While Dan Benjamin interviewed Jason Fried on The Pipeline, they touched upon the subject of customers. Jason said something that seemed obvious to me now, but wasn’t always so clear.

It’s very important to understand who your customer is, and the answer is not that it’s everybody. I think if you think your customer is everybody, you’ve got some problems.

— Jason Fried

In a way, I see this as a matter of constraints. Constraints are a critical factor in making a successful product. They are always present. Defining your potential customer base is no exception.

Let’s sell water—everybody needs it!

Consider something that everybody needs: water. Everybody needs water, but not everybody is willing to pay for water. It’s sometimes easy to get into the mindset that everyone is a potential customer when you confuse needs for wants. Just because people need it, doesn’t mean they’ll want to buy it.

Take the time to figure out who needs your product and then constrain that audience further by asking “who is willing to pay for it?” Those are your potential customers. Focus your energy on appealing to them.

You don’t have to ignore the seemingly unwilling customers, but get a core customer base first instead of spreading your focus too thin, too early.

I love these photographs by Paul Octavious. I think you’ll agree. I recommend buying his prints at his shop Just A Few Prints, too.

Awesome, huh?

When speaking to your customers, accommodate to their language. Don’t unnecessarily force your vocabulary on them. And don’t tell them no when you really mean yes.

Redbox is great. I rent movies from them a few times a month. I love the simplicity of the service: show up, pick a movie, swipe your card, and you’re done.

Recently, I had some trouble reserving a movie and so I had to call their customer service hotline. When I got a hold of a human, I was told that I reserved my movie at the wrong location. Bummer. I was in a hurry when I reserved it online, so I must not have selected the right location.

I wanted to pick up the movie at the Redbox I was standing in front of, so I asked if they could cancel the reservation at the other Redbox, and let me pick it up here. The nice lady on the phone said,

“I’m sorry, we can’t cancel your reservation… but we can credit your account.”

Huh? How is that not exactly what I asked for?

Redbox does a lot of things right, so this caught me off guard. What I heard was “sorry, you’re wrong, but we’ll do it anyways” and that’s what I remember the most from my experience. I got my movie, I wasn’t charged double, but what I remember is that weird moment when they told me no but really meant yes.

This could have been avoided if the lady on the phone replied with:

“Sure, we can do that. We can’t refund your money, but we will credit your account, and cancel the reservation at the other location.”

But instead I left scratching my head, confused as to why I was wrong but still got my way.