I read an interesting tweet from my friend and entrepreneurship savant, Bryan Franklin that said:
"I noticed that the speakers with $1-$3M businesses were fascinated with marketing, and the speaker with $100M biz was fascinated with customers."
And, shortly after that, I scanned down my tweet-stream to notice a gazillion or so links to articles and posts that reveals X ways to get more clients, Y ways to market bigger and better and Z ways to get more subscribers.
Bryan's right, you'll solve most of your business problems by spending more energy figuring out how best understand your customers' lives, psyches and challenges, then working to solve your customers problems and deliver delight to their doorsteps.
Not a lot of people create lists that focus on how to better serve, solve and delight your customers. So, I figured, never too late to start!
Here's mine, it's just a starter...
7 Simple Ways to Serve, Solve and Delight Customers
- Beat deadlines - Promise on-time delivery in writing...then deliver the product or complete the job early.
- Make introductions - With no obvious benefit to you, but a clear benefit to them
- Follow-up quickly - On calls, emails, tweets or other messages
- Recognize loyalty - Provide value at random times to loyal clients, without any request or expectation of reciprocation
- Provide surprise bonuses after sale - Immediately after a sales, give unpromised and unexpected "bonus" services and products with real, tangible value, above and beyond what was purchased, and without tying them to up-sells or cross-sells
- Solve, don't sell - If you can solve their problem, do so. If not, introduce them to someone else who can. You may lose the immediate sale, but you gain far more in Karma
- Shut up, give your full-attention and listen - It's something that is oh so rare in the age of distraction and self-gratification, both in business and in life
Feel free to add more of your own in the comments...
+++Awakened Shout Outs+++
Jonathan Fields is the author of Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love. He writes and speaks on meaningful work, being a lifestyle entrepreneur and creativity at JonathanFields.com and is a twitter heavy-user at @jonathanfields
