Why is a customer focus important?
When a customer approaches your firm to do business, the top-of-mind concern of the customer is the customer’s own problem.
- If you begin your conversation with the customer by discussing the customer’s problem (and, once you understand the problem, how you can solve it), you will build an immediate rapport with the customer. After all, you are addressing what is critically important to the customer.
- If you instead begin your conversation with the customer by talking about yourself, the customer will not care. You are not addressing what is important to the customer.
You can incorporate a customer focus into any content that you create, including blog posts for identity/biometric businesses and case studies for Inland Empire businesses.
Additional information on customer focus
Here is a sampling of what John E. Bredehoft of Bredemarket has written on the topic of customer focus.
(6/17/2025) Biometric Marketers: What About WRITER Personas?
I am currently working on some internal content for a Bredemarket biometric client. I can’t reveal what type of content, but it’s a variant of one of the 22 types of content I’ve previously addressed. A 23rd type, I guess.
Anyway, I am writing this content from a product marketing perspective, since I am the self-proclaimed biometric product marketing expert. This means that the internal content fits into a story, focuses on the customer, highlights benefits, and dwells on the product.
But what would happen if someone in a role other than product marketing consultant wrote this content?
More at https://bredemarket.com/2025/06/17/biometric-marketers-what-about-writer-personas/
(4/10/2025) Are Your Competitors Stealing From You? The Ultimate Guide to Increasing Prospect Awareness
If your prospects don’t know who you are, create customer-focused content that explains how your company can solve their problems.
(2/1/2025) Discovery With Your Ears
Using Bredemarket as an example, my primary goal in the meeting isn’t to blather on about my 30 years in biometrics, or my more than 30 years of writing, or how I was a former Radio Shack Battery Club card holder, or how I shook Gerald Ford’s hand once….
(M)y goal for the initial meeting is to listen and focus upon what the potential customer needs.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2025/02/01/discovery-with-your-ears/
(1/2/2025) Lack of Differentiation Limits Your Available Talent
So be sure to differentiate…as long as the differentiation resonates with your hungry people (target audience). If your audience is repelled by your differentiation, then that’s a problem with your customer focus.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2025/01/02/lack-of-differentiation-limits-your-available-talent/
(8/30/2024) Seven Essential Product Marketing Strategy and Process Documents, the August 30, 2024 Iteration
Customer Feedback. If you want to institute a customer focus, you need information from your prospects and customers. What information do you need? How much? (Shorter surveys get more responses.) How will you get it? What will you do with it? (“Trash it” is not an option.)
(5/3/2024) Content Marketing and Proposals are Pretty Much the Same
I’m going to list four aspects of a particular document, and you tell me whether I’m talking about a piece of marketing content, or a proposal.
- The document focuses on the customer’s needs.
- The document describes benefits the customer will realize.
- The document targets one or more sets of people hungry for the solution.
- The document shall be in Aptos 12 point, single spaced, with 1 inch margins, and shall not exceed 20 pages.
Guess what? From that description you CAN’T tell if it’s a piece of content or a proposal.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2024/05/03/content-marketing-and-proposals-are-pretty-much-the-same/
(4/15/2024) I Edited My “Customer Focus” Page
In the introduction to the page, I previously talked about how adopting a customer focus leads you to address “what is important to the customer.”
I changed that phrase to reference “what is critically important to the customer.”
Because TLOI (three levels of importance) rules.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2024/04/15/i-edited-my-customer-focus-page/
(4/10/2024) Putting the Focus in Customer Focus
From the perspective of Reagan and his supporters in 1980, technical definitions of recession vs. depression made no difference when you’ve lost your own job. “It’s only a recession, not a depression” doesn’t feed your family.
Remember to apply this customer focus when talking to your prospects. They have a particular way of looking at the world, and as far as they’re concerned it’s the right way. They may be wrong, but you may or may not be able to convince them of this. If you can, focus on things from the customer’s perspective.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2024/04/10/putting-the-focus-in-customer-focus/
(4/9/2024) Video: Differentiating Your Company and Your Products/Services
This video obviously discusses differentiation, but also discusses customer focus as well as the seven questions your content creator should ask you before writing (including benefits and target audience). Not only are the seven questions good for creating content, but they are also good for differentiating content. (For example, why is your product/service so great while all of your competitors’ products/services suck?)
More at https://bredemarket.com/2024/04/09/video-differentiating-your-company-and-your-products-services/
(3/15/2024) What is B2B Writing?
When I write something for a business:
- I must focus on that business and not myself (customer focus). The business doesn’t want to hear my talk about myself. The business wants to hear what I can do for it.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2024/03/15/what-is-b2b-writing/
(11/1/2023) What is Your Tone of Voice?
In Bredemarket’s case, my sage/explorer/royalty/entertainer tone of voice is visible in Bredemarket’s writing. At least in Bredemarket’s SELF-promotional writing.
