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You must understand the product you are trying to sell in order to thrive and grow to your potential, no matter what business you are in. You might think it is easy if you sell lawn care or if you have a restaurant and sell food. What would you tell me you sold if we were together right now. Before you answer, think about it. Would you think there surely must be millions of answers depending on the nature of your business? Wrong!

There is only one answer and it applies no matter what business you are in. Your product is solving the need that led the customer to your door!

What You Sell Is Service!

If you find yourself thinking that the only reason customers interact with you is because of the product you're trying to sell them then you are missing out on the important business principle of building one-on-one relationships with your customers. Customers are not so much interested in a specific product as they are in having a problem solved or finding something that brings them pleasure. They might not even know that the product they want is not the one that would best suit their needs. That is why it is vital for you to discover what it is they really came to you for. If you want your business to go above-and-beyond other businesses, your purpose and your focus must be on meeting the needs that brought your customer in the door. To do this you must meet each customer as an individual and begin building a personal relationship with them rather than simply seeing them as a way to sell your product and meet your bottom line.

You don't have to take so much time that you learn their life history. However you should try to understand why they came to you, and make a sincere effort to fulfill their needs. This might sometimes mean selling them something more expensive than they originally had in mind. It might sometimes mean selling them something less expensive instead. Other times you might not having anything at all appropriate for them at the moment. Even if you don't have anything to fulfill their need at the moment, your honesty still provides a great opportunity to establish a relationship, which will lead them to come back to you again when they have a need that you can fill.

The most important aspect to take from this section is that you need to stop envisioning your line of 'things' that you sell as your products, but rather to understand that your primary product is meeting whatever need brought a customer to your door. People don't really care about the great features of whatever 'thing' you sell, they care about how well it meets their emotional needs!