(Dear Old Dave)
There is a basic reality in marketing that is much too frequently ignored: most owners see their business through their own eyes instead of their customers’.
In truth, most business owners or managers, as a function of their own well-being, tend to focus only on what it will take to make a profit. And, their customers couldn’t care less about that.
Customers aren’t interested in how hard you work, how good or bad of a day you’ve had, how brilliant you have been in getting them into your store or to your web site. Customers only care about what’s in it for them; the benefits they get from a particular product or service.
Okay, I don’t think too many of you are going to disagree with me on this. Heck, I’ve been trying to please customers to the highest degree possible for over thirty years now. And, due to that fact, I could give you a world of examples on how to do this the wrong way. Business owners and managers are good at that aspect. In actuality, Dear Old Dave has spent a lot of time and effort to uncover how to avoid the me focus over the last few years. And I’ve uncovered some really good material on it, so I will attempt here to give you some examples, and some principles on how to do it right.
I’ve been a PGA Golf Professional since 1972. Since then, I have spent half of the time in golf course and golf retail management, and half of the time in the mainstream apparel, shoe and accessory business on both the retail and the wholesale side of things.
About seven years ago, I was hired as the General Manager of a very busy, 36 hole, Municipal Golf facility. It was late fall in Colorado, afternoon rush hour time, and the temperature was warm enough for our killer driving range to be drawing hardily from Denver’s homebound traffic. I had only been here a couple of days at this point and was conversing with a customer in front of the Pro Shop, around a blind corner from where we sold the range balls.
To make a very interesting but long story short, I noticed customers after customer coming back around this corner after only a few moments, clubs in hand, with very dour expressions on their faces. At the counter, I found one of those fake clocks that indicated Last Range Balls Sold At 5 P. M.
Okay, I’m the calm type anymore, so I inquired demurely, and was told, It gets dark at five thirty, This is the way we’ve always done it, We need to pick up the balls (though we had thousands still unhit), It costs too much to turn on the lights for only an hour or so, It’ll be cold soon, It’s Miller time, (just kidding),
yadda, yadda, yadda.
I wasn’t that surprised, actually, I’d seen it done this way at many venues over the years; though, why anyone would turn away business, create extreme bad will, operate, willingly, on the worst customer service principles conceivable by mankind, is beyond me.
Now this was not a poorly run facility before my arrival, quite the opposite. In fact, it was easily the highest grossing Municipal facility in the state. But we decided to run things a little differently, look at things through the customers’ eyes instead of our own. And, we found out a lot of money had been left on the table. Consequently, we managed a decent increase the first year of $836,000, a whopping 61%!
I hope this helps to emphasize the theme of this article.
Okay, like I said earlier, I had been studying the principles of marketing profusely, knowing that most businesses did leave a bundle of potential untapped. What we did to produce those gains is known in marketing as defining and implementing a sales advantage. Our mission was to provide a level of customer service that hit them so positively between the eyes the moment they walked through the door, that they would think they walked into a Country Club rather than a mere, typical “Munie”. It worked.
Now, lets apply this example to a pure product oriented business. Here is a very short list of rules to follow to momentously accelerate your sales and earnings.
1. Develop a unique selling proposition. This could be a free gift with purchase, an unparalleled product, better service after the sale than your competitors, a killer warranty, better price, whatever. Do things that others don’t.
2. Over deliver on your promises. This is simple, don’t represent your product as something it is not. Make sure it’s better than advertised. Gain your customers initial trust.
3. Get testimonials from satisfied customers. Solicit them, offer them a free gift for a few kind words.
4. Trust is paramount in this world of scams and scam artists. Reverse the liability for your customers’ purchases, take on all of the risk yourself. A weak guarantee is sometimes worse than no guarantee. Marketing gurus that I respect, claim that the longer the term of the guarantee, the less returns a retailer will face. I agree. Post purchase
dissonance (buyer’s remorse) strikes immediately after purchase. If your guarantee is a long one, it not only makes you stand out positively
in the retail world, it takes the pressure off of the buyer. The longer a purchaser owns a product, the less chance they will ever want a refund. This principle makes way too much sense to work, right? Try it.
5. Develop back end sales items. One satisfied and trusting customer is worth a bundle of potential ones. The easiest sale you will ever make, s to a previously over-delivered to customer. Back end products can steadily increase in price, too, another really good thing.
6. Along the same lines as number 4: Combat post purchase dissonance with post purchase reassurance. Follow up. Develop a trusting relationship. A post purchase contact can serve to:
? Thank the customer again for buying.
? Reconfirm the benefits of your product that prompted their purchase.
? Over deliver by pointing out additional benefits and offer useful tips on enhancing their enjoyment of the product.
? Allow you to give them your contact info again. Tell them not to hesitate to contact you if they encounter any problems.
? Give them something for free for being a customer. Psychologically, they will then feel indebted to you, look upon you as a friend who is over delivering. It has never hurt a business person to appear caring, and genuinely interested in the advancement and well-being of their customers.
All of the above help you keep your customers, and henceforth, to sell them more and more products. This is the key to business success. See things through your customers eyes. It’s not that hard. We are all customers, too!
Dear Old Dave is President of A-D Trading Publishers And Marketers and has owned or operated over ten retail, wholesale and golf-related businesses. He is a Webmaster, Author, PGA Golf Professional, Gourmet Cook and a very serious student of Internet and Conventional Marketing. DOD publishes “Small Business Owners Unite!”, a free, opt-in Newsletter on helping you to sell more of your products. Sign up or view more articles at http://www.marketbetter.com/
