Attracting new customers is hard! #ABC2020

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Attracting new customers should be a piece of cake. As entrepreneurs, we all wish that there was a long line of customers that kept pouring in, one after the other and that word-of-mouth would be sufficient to keep business expanding forever.

#ABC2020 is April Blog Challenge and I intend to blog about one small business challenge a day, every day in April. 

Today’s technology has advanced so much that on one hand it is very easy for businesses to be attracting new customers and on the other, it has also brought about so much competition that your target customers are torn between “you” and “them”.

UNIQUE AND AUTHENTIC

What is it that makes you unique and what do you have to offer that most others don’t? What makes your product or service stand out? You cannot expect to be a favourite of customers if you are selling just about the same thing that a hundred others are.

BEHAVIOUR

How do you promote? Where do you promote? Are you just focusing on being seen and heard? Or are you watching the behaviour and buying trends of your potential customers? Are you just trying to sell your product or service or are you getting to know them and helping them address their pain point?

MARKETING

How good is your inbound marketing? Do you have a website and social media presence? Do you invest in engine optimization for your website? How active are you on your social media platforms? Are you listening to what your market segment wants? Do you constantly grow your audience and engage them in conversation? Have you created other touch points with your customers like sending out newsletters for example?

REPUTATION

What is your current reputation in the market? It’s great to have a lot of existing customers sing praises about you online. But if not, it would be devastating to have a bad reputation. A bad reputation online is something that needs to be immediately addressed and fixed. Having no reputation is almost having a good reputation, a clean scale.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

How do you treat your customers? An angry customer whose issue wasn’t dealt with, will never return. The customer you were rude to, will never want to do business with you again.

When you address concerns of customers and have a heart-to-heart good relationship with them, they in turn will keep returning and keep you happy.

There could be several other reasons why you might not be attracting new customers.  As each business is different, periodically analyzing through the segments of your business is a good idea.

CASE STUDIES

Emma is a real estate agent. She had a booming period of time when she closed 72 houses in a year and was quite thrilled with herself. And then the next three years she averaged at 18 houses a year. Her company decided to lay off some of the least productive agents and she was almost one of them Naturally, when she sold 72 houses, she was confident that word-of-mouth would bring her more clients. So, what is she doing wrong that she cannot attract new customers?

Natasha is a great cook and a fantastic baker. Every time she threw a party, friends and relatives said she should open a restaurant or a bakery and she would have people eating out of her hands. Natasha did open a boutique breakfast nook in an upscale area of the city. She sent out advertisements on newspapers and flyers all over the city and yet even after 12 months, she could hardly make ends meet. Why is she not attracting new customers?

Nick is a photographer. For the past five years he has been trying to position himself as an event photographer. He has a vast Instagram following where he repeatedly keeps posting a wide array of photos he takes. Nick is very talented, creative, hardworking, yet he feels it super hard to attract enough customers to keep him busy for time.

And that’s not just the three of them. A lot of small business owners find it challenging to get the next customer in their doors. Failing to be constantly attracting new customers is worrisome. Failing to retain customers is even more heartbreaking.  One challenge could have different approaches. Each of my clients I mentioned above follow different careers and although all three of them had the same challenge, the approaches we took and the solutions we embarked upon were tailor-made to suit each one’s personality and needs.

Every business is unique and so is each entrepreneur that runs it. As times keep changing, people and their behaviour also change. The way we sell today, has changed and direct selling has become very annoying and irksome. Attracting new customers these days is mostly about how best you can position yourself and your service to a potential customer.

Periodically, I sit down with each of my clients for a SWOT analysis and we brainstorm for fresh ideas to overcome weaknesses and threats. We develop a smart, sensible and strong business strategy and start actively working on the business with a different approach.

Connect with me if you haven’t gained clarity on your business, or if you have lost it. A few sessions and you will be off on achievement mode!

If hiring a mentor is not an option, have a good friend, business partner, spouse, parent, colleague, or even a supportive customer be your sounding board. Come join me at one of the “Thought Partners Collaboration” meetings. Because an intelligent intervention with a fresh mind would help you see the problems in your business that you were initially not able to. 

As the saying goes, “Old ways do not open new doors”. An outsider’s mind and fresh perspective can bring in a new charm that will float your business again. In the famous words of Albert Einstein, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, is insanity”.