But MY tone of voice makes no difference to my clients, all of whom are focused on their OWN tones of voice. And Bredemarket has to adjust to EACH CLIENT’S tone of voice.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/11/01/what-is-your-tone-of-voice/
(10/24/2023) You’re Doing It Wrong™: One Piece of Collateral Isn’t Enough
If you’re sold on using Bredemarket to create customer-focused messaging (remember: your prospects don’t care about your technology)….
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/10/24/youre-doing-it-wrong-one-piece-of-collateral-isnt-enough/
(10/17/2023) When Your Firm’s Differentiation REPELS Your Customers
I constantly preach that firms should not adopt “me too” messaging. Ideally, a firm’s messaging should not copy its competitors, but should instead state why the firm is better than all others, and why all the other firms are worthless in comparison.
But when a firm differentiates itself, there is always a danger that the firm will forget one important thing: how will the customers react to the firm’s differentiated messaging? Will the differentiation turn the customers off?
Trust me, it can happen.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/10/17/when-your-firms-differentiation-repels-your-customers/
(10/13/2023) Customer Focus When You Are NOT the Customer
All of us talk about customer focus. Heck, I just spent the past few days talking about it 31 times, starting here.
But when you are talking about customer focus, make sure that you are talking about the customer’s true focus.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/10/13/customer-focus-when-you-are-not-the-customer/
(10/8/2023) Your Prospects Don’t Care About Your Technology
Let’s face it; we all have an “it’s all about me” attitude because we want to satisfy our needs.
- You want to satisfy your own needs because you only care about selling your product.
- I want to satisfy my own needs because I only care about selling Bredemarket’s services. (I’ll get to the selling part later.)
- And your prospects want to satisfy their own needs because they only care about their problems. And because of your customers’ self-focus, they’re only going to care about your product if it solves their problems.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/10/08/your-prospects-dont-care-about-your-technology/
(9/17/2023) Start Your Engines: Writing Your Non-Traditional Words
Now I don’t know your business communication needs. You do. But I can guess a few things.
- Do you need to tell your clients/potential clients why you do what you do?
- Do you need to tell them how you do it?
- And last but not least, do you need to tell them what you do?
I know that this may seem like an unusual order to you. Why not start with what you do?
Because your customers don’t care about what you do. Your customers care about themselves.
If you keep the focus on your customers, the answer to the “why” question will induce your customers to care about you, because it shows how you can solve their problems.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/09/17/start-your-engines-writing-your-non-traditional-words/
(8/28/2023) Does Self-Focus (Rather than Customer Focus) Lead to Blandness?
45 million years ago, in 2018, Amanda Retzki pointed out a danger that can occur when firms talk about their accomplishments rather than focusing on their customers’ needs: bland, “me too” text.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/08/28/does-self-focus-rather-than-customer-focus-lead-to-blandness/
(8/9/2023) No, I Don’t Need Two Refrigerators
You have to be more intelligent in your customer focus. Once a customer has purchased an item, they may—or may not—need a second one. In a different context, I have referred to this as “somewhat you why,” or the need to understand the intent of what someone is doing.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/08/09/no-i-dont-need-two-refrigerators/
(7/26/2023) Is the Funnel Consideration Phase Quantitative or Qualitative?
Here’s a example from my law enforcement automated fingerprint identificaiton system (AFIS) days.
- If your prospect is a police chief who is sick and tired of burglars ransacking homes and causing problems for the police department, don’t tell your prospect about your AFIS image detail or independent accuracy testing results. After all, 1000 ppi and 99.967 accuracy are only numbers.
- Provide the police chief with customer-focused benefit statements about how quickly your AFIS will clean up the burglary problem in the town, giving residents peace of mind and the police department less stress.
If you can appeal to those emotions, that police chief will consider you more highly and move on to conversion (purchase).
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/07/26/is-the-funnel-consideration-phase-quantitative-or-qualitative/
(7/12/2023) We Don’t Need Customer Focus Because Our Product Is So Great
It’s always good to question previous thoughts, and that’s what I’m doing right now.
In the past, I’ve stated that the best way to attract awareness (and eventually revenue) is to focus on customers and their needs.
But what if I’m wrong? (I’ve been wrong before.)
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/07/12/we-dont-need-customer-focus-because-our-product-is-so-great/
(6/30/2023) Applying the “Six Questions” to LinkedIn Self-promotion
Work on the rest. Now that you know how your post will end, you can work on the rest of the post. Persuade your reader to follow your call to action. Explain how you will benefit them. Address the post to the reader, your customer (for example, a potential employer), and adopt a customer focus.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/06/30/applying-the-six-questions-to-linkedin-self-promotion/
(3/19/2023) When You Wear a Blindfold, You Cannot See
I know that “when you wear a blindfold you cannot see” is one of those seemingly obvious truths, like “the heat was hot” (the band America) or “water is wet” (a preschool teacher).
You would never intentionally blindfold yourself while driving a car, or while performing any other activity that requires your vision.
