Never Lose Touch with Your Customers

During these dog days of summer, everyone is either on vacation, wanting to be on vacation, or acting as if they are on vacation. All except the two people who should be on vacation: me, your intrepid columnist, and the junior senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman.

Now it's not hard to see why I'm still pounding the pavement — I've got this great gig and am not about to go anywhere, even if the beach beckons. By why, I ask you, can't Senator Joe Lieberman take no for an answer? And what, you are surely asking, does that have to do with your small business?

Plenty.

Lieberman, as you no doubt heard, lost in the Democratic primary this week to political newcomer Ned Lamont. This is only the fourth time in the past 26 years that an incumbent senator lost in a primary, so the result is significant and telling, for several reasons.

Yes, we've all heard that the Connecticut primary was a quasi referendum on the war in Iraq, and that clearly seems true. But that a powerful politician like Lieberman — his party's vice-presidential nominee six years ago — lost, is a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

What happens when you lose touch with your customers? They take their business elsewhere, that's what. What happens when you begin to think that you know more about what they want than they do? They look for someone who will fulfill their needs. What happens when you fail to take the competition seriously, until it's too late? The competition wins the election for your customers' hearts, minds, and pocketbooks.

Now, I am not here to say that Lieberman's views on the Iraq war are right or wrong, but I am here to say that when you so lose touch with the people who keep you in business that they are willing to look elsewhere, your success has blinded you.

It is not just politicians who drop the ball by growing out of touch with their own "customers"; businesses also do it far too often.

Take venerable Coca-Cola, for example. In the mid-1980s, confronted with the Pepsi Challenge and a declining market share, the marketing geniuses at Coke decided not just to create New Coke, but to take their bread-and-butter product and namesake, Coca-Cola, off the market entirely.

Now that is out of touch. Might as well outlaw mom's apple pie while you're at it.

Of course, it was a disastrous move. Within a few short months New Coke died an ignominious death and Coke Classic had been revived. It was fortunate for Coca-Cola that it all worked out in the end, because it doesn't always:

• Polaroid, the company that invented the instant picture, somehow failed to capitalize on the digital camera trend. It filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
• Dean Kamen's secret invention, dubbed "It" or "Ginger" by a curious public, was supposed to change the world. In reality, the actual product — the Segway Human Transporter — underwhelmed and to date has sold but a few thousand units.

Sure, you may have been in business for a long time, and that can be an advantage. But it becomes a disadvantage when you lose touch with your customer base and begin to think you know more than they do.

Don't be like Joe. Remember who your constituency is and stay in touch with them.