As a small business owner we have no excuses. The corporates perhaps do, but as the owner its your job to know what your customers are thinking and feeling. You possibly know each one by name. You’ll know them personally even if you never eyeball them and you’re doing business online.

Customer feedback does not need to be a number crunching, sterile set of data that tells you sod all. By being in touch, by asking the right question, you are in a great position to see what makes them happy and what enrages them. As a small business owner you can treat each of your top 20% of customers individually by building that intense relationship with them. If you don’t want too, you are simply in the wrong job! And, if you treat the top 20% right, they are the ones referring other great customers to you.

Word of mouth marketing is the cheapest, yet most effective form of marketing. Its impact is huge, its effect fundamental. Its interesting just how enjoyable the job becomes when people start seeing your credibility and reputation in a similar way to you.

Work can be cool and, when you run your own business, you can dictate how cool. So many small business owners get bogged down and end up in a day-to-day routine because they don’t have cool customers. What being your own boss teaches you is that you don’t have to compromise anymore. In fact, you don’t have to deal with idiots either. Phew!

It’s an important point. People will advise you to go out and get as many customers as possible and quickly when you start up. That’s completely the wrong advice. Yes, take on lots of customers but make sure they are remarkable. You’ll know in your mind what a great customer is. These are the kinds of customers who add value to your business, make you work hard in the positive areas, push and challenge you, the point of running your own business. And, if they are truly remarkable, you’ll have a client list that will make your competitors go green.

As Janis Joplin said “Don’t compromise yourself, honey. You’re all you’ve got.” Resist the urge to rush and grow a huge customer list that’s eventually going to cost you money. It’s not the size of the list that matters but its credibility and reputation.

I think Seth Godin is absolutely spot on with this short post. I agree there is no point in being with customers who are second best. Find those customers that are listening and love you. Only work with those that you love wholeheartedly. Its a relationship remember over the long term. If you lose customers it should be because you let them go. Not the other way round.

Let your competitors deal with the rest. Thats how the internet has changed things and made things better for small business.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/scalejacking.html

After Steve Yastrow’s thoughts on existing customers, thought this was an interesting post by Seth Godin on new customers…..

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/three-things-you-need-if-you-want-more-customers.html

In some ways times like these are good. Those businesses with strong business models well positioned for adapting to the future will survive. Those that have been struggling for a while or those with excess and ‘macho’ driven cultures will die…is that a bad thing? From a customer/consumers point of view, it’s certainly a good thing. From a surviving businesses perspective it’s a huge opportunity. Tom Peters said way back in 1994 “There are only two types of businesses in the future, the quick and the dead.” Perhaps what he meant is coming to fruition.

So what to do and quick. Existing customers are the place to start. They know you, you have a relationship, they are ‘warm.’ They’ll talk to you when others won’t. Here’s three things to do this week:

1. Grade your customers A, B, C, D. A’s are great customers who you can do more business with. D’s you shouldn’t even have on your customer list.

2. Get rid of the D’s, yep get shot, don’t do anything pro active with them. Schedule meetings with all, yep all, your A customers over the next month. But call one now and set up a meeting this week.

3. Before you meet those A customers. Create a new story about your company. Pull something together that will make your A customer intrigued, curious and interested in what you are doing and I don’t mean you’ve reduce your prices or you’ve invented a loyalty card. You are going to have to be more creative than that.

But and it’s a big BUT, also ensure that you use the meeting to understand what you are doing right, what you could do better. It’s an amazing opportunity to make the relationship with your most important customers (the ones that help you through difficult times) more intense, more profitable and more sustaining.

It’s a big ask, it’s time consuming, you may never have done something like this before and it may take you out of your comfort zone. That’s my point, by being uncomfortable you learn a hell of a lot!!

Go do it

Customers are different

The people that work with us are different

Our suppliers are different

The way we work together is different

The customer/supplier relationship is different

How we make money now is different

The way we use our computers and mobiles is different

The internet is different

How we consume energy is becoming different

The cars we are driving are different (or if they are not now, they will be)

Our perceptions are different

Our expectations are different

You are different

I am different

……than we were three years ago, yet we are still communicating, building business strategies, marketing plans and product development on three year old thinking. Unstable, unsure times bring about two opportunities, those that are missed and those that are taken.

