The 50-Hour Rule: Why Your Customers Should Be Your Second Office

My CEO buddy,?let's call him Raj,?works like a maniac.?Twelve hours a day,?every day.?The guy even answers emails on Sundays.?Now,?Raj has built an impressive business from the ground up,?and he's not shy about it.?But there's one tiny problem:?he hasn't seen a real,?live customer in ages.

Meanwhile,?the former head honcho at Starbucks,?Howard Schultz,?was practically a fixture in his stores.?Dude was hitting up 27 locations a week to get the vibe and see how customers were reacting to his coffee concoctions.?And the CEO of Hilton??His office time is dedicated to reading customer complaints – talk about facing the music!

Listen,?if you haven't personally chatted with your most valuable customers lately (like,?on the phone in the last month or face-to-face in the last three),?then you might be headed for trouble.? Here's the golden rule:?if you're running the show,you need to be out of the office schmoozing with customers at least 50 hours a month.

Why??Because customers today are a whole different animal.?Piss them off in person,?and they'll badmouth you to their friends.?Upset them online,?and you'll have a social media disaster on your hands.

Modern customers compare notes with their peers,?do their homework online,?and aren't afraid to go public with their gripes.?They're also a fickle bunch,?ready to jump ship the second a better option pops up.?This flips the script on everything we used to think about customer relationships.

So,?here's my advice:?get out there and meet your customers twice a week,?minimum.?It costs five times more to snag a new customer than to keep a happy one.?If you're a CEO,?pampering your existing clientele is hands down the best way to grow your business.

Trying to build your brand without interacting with customers??Well,?that's about as effective as trying to boil an egg on an electric guitar.