Making Your First Million.pdf - Association of Net Entrepreneurs and ...

Making Your First Million
To unlock the extra millions presently going elsewhere you're going to need to focus on
your customer instead of your business. "Inside the square" thinking at this point would
focus on attracting customers. Promotion, advertising, discounting etc have their place
but to truly understand the power that customer focus gives you, you'll need to jump
outside the square and look at preventing customer desertion. Think of your new business
as a sink with the plug out. The tap is pouring customers in at the top and the plug is
draining customers at the bottom. To increase sales, the advertising agency advice is to
turn the tap on harder. It's much better to put the plug back in and find a way to stop our
customers deserting us.
Why do customers choose not to return? They won't tell you they're not coming back,
they'll just stop coming. Why? If you ask a typical Australian business owner, he'll tell
you: "They got it cheaper down the road. There's a new outfit started up taking my
business. The customer has lost interest in this area of activity." And so on. If you ask a
good marketer, he'll tell you the reason why customers change allegiances in 67% of
cases is perceived indifference to the customer's needs.
More than two-thirds of customers switch allegiance
due to the perceived indifference of the retailer to their needs.
Our task as business owners is to provide our customer with a place she can be safe,
recognised, a place where she feels she really belongs. Do you provide this? How easy,
friendly and inviting is your phone reception? Are you focused more on your business
than your customer? Does the customer come away feeling: "What a wonderful bunch of
people! They really care." And if you're thinking: "Oh no, I couldn't offer that level of
service", relax. You don't have to. The computer does all the boring work for you leaving
you to the important task of caring for your customer. And whatever you do, don't leave
the computer to care for the customer. That's your job. It's only customer-intolerant
organizations like Telstra and Centrelink that can afford to alienate customers with
answering systems instead of smiling receptionists and even those behemoths are
changing. Your goal is to increase sales. Your customer's goal is a positive and rewarding
experience. Nothing could be simpler if you think outside the square. To double your
sales all you'll need is for your existing customers to spend a little more and to come back
a little more often. And they will if they're happy.
You'll need to advertise heavily but don't waste your money. Mass marketing may
establish your business in people's minds, but the most effective way of making sales
(The only thing that counts) is communicating directly with existing customers and
getting them to promote by word of mouth. We verified this in our business over the last
few years by belatedly coding all our advertising material with a prefix and tracking
every sale. It produced some amazing results. To my utter shame and embarrassment it
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