Read: Service Above Self and One Profits Most Who Serves Best, are Rotary’s official mottoes. They can be traced back to the early days of the organization.
Discuss: How has the principle of Service to Others blessed your life?
Read: Customers must be the focus of your business. Their experience with your business will largely determine how well it does. Center all aspects of your business on meeting their needs. You want them to be enthusiastic about the experiences they have with your business.
Share with the group how you did with last week’s commitments:
Ⓐ I will have conversations with at least five potential customers. Go to where customers are buying the product you want to sell. Ask why they buy the product from this business. Ask how they would improve the product if they could. Ask how they feel about the product’s price.
Read: As the boss of a company, it’s important to learn about who might buy your products or use your services. Knowing more about your customers lets you talk to them and help them in a way that is tailored just for them. You must find out who will be your best customers by knowing about who buys from you.
Individual Activity: Now that you have talked to business owners and potential customers, you have probably learned more about what types of customers buy your product. Look back at your notes from Chapter 2 to see how you described your best customer. Do you need to change any of the answers to these questions (see below)?
My Best Customer
- Age =
- Gender is ______________
- Marital status is _____________
- Occupations: _______________
- How much money would you guess they make each month? ____________
- Where do they live? ___________________
- How many people like them live in the area? ____________
- What is their personality like? _________________
- What do they do for fun? ________________
- What is their family like? _______________
- What are they good at doing? _______________
- What are they not good at doing? _______________
- What are their religious beliefs? ___________________
- What do they believe about money? ___________________
- What do they believe about education? ___________________
- What do they believe about fashion? ___________________
- What do they believe about politics? ___________________
- How do they shop for the product or service you want to sell? ___________________
- Do they have a favorite place to buy the product? _____________
Read: Your business will not automatically attract customers. You need to offer things they care about and that they believe will benefit them. Make sure your business message is tied to things that your potential customers want. Put yourself in your customers’ place and ask, “Am I interested in purchasing the services or products that this business offers? Why or why not?” Smart business owners are creative in getting the attention of their customers. Some ways to get customers’ attention are listed below.
ACTIVITY (10 minutes)
Step 1: Based on the list above, individually decide how you could get the attention of your customers. Be prepared to share your answers with the group.
Step 2: Now divide into groups of three. Share the ways that you intend to get the attention of your customers. Get feedback from group members on these ideas.
HOMEWORK: MAKE-A-SALE CHALLENGE
At this point you should begin selling the product or service your business will be providing, if you’re not already doing so. During the next week, make at least one sale to a customer. Be creative as you work to sell your service or product. You may feel that your service or product is not yet ready to sell. However, selling will provide motivation to get your business going. Selling will also teach you what your customers think about your service or product. If you have difficulty selling, this feedback can help you change your business idea so it better meets the customer’s needs. Decide how many customers you will need to talk with to make a sale—and then go do it.
Next week you will be asked to report (1) your experience with selling to at least one customer and (2) the number of days you sold.
Read: As you begin to sell, you will learn the best ways to find customers. Be willing to experiment with new ideas until you find one or more approaches that work. After you attempt to make sales this week, fill out the homework assignment below so your facilitator and Entrapov can see how you did and offer any advice they have.