What Your Customers Really Want And How To Give It To Them By Richard Simmons Do you know what your customers really want ? I mean REALLY want ? I'll get to the point. Have you ever heard of the radio station WIIFM ? It Stands for 'WHAT's IN IT FOR ME ? ". It's what your customers always think of first when listening to you talking about how wonderful your product, widget or service is. It doesn't matter what you are selling...you have to cater to the customer's self-interest. Put yourself in their shoes. Don't you do the same. When some boring Website/ Sales person/ Leaflet goes on about how wonderful the company is or how long it's been in business I just switch right off. Who cares ? I want to know how this is going to do one of the following :- make me more beautiful make me more money feel fitter more attractive to the opposite sex live longer make me live longer save me time etc... Are you starting to get the idea. People do not care about you or your company. Unless you can appeal to their self-interest. We are at heart quite a selfish bunch. Appeal to peoples emotions and desires rather than using cold hard logic. When you talk about your product or service always let people know what they can GET from it. Remember we buy what we WANT NOT WHAT WE NEED. Otherwise there would be no porsche cars,designer labels, caviar or large fancy houses. Have you done this before ? I'm a bit of a gadget fan and love all electronic things. Recently an new electronic organiser was released and I just had to have it. It seemed like a dream come true. I told my wife about it but she just thought it was another toy. "What's wrong with your old one." she said. "Nothing" I replied. "But this new one will make me more efficient and work faster. And it has countless features that the other one doesn't have." Guess what ? I went out and bought it. Even though my exisiting one was perfect. The moral of the story is that we buy what we want and then justify it as a need. Knowing this one peice of information can add thousands to your bank balance.? This mistake is being made on the Internet by thousands of busineses ! Take a look at most business websites. They are just plain boring. They contain things like press releases, pictures of the company directors, buildings and a plethora of other things that could cure any insomniac. Please do not do this with your website. Appeal to your visitors self-interest. And unless the person building your website understands marketing you'll have a hard time doing so. Most webmasters/designers don't have a clue. I'll discuss this in a another article. To get it just fill the form in at the bottom of the page with your email address and I'll let you know what it's published. In a nutshell, whenever you discuss your product/service let your prospect Know what's in it for them. Nobody cares about your qualifications and how pretty your building/office are. That you fully understand their problems and that you can solve them. Give them testimonials. Know that you have done things for other people just like them. Be specific and give examples. That way any suspicisions that they have will be laid to rest. There you have it. Always remember to tune into WIIFM. Best of luck.   Richard Simmons is respected IT and Marketing Consultant and has been involved in Internet technology since 1996. He works with major blue-chip companies and investment banks and advises countless small and home based businesses. Richard is uniquely gifted in that he has a deep understanding of both Technology and Marketing industries combined. Contact him personally at richard@crimsondirect.com. You'll also discover some of his uniquely creative business building articles and resources at http://www.crimsondirect.com.