Getting to Know Your Customers

Did you know that  January 16th is 'Getting to Know Your Customers Day.'  Did you know that Getting to Know Your Customers Day happens once per quarter?  Why do you think this day happens so often?  It's very important to get to know customers and maintain a relationship with existing customers as it is five times harder to get a new client and it cost six to seven times more money than it does to keep an existing client.  So you can see why it's important to get to know your customers.

Here are some ways to Get to Know Your Customers -

• Ask your customers for their opinions. Both positive and negative feedback lets you know what your customers like.  On 'Get to Kow Your Customers Day, send a survey asking some brief questions.  By asking for your customers' opinions, you convey how important they are in helping you make improvements.  Offering a discount or a giveaway will encourage them to reply.
• Host a Customer Appreciation event so your customers can meet each other.  Make it a fun experience with activities for the entire family.
• Send Cards and Gifts - Find out your customer's birthday and anniversary.  Recognize their special day by sending a card and perhaps a gift.  Some enterprising realtors and mortgage agents send an anniversary card on the day their client closed on their home.  And other business owners track the years a customer has done business with them and sends an anniversary card to say thank you for your continued business.
• Highlight your customer's achievements.  Spotlight the successes of your customers on your social media accounts.  By celebrating their milestone events, you strengthen your relationship with your customers.
• Keep customers informed by providing them with sneak previews of new products and services.  Since 'Get to Know Your Customer Day' happens four times a year, use this opportunity to announce new products, services, launch dates, etc.  Provide them with samples if appropriate.  By sharing what's happening and what's new, customers feel like an insider to your business.
• Provide information.  Educate your customers on your industry, not just your products and services but about your industry.  Provide seminars and take the opportunity to thank your clients for their business.
• Create a rewards program for your customers both for their continued business, but also reward them for their referrals of new clients.
• Keep in touch and follow up.  Newsletters and social media are great to reach out to clients to inform them of discounts and specials, however, don't forget the personal touch by following up with them when you suspect they might be running out of product or it's time for your service again.  Also, following up after a purchase to find out how they liked the product or service shows customers you really care.
• Thank You goes a very long way.  Always thank a client for their business.  Sending a personalized thank you card goes a long way and shows you go the extra mile.  
• Respond to clients' rave reviews as well as negative reviews.  By responding it proves that you are listening to their concerns as well as their compliments.  It only takes a few minutes to respond and offer to resolve the issue.  Also, consider asking longtime clients to leave a positive review, and thank them with a small reward.  

Remember 68% of all customers are lost due to perceived indifference!  A customer who feels appreciated will not go somewhere else when the competition comes calling especially if you have taken the time to get to know them and build their trust and loyalty.

What are some things that you do to get to know your customers?  Your comments and feedback are welcomed and appreciated.

In appreciation,

Annette

Painted Lady Enterprises

www.PaintedLadyEnterprises.com 

What is your Vision for the new Decade?

As we turn the page and look to the new year, what is your Vision for 2020?  It's not just a New Year, it's the beginning of a New Decade.  Time to not just set goals for the New Year, but to set BHAG Goals for the Decade!

I am a member of BNI and I recently listen to Podcast #445.  In this podcast, Dr. Misner talks with John Assaraf with OneCoach.  He's also one of the teachers from the movie, The Secret, and he's the author of Having It All and The Answer.

The title of the podcast is 'How to Grow Any Business in Any Market.'  The original podcast was done in 2009 during the recession, but it covers some very good key points on our beliefs and conditioning when it comes to Goal Setting and Visioning of what we want to achieve regardless of the state of the economy.

John gives these three key points in setting a vision:

1. Number one is to set an absolute, clear new vision of what it is you want to achieve.  And so let's say you want to earn $100,000 or $250,000 or $1 million, what you want to do is set an absolute, clear vision for the brain to be able to pick up, number one, on that vision, i.e. what would it look like, what would it feel like?.

1. Number two, you want to impress that part into the subconscious or implicit part of the brain.  A visualization technique would be seeing yourself playing at that level over and over and over again so that we create the new neural networks in the implicit part of the brain, which is the automatic side of the brain. Also, create affirmations or declarations that create emotion.  This will actually accelerate the neuron connections of the brain as well.  This is putting our reticular activator in motion.
2. Number three put ourselves into meditative states through self-hypnosis and use auditory technologies, or brain-and-train technologies, that will embed these new affirmations, or declarations, into the nervous system, basically, of the brain.

Those are three simple things that anybody could do inexpensively to make sure that our brains are being rewired at the part that actually is responsible for 96 to 98 percent of our perceptions and behaviors. And over the course of 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, we're actually reprogramming our brains at the level that's going to cause all of our perceptions and behaviors to change over time thus leading us to meet our goals.

I want to share a story with you.  Many years ago, when I had my first sales position with a direct sales company and before I knew anything about these techniques and the principles of Laws of Attraction this actually worked for me.

After working for this company for about 9 months, I attended their yearly sales seminar.  First time I had flown, so I was very excited.  I was one of the winners of their Fall Sales promotion which added to my excitement.  But the frosting on the cake was when they announced what the next big sales promotion was to be for the company.  They had never offered a promotion this big.  It was a trip for two to Hawaii.  I made up my mind right then and there...I was going.  I took one of the posters from the promotion, packed it in my suitcase, brought it home and hung it on the wall of my workroom.  That was my vision.

Over the next several months, I was focused on what I needed to do to achieve my vision.  I had determined exactly what each week and months sales had to be to meet my goal.  The company had given us 18 months to meet all the criteria to win.  I achieved my goal in 10 months and was the first sales rep to win!  Was it easy, NO!  There were many obstacles to overcome and work through, but I believe that the emotion I put behind the determination and the explicit declaration of, 'I am going,' was my key to achieving my dream in even less time than given.

Later in my career when I worked in a corporate setting, I had the privilege of being exposed to this concept even more through becoming a Master Facilitator in a program called 'Investment in Excellence' which was from Pacific Institute.  It was through this program I learned about the 'Reticular Activator.'  That part of the brain that doesn't know the difference in what is real and what is imagined.  So if we can imagine with enough emotion we can set the brain in motion to achieve the end result - our vision.  Remember #2 - 'Play at the level in our mind and seeing ourself playing at that level over and over and over again so that we create the new vision.'  The other piece is writing affirmations in the first person as if you have already achieved your goal and put the feeling and emotion into the affirmation, i.e. 'I AM sitting on the beach in Oahu listening to the beautiful Hawaiian music as I watch a gorgeous sunset.'  Can you feel that?

So what is it you want to achieve in 2020?  If it's a monetary level, what would you do with the money?  Buy a new car, buy a new house, take an exotic vacation?  How would the end result make you feel?  Write your affirmations with how the end result would make you feel.

I would love to hear what your BHAG goals are for 2020.  

FYI - 'What few people know about me....I have won 2 trips to Hawaii with 2 different direct sales companies.  This stuff does work.  

Here are some additional resources for Goal Setting:

Grow Any Business in any Market

Stay in Your Flame

Amplifying Results Using a Lens

How Building it Can Make You Fearless*

Limits Are Illusions* 

(*FYI - I am an affiliate for SOC)

In appreciation,

Annette

Painted Lady Enterprises

'Helping You and Your Business to Look Good'