Stefson*dot*com

I’m on a roll today.
To get some things out of the way, no I’m not self-employed and no, I do not (currently) market or sell my own product/service. It is however, my life-long dream to become my own boss (which, I’m happy to say, is in the works at the moment).

I’m talking about Creating customer evangelists from Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba.
To get off to a flying start, this book is a definite must read.
It’s an excellent guide for those that want to get away from traditional marketing concepts. The authors use real life examples of several businesses that focus on creating customer evangelists. My feeling after reading this books says ‘Wow, they totally get it. They know about business.’
If you’re selling a product or service, then this is how you should market it, or at least pay attention to what they are saying.

And it all makes so much sense.
Listen to this:

“Evidence shows that acquiring new customers is five times more expensive that keeping a current customer happy. Moreover, customer profitability tends to grow the longer a customer stays with you. It costs less to keep them coming back for more. Yet in current marketing, millions are being spend on advertising, branding… all in the name of acquiring.”

“Customer evangelists are the ideal salespeople because they know a target audience. They ARE the target audience.”

If the above two paragraphs won’t convince you to go and read this book, then I don’t know what will.
Go buy the book!

We all are evangelists in a way. Some more than others, but still. Why then is so little spent on this marketing concept? Easy, marketeers want instant results. It’s our nature. Creating evangelists takes time, is hard to measure, takes belief and is tricky to depend upon. Damn good book.