Читать книгу Growing the Top Line - Cliff Farrah - Страница 11

Sounds obvious, but unless you are a business owner, or tasked with top‐line growth, it is very easy for businesses to lose sight of this simple fact. Why? Because you get wrapped up in your everyday work process, and you can’t see the clear link between your customers and your paycheck. At Starbucks, it’s easy to see how customers fuel the business. It’s a direct transaction: A customer orders a latte, swipes a card, and gets a latte. Any employee can see how that customer relates to their paycheck.

However, in some industries there are indirect customers whom you serve. Healthcare is a great example. Depending on where you live in the world, most providers are reimbursed from either a public or private “payer” (insurance company). Money doesn’t come from patients, right? Well, ultimately, Medicare, Medicaid, and military insurance programs are funded through tax dollars. In those public programs, taxes come from the country’s citizens, who are, effectively, its customers. Private insurers are paid by employers or individuals, so even though it’s indirect, the customer still pays the bills. These are extreme examples, but you get the point.

We also have many clients who worry about their customer’s customer. That is, let’s say you manufacture a radio component that is part of the Tesla system. You aren’t really designing functionality for Tesla; you are designing for Tesla owners (the end users) or your customer’s customer. So even though your bills are paid by Tesla, without Tesla’s customer base you won’t get paid for very long. That means you likely work to understand the end user’s wants and needs. As we consider the source of all revenue – our customers – we have to be sensitive to the indirect trail that the money may flow through.