A Simple, Powerful Formula to Attract Business

If I had to choose only one chapter of this book for you to read, this would be it. This is the core idea, the heartbeat, the absolute foundation of how to become magnetic. I'm going to give you a simple, powerful formula to attract business. It's been proven effective time and time again by every size and kind of business you can imagine. Part of the reason for its effectiveness is its simplicity. You can put this strategy to work for you immediately.

In the previous chapter, The Three Things We Want Them to Say, you began to think through and identify the three things that you want your customers to say about you. They are the “what we want them to say” statements. These are, in effect, the stories they will tell about their experiences with you. This is what reinforces their loyalty and attracts new customers to you. This is the power of positive word of mouth.

Now you'll identify the three things you must get right every time in order to drive those “what we want them to say” statements.

You may have a business with a thousand moving parts. You may feel, justifiably, that it's very complicated. But I assure you that if you simplify your thinking to get clarity on and focus on the three things you must get right every single day, it will be the guiding force that drives success.

This is where you put words into their mouths.

Wouldn't it be great if you could just put words into your customers' mouths? If you could create the content of the stories that they tell to others? The reality is that, in fact, you do create the stories your customers tell. You do it with every contact, at any point, between any customer or prospect and anyone on your team or anything about your company, from your advertising to your website.

The experiences you create, good, bad, or anywhere in between, are the stories that get told at all of those places where customers go to decide who to do business with. They go to friends, family, and coworkers. Believe me, and believe the research, when I tell you that they are going to the Internet in droves.

Here's the key idea, and it's what should be behind your strategy, your tactics, and every business decision you make:

Your existing customers should be driving a never-ending stream of new customers and new revenue to your business.

If they're not, then you're missing the point, you're missing the boat, and you're missing the greatest opportunity to grow your business. So how do you make it happen? You do it by getting three things right every time.

That's what you have to find out.

In a movie that a few of you may be old enough to remember, City Slickers, the character Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, learns the secret of life from Curly, played by Jack Palance. Curly tells Mitch that it's all about one thing. When Mitch asks what that one thing is, Curly simply tells him that that's what he's got to find out.

The secret to creating and sustaining a magnetic business that attracts a steady stream of customers is much the same. The difference is that the “magic” number for business is three. In business after business, I've seen that having three things to focus on and get right every time works so well for every kind of business.

I can't tell you what your three things are. Like Curly said, “That's what you have to find out.” What I can do is give you a variety of examples of businesses that use the “three things” approach in different ways to drive their success. Your three will be determined by the “what we want them to say” statements and your own strengths and differentiators.

Solid Gold Strategy

I've got about as simple a business as anyone can have. My job is to help clients improve performance and grow their businesses. I do that through ideas presented in books and articles, advisory services to business leaders, and presentations and workshops at corporate meetings and events. I have no retail business except for the individuals who buy my books. I am squarely in the B2B marketplace.

It is with a great sense of gratitude that I can say that my business has been very successful. The reason for that success is that I've stayed focused on my own three things that I must get right. For over 30 years, this strategy has been solid gold for me.

Here are the three things I must get right every time:

1. Do great quality work for each client, and always be improving the quality of that work.
2. Be incredibly easy to work with.
3. Have an immediate response to customers, potential customers, and business partners.

That's it. These three things that I must get right have been the guiding elements of my business and how I spend every working day of my life for over 30 years. I have always been open to changing any or all of these three things, but so far there's never been the need to do so. I owe my success and, more important, my ability to sustain that success to these three things.

The first, doing great quality work for each client and always improving the quality of my work is, without question, my great overriding priority. Many people in my line of work spend most of their time in sales and marketing activities. My approach is that the work I do for clients is my most powerful sales and marketing activity, so that's where I put my effort.

Great work is magnetic. Nothing creates positive word of mouth better than doing a great job for your customers. That's where I place my bet. That's where I'm all in. Do great work and customers will come to me like steel balls to a magnet.

The second, be incredibly easy to work with, has been the ultimate tiebreaker for me. Lots of people tell me that their competition isn't very good. Wow. What's it like to live in that world? My competition is extremely good at what they do. I need tiebreakers, and being incredibly easy to work with is the one that fits me, my personality, and my strengths. I try to adhere to the philosophy espoused by my friend John DiJulius, who says, “The answer is yes. Now, what's your question?”

Finally, having an immediate response to customers, potential customers, and business partners is my personal “silver bullet” in business. Read more about this great business practice in the chapter “The Amazing, Simple, Overlooked Advantage.”

