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Four Greatest Ideas for
Keeping In Touch with Your Market

Introduction

The customer is king. Have I mentioned that before? The customer is also changing

his or her mind about what they want regularly. You have to exploit this, and pro-

tect yourself from the downside of change, by expanding your market. Idea 37,

continuously. And it is not just you that needs to keep in touch, don't forget the

other people in the organisation, Idea 39. These are four ideas that do not require a

lot of effort except perhaps Idea 38, where we look at the knotty problem of keeping

your customers in touch with you, and looking the part even when you lack sub-

stance in reality.

A hole in the

Idea 37 - Prospect continuously order book

™™/s o hole m

the cashflow in

We all have a background from one part of business before we start on the about two

business of our dreams. We come from production, sales, finance or wher- months' time.

ever and this dictates some of the emphasis that we put into the business.

One of the advantages of coming with a sales background is a complete understand-

ing of the disciplines of prospecting.

Salespeople also know that when you are selling you are not delivering and

earning revenue, and when you are delivering and earning revenue you are not sell-

ing. It is easy to let your business life reflect this in a cycle - easy, but dangerous. A

hole in the order book now is a hole in the cashflow, Idea 55, in about two months'

time. This delay can give you a false sense of security especially when you are busy