Angle: Are you turning customers into your salesforce?
Mistake #30. The Patient Zero Principle. This is why buzz about your start-up isn’t spreading like the zombie apocalypse. People buy from people they know, like and trust. And they also listen to recommendations from people they know, like and trust. Hell, they even buy from recommendations from people they don’t know, like and trust. In fact they will listen and trust the opinion of just about anyone but you in the beginning. That principle is so powerful, but also commonly ignored by start-ups.
In the tech world it’s more common to build product with a viral nature baked right in. Products designed to be shared. Products that work better when we’re all onboard. Because of the speed and ability for us to connect with lots of people quickly, it’s easy to rapidly reach a lot of people, if we have an idea worth spreading. An idea that makes other people look and feel good by doing the spreading for us!
So, this isn’t about making funny videos that go viral, that’s a deep dark art in itself, and without years of experience and huge budgets, a waste of time. It’s as difficult as making a hit movie. But what everyone can do, is create incentives for their happy customers to a) say good things about the company, for the record. b) do things on social media that advertise the company c) pass on invitations to test relevant products to their friends or co-workers.
The point is, to always be actively finding ways to reward your customers for being visible about telling their friends how great you are. First of all your product itself should have aweseomeness baked in. But never just leave things for people to do on their own. They mostly won’t. Give them an incentive to spread the love to their friends. Make it worth their while, because their friends will be highly influenced by them.
Facebook advertising makes great use of this principle. If you check your Facebook stream, you will see that many advertisers, in collaboration with Facebook use the fact that your friends have liked a page, as social proof that you too should like that person or brand. So ask yourself the question, how many ways can we turn our delighted customers into our trusted salesforce out there in the world?