“BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND,” is a piece of the wisdom shared by esteemed author of the The 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, Steven Covey. God rest his soul.
The same concept applies to our businesses as in our personal lives. And in business this means we need to know what the End Result is that we want to accomplish through the medium of our business. According to Tony Robbins, billionaire owner of more than 12 companies and creator Human Needs Psychology, the ultimate strategy on where you want to bring each client/customer is to become a RAVING FAN of our business and/or our brand.
WHAT is a RAVING FAN?
Think about your favorite singer or entertainer or sports team. Who have you paid money or would pay money to go see or hear? Why? How does that person or team make you feel when you think of them? Do you want to jump up and down and cheer them on? If not, have you seen other people who do jump and scream and paint their faces to support a brand or group? That’s a Raving Fan!
A Raving Fan is a person who has extremely high customer loyalty because of the feeling they have linked or anchored to you, your brand or your business.
WHY would I want to create a RAVING FAN?
Can you imagine having people like that Raving about your products? Raving about your services? Raving about how useful your website is? Raving about how totally awesome and unique your organization and people are? Ready to tell everybody and anybody about how freaking awesome you are without being paid a dime?
How would your life and business be different if every client, customer and prospect that you’ve ever met, sold to, or helped with your product or service was a huge Raving Fan of yours? What if they became someone who couldn’t help herself but refer you to their entire sphere of influence, to their customers and prospect, to their family members and loved ones?
Would they Blog about you? Would they create a storm ending up with a Press Release about how well you treat others and how honest and helpful you were?
Raving Fans don’t buy from your competition even when you’re more ‘expensive’ (e.g.- meaning you give more value, thus can charge a higher price than your competition), or even when you might charge double or triple the fees you charge for the services you provide because of how much additional value you provide in addition to that product or service.
Jay Abraham says “Wipe out the word ‘Customers’ from your vocabulary and replace it with ‘Clients.'” A Customer is merely someone who ‘buys products or services.’ A Client is defined as someone ‘under the protection of’ … YOU. With the mindset that you are the PROTECTOR of each person you do business with, how would you treat your mother if she was your client?
If none of the clients/customers you’ve ever sold to had become Raving Fans of yours, and thus never left you – how many Clients would you have in your database right now? For me, this realization was huge! I would never have had to market again.
The Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there!” And, in my world, ‘any road’ is not good enough to meet my blueprint of how life should be, but I digress.
With those thoughts in mind, do you think the Goal of creating Raving Fans would be appropriate to you and your business?
STRATEGIES: HOW do I turn customers into clients and clients into RAVING FANS?
Remember that in any action you take and result you want, 80% of the battle is your own Psychology (your degree of certainty or faith in the beliefs you hold that something is or is not true), and only 20% Strategy. The WHY is even more important than the HOW. Getting caught up in the Tyranny of HOW is why many people will fail in business and their lives. If you have a big enough WHY, you will find the HOW.
That being said, a Strategy of running East to find a sunset will never get you there. A Strategy that uses a map of San Francisco to try getting around Paris, France will definitely not lead you to the where you want to be. Thus, here are the questions that will start leading you toward your Goal of RAVING FANS.
Questions are the Answer! ASK and ye shall receive:
- How can we give more than we promote?
- How can we always leave our clients in a better place?
- How can we use the principles of creating ‘jackpots’ and ‘variable reinforcements’ to encourage our clients to want to do what we ask? How can we create a benefit or ‘jackpot’ to appear and have it be perceived by the client while the client is doing what we want them to do?
- How can we run our business in an open, transparent way?
- How can we always reward our best clients?
- How can we create a structure and a system that allows everyone in our organization to consistently meet our client’s needs?
- How can we give back in whatever ways we can: to our customers, the industry, and society as a whole?
EXERCISE: When would NOW be the best time to ASK YOURSELF these questions?
Our Destinies are determined by our Decisions. A true decision is not made until there is Action. So, now it’s your time. It’s your opportunity to stay the same or move in the direction you’ve been moving towards: Will you read this and say, “Wow, that was nice information,” then go on with ‘business as usual’? Or, will you take 10 minutes, 15 minute an hour or more to go through these concepts, by yourself or with your team, to work towards creating RAVING FANS?
Your mission if you choose to accept it: Take 10 to 90 minutes, alone or with your team, and brainstorm each of these questions above to get you on the path towards creating RAVING FANS of your brand and your business. Write down all the ideas your team can come up with, no matter how ridiculous or outrageous, without judgement. Even if an idea is not practical or doable at this time, it may spark another idea that can change everything.
Peter Drucker said, business only consists of two things: “Marketing & Innovation.” Marketing is another day. This is how we Innovate, this is how we start coming up with the ideas and strategies that will help move us toward creating our own RAVING FANS! Go create your destiny.
Alex Beyer, Esquire
http://www.StateStoryStrategy.com
Afterthoughts:
“If we are able to Understand, Anticipate and Consistently fulfill the Deepest Needs of our clients, and adopted and lived this strategy as an organization, it would create an immediate and gigantic change in the quality and profitability of the business.” – Tony Robbins
The biggest mistake most organizations make: They fall in love with their business or products and not with their clients!
Sam Walton said that “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company form the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton. (If you truly had your clients’ interests at heart, would you ever let them go that route?)
Constant And Never-ending Improvement 