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THE MAGICAL PROCESS OF "BACKENDING"
Double your business customers overnight..... at no
extra cost!
Copyright James F. Coyle 2008, 2014
(If you have a friend who is struggling with
their business please pass this webpage URL on to them)
USING YOUR
EXISTING CUSTOMER BASE TO DOUBLE YOUR BUSINESS.....QUICKLY AND SIMPLY!!
This is probably
one of the most important concepts that can be used by a business to generate
growth. It refers to the use of existing clients to increase sales. Many businesses
advertise furiously for new customers and virtually ignore existing ones. Here
is an example: In my home town there are 3 major supermarkets and many more
smaller ones....all competing for my dollars. They are happy to spend vast sums
of money in the local newspapers advertising their products and it is common to
see 4 full pages of advertising at a probable cost of $10 - $30,000, depending
on size and circulation of the paper. Yet not one of these free-spending
supermarkets has tried to track me down and offer me a special deal......as a
known existing customer!
I would
feel somewhat "special" if they did!!
If one of these
giant operators bothered to collect my name and address at the checkout counter
for a raffle (the first prize could be $200 worth of free goods and who
wouldn't give their name and address for that sort of prize?) and then follow
that up by posting me a short 1 or 2 page semi-personalized letter offering me
a 10% discount off my next checkout bill...then I'd give them my business.....wouldn't
you?
This promotion
would probably cost them less than what they're currently spending on
advertising, because they're making a personal offer to a target market of
known customers. Also on top of that, their turnover would soar. Yet I am not
aware of any local supermarket currently doing this. This would be a classical
example of BACKENDING. On top of this, word-of-mouth advertising would attract
new customers ....and this is definitely the best sort of advertising any
business can get! The names and addresses collected in this manner could be
circularized for months to advise people of special deals, new products,
exclusive short-buys, etc. A promotion used in this manner could also be used
to invite customers to shop on the quietest day by offering a special deal.
Maybe a giveaway with a high perceived value (but which actually cost the
supermarket very little). By doing this the staff would be fully employed and
it would make the working environment more pleasant as the staff would be dealing
with happy customers.
Think about this
concept carefully and see how it would apply to your business. Are you ignoring
your existing customers (nearly 75% of regular businesses do)? It sometimes
costs a fortune to gain new customers, but very little to sell to an existing
one. If you have treated your clients fairly and given them good value they
will be inclined to support you....all things else being equal.......IF ASKED
!!!! It is human nature to want to deal with somebody you trust. And it is
uncomfortable for many people to deal with strangers because it tends to place
people outside their own "comfort zone". It is a fact that a lot of
people are silently begging to be led....the churches know this........so do
the astute business owners. Give the people what they want. Hold them by the
hand. Give better service than your competitors. Do things differently. Make
your business exciting and interesting. Make it an operation that people tend
to talk about. And if you're hiring school leavers make sure you hire young
people with personality. A friendly smile and natural attitude usually goes
down well with customers. Too many of the young shop assistants these days
appear to have gone to school mainly to eat their lunch. Choose carefully. In a
retail outlet it is a fact that zero staff personality means zero(?) long-term
repeat business. True?
HOW NOT
TO BACKEND
In my home city
there is an old established organisation who have been in business 60
years......and based on this it is the owners belief that he has the God-given
right to expect the locals to deal exclusively with him. The fact that he
carefully selects his staff by digging them up from graveyards in the middle of
the night does not go down well with his customers. His staff have been carefully
trained not to bargain, negotiate, be helpful....or smile. In fact I get the impression that if one of
them accidently broke into a smile.....you would hear the cobwebs twang from 50
feet away. In these days of severe competition, his trade is falling rapidly....because
he is set in a business philosophy which is 30 years outdated. His Backending
is....in effect....negative! And there are plenty of business operations run
exactly like this. You will probably have had the misfortune to experience one
or more in recent times.
By adding a
positive backend component to a marginal or negative loss business you can
actually turn it around to produce a positive return. If your operation is
running at a loss give serious thought to this Backending. Some of the progressive
businesses like the Tandy Corporation try to collect the names and addresses of
all the customers who purchase off them. These people are then sent catalogues
occasionally which must result in extra sales. People have money to spend. If
they like your operation they will spend it with you.
An example of a
variation of Backending worked well for an acquaintance of mine who owned an
indoor cricket pavilion. He was complaining about the lack of players on Friday
and Saturday nights. I wandered around his business one Friday night talking to
people. It transpired that many players couldn't visit the pavilion at the
weekends because they either couldn't afford baby-sitters or couldn't get
reliable ones. I suggested to the owner that he convert an unused back area of
his building into a temporary child-care centre on his two quiet nights. He put
in a sandpit (at virtually no cost) and a video with cheap rental cartoons. He
employed a schoolteacher who needed extra money at $45 per night. His overall turnover
increased by over 40 %. And his opposition slowly went out of business.
A simple
lateral solution to a serious problem!
He was actually
Backending in that he used his existing customer base without advertising for
new players....as his competition did. And it cost him nothing to advertise
this new service. He simply placed a large hand written notice in the doorway
and within a week all his regulars new about it. In effect he stopped
advertising for new players and concentrated on his existing ones.
Mail-order
operators rely almost 100% on Backending to make money. It costs so much thru
advertising these days to attract a new customer that the logical thing to do
is to keep making offers to your existing ones. Some new well financed mailing
companies go a step further and actually sell a product at a loss merely to
attract new clients to their mailing list. They expect to make up the loss by
continued on-selling to this customer base.
