For the past few days, I have been blogging my frustration at yet another millionaire mind marketing guru who promises the secret formula for success.
In a nutshell, the author’s formula boils down to the following:
1. Get your message in front of more eyeballs
2. Get more money per eyeball
3. Sell more products to your existing customers on the back end
I’ve already ranted about the first step to wealth and riches which is, Get your message in front of more eyeballs.
Seems getting the message of a lousy business model with no appreciable benefit to the customer in front of as many eyeballs as possible is NOT the key to success, as is evidenced by the dotcom bust of a few years ago. (It’s amazing how short people’s memories can be…)
Then I took offense at Step 2, which admonishes you to get more money per eyeball. While Step 2 had promise of being sound advice, it turns out it is yet another popular millionaire mindset gimick of trying to get you to raise your prices so you’ll make more money. I’m not against making money. I am against raising your prices soley with the intention of building a healthier bottom line. I’ve raised my prices in the past with the goal of weeding out a certain class of client (the money for nothign crowd). Obviously my rates aren’t high enough yet because I still have a few of those on the rolls.
Which brings us to Step 3: Sell more products to your existing customers on the back end.
FINALLY! A granule of sound advice. I am amazed at the number of companies who treat their customers like they’re a commodity. I’ve had so many personal experiences at being treated like a commodity customer in just the past few months that I am truly beginning to feel like Will Ferrel’s character Mugatu in Zoolander, "Doesn’t anybody notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!"
Doesn’t anybody recognize how expensive it is to land a new customer? Why would you even ATTEMPT to land a customer if you don’t plan on continuing the relationship with them? It goes without saying that the absolute fastest and easiest way to grow your business is to increase your customer retention. If you currently retain 70 percent of your customers and you improve that to 80 percent, you’ve instantly added an additional 10 percent to your growth rate. Yet many companies continue to treat their customers like an easily replaced commodity. Do they forget the fact that a satisfied customer will tell three others about your business but a dissatisfied one will tell 15? Are they forgetting the fact that the world wide web is now a wonderfully effective option for the disgruntled to vent their ire to increase that double digit figure into a number with at least one if not two commas? It’s easier to sell an existing customer than to win a new one. And what’s the point of winning new customers if you’re going to lose them?
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