For the longest time, I thought that I knew what was best for my customers.  We operate a general store in a small town, and we also have a pharmacy in our building.  Instead of listening to what the customer’s wanted, I decided what to carry in our store.

After just two years, we were not doing so well.  In fact, it was to the point where I had to take a serious look at our operations and decide if it was even worth keeping our doors open.

But I’ll never forget what happened when I sat down and talked about my problem with my best friend, Jake.  He suggested that all my problems stemmed from one small thing:  I wasn’t listening to my customers.

I took his advice (as I had no real options left) and asked the customers what they wanted on our shelves.  We had numerous responses from human growth hormone, to canned air, and we have tried to answer them all.

Thankfully, it was the best advice that I could have ever received and business is doing better than ever.  All I had to learn was that I wasn’t always right – in the end the customer knows what they want.  I just had to learn how to listen.

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