| What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Ask successful online business owners, and they’ll quickly tell you there are certain things that are imperative in order to reach your business goals. Some of the common responses to the question "How do you thrive online?" are: dedication, organization, perseverance, and street smarts. But what’s love got to do with it? Everything! The number one factor stated in regard to success online is "loving what you do." There are several reasons this is important. The first deals with the very nature of online business. Burn Out Most Web startups work practically 24 hours a day. Every spare moment is devoted to nurturing the new business. If you don’t absolutely love what you do, you’ll quickly burn out. Frustration, aggravation, and fatigue will set in and - before you realize it - you’re on your way out. Perseverance Love of what you do also comes into play with regard to perseverance. Those who can’t wait to begin work every day are more likely to persevere in down times than those who only do the work to get a paycheck. Without a love for what you do, you are more likely to jump ship during rough times, reducing your chances for success. Dedication Dedication is only present when certain emotions are present. People will be dedicated when they have loyalty toward someone or something. People will be dedicated when they are feeling greed and want to achieve a reward. And people will be dedicated when they love someone or something. Without some emotional backing, dedication is just another word. And unless you have dedication for your online business, it’s just going to be something else to do. Street Smarts Everybody knows that experience is the best teacher. And just how do you get experience? By living life online and taking chances. But how likely are you to take chances and gain the street smarts you need if you don’t love what you do? Not very! Gaining that vital real-world experience you need to succeed only happens when you persevere and are dedicated to your business. That won’t happen unless you love what you do. Do you see a cycle here? Every element you need for success has one central foundation... love. You must love what you do in order to spend night and day building a prosperous business. You must love what you do in order to survive the tough times and gain the experience you need. If you’ve been struggling with your online business, I’ll give you a piece of advice. Look at what you’re doing. Do you love it? If you could choose anything in the world to do, would this be it? If not, you might be wise to re-evaluate your online business. Making changes now could save you a lot of trouble in the future. If you *do* love what you do, I encourage you to hold on. All the attributes I’ve listed above will help you succeed if you stay focused and keep the fire alive. Copyright 2004 Diane Hughes About The Author Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com FREE Report: Amazingly Simple (Yet Super Powerful) Ways To Skyrocket Your Sales And Build Your Business Into A Tower of Profits! ==>> http://madmarketer.com/diane
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Customer Loyalty, we all want it. Don’t we?
Some people say it’s dead - they say that customers are fickle,
that they don’t want loyalty, that they just want the lowest
price and the fastest way to get it. Some say that customers
have changed and that the pursuit of loyalty is foolish, since
it’s the customers that are not interested in it. I don’t agree.
Loyalty is not DEAD, it’s just sleeping.
I agree that customers have changed (because our needs have
changed). We’re more demanding than ever before, we have more
choices than ever before, we’re more educated than most of the
companies we do business with (about their products and their
competitive position). And here’s the truth: we don’t give our
loyalty to companies that don’t give their loyalty to us.
Companies have in the last ten years made it more difficult,
more confusing, and more frustrating to deal with them than ever
before. They give all the "special offers" to the new customers;
they’ve removed human beings from answering phones and answering
questions. They make us pump our own gas, check on our packages,
book our own airline tickets and figure out when they’ve made
mistakes on our accounts. They cut their training budgets and
have trimmed their service staffs to the bone. They pay big
bonuses at the top, but at the bottom of the corporate pyramid,
where the customers lie (if they make the pyramid at all) they
charge us fees for the privilege of using their services!
Is it no wonder we’ve become rather selective to whom we pledge
our loyalty?
No, customer loyalty is not dead, but it is ailing. It is given
only to those companies that earn it and keep earning it by
delivering value and positive experiences on a consistent basis.
Companies that want to Thrive...not just survive in this century
better figure out fast that keeping more of their customers, and
keeping them happy is a critical economic necessity.
Good and loyal customers are critical to profitability.
Estimates are that it costs 6 - 30 times more to get new
customers than it does to maintain the ones you have. If you
keep losing customers and have to keep replacing them, it makes
sense that you are spending money on sales and marketing that
could be going elsewhere.
It’s your LOYAL customers that give you referrals and sing your
praises in your advertising and testimonials. Referral business
is like "free" new customers. So the money you would have paid
to GET the new customer drops back down to your bottom line.
I find it is sadly true that most companies don’t have a
strategic plan for keeping customers, keeping them happy OR
keeping them coming back time and time again with their money
and their friends. Even though Customer Loyalty was determined
to be a #1 concern of CEO’s (according to the Conference Board)
how many companies do more than pay lip service to the
importance of customer service and loyalty in their
organization? Your guess is as good as mine. Based on the
service I receive as a customer, well, I can understand why more
customers aren’t loyal, can you?
What can YOU do to change that? What can you do to turn the tide
on this disturbing trend and develop long lasting, loyal
customer relationships?
And what’s LOVE got to do with it?
