Here we go! It’s time to roll up our sleeves and dig into ‘Start With Why‘ by Simon Sinek.
This is the new book we will be reading over the next 2 weeks for the Book Club and we’re looking at Part 1 of Start With Why.
These were the first 2 chapters and it gave us a good frame and idea on where we are headed with this best seller.
The big take away from me is that Simon Sinek states businesses in 2017 are actually going after ‘transactions’ rather than trying to build loyalty.
He claimed we use ‘manipulation techniques’ to make the sale which he states, isn’t a bad thing per se, because it does work. But if we are to truly build lifetime customer loyalty we need to focus on something MORE.
Techniques like price, promotions, fear (scarcity), aspirations and novelty are what drives ‘transactions’ in this day and age and Simon made cases for each example.
I ‘THINK’ I know where this is going, which may bite me in the butt because the first chapter was titled….”Assume You Know“.
However the frame is there. Simon is setting us up for a big ah-ha moment which I can’t wait to read in the next few chapters…And yes, I snuck a look 😉
What are your main take aways from these first 2 chapters?
The big one for me, like I mentioned, is that we need to stop going after ‘transactions or sales’ only. We need to set up our businesses to develop life long loyalty with our customers and clients.
And the next few chapters, I’m sure we will find out exactly how to do that…
Let’s hear your thoughts, get the discussion fired up by asking yourself…How else are transactions driving business in this day and age rather than companies focused on building loyalty?
I look forward to reading your answers and thoughts…
Lots of talk about how companies Big and Small use manipulation and fear to make a sale. A tatic also used by politicians to win elections. Peer pressure being used to make sales. He gives great samples of that. Like 4 out of 5 dentistist use trident. Well hell if that’s true. Shouldn’t we all be using it. He talked about celebrity endorsements, Like Gatorade’s slogan be like Mike (Michael Jordon). How among his many endorsements Tiger Woods deal with Nike put that company on the map in the golf world. He also said the one thing missing in all of this was customer loyalty
Yeah so you saw it too. That’s where I’m sure he’s going and I couldn’t be happier. I love ‘loyalty’ and it’s something we all work so hard for to try to earn. It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds in the next few chapters.
I think we need to support more people after the sale. There’s too marketers thinking of just make the sale and it ends after the sale.
Amen to that.
The real ‘fortune’ is in the follow up. Not the original sale. So it’s a win-win for business and customer when we take care of our customers after the original sale. Great point.
It is obvious that things are changing. The way of doing business on the Internet are not what they used to be 10 years ago. But if you read some of the books written 75 to 100 years ago about advertising you would find that the same subjects were being talked about.
I know we are moving away from that and moving to the money being made from repeat customers and taking care of your customers. But that is also moving back to what it used to be with the Small Retail Stores that customers were loyal to. Even though someone else might sell it for less they would still go to that same store because of the way they were treated.
It is a return to taking care of a customer so they they buy repeatedly instead of find as many as customers you can and get them to buy once then move on.
Completely agree.
One of the books that helped me understand that was Jeffry Gitomer’s Patterson Principles of Selling. Where he talked about the creator of the modern cash register. This was 100 year old lessons, brought into focus for today’s day and age. Getting back to REAL relationships will always be a great business model 🙂