My business owner clients know that I continually rant about the importance of collecting client data.
Indeed, in my “Wheel Of Wow” client attraction system, “identifying your most profitable costumer” is the first and foremost component.
Too many business owners and manager are simply firing arrows in the air looking for new clients, when identifying your most profitable client and then looking for more people who look like him would be a much smarter and more cost-effective move.
Surely the “most profitable costumer” for a Sydney North Shore Child Care Centre would be a “wealthy mum with a few young children.”
(As opposed to a working class mum with just one child)
I trust you see where I’m coming from?
It’s not about determining your target audience, but rather determining “your most profitable target audience.”
And then you simply go looking for more people who look like them!
And you need to know as much as possible about this audience!
I recall seeing a biographical movie about John F Kennedy, where there is a scene which features him behind his desk in the oval office, about to greet an important business man who was financially supportive of this upcoming campaigns.
Kennedy’s secretary comes into his office before the guest arrives and provides him with a file containing all the business and personal details about his visitor.
We’re talking about his last name, his children’s ages and names, his sporting preferences, favourite restaurant and where they meet last.
In other words, the President was about to scan quickly through these notes and then be in a position to greet his guest “like a long lost friend.”
Now keep in mind this was way back in 1960’s, before they “ease” of having such information on a computer screen in front of you within a micro second.
Can you imagine just how pleased Kennedy’s guest would have been when the president greeted him and ask “how his wife, Susan, was and how was little Timothy, Gregory, Sarah?” and then when the president made comment on his guest’s favorite footie team, you can imagine just how special this business man thought he was!
And this is what every business should be aiming to do, make their clients feel special!
And the fast-track way of doing this is to know everything you possibly can about them – so you can structure your office to suite their ongoing need and wants.
The Harvey Mackay 66 pieces of information!
Harvey Mackay is the best-selling American author with the New York Times giving him “best seller status” for his “Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.”
A gong for being one of the top 15 inspirational business books of all time.
Harvey is one of the busiest key note speakers in America and when he walks unto the stage to give one of his trademark talks, people sit-up and pay attention.
Within the first 5 minutes, everyone in the room is buying whatever Harvey Mackay is selling, because he demonstrates one of his own most fundamental sales maxim: “people buy from other people because of likeability.”
It’s no wonder Toastmasters International has named him one of the top speakers of the world.
He’s famous for creating the Mackay Envelope Company (yes, they just sell envelopes!), which now does over $100M in sales annually and has the capacity to produce 25 million envelopes a day.
A major contributor to building this company to extraordinary turnover levels was a “66 question costumer profile” he developed, known by his employees and devoted readers as “The Mackay 66.”
“The Mackay 66“ starts with the basics – name, age, address etc…
Then the profile gets more detailed, with questions about the costumer’s favourite restaurants, preferred topics of conversation, professional goals, attitude and concerns.
The 66 questions provide a highly detailed portrait of the costumer as a human being, which gives anyone at his envelope company a serious advantage when it comes to approaching a person.
As Mackay puts it in in his book, “Swim With The Sharks,” “The sweetest sound in the world to you and to your costumer is the sound of your own name on someone else’s lips.”
Now THIS is what I’m talking about when I encourage business owners to collect costumer data not just the name and email address – as we all know that “email marketing” is less effective today than it used to be, simply because the “open rates” are going south.
Bottom line is that you need much more information on your costumers, particularly your “most profitable costumers.”
Here’s a link to the “Mackay 66 Questions” – you’ll see just how big his knowledge of his clients goes.
Am I suggesting that you send out questionnaires to your database first up? Of course not.
http://harveymackay.com/pdfs/mackay66.pdf
These questions are simply a blueprint for the type of information you should consider collecting over normal dialog and communications.
You don’t have to go to the extent that Mackay has gone to and use all 66 Questions, but his list will at least give you a starting point to develop your own words critical questions for your clients.
Simply have your sales team ask these sorts of questions “in a conversational tone” when they’re dealing with clients.
After all, the more complete and comprehensive the information is in your costumer database, the more you can target the individual need of your clients.
A lot of these information can be collected through “conversational means,” you may care to even send out a questionnaire with a smaller group of questions – and provide an incentive of a “dinner for two prize” or something similar in order to increase response.
So remember, next time you say to yourself “Oh, I’ve already got a database!”
Make sure it’s not just a name and email address as “email open rates” are becoming so way woeful these days, your database may not be as valuable as you think it is!