Business Growth Insights

When you are shopping for something, what’s the first question you ask yourself when considering a particular vendor or store? If you are like most consumers, the fundamental question, asked on reflex, is “Why should I do business with this person or business?”

Have you answered this unspoken question for your own customers and prospects? If so, does the answer make you stand out in your field, or are you simply part of the herd?

Every day, your customers and prospects are showered with advertisements, brochures, newsletters, Web sites, and other media that ask them to open their wallets. As a result of this barrage, buyers strive to tune out the noise by ignoring things that are the same.

Said another way, they commoditize the available choices. They identify the goods or services that, in their perception, are identical and differentiated only by price. Commoditizing makes everyone the same, part of the herd, and helps prevent “decision overload” by decreasing the number of choices from which to select.

Your challenge is to keep your business from being turned into just another sheep in the herd by your customers and prospects. How do you do that?

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In my previous two posts we addressed the questions: How do I generate more profits per sale? and  How do I get more sales per customer?

The third question that every business owner should ask themselves every day is: How do I get more customers?

John and I have spent years learning the answer to this question. In fact we have taken this it to a whole different level by adding one critical word that, when you add it to this question, can skyrocket your business growth and help you achieve a whole new level of success.

Ask yourself: How do I get more of my ideal clients?

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In my previous post we discussed how to get more profits per sale.

Today we’re going to look at the second of the three crucial questions that every business owner has to ask themselves every day, and that is this: How do I get more sales per customer?

After all, you absorb substantial cost and expend a lot of effort to obtain your customers, so why not try to sell them more?

First, there are several things to think about. You need to consider:

• The frequency of interactions you have with your customer
• Their lifetime cycle (how much they will buy from you over the five years or so of your relationship)
• Their value per transaction.

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The ultimate goal for every business, obviously, is to be successful and make money.

To create that success, there are three crucial questions that every business owner must ask every day. These three questions will help you optimize your business performance and ensure that you are taking the right actions to increase profits and decrease overhead costs.

The first question you should ask yourself is: How do I generate more profits per sale?

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One of the most basic concepts of economics is want vs. need.

They may sound similar, but they’re as different as day and night. As a small-business owner, it’s important to distinguish between the two in order to attract more clients and grow your business. By learning the specific wants and needs of your clients, you can learn how to better market your product or service in a way that speaks to your ideal client and leads them to buy from you.

A want is something you would like to have. It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be a good thing to have. A good example is music. Now, some people might argue that music is a need but you don’t need music to survive.

A need is something you have to have, something you can’t do without. A good example is food. If you don’t eat, you won’t survive for long. You might not need a whole lot of food, but you do need to eat.

It may sound completely counterintuitive, but the fact is, wants are much more powerful than needs. Even though their needs must be fulfilled for survival, most people make their purchasing decisions based on their wants, rather than their needs.

For example, people need to lose weight for health reasons. A weight-loss clinic might assume that clients would respond to a weight-loss program that is positioned to help them feel better and improve their health. But oddly enough, what most people want from a weight-loss program is not health, but to look better, attract more romance into their lives, to receive compliments from people and gain confidence. Those are all emotional wants versus objective needs.

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