Everything. Business is based on relationships and relationships
are based on qualities such as trust, respect, appreciation,
understanding, generosity, clear open and honest communication
and heavy doses of kindness, compassion and affection. Sometimes
known as LOVE.
Studies show that the main reason customers will leave a company
they are doing business with is that they perceive the company
does not care about them or their needs. And conversely, studies
show that when asked why they stay loyal to a particular company
for a long time, customers respond, "Because they cared about
me." This perception and feeling of caring is the emotional
bridge between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. And,
it’s often the bridge between lackluster profits and thriving
good health on the bottom line.
It's about emotion. Loyalty is an emotional attachment to a
company based on the customer’s subjective perception that the
company is delivering the value they desire or need, when and
how they need it. It’s based on their needs, and it’s based on
their experience of doing business with us. As a customer
myself, I know that the companies I chose to give my loyalty to
are those that make me feel good about the whole experience of
doing business with them.
When we FEEL good about doing business with a company we form
emotional ties, not just financial ties with them. Let’s face
it, customers are emotionally attached to their money - if we
want them to give some of it to us-we need to get them
emotionally attached to US.
Emotions have been "undiscussable" in business for a long time.
"Feelings" is the "F" word of the business world. How many times
have we heard that we are to keep our feelings out of it, keep
our emotions away from our business decisions, and park our
personal problems at the door? Sound familiar? Well, I’ve
learned that you cannot expect your staff to bring their passion
to work but not their feelings. It just doesn’t work that way.
It’s time we developed an emotional literacy in business.
Employees and Customers are people. People have feelings. And as
people, their decisions are effected by their feelings, whether
they can identify the feelings or not. Any salesperson can tell
you that while people make decisions that look logical, they are
more often than not, based on emotion.
As people we are perceptive, conscious, sensitive, alive and
feeling beings! It’s an essential part of our nature. When we
recognize that in business, we’ll work harder at building the
emotional equity with a customer that determines whether or not
they become a loyal customer or a lost customer.
It is the perception, the feeling of being cared about that
keeps the customers coming back. And it’s what we do to build
and support and create that feeling that creates a positive
experience for the customer.
Every customer has two sets of needs. The business needs are
logical, rational, and practical. The personal needs are
emotional, illogical and sometimes even irrational, but carry a
lot of weight. The fulfillment of the customer’s business needs
is usually what gets them in the door in the first place-you are
selling what they need. But it’s the fulfillment of the
customer’s personal needs that will keep them coming back. Once
the business needs are met, they often take a back seat to the
customer’s experiential needs.
It’s the quality of the emotional experience you have with a
company that will determine whether or not you want to keep
recreating that experience. We come back to companies that have
what we want and create a positive experience for us. We leave
companies that don’t have what we want or create a negative
experience for us. Experience is emotional.
When a customer walks away from the whole experience (your
greeting, interacting with your Web site, the dealing with
people in your office...) of doing business with you with
positive emotions like happiness, joy, delight, caring,
security, welcome and appreciation - they will most likely want
to come back (if you recreate the positive emotions
consistently).
If they walk away from the experience with negative emotions
like frustration, anger, disgust, fear, incompetence,
indifference, if they leave with a lack of confidence, if they
leave feeling stupid-and if that’s what’s delivered consistently
- they usually don’t stay around unless they haven’t YET found
some other place to go.
It’s the quality of the emotional experiences that customers
have with you that will determine whether or not they will
continue to do business with you over time.
What’s LOVE got to do with it? Maybe more than we thought!
Tim Sanders, Chief Solutions Officer, Yahoo writing in "Love is
the Killer App," says "What do I mean by "love?" The best
general definition that I've read comes from philosopher Milton
Mayeroff's brilliant book, On Caring. Love, he writes, ‘is the
selfless promotion of the growth of the other.’ When you help
others grow to become the best people that they can be, you are
being loving, and as a result, you grow."
What a great description for what we want to happen in our
business relationships! I want to do business with a company
that believes in the selfless promotion of the growth of ME and
my business! I want to give my money to companies that want to
help me be the best ME I can be - whether I’m buying cosmetics
or computers or telephone service or food. I want to do business
with someone who has my best interests in mind.
In lieu of that - I’ll do my own research, haul my own lumber
and pump my own gas - but if I’m doing the service work - then I
want the lowest price possible! I’m not loyal to companies that
don’t care enough about me to make my experience with them easy,
stress and hassle free, and pleasant. How about you?
What’s love got to do with it? A whole lot more than we ever
thought. Let’s start doing a better job of creating experiences
that the customer perceives as positive, caring, and yes, maybe
even loving.
About the author:
JoAnna Brandi is Publisher of JoAnna Brandi's Customer Care
Coach TM, a weekly training program designed to teach managers
"The Art and Science of Exquisite Customer Care." You can sign
up to get her latest tips and get your personalized weekly
coaching program at www.customercarecoach.com. You can reach her
via email: joanna@customercarecoach.com.
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