But when we conduct business, do we unintentionally blindfold ourselves when we don’t focus on our customers’ needs?
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/03/19/when-you-wear-a-blindfold-you-cannot-see/
(3/4/2023) Lockheed Martin’s Anti-biofouling Customer Focus
It’s nice to claim a “customer-first mentality,” but Lockheed Martin has provided an example of how it demonstrates customer focus.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2023/03/04/lockheed-martins-anti-biofouling-customer-focus/
(10/30/2022) Six questions your content creator should ask you
I’ve written ad nauseum on the difference between benefits and features, so for this question five about benefits I’ll just briefly say that written content works best when it communicates how the solution will help (benefit) the customer. A list of features will not make a difference to a customer who has specific needs. Do you meet those needs? Maintain a customer focus.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/10/30/six-questions-your-content-creator-should-ask-you/
(10/25/2022) Users are not stupid; systems are
And when I write, I need to continuously keep my customers (or, more accurately, my customers’ customers) in mind. I’m writing for them, not for me. Create messages that resonate with them. And if the audience is non-technical, don’t assume that they know what SEO and URL and HTTPS mean.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/10/25/users-are-not-stupid-systems-are/
(8/25/2022) Why Visionaries Keep Their Mouths Shut
One of those visions was Jobs’ vision of the iMac. People anticipated that Jobs’ return to the company he co-founded would result in some new insanely great thing. But when Jobs talked about the iMac, he didn’t say, “I’m Steve Jobs, and this is my next revolution.” Instead, he took a customer focus and talked about what his next revolution would do.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/08/25/why-visionaries-keep-their-mouths-shut/
(8/2/2022) Extremely targeted marketing (customer focus)
If you’ve read the Bredemarket blog for any length of time, you already know that customer focus ensures that your customers will pay attention to your message. (TL;DR Customers are happier when you talk about them than when you talk about yourself.)
Did you know that customer focus also increases your revenue?
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/08/02/extremely-targeted-marketing-customer-focus/
(6/26/2022) Why does Your Inland Empire Business Need Case Studies?
When marketing your Inland Empire business to potential customers, you don’t start the conversation by talking about yourself. You start the conversation with a customer focus by talking about your potential customer’s needs.
And what better way to speak about your potential customer’s needs than by talking about other customers who have faced the same problem, and who solved the problem using a solution from your business?
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/06/26/why-does-your-inland-empire-business-need-case-studies/
(5/4/2022) Is Calendly customer focused?
If you want to initiate something at your company, it’s always good to note that it will help the company make money. Focusing on customers seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised to learn how many companies focus on themselves rather than their customers.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/05/04/is-calendly-customer-focused/
(4/29/2022) Why the Toyota Arena’s square footage is unimportant in Zurdo vs. Boesel marketing…or YOUR marketing
Why not talk about the arena at the beginning of the fight announcement? Because fight promoters are smart. Fight promoters know that to make a sale, they need to maintain a customer focus.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/04/29/toyota-arena-zurdo-boesel-marketing/
(4/27/2022) Who pays you? Sarah Greesonbach knows
I could literally write between 2,800 and 3,200 words (geddit?) on this topic, but Sarah Greesonbach expressed the thought much more succinctly.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/04/27/who-pays-you-sarah-greesonbach-knows/
(3/12/2022) How Inland Empire West Businesses can attract new customers via testimonials, AND (3/12/2022) How identity businesses can attract new customers via case studies
Why TWO posts, each of which is targeted to SEPARATE Bredemarket social media channels?
Because I need to address the needs of DIFFERENT types of customers, by using my skill set as applicable.
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/03/12/how-inland-empire-west-businesses-can-attract-new-customers-via-testimonials/ and https://bredemarket.com/2022/03/12/how-identity-businesses-can-attract-new-customers-via-case-studies/
(2/21/2022) Two truths and no lies, the proposals edition
Did Mark ask Carlos about what Carlos likes to see in the meat he purchases?
Did Mark ask Carlos where the meat should be delivered?
No.
Mark’s attitude was that if he shared these important facts about Guasti Meat, Carlos would be so impressed that he would immediately start to do business with such a respectable company.
This is obviously ridiculous, but many companies act in the same fashion when writing proposals. When they write their executive summaries, the first thing that they talk about is themselves.
Who cares?
More at https://bredemarket.com/2022/02/21/2truths0lies/
(5/10/2021) Communicating benefits (not features) to identity customers (Part 1 of 3)
As you can see, benefits are customer-centric.
(11/23/2020) Positioning a sole proprietorship
(Andrea) Olson believes that company positioning is mostly a lost art, and that some attempts to establish a unique company marketing position don’t really work in practice. For example, a Company X claim that it is “customer-focused” will only be effective if Company Y says that it is “not customer-focused.” (This doesn’t happen.)
More at https://bredemarket.com/2020/11/23/positioning-a-sole-proprietorship/
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