Day 7: Love Really Isn’t All You Need

I’m a big fan of love. I’d like to believe the Beatles when they say “Love is all you need.”

It sounds beautiful, spiritual, and enlightened.

Unfortunately…

Love doesn’t pay the rent. Or the mortgage.

Love doesn’t help when your dog is looking at you mournfully, expecting some more of that expensive prescription dog food. (The unconditional love of a canine has limits.)

Love doesn’t pay the veterinarian either.

Love doesn’t pay the company hosting that blog you have that isn’t you making any money.

Love doesn’t get your car fixed when it falls apart.

Loving your customers doesn’t mean giving away the store.

If you’re focused on loving your customers to the point that you forget they are customers, you have a problem. Love isn’t all you need. You need money too.

Let’s step back for a minute and look at the definition of the word “customer.” The Princeton WordNet site defines a customer as “someone who pays for goods or services.”

The key word there is pays.

No matter how much love you bestow, if no one pays you, you have no customers. And if you aren’t making money, you don’t have a business, you have a (possibly expensive) hobby.

I’ve written before about how I managed to create a large list of people that were happy to take free stuff as long as I was willing to give it to them. When I wised up and realized that these people were never going to become customers (i.e., PAY me), I killed the list.

Although many people thought I was nuts, it turned out to be a change for the better. Since I killed the list, oddly enough, I’m writing more and my online sales, inquiries, and Web site traffic have increased.

What? “How can that be?” you may ask.

My theory is that freebie seekers are not buyers. When someone signs up to get free stuff like a newsletter or special report, they want the free stuff.

They don’t want to be pitched on other stuff because they aren’t in a buying mindset.

In contrast, when someone does a search online, they are looking to solve a problem. At that point, they are willing to spend money to solve that problem. When they find you, they are more likely to say “yes” to spending money.

Case in point, a person who was a subscriber to my newsletter for years, and by his own admission “knew, liked, and trusted” me, did an online search to find someone else to lay out his book.

Now I’m focusing my efforts on getting more traffic to my sites. I’m writing more content that solves problems and answers questions. We even added a blog to our online
conference site, and by the time the conference starts it will be jam packed with new content. (I wrote an article on my new marketing approaches on The Book Consultant, if you want more details.)

As I said in that article: “In business, you need to deliver exceptional value to your customers. Your customers are not people who have opted in to get a freebie. They are
people who have purchased. It’s important to understand the difference.”

Love is great. But it’s not all you need.