Creating Raving Fan Customers and Clients to Succeed in Small Business
Key Points:
- The core strategy behind any organization/business that surpasses its competition is to create massive customer loyalty.
- According to Bradley Twait from Motorcoach Store, the only way a company can create raving fans is to deliver non-compromising customer satisfaction.
- Bradley, whose business deals with pre-owned luxury vehicles, has set up criteria that identify the right customer and filter out the rest.
- The founder insists that there are two factors critical for the success they've realized: customer satisfaction and hiring the right people.
- The Florida-based company makes about $30 million yearly in sales.
Creating raving fans can make your small business stand out because you provide more value than anyone else. Raving fans aren't just clients but people obsessed with your business, talk about your services on social media, recommend you to other businesses, and stick with you when it's time for a replacement.
Bradley Twait from Motorcoach has created a client base that can't help but tell others about his products and services with genuine enthusiasm and excitement. His company sells about $30 million every year.
The Motorcoach Store founder shares how he created raving fans who have become brand evangelists for his business and converted others.
Motorcoach Background
Motorcoach was Bradley's passion project that went wild. The founder says that he started the company when he needed something to do after selling his businesses, which ended up exploding.
The company deals with pre-owned luxury vehicles. Bradley says he handpicks every coach, answers every call, and deals with every customer and sale in the small niche of the luxury dealership.
Bradley Twait's Criteria for Identifying the Best Customer
While quality customer service results in repeat businesses for Bradley, the secret behind its success hugely relies on its unique clientele.
The founder says he built the dealership to attract people like himself. He wanted to create a transparent business where people had access to everything.
When you visit the company's showroom, you can access everything — the business owner and actual prices, with complete transparency. Bradley insists that complete transparency attracts the right clientele to his business.
"Transparent operation filters out the people you don't want to deal with," said the Motorcoach founder.
Cutting Through the Noise to Attract the Right Clients
Motorcoach put enough information out there to appeal only to the right people. Bradley says the content they put out there lets people sift themselves instead of little tricks that dealers do, such as:
- Leaving out the price
- Lying about the mileage or leaving it out
"The company website puts everything out there for everyone to see. A little of it is fishing; you let them get on the bait and pull on the line," said Bradley.
Ultra-Specificity In Choosing The People You Want to Deal With
Motorcoach company deals with a specific class of motor coaches. Bradley says as far as choosing goes, anyone can sell any unit they want. However, he says that dealing with luxury units saves him time than dealing with people with less money.
He says, "My theory on dealing with high-level individuals is that I have as much as 24 hours a day. I don't have to deal with a customer on a smaller deal when I can spend the same amount of time on someone with a bigger deal and make 10X the profit."
Bradley says he immersed himself in the lifestyle of people from the high end. The CEO owned several businesses and used to travel across the country with his RV to visit those markets.
Once he got into the Motorcoach business, he marketed in the right places and put the right image out that he was a player. If customers look at Bradley's website, they see from the start that they're high-end players.
The Two Operational Secrets to Build High Success Levels
Getting great people and building the right culture is critical to building success. However, Bradley says the two factors separating your business from the competition are customer satisfaction and hiring the right people.
Prioritize Customer Satisfaction
Bradley says that businesses should be unrelenting on customer satisfaction. He reveals that customer satisfaction is a lost art, and companies should do everything possible to ensure customers are happy before, during and after the sale. You should empower the people you're working with to satisfy the customers, and as such, Bradley suggests having a guideline to ensure customers are satisfied.
Hire the Right People—Don't Be Afraid to Fire People
The Motorcoach founder says he had to go through several hundreds of employees to get the staff of 17. He insists that you have to be unrelenting in quality because you don't finish the race with the people you started with.
You have to be able to go through people to get the proper fit, which comes with time. Hiring the right people can be costly, but if you have a vision and you have to stick to that vision, you'll have to fire people.
The Role of Referral and Repeat Business
Bradley says that the majority of his sales are referral-based. From the beginning, the business was tracking business from referrals, and immediately, a third of Motorcoach's business was referrals and repeat businesses.
The company customizes the coaches to offer a one-off experience to customers — something that other businesses, small, mid-size and large can echo. You can deliver a one-off experience, and your customers won't go elsewhere to do business because they don't want to.
Instead, they'll tell others about you to get you more referrals.
The Success of Video Marketing
Bradley says that video is unquestionably the best dollar-for-dollar marketing approach they can use to acquire customers.
The company says it tracks every lead that it gets. For instance, Motorcoach receives 1500-3000 clicks a month on eBay. With YouTube videos, they can get 10,000 people in an hour.
The founder says that videos, without question, are the best lead generation strategy the company has.
Importance of Online Reviews
Motorcoach has multiple reviews online on Google and other platforms. Some business owners are cautious about having their clients leave reviews, do case studies or testimonials about their services, and name the clients.
Bradley says that the huge part of a review campaign is not different from someone giving a referral. Businesses shouldn't be afraid of reviews because that's the best compliment customers can give. In addition, most potential customers check online reviews to validate any company's legitimacy before contracting their services.
Out N' Aboot Marketing Can Help You Approach Small Business Marketing Correctly
Creating raving fans can propel your small business' success. At Out N' Aboot Marketing, we can help you with branding, online presence, and SEO services to give you more online visibility and drive more traction to your small business. Contact us today to discuss different marketing approaches to scale your small business.