Adam and the Selling Fish

Adam loves fish.

Golden, Black, Big Fins, Small Fins, Huge monsters, Small tads.

He loves all fish.
In Golden sauce, in Red chilly pepper sauce, boneless in rice, in sandwiches, in aquariums, in ponds.
He loves fish.

Selling fish to Adam is easy. Just show him the fish, he shows you his wallet. Give him the fish and he gives you the money. Easy transaction, easy customer.

False Fact 1: Adam is a customer.

Reason: A customer is not one who buys from you and leaves. A customer is one who buys from you and leaves behind something of him with you, taking something of you with him, something he will return for, and will once again transact.

Adam knows his fish. Just show them to him and we can get right to the cash exchange. Knowledged customer, more fun and faster transaction.

False Fact 2: Adam is fast.

Reason: A customer in love with your product, who can admire you and the product is not always knowledged. The worst thing you can do is to mistake interest for knowledge, they are worlds apart. A knowledged customer is one who knows the product and its not just blind admiration that drives him.

False Fact 3: Adam is good.

Reason: It is the customer with admiration that can reach loyalty faster than the one with knowledge. And it is only these loyal ones that return, the real good customers.

Adam knows his stomach. He knows how he likes his fish and he knows what he likes. It is so much more fun serving him and easier too.

False Fact 4: Adam is ideal.

Reason: A customer who knows himself, too well, most likely is one who isn’t going to try out your new ideas readily. And that is so because he knows what he likes about you and motivating him to garner the confidence in him for him to try out something other than what he likes is an uphill task, steeper by the moment.

On the other hand, the customer who doesn’t know himself too well is more open to ideas, ready to listen and give it a shot. Simply because he doesn’t know for sure.

Adam loves fish. He loves fish in every way one can like a fish. He loves fish in every way they can be. He is thus the perfect customer.

False Fact 5: Adam is perfect.

Reason: One, love does not ensure purchase. Two, perfect need not mean sale.

As confusing as it might seem, you have to consider. A customer might love your product completely, might stick posters of it on his bedroom wall, but he might also be the eternal window shopper. So once again ask yourself, does love ensure purchase? The customer might be in love but what if the love limits only to observing and drooling, but the moment it’s the wallet’s time to emerge, it’s the brain that takes charge. There goes the love deep diving into the well.

And then the perfect customer. So he knows you, your product and loves you. He comes to you equipped and ready, and might even buy. But what good is a sale that ends with the transaction. And how good is the perfect customer then. And who would you prefer, the perfect one timer or the far from perfect and annoying stalker.

Ages back, our old men and women came up with these words, “Be careful what you wish for.” Despite having heard them over a hundred times, repeat these words to yourself, you might just end up with Adam.

Bharadwaj Battaram

Marque

IIM Rohtak