You don’t add value to a customer if you’re offering them something that’s inflexible, you don’t add value to a customer by not being in touch with them and you can’t add value if you don’t know what’s happening to them! If you are providing a service to a client that ‘locks’ them into you for a sustained period, you have to work harder at keeping them. You have to be more innovative and deliberate in delivering your service.

If customers are paying you on a regular basis ie: every month for a maintenance contract, you need to be supporting them on a regular basis. You are committing a basic customer experience crime if you let the standing order come into your account and then REACT when they need you.

No regular contact will result in customers feeling under valued, taken advantage of and in worst case scenarios…abused! Work harder during the contract phase and you won’t have to work so hard at the end to keep them!

I don’t normally talk numbers, I find them a little boring if not intimidating (flashback to my school days I’m sure.) I talk a lot about marketing, leadership, strategy, small business, team building and customers. All exciting, challenging and interesting but worth not one jot on their own. On their own, they can lead right down a blind alley with nowhere to go!

There are certain things you need to know about your business, because if you don’t measure it, how the on earth do you know whether any ideas or improvements you implemented are working? Chance is a precarious position to be in and small business owners can be fairly reluctant to measure what really matters. Ask any small business owner how many sales opportunities they had last week, few would be able to give any specific answer. It’s strange, because by asking that precise question and understanding how to channel those opportunities might well increase sales. How would you like to grow sales by 10% next month?

Whilst it’s a little more work, the investment in time is worth the result! And the outcomes can be staggering. Start with something easy such as existing customers…well you know the most about them don’t you? Brainstorm what questions you need to ask, but start with these four:

1. How many existing customers repeat purchase?

2. How many existing customers asked for quotes and how may sales were made from that?

3. How many existing customers did you speak to yesterday/last week/last month/last year?

4. How many existing customers are referring other customers to you on a regular basis?

I’ve just pulled these ‘out of the hat’ but there will be some more fundamental ones. Seek the answers to the questions and then set targets for improvement. Do it right across the business, with your marketing, your people, your customer aquisition strategy, your ideas generation and anything else you feel would benefit.

It’s simple, without numbers your don’t know where you are, never mind where the hell you are going!

We have all heard of the four p’s in marketing. With that infamous phrase went the selling of features and benefits. Not too sure either are relevant anymore. Customers are rejecting marketing messages that are similar and that’s what features and benefits communicate, the same stuff all your competitors have.

They are bored, cynical and marketing resistant, so new ways of getting across what you do need to be found. Perhaps it’s now about working out what your values are and selling those, after all they are unique to your business.

In a competitive environment and in a market place scrabbling for business to survive, now is the right time to review our approach to marketing. Not in a complex, sophisticated way, just a shift to a different level. Timing is fundamental but a long hard look at what you’re doing and answering a few key questions wouldn’t go amiss. I suspect one of the most crucial points is how do we create a tangible difference to our customer experience? And, what is holding us back?

Over the next six days I’ll talk about a shift we need to be considering. Lets start with the first one;

Marketing initiated by targeted messages to a passive prospect and customer list isn’t sustainable anymore. A movement to new ideas being adopted or created together with customers is the way forward. Encouraging your customers/prospects to be actively involved in your business is a far more interactive, engaging experience than being told what they can have, when and where. It just doesn’t wash with them anymore.

It involves getting up close and personal with customers, something that could be extremely uncomfortable for some of us. Marketing is a creative process, your customers could be more creative than you but suddenly we are in a place where such things are being demanded. It is possible to throw the old marketing rule book out and use ideas that are different, personal, disrupting and just boldly bizarre. 

Being in touch, jointly designing new products/solutions/services with customers seems to be a ‘no brainer’ and is critical to not just developing great businesses but is crucial to pulling a business out of the ‘bog’ of despair, ritual and dullness. 

Try it, it could provide you with an opportunity to do things now that you have only previously talked about!