Are You Building a Company You’re Secretly Ashamed Of?
A subtle warning that entrepreneurs aren’t proud of what they’re building.
One of the entrepreneurs I work with was discovering the challenge of convincing people to buy her product again. She sells a custom soap for people with a certain type of skin sensitivity, it’s effective, and she has happy customers. Despite all of that, she was struggling to get repeat buyers.
Why? After all, as anyone in the business world knows, “your best customer is the customer you already have.” In other words, a person who already bought a product once is someone who clearly knows about the product, has a need for it, and is willing to spend money on it. Those are the three most important qualifiers for a potential sales lead in a customer acquisition process. Shouldn’t that make re-selling something relatively easy?
“I don’t understand,” the entrepreneur said as we met for coffee to discuss the problem. “Our customers like the product. They’re obviously using it all up. But they’re not buying again. How do we get them re-buy?”
“And you’re sure they like the product?” I asked.
“As sure as we can be,” she said. “We’ve surveyed past customers, and they’ve been positive. We’ve got great reviews online. There’s nothing that suggests people don’t like it.”
“And what does your follow-up process with them look like?” I asked. “How often are you emailing them product updates, new items, special sales, and things like that?”
“We’re very careful not to SPAM our customers,” the entrepreneur assured me. “We never send extra emails. I’d be shocked if people weren’t buying because we’re bothering them too much.”
“Bothering them?” I asked. “You mean you’re not emailing previous customers at least every week? What’s wrong? Are you ashamed of your product?”
“No,” she assured me. “Of course not.”
“Then that’s the problem,” I told her. “When a company is worried about emailing its previous customers, that’s a red flag. It means they’re ashamed about what they’re selling. If you’re proud of what you’re selling, you should want to communicate with customers as often as possible.”
Within seconds of explaining the problem, my phone buzzed to tell me about a new email. I glanced at the screen, saw the sender, and said, “You need to learn to be more like my daughter’s daycare.”
The “best” daycare in the city
My 4-year-old has been enrolled in her daycare since before she was born. Literally. The waitlist for this particular daycare gets so long that, when a spot opened three weeks before my youngest daughter was born, I had to start paying because my oldest daughter was already in the same center, and there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to get my youngest enrolled if I didn’t take the spot when it became available.
Why would I pay thousands of dollars for a product I wasn’t even able to use yet?
Because my wife and I are convinced our children attend the best daycare in the area.
Is it really the best? Honestly, probably not. Heck, at least twice a week my 4-year-old comes home telling me she never wants to go back. But my wife and I love our daughter’s daycare because we feel closely connected with it, and the main reason is their communication. Simply put, my phone buzzes at least a half-dozen times per day with a notification about something happening at my daughter’s daycare.
To be clear, I rarely read any of the messages. I delete most of them almost instantly. However, despite not looking at their emails, I still love getting messages from my daughter’s daycare because getting messages makes me feel connected to the thing I’m paying money for. That’s a huge part of why I keep paying!
Communicating with customers creates value
I explained this concept to the entrepreneur sitting across from me, then I showed her my phone. “Do you see this message that just came from my daughter’s daycare?” I asked her. “It’s about a change to the school menu. Any guess what that’s about?”
“Did the daycare change the food your daughter was being served today?” the entrepreneur asked with an indifferent shrug.
“Probably!” I agreed. “To be honest, I’ve never read any of these types of menu update emails because I have no clue what she’s supposed to be eating at daycare in the first place. Plus, I couldn’t care less if, instead of eating spaghetti and meatballs for lunch she got hummus and pita. What I care about is the fact that the center is still emailing me about it.”
“Doesn’t that annoy you?” the entrepreneur asked. “They’re just crowding your inbox with a bunch of junk you don’t read.”
“It’s the opposite,” I assured her. “I don’t read the emails, but seeing the messages come through on my phone all day makes me feel good about my purchase decision. It makes me feel like I’m leaving my precious child somewhere she’s being well taken care of and I’m getting my money’s worth. You need to be doing the same thing with your product, or people won’t keep buying.”
“Am I really supposed to email customers every day about soap?” the entrepreneur asked, skeptically.
“Probably not every day,” I agreed. “Different products should have different email frequencies. You probably don’t need to be emailing daily. But once per week? Absolutely!”
“Wouldn’t that feel like SPAM?” she wondered.
“No,” I assured her. “Not if your customers are genuinely happy with your product. If they like what they’ve bought, your emails will help them feel better about their purchase decision. Every time you send an email, even if customers don’t read your messages — even if they immediately delete them — they see your brand name, they’re reminded of your products, and they have a moment to remember how pleased they are to have used it. That’s what gets them buying more, especially for a product like yours.”
It’s not SPAM. It’s customer support.
“Oh my gosh,” the entrepreneur said as a realization seemed to sink in. “I’m such an idiot.”
“And why is that?” I asked, hoping she’d finally understood the point I was making.
“Because people can’t buy more of my product while they’re using it!” she sighed. “How did I not see that? Sure, they might like my soap, but, if they run out while they’re in the shower, they can’t immediately buy more because they’re not shopping while showering. They need to be reminded to buy more when they’re at a place where they can actually buy.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And that’s true for most products… not just the ones we shower with. The marketing emails a company sends its existing customers are a form of customer support, and that’s because, no matter how much we love certain products, we’re rarely in a position to buy more while we’re using them. An email update from the company is a gentle nudge, when customers are clearly at their devices, to help them buy more.”
“So it’s not SPAM,” she said, finally confident she wasn’t bugging people. “Regularly emailing our old customers isn’t a bad thing to do?”
“No,” I assured her. “Reminding your customers about your company and its products isn’t bad. Your customers should love your products so much that they’re happy to hear from you. It’s only a bad thing if you’re genuinely worried people who’ve bought your product in the past won’t be happy to hear from you again. And, by the way, if that’s the case, the problem isn’t the emails you’re sending. The problem is that you’re building a company you’re ashamed of.”