Every business has Customers. Every business wants more, buying more. Marketing today is searching for loyalty with discounts, incentives and reward schemes yet implicit in the word and in being a CUSTOMER is loyalty. Custom means repeated. Customers are much more than buyers. Customers are human beings.

Built into our natural being are the need to belong, the desire to be loved and the hope to succeed.

Yet we are all individuals who like to be recognised for what we are. The basics do not change simply because modern communications and technology creates new ways of doing things that appear to be quicker and cheaper.

Deal with a Customer quickly, cheaply and badly and you will lose a Customer.

Not right away but you will. The most expensive thing a business can do.

That is why every business should work out how it deals with its Customers, and in the 21st century, do it fast.

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I never expected, directing and starring in a video shoot for SONY, to appear on my cv, but it’s there now! I’ve just got back from Brussels where I’ve been with an RT film crew shooting a prototype 3D video conferenecing system – just like something out of Minority Report! I am convinced that this piece of kit will revolutionise the way businesses communicate it is so life-like! It will enable businesses to collaborate rather than simply communicate, over long distance.

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1. Target

You are not all things to all people. Decide on your niche – narrow your focus and broaden your appeal.

2. Be different
If your competitors are doing it, don’t. Find a way to stand out from an overcrowded marketplace where advertising and products can look the same.

3. Build a team
Don’t hire an employee to fill a position. Employ a person to be part of a team to build your business.

4. Be fast
Time is the most precious commodity. When delivery is expected Friday, show up Thursday afternoon. Return calls and emails asap.

5. Say thank you
A lot. Tell your customers and employees how much you appreciate them. Better yet, do it the old fashioned way: take pen to paper and write them a note.

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Risk is a funny thing…it scares some and excites many, but as this poem sets out: that’s life!

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool

To weep is to risk being called sentimental

To reach out to another is to risk involvement

To expose feelings is to risk showing your true self

To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naïve

To love is to risk not being loved in return

To live is to risk dying

To hope is to risk despair

To try is to risk failure

But risks must be taken, because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing and becomes nothing

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love

Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom

Only the person who risks is truly free

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As marketeers we have to change beliefs, beliefs need evidence to support them; customers need to see evidence. The more they see, the more they feel empowered to change their belief about a product or service. Once their belief is changed we have a chance of influencing their actions.

Think evidence; what evidence can you show them? Well as a good friend of mine says, “go third party”; what would you want to see if you were where they are? Once you do that you may understand your customers’ actions better and then how to change them.

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The lifeblood of any successful business is relationships. We need relationships because they save us time and we need to have things and get things that only come with relationships. That’s why we invest so much time in them and why we are prepared to be forgiving because we do not want to waste our personal investment in the relationship and have to start again.

If you are getting things wrong now but not yet losing Customers you will. If you are getting things wrong but trying to put them right; tell your customers, they will understand and may stay customers.

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