Any Customer is a Good Customer -but at what cost?

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Notes from a business coaching session… in a bar… somewhere in Sydney…

I saw my business coach last night. We went to the local pub for our meeting this time and you should have seen this place. The establishment looked for all intents and purposes like it had not been updated or maintained since 1983, and this theme continued as you entered the main bar area but changed dramatically the deeper into the pub we went.    So as we started our session surrounded by ferns, rich veins of wood panelling and an airy albeit enclosed outdoor area, I could not help but wonder if I could learn a thing or two from this metaphoric scenario.

I quickly learned that I could not. The expression ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ had already been rehashed enough times without me jumping into the fray, so I dismissed this entirely and went about the task of listening to what my coach had to say, figuring (correctly) there was a much greater chance of gaining some business insight there.

Tracking, documenting, and understanding your traffic sources.

I was talking to Chris (the afore mentioned business coach) about the importance I placed on tracking and documenting my marketing techniques and understanding where my traffic was coming from. I was concerned as to whether there should be a balance at this early stage of my online business venture between just ‘taking action’ and understanding the processes. Chris had this huge smile on his face at this point and as he leaned back in his chair he told me that this is one of the main hurdles/issues/concerns facing new business ventures, on or offline. To paraphrase Chris, he said:

“The big question new business face is the finite line between understanding where your customer comes from and the ‘any customer is a good customer’ viewpoint, because at this early stage of business- any customer IS a good customer.”

He made a really insightful point in relation to this about the learning curve faced by any new venture, business or otherwise, online or off and it basically translates to one question.

Are you a doer or a gonnah?

It’s easier to use the graph I so awesomely made but basically it goes like this. When you start any new learning you are at point A. You could spend a lot of time studying and learning and understanding (following the pink line) – which invariably leads to information overload, the infamous ‘paralysis of analysis’ or you could gain a basic understanding of what you need to do and then just start taking action(follow the blue line).  As you start to implement the steps associated with taking action you learn what is working and what is not, what to do and what not to do. With this comes a massive, albeit involuntary learning curve and before you know it (you are at point B)not only have you started to grow your business but your level of knowledge and the scope of your understanding will have exceeded any levels you could have reached by simply remaining at point A and bombarding yourself with information.

The image (read: dodgy graph) works really well (in my opinion)

-If you spend your time learning and analysing you are following the pink line.

-If you choose to take action you are following the blue one.

-You can see exactly who gets to point B first.

In fact I would even argue that I have drawn the pink line too optimistically because in most cases, without the actual experience of the ‘doing’- the Targeted (goal) level of understanding (the redline) would never be reached!

So what can we learn from this?

Stop studying and start taking action.

Quite beautiful in its simplicity really.

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Tagged as: information overload, learning curve, tracking traffic sources