Sean D'Souza: One sale good, two sales better, three sales vital

As a retailer, which is the most important sale of all? Is it the first sale, second sale, third sale or future sales?

Actually, the answer is: "All of the above". But you knew that already.

What you probably didn't know, is the importance of the third conversion.

So what's the third conversion?

The third conversion is the third time a customer buys a product or service from you. This third conversion is critical, because it's setting up something called "consumption". You see, a customer isn't likely to come back to buy more product unless they have consumed the product in the first place.

So if you went to a cafe and didn't drink the coffee the first time around, there's no way you'd go back a second and third time. But if you do go to the cafe and drink the coffee once, twice and three times, it technically means you're hooked. It means you like the place, or the service or that you like something, which is why you've come back time and time again.

And no one needs to tell you a repeat customer is mostly a really awesome customer to have. They don't make too much of a fuss. They waste less time asking questions.

There's just one problem though ...

All your marketing is designed for the first conversion. So if you look at your advertising or marketing, you'll quickly find that it's loaded in favour of the first sale. After that first sale you have little or no way of getting the customer to come back.

The goal isn't so much a factor of customer retention, but more a factor of understanding the concept of the third conversion. The concept of how you're going to get the customer to come back for the third time. And this is critical because the customer isn't just buying your products/services (which is just great) but is also forming a bond, a relationship with you.

So how do you go about creating this third conversion?

It depends on your business. If you're in a training sort of business then this is the easiest of all. Let's say you've got a yoga or pilates class, then nooooo problem, because you can simply sell the customer a series of classes and they come back. In fact you're probably already doing that.

The problem arises when you've got a product or service to sell. Let's say you're selling jewellery, or curtains, or coffee. Now you've got to think through a bit of a process that will get the customer back at pre-determined intervals. The coffee store can get away with simply selling a prepaid coffee card (yes, prepaid). For the rest of us, we have to create something of an event.

An event to get people back

People who are interested in curtains will come back for some event that involves home furnishing. People who are interested in jewellery will come to an event that involves jewellery. If you create information or entertainment or info-tainment events, you can draw even the most reluctant customers back.

Ah, but how do you draw them back? You have no list, do you?

If you do have a customer list then hey, you're away. If you don't then you need to work on the list right away. It doesn't have to be some fancy thing. It just needs to be done.

So get it done. And then create an event, or a sale specially for those customers. Or just give away free yummy cookies and coffee to customers in the area on a specific day. The key is to get them back in the store.

And to get them back at a regular interval

No use in having them in your store after five years is it? You want them to come back twice or thrice in the next three to six months at the very least.

Ooh, this sounds like lot of work

Yes it does sound like a lot of work. But it's more work trying to deal with new customers all the time. New customers take up enormous time and money while existing customers are mostly easy to deal with - and they keep coming back to buy.

So when we think of the question: which is the most important sale of all? here is the answer

The first sale is critical because it draws the customer into the store.

The second is also critical because the customer returns.

The third is the most important of all because now the customer has returned thrice to buy. This third conversion could not exist without the first and second. So they're all important.

It's now up to you. Can you design a sequence for the customer to follow? Can you get them to the third conversion?

Sean D'Souza is chief executive of Psychotactics and an international author and trainer. He is the author of The Brain Audit - Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don't);www.psychotactics.com