(Time to read this Blog is about 4 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “Brands are built on stories.  Stories that become ‘brand legends’.  What are your powerful, memorable and relatable Brand Stories that ‘grab’ your target customers, clearly differentiate you from your competitors…and make you famous?”        
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   It’s all about trust!   
    
   If you aren’t building trust…you aren’t building anything.  Anything that destroys the trust of your target customers, your staff or key influencers will ultimately destroy your business.
    
   You don’t ‘get’ trust…you ‘earn’ it.   How do you do that?  You do the right thing really, really well, every time.  It’s that simple.
    
   A question I love to ask clients is, “Are you trying to get your customers to do what you want them to do…or are you committed to helping them do what they want to do?”
    
   So, what are you doing, in every part of your business, to earn and build trust with your target customers, your Team and with key influencers?  And what are you doing to ‘fix’ anything that’s destroying trust?
     
3. 5 million Canadians have no family doctor. And, with an aging population requiring more medical attention and with over 18,000 physicians set to retire in the next six years, the problem will only get worse.
    
4. To make things worse, the Canadian healthcare system has been historically difficult for international healthcare workers to break into.  According to Statistics Canada, almost half of immigrants with health-related education and experience aren’t working in the medical field in Canada. 
    
5. Free access to one of my most insightful Biz Tools.  To download my Biz Tool #B-19, ‘Attract Engage & Retain a Top-Performing Team’,  Click Here.   Get your team involved.  It will take about 6 minutes to complete.  The results will amaze you and point you clearly to what needs improving of doing.
    
6. How can I be helpful? If your company, Industry Association or local Business Group has a Conference coming up this Fall, or in 2025, and you need an insightful, bottom-line management speaker who will inform, focus, challenge and inspire you, perhaps we should chat.  I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

The simple truth about customer loyalty…it’s not dead unless you kill it!

Business people around the world keep telling me, “There’s no such thing as customer loyalty anymore.“…and they’re dead wrong.  This is one of the biggest and most damaging lies that you can tell yourself.  Why is this lie so dangerous?  Because, if you actually believe that it’s impossible to achieve customer loyalty, you won’t even try.  You’ll give up, get resentful, blame your customers, or lack of customers, for your lack of success…and that’s the beginning of the end.  We’ll never solve a problem that we don’t first take ownership of.

You could read a book two inches thick on the subject of customer loyalty, but here’s all you really need to know, in just one sentence…

“People are loyal to what’s best for them…or what they assume is best for them.”

That’s it.  Read it again. ‘People are loyal to what’s best for them…or what they assume is best for them.”   Make that into a sign and put it on the wall opposite your desk.  It’s that important.

To change suppliers of anything from hair cuts to heavy equipment is a pain in the behind and we’d far rather find one great business or service provider in every part of our business and our personal lives…and then stick with them.  So, the irony is that while businesses whine that there’s no such thing as customer loyalty anymore, we’re all desperately searching for businesses to be loyal to. 

That’s the real truth and anything we tell ourselves different from that is simply to avoid taking responsibility for the fact that we’ve failed to create and effectively communicate compelling value and experiences, at a competitive price.   We’ve failed to be the ‘best’ for our target customers, so they’re spending their money elsewhere. 

Are you the clear and compelling ‘wise choice’ for your target customers?  This is a simple but profound question that I’ve been asking clients for years. If you’re not the ‘wise choice’ stop whining about no customer loyalty and do the work to deserve it.  If you’re counting on customers to be stupid, gullible or forgiving of your incompetence or mediocrity, you’re in trouble.

Loyalty is not dead – unless you kill it.  It’s your responsibility to deserve the loyalty that you want and need.  Simply put, your job is to be the best for your target customers, to be the ‘wise choice’, and then to effectively communicate and connect with them to help them to assume that. 

If you’re not experiencing the degree of loyalty that you’d like in either your business or your personal life, it’s for one of two simple reasons…

1. You’re not ‘best’ for anyone yet…which means you have work to do.  You need to stop whining, stop blaming the universe for making people differently, and do the work required to be the clear and compelling ‘wise choice’ for your target customers.  You need to understand who your target customers are and what life’s really like for them. Then, you need to have the creativity and courage to deliver compelling value and extraordinary experiences at the right price that will ‘grab’ those customers, clearly differentiate you from your competitors, make you ‘famous’ and grow your bottom line. Remember, mediocrity is no longer an option!
    
2. Or, perhaps you are ‘best’ for a particular group of people but, so far, you’ve done a lousy job of communicating your compelling value to those specific people.   Again, you have work to do.  How will you effectively and affordably communicate your compelling value to your target customers in a crowded and cynical marketplace?  There’s no point  being the best if you’re also the best-kept secret.

Action to take:  Sit down, next week, for just one hour, with some of the best minds and hearts in your business and start a list of what needs to be done to make you the unquestioned ‘wise choice’ for your target customers.  What will it take to stand out as the trusted and respected authority on the products or services  you sell?  What will it take to become what I call the ‘Caring Coach’?   What will it take to turn customers into fans who become your most powerful marketing force?  What will it take to get the media and key influencers talking, writing, texting and tweeting about you?  What level of expert knowledge, extraordinary customer experiences at every touch-point, caring, integrity, relationship building and proactive marketing will put you in that top spot? 

Then, determine what action you’ll take to make this happen.  For each decision made and action agreed on, specifically what will be done, by whom, by when, at what cost, with what outcomes, measured how and rewarded how…and followed up by whom?  Remember, businesses don’t die from a single shot to the head…they die slowly but surely from a thousand uncompleted tasks.   

This could be the most important Team Meeting that you have all year.  

That’s it for this week…

Stay safe…live brilliantly!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.