Without Customers, You Have a Hobby

I saw Don Peppers at a conference a few months ago. For a guy that espouses the 1:1 marketing principle, I though that it was ironic that I walked away feeling like he had given the same presentation to a dozen audiences before. Seriously though, I bought the new Peppers and Rogers book, Return on Customer, anyway. The opening paragraph is great…

“Businesses succeed in getting, keeping and growing customers. Customers are the only reason you build factories, hire employees, schedule meetings, lay fibre-optic cables, dispatch service trucks, stock inventory, file for patents, operate call centres, negotiate contracts, write software or engage in any other kind of business activity whatsoever…. Without customers, you don’t have a business, you have a hobby. “

It is too easy to get caught up in the function of a job or business. That is, doing things rather than doing things to make money. Many people get into their chosen professions because they like doing what they do — programmers write code, dog breeders raise and show dogs, designers design. In other cases, people hate what they do — and they do it until 4:59pm and leave.

I think it is important to remember that “without customers, you have a hobby”. This is particularly true if you own, manage or are starting up a smaller business. If what you are doing does not get, keep or satisfy customers, you need to change what you are doing. If what you are doing isn’t making money, but you don’t want to change your activities because you love it, stop calling it a business and call it a hobby. If you hate what you are doing, get out and do something else.