05/21/2022
Fans, not Customers
What is the difference between excellent brands and mediocre brands? The answer is in a 4-letter word: Fans.
The reason why you struggle to get customers is because you try to get customers. If you want to build an exceptional business where sales happen almost effortlessly, stop trying to get customers. I'll show you why.
A few days ago, a lady I know posted a picture of a brand new Samsung phone she had just gotten. It's one of the latest "luxurious" Samsung phones. When she made the post on WhatsApp, she added that she had been on queue, waiting for when she'd finally get the phone. Keyword here is "queue".
A couple of years ago when the Apple iPhone X was announced, several people queued up for days in front of Apple stores in the US, waiting restlessly to spend what seemed like an insane amount of money just to be the first to get the iPhone X.
People literally wait for top celebrities such as Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Christiano Ronaldo to make a post so that they will be first to comment.
Whenever Kylie Jenner announces a new product, people order it before they know what it does.🤣🤣
Please understand that customers don't act like the people in the examples above. Customers don't stay up all night waiting for sales of a new product to begin. Customers don't travel thousands of kilometers just to be at the launch of a new branch of business. Customers don't do these things. So, who does? Who are the people who spend 3 days in queue waiting for Apple to begin selling a new phone? Well, they are called FANS.
Fans are people to whom your brand means a lot. Fans don't buy from you because they like or need what you sell. They buy from you because they love you. Fans are people who are so connected to your brand that they defend the brand whenever its reputation is at stake. Have you heard an argument between a Samsung user and an iPhone user before? Each tries beyond justifiable reasons to prove that his brand is better, even if that isn't true. Only Fans do that. Customers don't.
And so, whenever you are building a brand or starting a business, aim to build fans, not customers. Fans feel guilty for not buying from you. Fans share your business and give it great reviews even when you don't know them personally. They have enormous lifetime value. In follow-up posts, I'll show you how to begin building fans and not customers.