Do you play favorites?

How much time and money does your company spend trying to acquire new customers?

Now, how much time and money do you spend delighting those who already do business with you.

I’m writing this while sitting in my favorite clean, well-lighted place. The owner and his family are my close friends. I know most of the managers and servers by name. I actually miss them when I’m on the road for a stretch. I miss Marijke and Dan and Elise and Art and Olivia and Annie and Isaac and Becca and Lauren and all the others.

Do I get preferential treatment here? Yes. Yes, I do. They treat me like family.



To whom do you give preferential treatment?

I ask because it occurs to me we spend an exorbitant amount of time and money to flirt and woo people who’ve never spent a dime with us while often turning a blind eye toward those who spend gobs of money with us over the course of their lifetimes.

[Tweet “Are you taking your best customers for granted?”]

• Can you identify your best customers?
• Have you calculated what a regular customer is worth to your business over the course of her lifetime?
• Have you brainstormed ways to treat them differently?
• Do you budget for treating them differently?

What’s the first step toward doing this? Why don’t you think about these questions over the weekend and make a plan to start Monday (or Tuesday if your company is closed in honor of Dr. King’s birthday).

Over the 10+ years of frequenting my clean, well-lighted place, I’ve probably introduced more than 200 people to how amazing it is. Imagine if only half of those people started going twice a month at an average ticket of $25.

That’s $50x100x12 or $60,000 a year in additional business from one preferred customer!

That’s good business.