Yes, as we discussed in the last issue, the marketplace has undergone a rather radical change in the past thirty years. With the numerous options available to today’s consumer, he or she behaves differently than in years – and centuries – past. With the rapid changes in the marketplace a person in business can become wealthy or poor much more quickly than in generations past.

Using outdated business approaches can quickly sap a business’s resources with very little or even a negative return. Does your business use “push” marketing? If so, quickly changing may … I say “may” … save your investment! A failure to do so will most assuredly doom your business.

“Push” marketing means you are presenting your product or services to your potential customer, showing the features, handling objections, and asking for the sale. This old approach in essence was pushing your product or service on your customer. This leaves a lot of the burden of the customer’s decision up to him or her including how your product or service will solve the customer’s problems. Push marketing is a business-focused manner of doing business. Today’s customer no longer has to put up with such a “pressured” exchange, one pushed upon him or her by the business owner.

“Pull” marketing, on the other hand, is somewhat the reverse approach. It is a customer-focused manner of doing business. The idea is that you pull the customer to your business and the decision to purchase by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him or her to solve the problem. You educate the customer in the process. In other words, your customer is making the decision, not only entirely voluntarily, but eagerly – with your help, of course. It is never a confrontation, nor does the customer wonder whether he or she got a good deal.

You no longer present your product and depend on the customer being able to see how the product solves his or her problem. You begin the process by exploring for the problem or problems for which the customer needs solutions. Then you present the various solutions available and the comparative advantages and disadvantages of each from the customer’s perspective. In other words, you are engaging the customer sufficiently to join him or her in the solution as a helper rather than an adversary. Of course this will require several adaptations on the part of the business.

First, your attitude toward your customers must change from him or her representing a single “sale” to being a recurring customer. You must spend more time winning that customer’s trust. This is an investment which should be a part of your business’s strategic backbone, not something to be avoided or shortened as much as possible. This is all part of developing the affinity bond with your customers.

Think about it. Each of us prefers to do business with someone we know, like, and trust. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Trust is the most effective emotion for your customers to have regarding you and your business. However, trust is not easily obtained in business; yet it is clearly the most valuable asset your business can posses. The sequence is as follows: know, like, and trust. First a customer must get to know you. Then, he or she will come to like you, and finally, come to trust you.

Think of yourself. What things do you like in a business? What things do you not like? What irritates you in a business? Use these to begin restructuring your thinking about your own business. It is your responsibility to improve your customers’ experiences with your business. If you don’t those customers will not have any motivation to get to know you further, much less learn to like or trust you. Soon they may be in your competitor’s business instead of yours.

We will discuss building the affinity bond and the proper care and feeding of your customers in later posts.