How to Control the Customer

I’m Jim Muehlhausen, author of “The 51 Fatal Business Errors”, and “The 8 CEO Secrets”. How do winning companies control the costumers to double or triple their profits? One of the most important business dynamics in the next five years will be controlling the customer. The businesses that will be the most successful will learn to control their customers. You control the customer by providing a superior basket of customer value that is not duplicable by the competition. Simply put the customer would never choose to go anywhere else because they would sacrifice too much in doing so. Once you have gained control of the customer, you have the ability to dictate terms. Don’t take this the wrong way. Dictating terms doesn’t have to be a negative. Dictating terms is what a doctor does. The doctor defines the customer relationship that is the term, by telling you “Hey, you’re going to show up on time or you’re going to pay a fee?” If you miss the appointment, you are going to pay a fee. You’re going to wait for them in their cue or their line so that they can operate at maximum efficiency, while you waste your time. You’re going to work with their assistants instead of the doctor and take your blood pressure, your temperature etcetera. That is on a lesser skilled. You’re going to come to their office versus them coming to you even if you’re the sick one. You’re going to prove them that you have the financial means to pay before they’ll even see you. Now, these practices increase the customer profitability for the doctor with only a small amount of discomfort to the patient. That’s why they do them. They’re controlling you, the customer. In the business world, the companies have controlled the costumer and used this control to dictate terms. That’s what the best companies do. For instance, there’s Wal-Mart across the street from my daughter’s dance studio. If I’m killing time, sometimes I make a mistake to buy something at this particular Wal-Mart and virtually every time I bought something there, I’ve tolerated not enough carts, a dirty store, fifty or more people at every check-out line, no customer service etcetera. Yet, I keep going back. Why? Well, Wal-Mart has a location that I need and I know I won’t overpay. This basket of values allows them to dictate terms to me. They say “Jim, you’re going to wait a long line and waste a significant amount of your time because we don’t want to pay more cashiers. Jim, you might not get a cart because we don’t want to pay enough staff to fix them for you. Jim, if you want your everyday low prices, here are the non-cash terms of our customer relationship”. Effectively, Wal-Mart is controlling the sales process, defining their costumer retention process to me and then picking a customer strategy that works for them with some regard but not total regard to me. Okay. You need more? How about your cell phone company? They rule you and entice you to get you in. Then once you’re a customer, you only talk to foreigners and you wait forever for customer service. These non-cash terms help their profitability. Have you switched because of the service? I already know some. Nope! You might switch for coverage, service area or price, but they know that you’ll trade those two and so they have created a culture that lowers service in exchange for price. So, here’s what you could do to figure what your prospects will do to vote with their wallets. Remember, complaining comes out of the mouth, money comes out of the wallet. Straighten the value you offer the customer, and this will improve your customer profitability, then figure out how the customer can save you money with only a small amount of pain on their part. Ask your client to give you these non-cash terms. Better yet, grab control of the customer with compelling value and demand they’ll give them to you. Once you grab control of the customer, you have many good options. These options include raising prices, up-selling, selling additional items, referring customer service-related companies, and simply retaining the business at virtually no cost. Your job is to focus on what customers are willing to vote with their wallet for, deliver it better, faster and more efficiently than your competition. Create a sales process where the customer attitude is what you want from them not what the customers are willing to give you. This will increase customer satisfaction and retention as well as your profits. Now, go ahead and go to the bottom of this page, fill in your name and your email. I’ll send you this CEO secret along with the seven others and I’ll look forward to talking to you on the next page.