Know What You’re FORSample

FOR the Customer

Every day when businesses, churches, and nonprofit organizations open their doors, some type of growth is the goal. It could be an increase in customers, sales, or membership, or personal or spiritual growth, but ultimately every organization needs to grow. Healthy things grow. Unhealthy things die.

Growth may look different, but it’s something we all should want. Knowing this, what causes a business to grow? Sure, there are lots of answers, but ultimately it comes down to one word—customers. 

We must learn to care more for the customer than we care for the business. We must learn to care more about people than about the organization. This isn’t bad for business because customers are the business. Caring for the customer creates an emotional bond that allows them to care more about the business. Now, more than ever, we have an extraordinary opportunity to show customers we care. 

Two Questions That Cause a Business to Grow:

1. What do we want to be known FOR?
2. What are we known FOR?

“What do we want to be known FOR?” is our vision. It’s our big idea. It’s our niche, our foothold, in the marketplace. The first question is the one we answer. Here lies the purpose, the vision, the why.

“What are we known FOR?” is the customers’ experience of our vision. It’s their reflection of whether or not they are experiencing the purpose and vision of the organization.

The first question is what we say; the second question is what customers say.

Within these two questions is the secret to growth. When the answers to these two questions match, growth happens. It’s that simple. And it’s that hard.

When what you want to be known FOR is actually what you are known FOR, customers become a free sales force by telling others about you. When you have a compelling vision, product, and purpose, and customers experience it, they gladly become a source of positive word-of-mouth advertising.

To help us get there, let me introduce you to the essence of the FOR strategy. I believe this is the pathway to future success for any organization that wants to thrive and grow:
       
Winning organizations of tomorrow will be more concerned with becoming fans of their customers instead of convincing customers to become fans of the organization.
      

Adopting a FOR strategy is more than semantics. It is a call for a new way to view your business.