Almost every business has at least one thing in common…they want more customers. And usually this means finding them wherever they can…even if they aren’t the ideal customers. A person who has money in their pocket and is willing to spend it is a customer we want…NOT.
Think of it this way…if you are really good at serving Red customers and have engineered a way to give them an awesome experience, Blue customers won’t appreciate it. In fact, more times than not, they will actually think you are treating them poorly…both with your service and your experience. Why? Because you have designed and built your processes and experiences to serve Red customers.
So when Blue customers are out there wandering around with money falling out of their pockets and you think you should grab them because they look attractive, STOP. Unless you have made a strategic decision to change your services, processes, and experience from serving Red to Blue…or added additional services where you have engineered the processes and experiences around serving Blue customers, you will disappoint them. You will both be frustrated with the experience and three things can potentially happen.
- You stop obsessing over your Red customers since your attention has been diluted to serving the Blue customers which causes your most valuable (Red customers) to get upset and leave
- The Blue customers don’t really like experience you have and how they are being treated so they leave and stop spending money…leaving you with less money and erosion of your Red customers
- The Blue (and maybe some of the Red) start talking about you…and not in a good way…they say you aren’t delivering a great experience and have bad services because you have diluted both the Red and Blue experiences
None of the above is good. In fact, it can actually erode what you have already invested in and built (a company with services and an experience for your Red customers). And when you erode your solid base, the competition is waiting to snap up the ideal Red customers you just disappointed and lost.
It’s not always greener on the other side of the mountain. Sometimes it’s just better to enjoy the climb up the mountain, enjoy the view, relish in what you already have that is awesome, and go back down the way you came.
Celebrate and continue to obsess over the Red customers…the ones that you have invested in, built your services around, and engineered the experience around. Over time they will reward you with FOUR WONDERFUL BENEFITS…
- A larger “share of wallet” by spending more because they like what you do and how you treat them
- A potentially greater price for your products/services because you have tailored your processes and experience to making them feel awesome and giving them what they need and desire
- Greater and continued “Loyalty” because they appreciate what you have done as a business to serve and treat them as special people, which everyone appreciates
- And hopefully the holy grail of having a customer…they become your “Advocate” and proactively go out into the market (in person and on social networks) and tell everyone how incredibly awesome it is to buy from you
When you have “stuck to your knitting” as my dad used to always say, you can truly enjoy where you are and reap the rewards of financial stability, a fun place to work for employees, and customers that love the way they are treated and will go out of their way to do your marketing for you.
This is what makes companies REMARKABLE!
