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You have two types of customers: your experienced customers, and your new customers.

It’s important to listen to your experienced customers and keep them happy.  Everybody knows this, and almost everybody does a good job with this.  After all, it’s easy.  You’ve already built up a relationship with them and have a basic understanding of each other.  On the other hand, you will need to appeal to new customers to grow your business.

Talking with new customers is much harder because they don’t know anything about your business.  You might both have different assumptions, like what your product does, how to use it, or how it can help them.  Even worse, once you finally understand each other, your customer is no longer a new customer.  He has permanently lost something precious:  his ignorance.

You need to seek out people with this ignorance about your business, because that’s the only way to find out how to make it easier and more attractive for other new and potential customers.  For example, inFlow is often praised for being easy to use, but we still hear from people confused about how to do things like set up inventory for the first time.  This confusion is precious, because it points out where we can make improvements.

When somebody asks you a question out of ignorance, think about how to prevent future new customers from getting confused.

If you sell products online or offline, you might be familiar with this all-too-common customer story:
1 ) Maria wants the product you sell.
2 )  She finds you through Google, eBay, or a friend’s recommendation.
3 )  She buys your product.  You do everything right and she loves your customer service.
4 )  In 2-3 months, Maria completely forgets that you exist.  Next time she wants a similar product you carry, she finds your competitor instead.

The best way to convert this into a happy ending is also one of the simplest.  Send updates through email.  Here’s the alternate ending:
4 )  When making the sale, you ask Maria if she’d like to get updates on new products and discounts through email.  You promise to email her a coupon for 10% off her next purchase.  She’s happy enough with your company that she gives you permission.
5 )  Once a month or so, you send relevant updates about new products or sales.
6 )  Three months later, Maria sees your email and thinks that she could use something in red to go with her original purchase, so she buys another.
7 )  Six months later, Maria sees a new product that you announced through email and decides to buy one of those too.
8 )  And they live happily ever after.

Send your happy customers email updates to remind them about your company once in a while and introduce new products or discounts.  This is one of the most effective ways to increase sales without spending a fortune on marketing.