Monthly Archives: February 2016

Attracting more customers vs extracting more money from the ones you already have

Posted on by

Value adders vs value extractorsDo you believe that this is true?

“No-one ever achieved significant growth in their business without attracting additional customers”

The need to attract new customers underpins everything I believe is important for businesses and organisations who want to grow. Attracting more customers is something that all business leaders should consider every day. Attractive Thinking is the key to unlock your maximum growth potential.

Attracting new customers matters

This is because you cannot get significant growth by just selling more of what you have to your existing customers.

Really? So how can we be sure it is true that you cannot get significant growth just from increased spending from existing customers? Well, there is a large body of evidence based scientific research that demonstrates this is true. This research was kicked off by Professor Andrew Ehrenberg in the 1960’s and has been continually updated and expanded by the Ehrenberg-Bass institute under the leadership of Professor Byron Sharp (@byronsharp). You can read a summary of the research, its implications and the resultant scientific “laws of marketing” in Byron Sharp’s book “How Brands Grow”. The work of Ehrenberg Bass is now sponsored by over 100 global brands who study their work to glean insights about how to grow their business.

My own Attractive Thinking article is about the five questions you need to answer if you want to attract more customers. Download here The article goes beyond the Byron Sharp insights and provides a practical framework on how you can attract more customers. This is a better way to get growth than extracting more money from them.

What if chief executives focused on helping their customers solve a problem? And then used their insight to create products and services that customers are attracted to and really help customers. This would make for a much better world than businesses who just focus on how much money they can extract from customers. When businesses do this

  • They get more growth
  • They are a happier more creative place to work
  • Have happy more loyal customers
  • They get more referrals

Simpler approach to tax and money benefits everyone

Posted on by

In the video below, Martin Wolf describes an alternative financial system that would work in the public interest and encourage the right kind of risk-taking. This kind of radical financial thinking is what we need. We certainly need to stop believing what the wealthy tell us who have a vested interest in the current system.

The focus on the simplicity and transparency of economic calendar is similar to some tax ideas I put on Twitter yesterday. In a nutshell, politicians should stop trying to incentivise our behaviour through complex tax reliefs and should run a much ‪#‎simpler‬ ‪#‎fairer‬ ‪#‎transparent‬ ‪#‎better‬ tax system.

As an example abolish all the current tax reliefs and abolish National Insurance switch to

  • £20K tax-free income threshold for people,
  • 40% flat rate income tax on people,
  • 5% income tax for local authorities
  • 5% revenue tax on businesses
  • a flat rate 15% VAT on consumer purchases.

This then stops all the tax avoiding behaviours because there is nothing to avoid. There is no pension tax relief, no mortgage interest relief, no eis. Then people will behave in their own best interests and not to avoid a tax. I am sure the economy would work better.

Martin Wolf understands the financial system better than me and explains it here