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The Secret to What Keeps Customers Coming Back

By: John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing

An often-discussed topic in the world of small business marketing is the idea of getting your customers to come back for more and to keep coming back for more. The most profitable businesses in the world are built this way. I have a simple approach to this challenge and it may change the way you look at customer loyalty.

Earning your second sale with a client has as much to do with the way you generated the lead, presented your value proposition and converted the prospect to a client as it does with some technique your employ after the sale.

Customer loyalty is a natural by-product of targeting the right client, with right need and setting and exceeding their expectations. The rest is just details.

What happens when the phone actually rings? 

So you've managed to make the phone ring. It's an ideal prospect on the other end; now what? It's amazing how few small business owners consider this question.

There's no question that certain people are more naturally suited to the role of lead conversion than others, but we're not talking about certain people, we're talking about you and your business. What I want to introduce in this article is a system that will allow almost anyone to succeed, even with average lead-conversion skills.

A lead conversion system relies on three distinct components:

Discovery - In discovery, the central goal is to discover if a prospect actually fits your ideal target market. If you've done a good job in your marketing up to this point, you will usually attract qualified prospects. Your lead conversion system should help you quickly make this assessment on an individual basis and continue to deliver the expectations you have set with initial lead generation activity.

Presentation - Whether across the desk or over the phone, most businesses need to present an offer of a product or service to the eventual buyer. The Duct Tape Marketing tool of choice for this step is something I call an Internal Seminar. The Internal Seminar is a quasi-scripted presentation made as part of your initial client meetings.

Transaction -The final leg of the Lead Conversion System is a planned "first purchase" transaction process. In other words, a thought out and consistently executed way to take the order, deliver the goods or execute an agreement. Put a little flair into this sometimes, awkward step in the client relationship building process and you are well on your way to order number two and three.

What to do when a prospect says yes

Many small business owners spend months chasing a new customer and then once they land them, have no process in place to make sure they serve they wow them and exceed their expectation.

When a client says yes you should be prepared to shift your marketing process to teach them how to get the most from this new relationship or product by putting a new customer kit in their hands. Your new customer kit allows your new client to fully understand what to expect now that they are a client. That's right your educational marketing approach doesn't end once you make a sale. Almost every type of business, service or product based, should develop "training" documents that communicate key bits of information.

Your new customer kit can contain pages that explain:

•     What to expect from us next
•     How to contact us if you have a question
•     How to get the most from your new product/service
•     What we need from you to get started
•     What we agreed upon today
•     How we invoice for our work
•     A copy of our invoice

Creating a series of documents like the one's suggested above and having a systematic step that allows you to communicate this information demonstrates a level of professionalism not always displayed by small businesses. Nothing derails a client relationship faster than failing to set and meet initial expectations.

So now you have a customer loyalty generating system based on solid marketing principles that anyone in your firm can operate.

John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide published by Thomas Nelson - due out in the fall of 2006. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. www.ducttapemarketing.com  His Duct Tape Marketing Blog was chosen as a Forbes favorite for small business and marketing and is a Harvard Business School featured marketing site. www.ducttapemarketing.com/weblog.php

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