Smart Emmanuel’s Series: Make What Customers Want

Entrepreneurs spend so much time creating and designing products and services with the hope that the product or service will make their business a lot of money. However, most products end up draining the company’s pocket instead of filling it up with money. This sad reality make a lot of entrepreneurs wonder why customers don’t seem to want their product.

The answer is quite simple yet brutal. Make what customers want not what you want. It’s easy to fall into the trap of making what you think customers want but” assumption is the lowest form of knowledge, its twin is guessing” Olakunle Soriyan once said. You have to focus on finding out what customers truly want and creating a product that fulfils their desire. It’s guaranteed that when you make a product that customers truly want, you will get their attention and patronage.

What’s the best way to discover what customers want? It’s simply by observation, study and test launching. You have to commit to observing your target market, study them and understand their deepest desires. It’s always hard to create equilibrium between customer desires and what they are willing to pay. This is where test launching and creativity is important. Test-launch what you think they want based on your study within a small size of your target market and learn from their feedback. Use the feedback to refine your final product.  It’s important to only make what customers want.

Written by Smart Emmanuel. Emmanuel is Africa’s leading sales and brand growth strategist and product development expert. He is CEO of The Stralution Company Limited, a sales, brand growth and product development strategy firm. 

Twitter and Instagram: @iamsmartemma