Do You Need More Customers Or Should You Look After The Ones You Already Have?

I’ve noticed many entrepreneurs (myself included) focus a lot of time on our next customer rather than serving the customers we already have.

I’ve read countless studies and articles stating that selling to a current customer is 5x to 21x easier than selling to a new customer.

When someone buys something from your business, you’ve already established a relationship and trust with that person. Assuming whatever you sold provided enough value, selling to that person again is easier than selling to a cold prospect.

LISTS

To sell to the customers, we already have. We need a way to maintain a relationship with them.

We either need their contact information so we can contact them via phone or email, or we need them to be following/engaging with us on content platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc.

When I read Russell Brunson’s Traffic Secrets book, I learned about lists. Russel looks at his customer relationships in terms of lists. The one we’re all familiar with is an email list. But we also have many other customer lists. We have Facebook lists, Instagram lists, Messenger bot lists, and so on. Each channel we use to maintain a customer relationship is another customer list.

I find ‘lists’ to be a much better way of thinking about customer relationships. Each customer relationship is different, and using lists is an easy way to identify that difference.

NOT ALL LISTS ARE THE SAME

Each customer list your business owns represents a different customer relationship.

People signed up to your mailing list have a different relationship with your business than those following you on Instagram.

When you send someone an email, you’ve got a direct 1:1 relationship with that person.

Whereas when you post content on your Instagram account, you’re relying on platform algorithms to deliver content to your audience. This is a one to many relationship.

KEEP TALKING

We can use these lists to sell more to current customers by keeping in contact with them. Sales you make to existing customers can be attributed to the level of trust and familiarity you’ve already established.

Suppose you keep constant contact with your customers and provide them value. You will keep your relationship fresh in their minds; they’ll remember you and appreciate the effort you’ve put into that relationship.

The same way friendship works. If you’re close with your mates and talking to them all the time, the next time you want to grab a coffee or go shopping, your close mates will be the ones you reach out to. If you have a problem, you’re facing and need some advice or a friendly ear. You’ll likely reach out to your closest friends, the ones you talk to most.

When life changes and you ‘fall out of touch’ with that friend, they slowly drift away, and new friends take over that void.

Your customer relationships are the same. When you're constantly talking to and helping your customers, you’ll stay top of mind. When you fall out of touch with them, they’ll forget about you.

For some businesses, a relationship is easy to maintain. For instance, at our gym, our members are visiting and interacting with us all the time. We are always talking to and engaging with our members.

We’re often an avenue for members to turn to when friends and family can’t help. We’ve maintained a relationship with them, and they know they can trust us.

For a retail store, you won’t see your customers as often, so you’ll need to rely on your lists to help maintain that relationship.

Keep talking to your customers, and they’ll remember you. Don’t, and they’ll forget you.

Give Before You Ask

In Robert Cialdini's bestseller ‘Influence,’ he talks about the law of reciprocity. 

The idea of reciprocity says that people, by nature, feel obliged to provide discounts or concessions to others if they’ve received favors from those people.

Once you’ve established a relationship with your customer, the easiest way to sell to them is to give.

Sometimes people miss the point about maintaining a relationship with their customers. I’ve noticed a lot of the retail chains in NZ do a poor job of this. They have substantial email lists with lots of willing buyers, but all they do is take.

Maintaining a relationship doesn’t mean you bombard people with sales campaigns “10% off this week for XYZ reason,” “special deal” “holiday special’ while it’s great, you are giving your customers a discount if you do this all the time you’ll do three things.

Your business will blend in with every other company offering sales and discounts, you’ll teach your customer to expect a deal, and your customers will learn that you only care about them when they give you money.

Instead of always asking your customers for their money, a better way is to give before you ask.

Gary Vee continually talks about ‘jab, jab, jab, right hook.’ He understands the law of reciprocity.

The more you give your customers upfront, the more they’ll want to do business with you again. If you’re creating podcasts, writing blog posts, and hosting events, all aimed at providing your customer’s value. They’ll want to do more business with you, not Joe Bloggs down the street with the ‘sale sign.’

Money matters, but a relationship matters more.

GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT

The more you interact and engage with your customers, the better you’ll get to know them and understand how you can serve them.

If you’ve established and maintained a relationship with your customer, all you have to do to generate more sales is give them what they want.

We get attached to how we started or why we started our business instead of focusing on our customers’ wants. Circumstances are changing for our customers all the time; COVID is a timely reminder for that.

You can’t keep selling what you’ve already sold and expect to continue to do well into the future. At some point in time, competitors will pop up with better offerings, or your offer will lose relevance.

Instead of worrying about all that, just focus on your customers, and everything else will take care of itself.

“The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer. Our goal is to be earth’s most customer-centric company.” - Jeff Bezos, Amazon

For example, at a gym I own, we are currently developing an online training portal for our members. With the COVID situation changing daily, we expect there could be multiple more lockdowns that make our physical gym useless for members.

We tested an online training option during the first lockdown (I’m from New Zealand) and received an overwhelmingly positive response, and we continually receive requests to make this a part of future membership offerings.

Focus on the customers you already have, look after them, help them, and when they’re ready, they’ll come to you.