Keep ‘em Coming Back!

Oftentimes, when I talk to business owners, I will ask them, “why do you think your loyal customers stay loyal to you?” The interesting thing is that their answers are usually way off the mark. They will say, “it’s because of our great service”, or “ we have the best prices in town.”


Actually customers go back to a store because they feel like they are wanted there. When you make a customer feel important to you, when you let them know that their coming and shopping at your business matters, then they will come back.

How many times have you heard the phrase, “your call is important to us”? Do you believe it? Of course not! Because after you hear that, you usually are connected to someone who acts like you are not just a nobody, but a nobody that they are incentivized to get off the phone as quickly as possible. How could my call be important? Especially if the person I’m assigned to is reading from a script and has no real idea of what it’s like to be on the other end of the phone.

When my wife and I were looking for a house, we realized that there would always be another house to look at. This drove Realtors crazy, simply because we refused to fall in love with something. Granted, we are a tough couple, but none of the Realtors we dealt with (and we spoke to over 20), ever made us feel like we were important enough to spend any time getting to know well enough to figure out what we really wanted.

But I digress. The facts are these, there will always be lower prices, there will always be better service out there. But if you can make your customers feel like family (well, not my family), and always keep listening to what they want, and not what you want, you will keep ‘em coming back.
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Robert B. Wallis is a speaker, author, and consultant who helps business owners increase their profitability by improving their visibility. Contact him at The Wallis Group

"Remember – the reason the Native American Rain Dance always works is because they never stop dancing until it rains." -Bert Lord


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Rob Wallis is The Marketing Outsider, a speaker, author, and consultant who helps business owners increase their profitability by improving their visibility. Contact him at The Wallis Group

What's Your Story?

Much is made in marketing about your target market, demographics, which media to use, et cetera. The simple fact is, these are the least of your worries. When you begin to design a marketing campaign, you need to think about what stories you will tell.


The research, and yes, the results, show that the ads that bring in the most dollars always tell a story. Whether it's Tom Bodett telling of the simplicity of Motel 6, to any number of "on the road" ads, storytelling is the way to get people's attention and keep it. "They all laughed when I sat down at the piano." Well, they may have, but that campaign from many years ago brought in many thousands.

What stories do your ads tell?

How can you use your product to tell a story?
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Robert B. Wallis is a speaker, author, and consultant who helps business owners increase their profitability by improving their visibility. Contact him at The Wallis Group

Experience vs. Cost

A colleague of mine who works in retail related the story of a new department manager who had management experience, but little retail experience. I have seen this happen in the past, and it always puzzles me, for a couple of reasons:


You have a leader who has no idea of how the business works. Just because someone knows how to hire and fire, it doesn't mean they know anything about retail. I witnessed this in the restaurant business, where a manager was hired who knew nothing about restaurants (well, he probably was a waiter at one time, weren't we all?), and proceeded to anger the staff at busy times by walking into the back and asking "What can I do?"

My philosophy is, if you don't know what needs to be done, you have no business being a leader.

This can also affect the morale of staff. The thought goes something like: "why is this guy the boss? He doesn't even know what needs to be done"

And yes, I realize that you don't have to know everything about the operation to lead. But you do need to exude the confidence that you can lead, so that your staff does not feel like they are the ones running the show, and you are the one making all the money.
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Robert B. Wallis is a speaker, author, and consultant who helps business owners increase their profitability by improving their visibility. Contact him at The Wallis Group