After I wrote the title for this post I asked myself if the ability to increase initial customer value was really the #1 key to success for everyone.
I mean, once you know how to attract a customer or even pursue a customer, it absolutely is true, but could it be #1 for every business owner?
I suppose if you absolutely can't get ANYONE to buy what you are selling then it couldn't be the #1 secret to success...but if you are selling ANYTHING then it isn't only the #1 key but it is the ONLY key that will allow you stick around long enough to learn all the other keys to lasting success.
I remember when I was 22 and my Dad funded a smoothie shop that was going to be wildly successful, we made sales. We picked the WORST spot to put the smoothie shop. We built the most inhospitable smoothie shop. We literally had NO IDEA what we were doing, but we still made sales.
The problem was we had no idea how to increase initial customer value or life time value so that we could afford to learn all the lessons necessary to make the business a success.
Fast forward a number of years and my brother and bootstrap a training company for real estate agents. We quickly learned how to increase initial customer value and it allowed us to go from zero to 1.3 million in revenue while making a TON of mistakes.
Our ability to increase customer value gave us the freedom to fail our way to success. During the same time we were building that company we watched competition that never learned the lesson, out perform us in volume and yet crash because their margins couldn't match ours.
Learn how to increase initial customer value; learn how to identify your most valuable customers in the process; learn how to take care of your most valuable customers in the way they want to be served and I can guarantee you'll LOVE your business like never before.