If your product or service has repeat business potential, there are some numbers and facts that you should be aware of that can affect your level of prosperity. The Numbers: I was testing a telemarketing script that I had created for a service business that depends on regular repeat business. They gave me a customer list that was about 5 years old, and I started by calling number 0001. What I found was that over 45% of their "customers" weren't! The phone numbers were no longer any good. It wasn't poor record-keeping - the numbers had changed. 45% in five years means that 9% per year were no longer part of the customer base. The Facts: The reason for this is that they either move or pass away!

This percentage is probably 2% to 3% above average, but the point is, if you're standing still, you're sinking! In addition to losses from moves and deaths, another variable is losses to the competition. This is why game one in the "Marketing Battle Plan" is to stop the losses to the competition by doing market research to determine how you are doing with your "customer base." It's easy; the percentage of "pirated" losses can be anywhere from 2% to 20%, depending on the quality of your services versus the quality and aggressiveness of Brand X.

There are contractors who subcontract for national chain stores who relate that ads run with a major store's name pull twice as much as the same ad with their unfamiliar company name. Customer base telemarketing is also about twice as effective, at least, as calls to strangers. Especially now that your competitors are not allowed to legally call consumers.

What this means is, your customers are valuable to you. First, because they will hopefully call or visit you; second, because you can proactively advertise what you want to them with more predictable and profitable results. Game one is still to keep them loyal and happy, but game two is to at least replace the losses as well as grow your business. There are many ways described in this book to grow in a predictable, controlled, manageable manner. Keep on top of your precious, well serviced customer list - keep it accountable to you.