The Grand Guarantee

In the book Never By Chance—Aligning People and Strategy through Intentional Leadership, which I cowrote with Chuck Feltz and Kris Young, we featured Western Water Works Supply Company, Inc. (WWWSC), a remarkable business located in central California. WWWSC is a distributor of materials and products that build and sustain America's waterworks infrastructure.

The company's vision and mission statement is: “We provide Smooth-Running Jobs from Start to Finish through our People, Products, and Systems to the premier underground contractors and water utilities.” At the heart of that statement is their dedication to the idea of “smooth-running jobs.”

The WWWSC website makes great use of testimonials from their customers, both written and on video. They are a prime example of a magnetic business powered by what their customers say about them. Here are a few examples of customer statements about WWWSC:

1. “WWWSC is very detail oriented in their quotes—and that's huge.”
2. “They guarantee on time delivery, that the parts will meet spec, and that they will match the quote. What that means to me is that Western's committed to raising the bar on customer service.”
3. “They believe in providing proper materials on time and I can vouch for that.”
4. “They understand our business and that transcends to smooth running jobs.”
5. “That orders going to be there when they say it's going to be there.”
6. “We get a competitive product that's delivered on time.”

You can see a pattern of three basic ideas coming through in these and many other testimonials:

• Their orders meet the specs of the job.
• They are very accurate in in matching the quote.
• They deliver on time.

The Grand Guarantee is where the three things that WWWSC must get right drive these very powerful testimonials, which, in turn, drive new business to WWWSC.

1. Accurate Orders: You get what you ordered, and it meets the specifications for the job.
2. Accurate Billings: Your invoice will match your quote.
3. Accurate Delivery Times: Your order will be delivered when we've agreed it will arrive.

WWWSC promises that if they make a mistake in any one of these areas, they will pay members of their Grand Guarantee Club $1,000.

They also measure their results in all three areas, track them internally and report them to the members of the Grand Guarantee Club every month. They also report the results on their website.

Bruce Himes, president of WWWSC, says, “When we deliver on those three things, our customers have a better chance of having a smooth-running job.”

Do you see the alignment through all of this?

The core of their vision and mission is to make sure that their customers have a smooth-running job.

For their customers the three things that make up a smooth-running job are orders that meet the specs, accurate invoices, and on-time delivery.

The three things they must always get right, which they guarantee with $1,000 when they miss the mark, are accurate orders, accurate billings, and accurate delivery times.

Do it Your Way

Again, the key is having clarity on your three things and living by them.

In terms of having an effective “three things you must get right” strategy, I would suggest that Nikki Finke isn't that much different from the successful trucking freight line that lives by:

1. Pick it up when you said you would.
2. Deliver it when you said you would.
3. Deliver it intact and all there.

Or the restaurant franchise that has the entire team focused on:

1. Serve the food fast and hot.
2. Deliver exceptional value.
3. Be the friendliest place our customers go.

You might have a different set of three things you must get right for your restaurant. They could be:

1. Use only the freshest, highest-quality ingredients.
2. Make each order one at a time with care and love.
3. Find out each customer's name and use it when you say thank you.

This is the best part, that you do this in the way that works for you, your business, and your business model. But it's also the part that trips some people up. They want someone to tell them what to do. They want a formula or template or the three easy-to-follow steps.

The templates and formulas don't exist! There simply is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the exciting business reality is that you have to figure it out for yourself. What works for Walmart won't work for Target. In-N-Out Burger has different strengths, values, and strategies than Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

I am often asked to speak to association meetings of professional speakers. I also do coaching and advisory work with speakers. One thing I always make very clear is that the way I do it isn't the way they should do it. They can get ideas from me and even take and adapt what I do to their own business. But trying to simply lay someone else's formula for success over your unique business is usually a recipe for failure. I tell them that if anyone ever says “I've got a guaranteed system that will work for you” to keep their money in their pockets, turn, and run. There's no such thing.

Success in business requires research, discovery, and a degree of creativity in finding out everything from your purpose and values to what kind of people you want to hire to what you want your customers to say about you to the three things you must get right. It's your business. You have to make it work.

If you read what seems to be the current line of thinking among business gurus, you will often see them decry the fallacy of “best practices.” I get that and agree with it in terms of tactics. But the cliché “success leaves clues” is a cliché for a reason—there's great truth in it. When you look at successful, magnetic companies, there are qualities and similarities of a “best practices” mind-set that come into play.