Focus of the business should be revenue…but there’s more.

We could be really cheeky and just list the 5 fantastic reasons why the focus of each business interaction is Revenue, Revenue, Revenue, Revenue, Revenue. But that is actually pretty obvious really. Think about this. If you take care of your customers, they’ll take care of you and your business.

Focusing on your customer leads to so many wonderful advantages for each business owner, sales manager or anyone in business.

Treating Your Customers Right.

If you treat your customers right, you’ll earn their trust and build a committed, loyal relationship. If you are open, honest and genuine with them they will reciprocate this. This law of reciprocity is a two-way highway where you and your customer will start to become advocates for each other’s businesses.

Your Customers Are Your Ambassadors.

Imagine if your customer actively sourced business for your company by recommending your product or service to their customers, or other businesses in their industry? Maybe they wouldn’t do it to their competitors (as you may be the edge that they have over their competition), but let’s say you’re a printing firm, and your customer was a festival organiser and you were printing all their brochures, maybe your main customer is on the board of another festival that is to be telecast nationally, they could recommend your services to the organiser of that festival too, and so the ride begins.

Recommendations are likely to convert to a sale.

When you focus on your customer, you begin to have an in-depth knowledge of what their business does and this will help you to recommend their business to other business that you come in contact with that might benefit with their product or service. The more you recommend, the more they recommend. A business that comes from a recommendation is much easier to convert the sale to than a company that hasn’t ever heard of you before because the initial sell has been done by a trusted advisor.

Understand the value of your customers.

Let me ask you, in your business, what is the value that you put on customer loyalty? There are companies that spend millions of dollars creating amazing Loyalty Programs, they might be frequent flyer/spender/stayer/referrer but whatever their model is, they’re buying people’s loyalty to stay with them. There are much smaller businesses that offer a discount for every product or service you buy from them – buy ten get one free – in essence, they’re giving a discount of 10% for being loyal, but the way it’s worded sounds much more attractive than – get 10% discount. Some of the most loyal customers are up to 26 times more profitable than a non-loyal customer. That is a phenomenal amount, wouldn’t you say? Think about it, for one highly loyal customer, you would need 26 new customers. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to spend my time working and nurturing one amazing customer who will make me more money than I would try to knock on the door of 260 new customers, (because the pickup of cold calling is approximately 10%).

If you treat a customer like a valued partner, you open the possibilities of not just gaining business for you here and now, but creating a long term syndicate between your businesses while building trust and commitment of your customer.

Customer Retention converts more sales with little to no marketing effort.

Retaining the same customer and taking care of their growing needs time after time not only builds loyalty, but it’s also cheaper to do business with them. You’re not spending the money to do marketing to them, nor are you cold calling new customers, but working with someone who knows your business and understands how you compliment their business is much easier and more profitable for you. You’ll also find when you do business with a repeat customer, they’re so much further down the buying cycle that they’ll be ready to buy much faster than a new customer who is unknown to each other.

Why You Should be Customer-Focused

For good measure, one extra reason why you should be customer focused is that without your customers, you wouldn’t be in business. They are the ones who pay your bills who in turn pay your wages. If you don’t focus on your customer, someone else will. As a salesperson, sales manager or business owner, ask yourself this question, “How much attention have I been paying to my customers?”

The Training Establishment provides training solutions that aim to build your customer service skills. Ask us how by contacting us at info@thetrainingestablishment.com.au.