It starts with the purchase

When you get that endorphin rush from seeing a sale you may think you’ve won a customer. If everything’s gone right, you’re absolutely on the way to a relationship that might last years and will produce great things. More frequently the purchase is just the beginning of the process of moving from trial to loyal (and avid) customer.

Think of this example – if you had a lemonade stand and someone showed up once to purchase a refreshing drink, would you think of them as a regular customer or someone who showed up needing lemonade that day? Their needs for a cool drink could be related to the outside temperature, hydration after a long walk, or a need to try the most talked-about lemonade on the block. But the first day they show up at your lemonade stand, a buyer is not a customer.

Now think forward, and imagine that for several hot weekends in a row you’ve seen the same person. You know a bit about the time they show up, how many cups of lemonade they buy, and perhaps have made chit-chat and talked about something more than the weather. You could definitely call this person a customer, but not yet a loyal buyer. You don’t know when the lemonade stand around the corner will come calling.

When the same customer shows up on a rainy day, asks you why you haven’t opened the lemonade stand, and presents you with a few ideas for other things you could sell (“psst – Brownies go extraordinarily well with a cold glass of lemonade”), you’re well on your way to earning a Customer For Life.

It continues with dedicated service

Why did your customer come back? Undoubtedly you’re not the only lemonade stand in the neighborhood. And you might not even be the cheapest. But people are creatures of habit and want to know where they are going to make a purchase with someone who cares about them and what they think.

Learning more about your customer and the key drivers of their business is the single best thing you can do to build success. Not “success” in the traditional sense where you measure the sheer dollar amount of the contracts you bring in and the quotas you make. I’m talking about success as defined by the raw ability to understand why your customer is hiring your company and to translate that into the products and services you deliver for them.

Success might mean not selling to a customer today until their business has matured to the point where they really take advantage of your solution. Success might mean highlighting the single feature in your product that – no matter how they use it – will improve their business so that they talk to other people about you. Success might mean calling a customer up just because and saying “hello, I’m calling because I wanted to know more about how you’re doing and how I can help.”

Success Grows with Your Understanding of The Customer

It’s easy to think you know your customer. They bought something from you, after all. Isn’t that enough? But remember that their business is changing and developing at the same time yours does too.  The solution that worked for them months or years ago might not work as well for them now for the needs they have today. Or perhaps, the reason they bought your product hasn’t changed a bit.

The point is that their business – like yours – is not static. You need to keep on asking the customer what they think, why they continue buying, and what they need to really succeed. The capital S in Success stands for Solves Their Problem. Which problem did they hire you to solve?

Which Job do they want done? Learn more about that and then next time a customer asks you for your answer, you’ll be able to speak simply in the words of a customer just like them.