Know your customer, know your customer, know your customer. Three very important rules of business. But let me ask you this: How well do your customers know YOU?
Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, asked himself this important question several decades ago. His answer: employee nametags. So, he rolled out an initiative that required all of his employees to wear badges, the purpose of which was to help the customers get to know the people they bought from.
But helping customers get to know you isnt just about names, its about information. In other words, its about self-disclosure, which is the process of revealing your personal information to another.
This process starts with a small piece of information, i.e., your name. Then, as the relationship develops, it progresses into more intimate territory with the sharing of opinions, preferences and experiences. Whats more, because of its reciprocal nature, self-disclosure has incredible power. It creates comfort, establishes rapport, helps discover the CPI (Common Point of Interest) and builds trust between you and your customers.
I once worked at a mom-and-pop furniture store in Portland, Oregon. ...