Do you have a group of customers you love to hate? Perhaps there are a select few who bust your balls every time they call? Does it ever seem like customers are bad for business?

It’s because they are.

Customers are a very bad thing. And so is your target market.

Whoah! Before you send me off to the loony bin, what I’m actually talking about here is the choice of words we use in business land: customers and target markets… and all that malarkey.

Why? Because words have more power than you realise, and we are choosing the wrong ones.

We are using words that are screwing us up
and making it harder to do business.

I know using the term ‘customers’ or ‘target market’ is an easy, shorthand way to refer to the group you sell to (or want to); but you’re doing yourself, and them, a disservice.

When you group customers together and call them your ‘target market’ the first thing you’ve done is to impersonalise them. They become a nameless group of stats. They’re no longer people. Even when you call them ‘customers’, you’ve just unconsciously put a whole bunch of individuals into a faceless group.

You’ve just put your hapless customers in
what is known as the ‘Other’ category.

The concept of Otherness is a sociological term. And while I know you didn’t sign up for sociology 101 today, here is what you need to know.

When you categorize people into groups that are not your own, say when you call someone ‘a customer’ (e.g ‘I’ve got a customer asking for a refund on the phone’), you instantly and instinctively put them in opposition to yourself. Instead of you being two people who are helping each other (you give me widget, I give you gold, we both happy, etc.),  you’ve just shifted the situation to a binary opposition position.

Examples of binary definitions are everywhere in our society: woman-man, young-old, black-white, them-us, buyer-seller and… customer-consultant.

Using a term like customer means you are subconsciously programming yourself to see these people as a group of people who are not you, you’ve made them as different from you as chalk and cheese; and that influences how you communicate with them.

You’ve just created the breeding grounds
for an adversarial relationship.

The outcome is that you’re now in opposite tribes, and once you’ve put them there there is a whole lot of chain reactions that goes on in your prehistoric brain, things nearly impossible to stop from happening. It’s psychologically destructive. It could get to a point where you see customers as an unfortunate side effect of doing business…. if you haven’t already!

The financial danger of keeping it impersonal

If you persist in calling your customers ‘the customers’ or your ‘market’ then you’re going to be thinking big, impersonal and cold. You’re going to be off-target when you’re creating any communication for them.

Your sales message will suck. Your customer service will blow. Your results will suffer.

It won’t resonate, it can’t. Why? Because you haven’t developed it for people, you’ve developed it for a faceless mass. And I don’t know anyone who is actually a faceless mass, do you?

So what should we call customers instead?

Here’s an idea. Let’s call them ‘people’.

Calling them people is a mnemonic reminder that you’re talking about real, live individuals. Ask everyone who works for you to do that same (notice how I didn’t call them staff or minions?). Change your culture from the top down.

The reality is, I know you can’t avoid calling them customers all the time, we’ve got to call them something some of the time. I accept that. But minimize it where you can. Do whatever you can to re-personalise them in your mind. Because your mind is where the trouble lies.

How to remind yourself that your ‘customers’ are people.

Understand that they aren’t just people, they are YOUR people, and they have a problem, which your talents and resources can help solve. So let your barriers down. Connect with them. Reinforce the positive, minimise the negative. Stop recoiling from client contact. A customer calling you isn’t going to be bad news (probably).

Groups of customers are not, by and large, a warring tribe calling for your blood. They are just like you. They’ll sometimes have questions and concerns. They’ll hold you accountable and want you to keep the promises you made at the sale. But even if you mess up occasionally, they won’t spear you to death (probably).

You can do this. After all, the upside of being human is that you are self-determined and self-aware. You can change… if you really want to.

If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a reply in the comments below!