I just returned from a speech by Lutz Hackenberg of the AGD. He was talking about how to get, hold, talk to, understand, … customers. He was actually very confincing and it was a good learning experience even though this was more or less geared towards designers. Some interesting things follow.

The entire speech was done with a good amount of jokes and funny anecdotes which made the 2 and a half hours go over pretty fast. The first thing, where I have to agree fully is that you need to achieve three things:

\- I exist

\- This is what you get from me

\- This is why this is important for you

While this sounds simple enough, it is very true and important to understand when trying to get a customer to give you money, in a sense to get somebody to be your customer. There were lots of little details that were important to remember. For example how to write a letter to the customer, what to say and what not to say or to ask for a meeting and if you ask for a meeting, have a time ready. The other side does not want to think about when they could possibly meet you. Give them some suggestions, help them out. The problem would also be that if you say that you can meet them whenever they like, then they could just say “Sunday before church at 7 would be good.” Now what. This actually reminded me of one book which I read where the writer always said to say that you’d like it one hour earlier. Presuming your potential customer says that friday at 9 am would be good, knowing that you are coming by train, then you should say, “8 would be better.”, just to show them that you really want to meet them and you are happy to get up at 4 am to do that.

Another important point that was actually addresses, even though I missed the emphasis on it, was customer focus. Know what your potential customer needs. Another small thing, that I am not too sure about yet though, is that you should never say that you are not there at the moment on an answering machine or something, but rather that you are doing something, traveling, some general term for being active. When you contact potentials, contact 10 people max and call them three days later. Once you get a meeting, be very prepared and try to create a positive climate. If you do not get a direct meeting after placing your call, ask when you can call again. In your letter, actually say “Could I call you in the next few days?” … this is where I am really not sure though if that is so good. His point was that nobody will mail you back or call you and say no, so you already have the agreement kind of. If you end with your letter like this, then I think it needs to be amphasised that it’s not about generally calling but about “in the next few days”.

There were actually lots more small things that are good and I will try to keep them in my head when I am continuing to attract new customers. In general though, I believe that you need to get experience in this. There are so many little details that you will surely get a lot of them wrong at first. Over time you will make less and less mistakes and be confronted with less and less unexpected events.

Oliver Thylmann’s Musings

Listening to Lutz