More Customers ≠ More Sales; Here’s a Simpler Way

There’s a reason oysters don’t rule the world.

Their lot in life is to sit in one spot with their sustenance dependent on whatever they can catch that flows past them. Worse, the one item they produce that others consider having value doesn’t benefit them at all.

And frankly, oysters don’t grow larger if more sustenance flows past them. All that really happens is they find themselves among more oysters.

It’s enough to make one wonder why so many who get involved in e-commerce have a business model based on an oyster’s and then wonder why their enterprise struggles to survive.

The key to business development is not in getting more customers. It’s in cultivating the current customers. It’s actually 6-7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one.

The main reason, of course, is trust.

New prospects don’t yet know you. They don’t yet trust you. Getting over that particular barrier takes time, money, education, and salesmanship.

It’s expensive to earn trust.

So, it’s essential to build a loyal customer base. Ramp up your customer service after you make a sale:

• Make yourself easily accessible to them.
• Always provide a solution in a timely manner.
• Always address negative feedback in a constructive way.

What’s more, solidify your position as an authority figure by remaining relevant as a valuable resource. And in some way, shape, or form, reward their loyalty in a manner that truly has value.

Believe me when I say that the most effective funnels today are much more sophisticated, but the takeaway for now is that they’ve built on this hourglass method, where the emphasis is placed on current customers.

Thus, it’s important to focus on increasing the frequency of how often those customers buy once they’re in your system. This can be done by remaining in constant contact with useful information and, ultimately, offering more useful products and services that shows them how to better meet their needs in manners they had yet to consider.

Notice this analogy showed the customer was thinking of a shovel while the solution being offered was a bigger, more efficient shovel. The transaction size has increased.

You don’t need to look any further than your average fast-food chain asking if you want to upgrade your order into a meal to know this strategy works. For example, 5%-10% of McDonald’s revenue comes from soda sales, but the profit margin on soda is around 90%.

The advantage of this non-traffic method is you don’t have to spend money or much more effort to increase your bottom line.

And in so doing, the world can effectively become your oyster!