During a
recession anyone in business quite often has to go to extreme lengths to keep
things afloat. Backending is the cheapest way to do this. Then as the economy
improves you have a tremendous advantage over your competition as you are less
cash-strapped and can take advantage of bargain buys which your opposition cannot
afford to consider. Your business snowballs at the expense of your less astute
competition.
I visited a
restaurant recently which had a large round fish bowl on the counter and
specialized in serving the business community. People dropped their business
card in this bowl when leaving and once a month a card was drawn out and the
winner given a free dinner for two. A good idea so far! I got talking to the
owner and asked what he did with the business cards after the draw. He totally
stunned me by saying that he threw them away!!! Here was a businessman (???)
collecting 4-500 names and address of existing (presumably satisfied) customers
every month.....and he was doing absolutely nothing with them. It would have
cost him a small fortune to attract that many new customers via newspaper ads.
So...what would you do with them if you owned this restaurant?
Simple! You
would have all the names typed into a computer program in general categories of
occupation. That is....you would put all the builders and construction people
together. Then you would put all the doctors, lawyers and professional people
in another category. And so on. Then....you would send a personal invitation
out to, say, all the professionals telling them about your special
"professionals only" dinner night (or dinner luncheon)....... and
offer them a substantial discount in appreciation of their custom. They could
also bring friends who would share in the discount. You would do this for each
group in your computer customer base. The net result? A lot of NEW customers
from the friends your regular clients introduced and a tremendous amount of
goodwill. You could also arrange for a "mystery" speaker to address
the group. Everyone loves a surprise mystery. You would be giving a discount
but it is far better to have a full restaurant at reduced profits than an empty
restaurant with no profits. And it adds a bit of excitement into their
otherwise possibly dull lives. They will be mixing with like-minded people who
share a common interest. The whole concept should be aimed at appealing to
their "comfort zone" when you prepare the invitation.
Once again this
is the use of Backending which will cost virtually nothing in advertising
costs......but will produce a hefty increase in your cashflow. Also it is
likely that many of the diners will return to your restaurant because they will
have enjoyed themselves. And they'll tell their circle of friends what a great
time they had. Word-of-mouth advertising....the best you can get!!
The critical
thing is to collect the name and address of the majority of customers who walk
in your door. And the easiest way to do this is by offering a windfall
incentive such as a "lucky draw". It's even better still if you have
regular weekly ongoing draws then you can tell your customers that they have a
chance of winning several prizes. Everybody loves something for free. And when
you hand the winner their prize take a photo of their happy smiling face and
pin in on the wall by your cash register so that all your customers can see it.
This will prove that your promotion is actually genuine and that the winners do
in fact exist!
HOW I PERSONALLY BACKENDED A NEW STARTUP BUSINESS TO
END UP
ONE OF THE LARGEST IN THE COUNTRY!
Many years
ago I started a small electronic kitset shop in a back street in Wellington,
New Zealand. I was an electronics designer and decided to start a business for
myself as there appeared to be nobody else supplying kitsets. We used every
last spare cent we had to open the shop. I had already developed a range of 25
kits and had pre-packaged about a dozen of each. We took a small ad in a local
Wellington newspaper and slowly customers started to arrive, mainly by
word-of-mouth. Over 6 months our business started to fire up but it was hard
work. I approached
several
electronics manufacturers (in those days they were referred to as Radio
Factories) and asked if they had any surplus components left over from assembly
line over-runs. To my pleasant surprise I was greeted with considerable
enthusiasm as some of these factories had large warehouses overflowing with
leftover components. I was able to negotiate useful components at less than
half the price that I had been paying.
I designed
a number of kitsets around these components and the business started to expand
rapidly. I then took a batch of ads in other NZ papers and offered a mail-order
service. We created a simple black and white brochure listing our kits.
In those
days ham radio was very popular and we discovered that radio hams all over NZ
were talking about us and ordering our brochure.
At that
point we had to move to bigger premises in a better location.
We had a
lot of walk-in visitors to our shop so we initiated a Friday night prize draw
by capturing the name and address of all those customers who made a purchase
(most were agreeable). We put their names on small bits of paper in a barrel
and at 6pm each Friday night we would ask a random bystander to pull out 3
papers. The first one out would win a $100 voucher to use for purchases in our
shop while the other two were for $20 vouchers.
Typically
the $140 worth of goods we gave away cost us less than $40 so we were way
ahead. The customers loved it! Our turnover increased dramatically and we had
no need to advertise in the newspapers any more.
Meanwhile
we had developed a mailing list of over 1000 customers countrywide and
circularised these 8-9 times a year with our latest products.
We printed
off a real cheap broadsheet on newsprint paper but it did the job. The customer
base and turnover kept increasing.
After 7
years we ended up with a mailing list of over 4000 names and we were the
largest kitset supplier in NZ. Quite a spectacular achievement! All brought
about by various forms of Backending.
Backending
is really business survival at its best.... and cheapest!!
...........................................................................................................
If you are seriously interested in alternative business, wealth and
financial freedom ideas grab a copy of the following book
THE MILLIONAIRES MANUAL: Become a millionaire in freedom, happiness
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http://www.mindtech.com.vu/millionairesmanual.htm
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...........................................................................................................
HOMEPAGE - http://www.mindtech.com.vu/