Your Customer or Your Consumer?

Worth It Thursday.

We’re getting toward the end of the week and to help us make it to and through the weekend, I’d like to remind you again of why you are worth whatever you are being paid (or think you should be paid) and more.

It might just be a question of who is your customer, and who is your consumer.

We, including me, often use these words interchangeably, but they’re not the same.

The consumer is the one who consumes what you offer.

The customer is the one who pays for it.

Of course, the consumer and the customer are often one and the same.

But not always.

Two bold examples can be seen in the corporate office and in the cereal aisle.

In business, it is often a purchasing agent, purchasing center, or office manager who pays the bill and often makes the purchase decision on behalf of a colleague who will then use or consume what was bought.

And in the cereal aisle, if you’ve spent any part of your life as a parent or as a child, you know what I mean. Some of us (generally, the consumers) like the free prize inside or the cereal that turns the milk chocolatey. Others (usually the customers) prefer to think of the eight essential vitamins and iron or at least something that won’t make our teeth tingle.

Or getting the best price.

But back to customers and consumers.

When these are separate entities, the customers, writing the checks, paying the bills, know only what it costs but might not use the product themselves and therefore, don’t appreciate the value. And they might be motivated to spend as little as possible.

The consumers might not even know how much the product costs, but they have a better idea of what it’s worth to them. And they might even know how difficult life would be if they didn’t have that product or service any more.

Focus on the consumer. And with the consumer’s help, make your value clear to your customer.

And know that you are worth all that and more.

What do you think?

See you tomorrow!