HOW TO LEARN ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS, LOOK AROUND HERE

As a small business it's important that you learn as much as you can about who your customers are. Now, I'm not talking here about an expensive market research program, although sometimes that kind of investment is needed. Rather, I'm talking about everyday things you can do.
For example, if you are already in business you could just look around you. During one of your busiest times stop what you're doing and really look at who's in your business, noting specifics like gender, age, family status and so on.
In the hustle-bustle of operating a business day-to-day, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of just thinking of "customers" as faceless bodies handing you $20 bills. If you stop and look, really look, at your customers you might be surprised at what you see.
Here's a real world story to illustrate. At a chamber of commerce event once I sat next to a gentleman who introduced himself as the manager of one of those smorgasbord-style restaurants.
As a way to make a connection I remarked that he was well-positioned to take advantage of the growing senior market, who, I thought, tended to like that restaurant format.
To my surprise he answered, "I don't want any of those %$#*& old people in my restaurant."
To make a long story short we ended up making a bet. I said at least 20 percent of his customers were seniors, he said it was no more than 10 percent. If I was right, he'd pay for my lunch; if he was right, I'd pay for my own.
The deal was every day for a week, during the noon rush he would stop whatever he was doing and really look at who was sitting in his restaurant, particularly counting the number of gray heads.
Much to his shock, he found that fully one-third of his customers had gray heads. So, do you think that might have caused him to think differently about which media he was promoting in and what he was promoting?
By the way, the reason he tended to only see certain customers as "those %$#*& old people" is because they were the ones who complained about their potatoes being cold or their meat being tough. Otherwise, "customers" to him were just faceless entities handing him $10 or $20 bills.
For a small business there is no such thing as knowing too much about your customers or potential customers.
Dave Ramacitti is co-founder and chief content developer for Marketing Over Easy, a new website dedicated to helping small businesses be smarter marketers.
By Dave Ramacitti