10 commandments for self audit to be used by businessmen

1. Is the sea of customers big and attractive for you ? Rising or dying ?
2. Can you connect with these customers attractively ?
3. How severe is the competition for the customers? Rising or dying ?
4. What resources / assets enable you to compete / profit ?
5. What processes / experience enable you to compete / profit ?
6. What focus enables you to compete well ?
7. Will your value network be an advantage in your journey ?
8. Will your staff  and their skills be an advantage in your journey ?
9. Will your structure and systems be an advantage in your journey ?
10. Will your culture be an advantage in your journey ?

Profound Definitions

BUSINESS MODEL is "The predominant way a business creates value for its customers and captures some of it for itself". 

5 things to improve revenue quality through customer retention

You can fail - In spite of best segmentation, targeting, positioning, creative messaging, promotions and flawless execution - if there is no value proposition to the customer.  

Being truly committed to the customer retention is hard work Truly committing to customer retention is hard work. It affects every aspect of your organization and must be top-down, company wide initiative. But it is worth the effort - the payback in sustainable growth and profitability. The path to customer retention involves six key steps.

1. Ask the customers what they want / like / dislike - on website, at point of sale, and in the package inserts. You may not get statistically valid feedback because majority customers are mildly satisfied and they do not speak up. Hence realize that the feedback is likely to be "extreme" : love or hate. So ask only if you can deal with the answers. Use the feedback as OFI and not as measurement.
2. Do the detail and discover who are your "best customers" - seems obvious but is not done. Likely (1) You never did this before and hence do not know how to define who is your Best Customer (2) You do not know who your best customers are (3) You do not know the trends in the cohort of best customers. Dont focus only on transactions : high-spenders on credit cards may be less attractive customers than moderate spenders who avail of credit. Just see who your reward program is really rewarding. 
3. The first few days and weeks of a new business relationship are critical. Send direct mail and email reminders and thank them for their business and make the "honeymoon" special. Dont assume that they will fend for themselves and figure out all the great things about doing business with you. In the long run, if they're not using your product or service, they're likely to bail when a better deal comes along.
4. Reward customers. They are weary of "me too" loyalty programs. Give something unexpected.
5. customers are busy and looking for ways to make their lives easier. Offer customers one-stop shopping, consolidated billing, free postage etc. Take the relationship to a new level.

A great product and great customer service are the foundation for customer retention. And positive word-of-mouth is by far the best marketing tool in your arsenal.

It may seem purely tactical but it is in the realm of strategic market planning and is a required strength of any successful organization. It costs about five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep a current customer. That's why it pays to pay attention to your best customers. In the end, they'll buy more, stick with you longer, and tell their friends how great it is doing business with your company.  

3 Layers of Strategic Marketing

MARKET KNOWLEDGE  : To run the whole organization as if  its life depends on the customer is called “Customer Focus”. 

THE FIRST LAYER consists of  actions of  deciding on the marketing mix in terms of 4Ps. This is the visible,  front-end of the business where the basic principle is creating a good “Product x Market” engagement for mutual benefit. This is the traditional and text book role of marketing. 

THE SECOND LAYER consists of actions that take place at the back-end of the business but strongly impact the front end marketing. The basic principle here is that the COO structures the assets, people,  processes within the company ( in short, creates core competencies) which enable the front end to become better at serving the customers. This is the role of the COO / SBU Head. Here the role of marketing is to help the COO make the right investments and decisions. 
 
THE THIRD LAYER exists only in multi-business companies – is to create a corporate center such that it can add value to the COO or Marketing Head. The principle followed here is developing and applying these common resources from one business to another to produce value. Such common resources may be value networks, factories, centers of excellence etc. Sharing common costs is also an objective many times.