And just how much of your annual budget do you allocate to advertising and marketing to reach new customers? Five percent? Ten percent? Twenty percent? Twenty-five percent?
Imagine: After starting or continuing your advertising campaigns, the phone rings, the shop door opens, you don’t recognize the person, oh my goodness, it’s a “PLRC” – a potential loyal repeat customer!
What’s the first impression that you’re going to give to this PLRC, potential loyal repeat customer?
A big smile! Finally, you’re going to get a return on the investment of your marketing dollars. Now is your chance to get paid off … or not!
You discover that for whatever reason, you can’t accommodate them!
For example you have no occupancy, you don’t offer that particular product or service, you’re temporarily sold out of the product their looking for or the first appointment or availability you have is not until next week or next month.
What is the reason you can’t make that sale today?
If it’s just a matter of timeliness, ask your PLRC what their time line is.
If you cannot accommodate their time line – you can still create a PLRC today through “co-opetition.”
Our first year in business at the Edgewater Resort, located in Soda Bay on the shores of beautiful Clear Lake, after being in business for just two months, we received the first call for a reservation from a PLRC for a date that we were full on.
We had already met some of the other hospitality owners our first week in the county, at a Lake County Resort and Restaurant Association meeting and had visited and checked out some of their accommodations.
So, after finding out that the PLRCs dates where not flexible, we asked if we could mail her a brochure for the future, recommended and gave the phone number of a couple of co-opetitioners, or “COOPS.”
To our surprise, the next week we received a handwritten letter in the mail from this woman who was obviously blown away at our customer service. In her letter she thanked us for the referrals and wrote that the next time she comes to Clear Lake she would definitely call the Edgewater Resort to make her reservation. We’d made our first PLRC!
This PLRC has been coming several times every year since 1996 with her family to the Edgewater Resort and continues to recommend us to her family and friends … all of which have become loyal repeat customers.
Here’s a few tips for that PLRC that comes to your place of business rather than calling or e-mailing.
1. On the back of your business card, write the name and contact information of the COOPS that you are recommending.
2. When at all possible, take the extra step – pick up the phone and actually call the COOPS to see if they have the product or service available for the PLRC and tell them you are sending your PLRC to see them.
3. COOPS work both ways. Now you have created a win-win relationship with the co-op and in turn they will start recommending you.
4. Remember, after receiving a recommendation from a COOP, take a minute to call them and thank them for referring you.
How do you pick your circle of COOPS? Remember that because you are recommending them to your PLRC you must be sure that they will have a positive shopping experience. Believe me, your PLRC will get back to you, if they don’t!
Through my 40 years of having five successful businesses, I have always found that the most successful business people are ALWAYS willing to share their “secrets to success.” These folks get the concept of COOP. Success breeds success!
We all know that when a visitor comes to our communities and they have an negative experience, they don’t just go home and bad mouth that particular business, many of them go home and bad mouth the entire community!
Co-opetition referrals will ultimately alleviate this. The strong businesses will strive while the weaker ones will either step up to the plate and make the necessary changes or eventually, simply put, just go away.
We, Mt. Konocti Facilitation – MKF, have just recently facilitated the committee chairman, Leslie Firth, of the new “Shop, Stay and Play” campaign in Lake County. We suggested that they take a survey of our local citizens of the “top five best local businesses” in numerous and various categories including:
Wineries, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, event planners, photographers, travel agencies, massage therapists, consultants, retail stores, local news, certified public accountants and tax preparers, architects and engineers, pet services and veterinarians, doctors and dentists, computer and technology services, real estate and insurance agents, automobile repair and body shops, attorneys, electric, plumbing and building contractors, and one of my favorites – the best cheese-burger and fries on the lake … and the categories go on and on.
Now … here’s your list of COOPS to add to your own the list.
Hopefully, your business will be voted one of the top five. We have also suggested that this survey be taken once every four months and updated with the results each time. So, if a business is not on the top five best list, it’s certainly a goal to reach for, or not. They can either take the opinions of our local consumers or not. They can complain that their business is not on the list or strive to be one of the best of the best.
This list is not only a valuable resource when local citizens shop local, it is also valuable to the tourists and visitors that come to our communities and it gives deserving recognition to those businesses that are doing it right!
Our recommendation to survey and update every four months, the “top five best local businesses” in the various categories, also insures the consistency and level of service remain strong of the top five and creates the possibility for any new businesses and the ones that do step up to the plate, a chance to receive this prestigious recognition. We can imagine the top five soon becoming the top 10 in our community!
So, the next time you cannot accommodate a customer, no matter if they are new or repeat customers, take the time to turn them into a PLRC – a potential loyal repeat customer and at the same time guaranteeing them a positive local shopping experience.
When businesses play the co-opetition versus competition game, everyone wins – the local consumer, the visitor, our business community, our reputation and, most of all, the economic health of our communities.
Think about it – it only took a few mega businesses to put our national economy in the situation it is today. Small businesses have been creating the most new jobs for years, while many big businesses have been outsourcing their jobs for years.
Our motto at Mt. Konocti Facilitation is small businesses rock!
Sandra West is co-owner of Edgewater Resort in Kelseyville and co-facilitator of Mt. Konocti Facilitation, www.mtkonocti.com. She gave this talk at a business networking seminar hosted by the Lodge at Blue Lakes on Thursday, May 7. Mt. Konocti Facilitation offers free and confidential business facilitation services to businesses based in Lake County. For more information call 707-995-8133; all calls are returned within 24 hours.
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