i like it...lots


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## IanT (Nov 13, 2009)

rubato456 said:
			
		

> i like it...lots



ditto


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## dolly777 (Nov 25, 2009)

cant say it better my self


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## topcat (Nov 25, 2009)

That is exactly how I do it and find the synergy flows into my creativity - so I focus on what my preferred customer base wants (initially it was family and close friends) and their feedback and preferences lead me to create something new that we all love.  So much fun!

Tanya


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## JenniferSews (Nov 26, 2009)

Preach it!


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## Manchy (Nov 26, 2009)

sounds great, maybe easier than it is, but definitely something to strive to.


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## donniej (Nov 26, 2009)

I recently talked to a guy who I used to work for.  In a previous career he was the head of a marketing department.  I asked him for some input on my business.... the first thing he asked is "who is your target audience?".  He then encouraged me to do exactly what the blog suggests, identify a core audience and go after them.  I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to do that but I'm working on it...


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## kittywings (Nov 26, 2009)

I'm basically targeting girls like myself... so that makes it easy.... oh and gay men, I know their demo pretty well.  

I will say that my brother, Todd, told me a horror story about selling some BMW seats to a guy (he's not a company, he just had some seats and was selling them) and the guy was being ridiculous asking him to install the seats, asking to borrow tools and saying he'd send them back, asking him to fix known issues for free... mind you, he was selling them for $900 and the cheapest anyone else was selling them for was $1250!
Todd eventually said, "You know what? Just bring the seats back, I'm not selling them to you because you're being too aggravating, I can sell them for more to someone else."  The guy said that he'd keep them.

A few months later, he got an email apology from the guy for overreacting... but that's the only good point of the story.  His girlfriend stopped him from responding "does that mean I can have my socket back?"


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## donniej (Nov 26, 2009)

kittywings said:
			
		

> I will say that my brother, Todd, told me a horror story about selling some BMW seats to a guy...



I was selling BMW parts a few years ago.  The parts I were selling were for mid 1980's cars, which are not really worth anything.  But I'd run into the same kind of people all the time.  Lots of arrogant snobs driving worthless, unreliable cars.  I also put on one of the areas larget BMW car shows for 2 years and the attitude from some of the members was a bit much.  Between a very mediocre experience with the cars and the attitude of some owners, I eventually got out of that scene.  

Sorry for the tangent


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## Tabitha (Nov 26, 2009)

It's right on. I have 2 lines, 1 is an alll purpose economy line while the other has a specific customer base. I enjoy the latter of the two.


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## Tabitha (Nov 26, 2009)

It really does make sense to choose 'who' you want to sell to & build your line around that. That is what I did with my second line. Chose the customer base 1st.

With my 1st I just started making stuff & tried to find customers to buy it. I can see that was backwards now that I know what I know.


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## kittywings (Nov 27, 2009)

donniej said:
			
		

> kittywings said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Todd's a mechanical engineer that has been obsessed with cars since birth.  He currently owns (thus I own... because I buy what's he's good at fixing... for free) mostly BMW's.  He said the same thing you did, that most BMW owners are idiots who don't take the time to research anything yet they try to act like they know what they're talking about.  With the guy I mentioned, he could tell that the guy was just freaking out about spending $900 period, thus he had to freak out at somebody.

What disgusts me is that only my brother could drive a car for 2 years, yet still make a profit on it when he sells it.  NOT FAIR!


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## ohsoap (Nov 27, 2009)

I want to target rich ppl!  LOL
No seriously, my DH and I plan on selling in the new year.  Our first show is going to be a big trade show, tables are about 550$ each.  We have a friend who makes a healthy living off her bath salts, she only does BIG shows.


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## dagmar88 (Nov 27, 2009)

well, it's always a good thing to target people who do have some money in their pockets... A more upscale line of products and feel of the (web)shop would draw a different crowd for sure  :wink:


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## Woodi (Dec 1, 2009)

It is also a good thing to do if you plan on staying in business for a long time. People learn to trust you and your products, they develop a kind of 'customer loyalty', which comes in handy when the market starts to get crowded, with new soapsellers every year showing up at your venues.

I did that, and I now really enjoy my good customer base. They sometimes go off to try other soapers' products, but usually return to me, so glad I'm still around. This feels good.


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## madpiano (Jan 1, 2010)

This is a weird one, for a while I have been working on selling my products. I was made redundant and invested my redundancy money into getting the certificates we need here and insurance, but I wasn't really ready to sell. I have been playing with recipes and packaging and my main moot point was, that I don't know what my target market is. I finally got the packaging right and now it seems to have fallen into place. It makes me so much more confident in marketing my products and putting them into the right light. Before that, I always stumbled when someone asked me about the things I make, as I really didn't know how to respond. If you don't know, if you are going to sell your products to a desperate housewife or a posh city woman, how do you sell it ? I would love to sell to people around here, where I live, but to be honest, they rarely appreciate it and would rather go and buy a piece of Dove, as it "doesn't dry out the skin, they said so on the telly". So I changed my packaging and now I will target the people who want to buy it, not have to be co-erced to buy it. I am targetting, funny enough, teenagers and yummy mummies. I will have to travel a bit for the right kind of markets, but I don't mind. It's much more fun and I get some real feedback now, rather than "yeah it's quite nice" (ok, not from the teenagers, they just like the packaging). 

It really does help to have a target market and think about that when buying supplies. If you don't know who is going to buy your stuff, how do you know, if you need to buy patchouli or fake Dior, Fo or Eo, with palm-oil or without, vegan or not, artificial colours or all natural, plastic wrapping or kraft paper all of this depends on your target. I wasted too much on stuff I now no longer need, although I will have an all natural, palm-free, no FO line, it's not what my main selling-point is, funky, bright and unusual goes down much better. And it cheers me up to do those soaps. I got bogged down trying to do what I thought would sell, rather than what I wanted to do, I am not artistically skilled enough to make my all natural range look as good as some people on here manage to do it, so I stick to FOs, POP Micas and leave the organic crowd to the sellers who do it so much better than me.


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## Woodi (Feb 3, 2010)

I like your answer, madpiano....true to yourself, it seems.

I love all the replies here, to see how it's working for people who sell. I started out selling to people who like to attend upscale Christmas craft shows, then got on an _envied _artists studio tour here, which also got me selling in their artists' co-op store in town. These two venues give me more business than I could handle.

But then, I'm older than most of you and have less energy to begin with... :roll:


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