Are you a bell or a banana?

There’s a gazillion business books written about the classic bell curve graph.

You know the one that EVERY management consultant talks about. It has extremes on the left and right, and then ‘the masses’ in the middle.

Well, the brilliant Wiemer Snijders has noted ‘every brands customer base is shaped like a banana’.

He’s bang on the money of course. It aligns with research by Ehrenberg Bass, showing that every brands customer base is massively skewed to light buyers.

'Woaaah, light buyers?? Our customers luuuurve us mate. They buy us all the time'.

No, they don't. Every brands most fervent and frequent buyers account for a small fraction of the total revenue over the year. And the majority of a brands buyers are super flakey, meaning they buy once or twice a year.

Pareto's famous '80/20 rule' is hot-air

It isn’t 80/20, it’s more like 60/20. Which means that light buyers, the bottom 80%, deliver almost half of a brand’s current sales... ooooof.

Yep even your Underdog that’s different to all the other Underdog brands. Your customer base is shaped like a banana.

What does this mean for Underdogs?

Don’t be a bell...end with your bell curve, instead accept the uncomfortable truth that the vast majority of your customer base is light.

Because once you’ve understood that, you will instinctively concentrate every customer acquisition effort on attracting more light people. Rather than staying in your comfort zone of attracting the frequent buyer who's going to buy from you anyway.

Do that, and you’ll find your banana quickly becomes a flipping massive banana.

Underdogs brands, need Underdog thinking.

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