As Micheal LeBoeuf stated in his masterpiece book, How To Win Customers and Keep Them For Life. 

“I’m a nice customer. You all know me. I’m the one who never complains, no matter what kind of service I get. I never kick. I never nag. I never criticize.

And I wouldn’t dream of making a scene, as I’ve seen some people do in public places, no matter how bad the service is. I think that’s uncalled for.

No, I’m the nice customer. And I’ll tell you who else I am…

I’m the customer who never comes back.”

When we think of success in business, most of us think in terms of dollars and cents, statistics and figures. Yet all those measures of success are determined by the behavior of customers and the employees who serve them.

Reward customers, and you’ll create more of them and keep them coming back. But fail to reward your customers and you’re out of business. That’s not only a promise, that’s the Greatest Business Secret in the World.

It’s so simple isn’t it?

So obvious. But so ignored.

Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking of buildings, computers, consultants, or even employees as your company’s greatest assets. Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company. It’s that simple.

Better Than Selling:

Selling, believe it or not, is very simple. Focus on what customers want and need, and help them to buy what’s best for them, and make them feel good about it. Three key points that all of us in business need to know and understand. They are:

  1. The most important goal of any employee, including sales persons, is to create and keep customers.
  2. There’s a big difference between selling and helping people to buy.
  3. People love to buy but hate to be sold.

This better than selling principle turns out to be the most important selling principle of all. It’s tough to resist someone who sincerely wants to help you.

The Only Two Things People Ever Buy:

Customers don’t buy what your company sells. They really don’t. Instead they buy what those goods and services do for them. To illustrate, consider the following plea from an anonymous customer:

Don’t sell me clothes. Sell me a sharp appearance, style, and attractiveness.

Don’t sell me insurance. Sell me peace of mind and a great future for my family and me.

Don’t sell me a house. Sell me comfort, contentment, a good investment, and pride of ownership.

Despite all of the untold millions of products and services for sale in today’s marketplace, customers will exchange their hard-earned money for only two things:

  1. Good feelings
  2. Solutions to problems

It’s true, your customers want to feel good, they are buying solutions to their problems. So when they buy from you, make them feel good. It’s that simple.

The first point to remember is that people buy emotionally and justify with logic.

Also remember that people spend money when and where they’re feeling good.

The Four Emotional States:

According to psychologists, a person is capable of experiencing only four basic emotions. Those emotions are:

Happy

Sad

Angry

Scared

At any given point in time a person is feeling at least one of these emotions. And their emotional state will govern their behavior.

Customers buy only when they are feeling glad about you and your company.

 “People don’t buy goods, they buy solutions to problems. They don’t buy quarter-inch drill bits, they buy quarter-inch holes.”

People buy solutions to problems. A problem is the difference between what you have and what you want. So, if you want to solve a customer’s problem, ask them, “What’s the situation now? and “How would you like it to be?”

Once you have the answers to these two questions, you can decide if and how you can solve their problem. But until you know the answers to those two questions, any problem-solving you do will be purely accidental.

Focus On the Customer.

Your company may sell the finest products and services in the marketplace, but it’s how customers feel about your products and services that ultimately determine how successful your business will be. If the customers who buy from you feel good, they’ll buy again and come back. If they don’t, they won’t.

With that thought in mind, here are some key ideas you can use to put the right touch to work where you work.

  1. Put yourself in a welcoming emotional state.
  2. Never tell a customer about your problems. They don’t care about your problems, they only care about theirs.
  3. Remember that customers buy for their reasons, not ours, it’s all about them.
  4. Act as if you are the only personal contact that the customer has with your company and behave as if the entire company’s image depends on you.
  5. Use both logical reasons and emotional reasons to win customers.
  6. Use the problem-solving approach or the consultative selling approach to move customer’s from angry or sad or scared to happy.

In summary, the degree of success of any business hinges on how many people it rewards with good feelings and solutions to problems.

Latest posts by Jerry Cassandro (see all)