Page 43 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

151 Quick Ideas to Get New Customers

What was their secret to get

Assignment new customers? They built

Think about how you are a system that was customer-
adapting to serve your cus- friendly.
tomers, not how you are
forcing customers to adopt Herb Wardlow was the
your system. architect who for more than
10 years guided K-Mart as
its president. He describes his

secret to getting new busi-

ness as being incredibly simple. Here is the formula: “Find out

what your customers want and give it to them...and then some.”

It’s building a system to accommodate your customers’ wants

and needs, and then doing the many little extra things that will get

even more customers to come to you. If you do things their way,

you are guaranteed to have delighted customers.

Epilogue

Find out what your customers want and arrange your
store and services to suit their needs.

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Help, Don’t Sell

What is the mentality of a salesperson? To get that answer,
think about telemarketers who’ve called you, particularly dur-
ing the evening. What did you do? Engage them in conversa-
tion, or hang up? Most people hate telemarketers because of
the intrusion factor. Selling has a bad image. Therefore, you
must learn to be a helper, not a seller. Find out what customers’
problems are and solve them, and they will see you as someone

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