What The Audience Hates

I rarely listen to ‘yoof’ music radio these days. This is partly because I’m so out of tune with the inane drivel of the DJs (are Radio 1’s Scott Mills and 5FM’s Gareth Cliff the only two exceptions?). So it was remarkable that I caught some stimulating chat elsewhere. It quoted a poll (no doubt done by the PR machine of wonderfully can’t-live-without screenager-targeted wares) on what audiences most hate when they go see a band live

Apparently, gig-goers don’t like several things, including:

• the same song played more than once
• being told a crowd elsewhere was better
• not being let in to on-stage chat and gags
• apologies for new material
• repeated pantomime efforts to get them going
• every song to be intro’d by name, and
• the artist’s wearing their own merchandise (!)

It occurred to me that in solution selling, we vendors position ourselves as partners. Yet do we truly know what our clients like and dislike about all the various similar servicing they may receive?

There’s clearly a particularly useful pre-sale or formal account review conversation to have here. Simply asking what they’ve haven’t appreciated about recent provision, from both you and elsewhere, can surely do no harm in ensuring that you don’t lose out in the future when you make steps to avoid such unwelcome failings.