Sales is a Good Measure of Business Success, But There is a Better Metric
If you’re focusing only on increasing the sale of your business, you’re walking into a really bad blind spot.
Sales is the bloodline of any business.
You want to create a business that will last for decades and maybe even centuries, look at revenue growth year on year and you will know if this horse is worth betting your money on.
However, this is just one half of the story.
This post focuses on the other (read: the more important) half of the business.
Do you like being sold to?
Imagine entering a departmental store and within seconds you observe a salesperson is literally following you.
They tell you the outfit that you are checking is from the latest collection; they tell you to check the collection from the brand on the other side of the floor because the store is running some really good offers on that brand.
Unless you’re an exception or are entering the departmental store for the first/ second time, I doubt anybody likes being followed (read: harassed) by a salesperson.
A simple fact about humans: We love buying new things, but we hate getting “sold to”.
So, as a business, the best way for you to deal with this situation is to find the right balance for your brand.
Are you loyal as a customer?
Reflect on your own buying/ shopping behaviour.
Are you absolutely brand loyal as a customer?
Do you always buy your bags/ shoes/ apparels/ electronics/ groceries from the exact same store/ brand “all the time”?
All the time being the operative word.
No, right?
So, expecting the customer to be loyal to your brand all the time is a stretch, to say the least.
Instead, it’s your responsibility to ensure that you earn the loyalty of your customers every time they’re out in the market to make a purchase of a product/ service that your brand offers.
How do brands earn/ win loyalty in the market?
This may sound like an impossible task, but hey, who said business was going to be easy?
Look at how the best brands in the world are getting money out of your wallet into their balance sheets.
Doesn’t the brand you prefer to buy your cell phone from come up with a new version of an already matured product every year?
Doesn’t the largest coffee shop brand in the world keep running new offers, announce new products/ flavours/ coffees/ desserts every couple of weeks?
3 major advantages of marketing
1. Marketing gets the target customers in the know about what’s new on the offer (and hopefully creates demand.
2. Once the demand is created, and your brand is on the top of the mind of the customer, chances of them going to a competitive brand to satiate that demand are reduced tremendously, and most importantly
3. Marketing consistently adds up and gets a steady flow of customers walking through the door, and higher the number of walk-ins, higher would be the sales of the brand.
The metric that matters
However, for every brand worth their salt, it’s not the sale that gets celebrated.
Brands tend to celebrate high sales for the world of investors, media and the public at large.
But the real metric they’re tracking like hounds is not just the sales numbers.
It’s not even net profit.
It’s the overall customer satisfaction score.
Observe this carefully.
You don’t just enter the coffee shop because the brand managed to connect with you through their marketing.
You don’t just feel the need to have one more coffee because the brand has come up with an offer and reached out to you via social media/ email/ app notification.
There’s a far more important underlying factor.
You choose to go back to the brand, because your last experience (and the one before that, and the one before that) was a really pleasant experience.
That’s the secret sauce.
Good brands focus on increasing sales and profits.
Great businesses focus on giving the best experience to the customer before focusing on increasing sales and profits.
What do you need to do?
Think. Contemplate. Introspect.
Has customer satisfaction been a top priority for you/ your business?
Has thus priority been imbibed in your company’s culture?
Does every person strive hard to ensure that every transaction gets a smile on the customer’s face before (and after) the customer swipes their card?
Does your business have a well-structured feedback mechanism in place that gives you data/ information/ analysis of how happy your customers truly are with your business?
Your Thoughts!
Did this note act as a note of education or a reminder?
Has your business always been focusing on optimising for customer satisfaction?
Do you disagree with customer satisfaction being a far more important metric than sales/ profit growth?
Let’s continue this conversation (or ask your questions about the post) in the comments below.
Keep Going Keep Growing 🚀
Have I earned your share?
Thank you for reading the full post. Since you read this till the end, it’s safe to assume you found value in the content.
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Share this with them, help them and earn your blessings.
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Prompt used to create the image for the note
P.S.: Image made on Meta AI using the prompt, “Imagine a business owner who is shocked to realise that sales is not the most important metric of a business”