Matt Plughoff

During The World Economic Forum at Davos a panel of experts including Jack Ma spoke about the importance of e-commerce in small businesses. His remarks forecasted the e-commerce future–one in which smart contractors will be viable and thriving because of their e-commerce capabilities. To be even more clear: e-commerce is a mandate and the next small business accelerant.

It’s time to get serious about understanding your customers on a behavioral rather than transactional level. The big retailers are armed with algorithms that enable them to predict our purchase patterns, lifestyle interests, habits, and financial positions. Small businesses don’t. But that shouldn’t stop us.

It’s high time for small business owners to begin seriously holding themselves accountable for a new type of measurement: How much do you really know about your customers’ behaviors and buying patterns? If you omitted “lead source” and “ticket price” from your answer what would be left? Odds are not that much.

In our industry, too many people act as if earning a free lead is a matter of being nice or less expensive than the competition. But a true referral is different. Referral leads are emotionally based and therefore require that you think about the customer’s experience not in terms of service, but in terms of experience.

There has been a good deal of news lately about pirates raiding ships along the African coast. Bucking all authority and rule of law, these criminals capture sea-bound vessels filled with precious cargo. There is a version of this in our industry, though it may be more of a question of incompetence rather than out-and-out piracy.