Be Different or be dead

April 6, 2014

How your customers can become addicted to you in 5 simple ways

Source: Unsplash

How your customers can become addicted to you in 5 simple ways.

Addiction isn’t a casual interest or a take-it-or-leave it attitude.

When customers are addicted to a particular organization they are “all in”. They have a habit of dealing with the organization through thick and thin. It is that tough to kick. It’s like looking both ways before crossing the street. They just do it without consciously thinking about doing business with someone else.

Every organization covets the customer who will habitually buy from them.

The issue is, they aren’t just out there to be taken. There isn’t a tribe of addicts for the taking.

They have to be created.

And the problem today is that most organizations are so driven to make the sale, they don’t focus on doing what is necessary to turn the casual buyer into the raving fan with the habit.

Here are 5 things you can do to help your customers develop the habit for you:

1. Don’t focus on the sale.

If you do things right you will not only make the immediate transaction, you will earn a revenue stream for a long time to come.
This is all about changing the culture of the organization away from short term gratification to building the capability to earn in the long term. As long as quarterly earnings drive behaviour, the need to create addicts will take the back seat.

2. Recruit relationship-building sales people.

Look for demonstrated accomplishments of this competency. If you don’t have frontline folks leaning the right way, habits will not be formed.

3. Look at your front end systems.

Is it easy for a customer to enter your realm and get what they want? Is your web site easy to navigate? Can they reach a human being if they need to?
Do you force people through an IVR with a dozen questions to answer? Simplify your processes. Make them human friendly. People don’t give a damn about your internal issues!

4. Have a strategy when you screw a customer over (and you will).

Recovering from a service OOPS! has amazing implications when it comes to creating addictive behaviour from your customers. Fix it + SURPRISE ‘em is the formula that will turn a postal customer into an addict.
If you do it right they will forget that you screwed them over in the first place.

5. Declare a policy: we don’t care about our competitors! We care about our customers and believe that if we do a great job at serving them, we won’t have to worry about the hordes at our door.

The fact is, when you are worrying about what “the bad guys” are up to, you are nor concentrating on the experiences you have to create for your customers to turn them into addicts.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 4.6.14 at 03:10 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

March 24, 2014

Why success comes from being different than ‘the best’

Source: Pexels

Why success comes from being different than ‘the best’.

‘The best’ describes someone who conforms to expectations more closely than the rest of their herd. Spells more accurately; answers history questions more correctly; obtains the highest mark in the math exam.

The best does a masterful job of performing their task according to the rules of the day; they colour inside the lines perfectly

There are certain professions where conformance to “standard operating procedure” is vital: landing airplanes and performing heart surgery come to mind as functions that require “in the box” thinking and performance (until something goes wrong at least).

In business, conformance is not what drives success. It drives mediocrity and sameness in the herd

Organizations who consistently succeed are brilliant at inventing a new box to play in.

They create new lines to draw in.

They are masters at non-conformity and contrarianism. They focus on breaking away from the herd.

Don’t press yourself or others to be The Best.

Honour weird, odd, quirky, strange, “out there”, ridiculous and unusual.

They will get you to where you need to go.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.24.14 at 06:44 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

January 6, 2014

Why shocking success comes from being controversial and contrarian

Source: Unsplash

Why shocking success comes from being controversial and contrarian.

CoNTRARIANS get noticed.

— They offend some; they amaze others.

— They don’t propagate the same-old same-old boring stuff everyone else does.

— They oppose every aspect of the status quo.

— They make people nervous.

— They are the topic of conversation.

— Their friends are weird.

CoNTRARIANS get remarked about

— They get quoted.

— They add a different dimension to the conversation.

— They are admired for their outspokenness.

— They attract a quirky different following than everyone else.

— They are copied by other divergents.

Pick a CoNTRARIAN point of view and shout it out.

LOUDLY because there is way too much clutter to be heard if you don’t.

And celebrate whatever you get back.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.6.14 at 05:03 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

December 9, 2013

Why the gut is more important than the brain for success

Source: Pexels

Why the gut is more important than the brain for success.

Succeeding in business is not that complicated really, and finding opportunities for advancement is fairly easy if you know the secret.

Here’s the reality:

— there are no more Steve Jobs out there (or at least the possibility of finding him/her is pretty remote);

— there are no silver bullets, one-shot wonders for success;

— the are very few “new ideas” out there that will make you “Wonder Woman”.

The truth is, winning is a function of your stomach not your brain.

Intellectualize all you want but it is meaningless until you act.

Give me GUT over brains any day; “Fire-in-the-Belly.”

Why don’t we teach ‘gut’ at business schools in addition to probability theory?

The truth is, graduates from BS come out believing that pristine solutions will work.

How many great (on paper) ideas have you seen die on the vine because they don’t have a passion player driving them.

Why don’t we promote people with gut as being just as important as smart? How about starting a conversation around someone’s “GQ” (gut quotient) in addition to their IQ?

It will never happen!

Why? Because we STILL covet the brain rather than what the brain needs to actually accomplish something.

Without GUT the brain is useless.

Find more GUT.

Hire GUT.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 12.9.13 at 01:40 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink