You don’t.
Not a single one.
If you’ve been in business a while, you’ve probably had a few transactions, maybe thousands of transactions, maybe millions or billions even. It’s likely that you have money in your bank account from those transactions.
But that is it.
You don’t have any customers.
Not even a single one.
Depending on your business model and whether you are lucky, you might have a few contracts.
Contracts are good.
Again, depending on your business model and if you are lucky, you might even have quite a few contracts. Yet contracts are just papers that provide a legal framework for engagement. It is the legal documentation of a social agreement.
But you still don't have any customers.
You have the past – you can remember when people have bought from you, might have been last week or just 5 mins ago, doesn’t matter, it is still the past. The past should provide you with confidence and maybe a financial cushion, but that is it.
You have the future, where people say and where they actually may buy from you. The future should provide you with hope and a reason to be optimistic, but no matter what your contracts or YOY forecasts say, it still isn’t guaranteed.
Right now in the present – you’ve got nothing.
Unless you are swiping a credit card exactly as you read this, you don’t have any customers, not a single one.
What you do have is opportunity.
As an industry, as marketers, as service providers we often allow ourselves to be fooled by the dual lenses of egotism and complacency. If you bought from me in the past, if you are in MY database, then you are MY customer, and I expect YOU to buy from me in the future.
This is a dangerous mindset, because THEY are not YOUR customers.
If you are lucky, YOU are THEIR brand or business of choice. But they can (contract or not) change their choice at any given movement. Your competitors can sway them, or they may simply find someone who better suits their needs.
You don’t have any customers.
What you do have is opportunity.
An opportunity to earn your next sale. The opportunity to demonstrate why this customer should purchase from you again. The privilege of having customers must be earned and re-earned at every engagement.
You don’t have any customers.
Not a single one.
Neither do we.
It’s time to go to work.
