I saw this statement online in a couple of different framings:

If you want to improve your product, listen to people who bought.

If you want to improve your marketing, listen to people who didn’t.

I don’t think it’s wrong, but I think it misses a way bigger idea about word of mouth that I had to write this out to figure out what I was thinking.

I’ll use my day job (at Sunpointe) doing financial planning as an example.

We are largely a referral driven business.

We do good work for good people and they tell other good friends of theirs who appreciate good work to call us and - it’s a good business.

So to improve our product and services, you can talk to people who bought and used it and they can describe the experience and how it made them feel.

THIS is actually marketing, though.

You want to hear how somebody else explains, when you’re not in the room, how a successful product or service - that you made - and how it made them feel.

Marketing includes listening to those buyers(!!!). We live this every time we get a referral. You can’t miss that part.

Now as for the non-buyers, they still matter too.

It’s just that they can tell you objections, frictions, and criticisms.

Maybe the price was too high, or it didn’t seem worth it, or they figured out they could do it themselves.

Those are all fine reasons, by the way.

But those people with their objections can never, ever, give you the language of love that fuels a referral or word of mouth.

Not taking you up on an offer is a failure of feeling, and sometimes that’s just the way it goes.

Something for everyone is something for no one.

Something for someone is not something for everyone.

We can all accept that.

So if referrals is a core part of your business too, be careful when you see advice like this on the internet because it’s missing a bit.

I’ll need a few more passes on this, I think but here’s a first pass on a rewrite:

If you want to improve your product, listen to people who bought.

If you want to improve your marketing, really listen to the people who bought and then referred a friend to buy.

And if you want to trouble shoot both your product and marketing, get a feel for the reasons and ways people who didn’t take action didn’t feel about what you make.