Why Loving Your Customers Isn’t a Schtick

Image by Lucia. . .courtesy of Flick Creative Commons.

Like many of the best internet marketing awakenings I’ve had in my life as an online business owner, this one started with Naomi Dunford. In particular, it started with a recent post in which she says that the reason most online business owners fail to make the money they need is because they start asking for that money today. As in, on the day one recognizes the need for said money. Or even on Day One of business.

Naomi’s novel idea is this. Wait 29 days to ask for money:

Spend the first 28 days being totally, ridiculously awesome. Plan to make 100% of your money on the 29th day.

— Naomi Dunford, IttyBiz.com, “Make Them Love You. THEN Ask For Money,” August 23, 2010.

Sound schtick-y? Scammy? Not if you know Naomi.

And not if you do “totally, ridiculously awesome” right. {Go read Naomi’s post to get an idea of what that looks like.}

So shortly after Naomi’s post went live, LaVonne Ellis of The Complete Flake grabbed onto the idea and sent out a Tweet asking who wanted to join her in a Challenge. I think I may have been one of the first to respond back, “I’m scared, but I’m interested.” After all, I have something I want to launch and the 28-day timeframe works for me to get it created and launched.

I love my customers.

And my prospective customers. And my blog readers who may never be customers but who hang around for the free goodies. And I’m not afraid to show it. {After all, the word ‘love’ is my business’s tagline! Love is an important part of business for me and my right people.} And I’m certainly not afraid to step it up for 28 days and try to be totally, ridiculously awesome when it comes to showing them.

Then I Tweeted my friend David Crandall over at Heroic Destiny and showed him LaVonne’s Tweet. “Think of joining me?” I asked him. {He can tell you this story in more detail.}

So David said yes, then he and LaVonne put their heads together and then it was an official Challenge. With, like, an official Twitter hashtag. {#customerlove}

So there’s a bevy of us out here in the blogosphere trying for the next few weeks to be totally, ridiculously awesome to our right people to test out this theory of Naomi’s. Although from the #customerlove conversation on Twitter, I can assure you that most of us are doing this for reasons far beyond just making money. We’re doing, as LaVonne said, what we should be doing anyway, everyday, when it comes to being helpful and present and engaged and attentive, just being more intentional about it.

Here’s the official intro post for the Make Your Customers Love You Challenge, courtesy of LaVonne. Check in with The Complete Flake every day for the next few weeks for a new post filled with tips for making your customers love you. {And watch for my upcoming guest post!}

So here’s one way that I’m stepping up the awesome, in the hopes that you can feel more awesome about your niche-y entrepreneurial dreams.

From now until September 26th, I’m offering free, quickie, vision-fueled consulting sessions on the Abby Kerr Ink Facebook page. I’ll respond to the first three questions posed to me each day. A few guidelines:

1.} Questions must be clearly stated, and one question per asker per day.

2.} Questions must center on my areas of expertise: niche-y business, nichification, niche-y marketing, creative entrepreneurship, copywriting, or indie retail.

3.} My replies will be posted publicly on the Facebook page.

Looking forward to hearing your questions, and being wildly helpful.

If the Make Your Customers Love You Challenge intrigues you, why not join us? You can jump in at any time and count it as your Day 1.

In the comments, would love to hear how you try to be totally, ridiculously awesome for your customers.