Have you ever thought about the marketing value of knowing the mistakes you have made in the past? I am here to tell you that learning about your mistakes is a gold mine  of marketing wealth. Most of us would like to think that we are providing good services to everyone who takes a chance on using our businesses.  Unfortunately, this is rarely true for absolutely everyone who patronizes our businesses.

If you are competent and have a pleasant disposition, odds are that you are able to meet the needs of the vast majority of your clients. However, none of us are one hundred percent successful and the gold is found in understanding what caused us to lose clients. Somewhere, your marketing and customer service systems failed you and more than likely it will happen again unless you address it.

The real problem here is studies have shown that up to 96 percent of people who experience a bad interaction with your business will never spontaneously complain to you. Why is it a bad thing you don’t have to deal with their complaints?  Because they just leave and never come back!  Despite the fact that they don’t complain to you, they will be more than happy to tell everyone they know to stay away from your business.

Typically for every complaint you hear about, about 25 others are unhappy with you and don’t bother to tell you. Again, they just leave!  If that isn’t enough to motivate you, realize that up to 95  percent of them would have continued to patronize your business if you had resolved the problem quickly.

In today’s economy setting up a system to track client feedback about your business may be the most cost effective marketing task you will ever accomplish. It really isn’t that hard to do. First you need to have a system to track who patronizes your business and how often. Second you must have their contact information. Finally, you must develop a system to actively solicit their feedback about the experience with your business. Of course there are a lot more details to put all this together, but the  overall system is that easy. The vast majority of business never bother to set it up!

As a small business owner, there are some things you can do to weather this storm – and some things you can’t do. The main thing you can’t do is change the course of whatever is going to happen in our economy. No matter how much we worry and obsess about the economy falling apart around us, there is nothing that we as small business owners can do to change what is going to happen. The only thing we can do is plan for and  adapt to whatever impact it will have on our particular business. I am sure you have seen many businesses in your local community go under in the last year. It is a dangerous time for a small business owner.

It is a time to recommit yourself to your main job as business owner- the marketing of your business! No matter how good the thing is that you sell, your ability to survive, and even thrive, during this time is by far most dependent upon your ability to market your business. As I have said many times before, marketing is not just a piece of your business -it is the life blood that should permeate your entire business in everything you do. There has never been a time when this is more important than now. In plentiful times a business owner with poor marketing can  sometimes do pretty well, but in times of uncertainty and danger your marketing skill is the most important weapon you have.

A bit of background. The evening before last when I returned home my vehicle started making some strange noises that sounded like a fan or a pump of some sort. It did not stop when I turned off the ignition and I had to disconnect the battery in order to stop it. I knew that yesterday I had a very full work schedule, but somehow I needed to see if there was something that could be done besides cancelling numerous appointments or trying to work out some way I could go into town with my wife and use her car. I decided that I would look for a shop that could take a quick look and tell me what was causing the problem, and if there was some way I could put off leaving the car until I had time to rearrange my schedule to make time for a proper repair.

The first shop I went to visit had no intention of having anyone look at my car unless I left it there for the day. My pleas of needing some brief feedback so I could decide what to do were met with “Well all you can do is leave it and we will call you later.” Needless to say I left there and went on my way. I remembered seeing the Amigos shop before but had never been there.

I pulled in the driveway and was immediately greeted by a mechanic who had been working on a car when I drove up. I described the problem and showed him my vehicle. He immediately knew what was wrong and told me how to bypass it and the consequences of doing so. He then took time out to do the bypass right away and asked for nothing in return! He just asked me to drive up and down the road before I left to make sure there was no problem and told me to have a great day! Wow!

By taking the time to respond to my difficult situation in such a helpful manner he has made certain that I will partronize his business with all my auto repair needs in the future. While there are no guarantees that I will be as satisified in the future with any repairs I purchase from him, I certainly will patronize his business unless there were some reason I was very disappointed in the future.

What is to be learned here? By taking a few minutes of his time to help me in a difficult situation he has obtained a customer and a referral source that no amount of typical advertising could buy. He has established himself with me as someone who cares about my needs and is someone that I would gladly pay for my future automotive service needs. Not a bad return on 5 minutes of work for him!