Noah Fleming - Evergreen : cultivate the enduring customer loyalty that keeps your business thriving

NOAH FLEMING

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fleming, Noah.

Evergreen: cultivate the enduring customIer loyalty that keeps your business thriving / Noah Fleming.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-3443-7

ISBN-10: 0-8144-3443-6

1. Customer relations. 2. Customer loyalty. I. Title.

HF5415.5.F584 2015

658.8'12dc23

2014016981

2015 Noah Fleming.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

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Printing number

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to my wife, Heather, and our two sweet girls, Avalon and Ella.

Heather, you were really the main inspiration for this book. When you agreed to go out with me, I knew I had to learn very quickly how to nurture and cultivate an Evergreen relationship, and the real benefits you could gain from retaining your best customer.

Avalon and Ella, you are, quite simply, the two most beautiful seedlings Ive ever known!

PART ONE
Establishing Roots

PART TWO
Fostering Growth

Los Angeles is a warm-weather creation, at a similar latitude as much of North Africa and Southeast Asia. But whenever Ive flown in Ive had the feeling its not as lush as my native northeastern United States. Yet, back home, we routinely endure winters with feet of snow and temperatures below zero. How can that disparity exist?

It exists because L.A. is not verdant. New England is, to a large extent, evergreen. The approaches to L.A. look brown and the approaches to Boston look greeneven in winter.

And green is the stuff of life, of photosynthesis, of new growth, of regeneration.

In this remarkable book, Noah Fleming (himself of cold climes warmed by evergreens in our neighbor to the north) explains how your customers and business can eternally provide life, growth, and regeneration. Deciduous trees can be quite attractive, so long as we arrange for those trillions of leaves to be carted away come fall. They add a nice touch, as do transient customers in any business.

But transient customers also must be cleaned up. They often require more investment than their revenue justifies, and they can disturb the landscape where the evergreens should bloom. The evergreen customer is a constant resourceof business, referrals, goodwill, good ideas, and market power.

Noah explains how customers have to be attracted, nurtured, and retained to create your own verdant, fertile, business landscape. Some require careful tending; others thrive with minimal intervention. Some respond best to light, others to warmth. Not everything grows and prospers in common conditions. Its important to recognize the optimal growth circumstances for your particular environment and customers.

The best firms and influencers Ive ever seen know their ideal customers perfectly. They can appeal to them instantly, with total focus and relevance. As a global consultant for more than twenty-five years, Ive seen too many great ideas wasted on the wrong people and a great many average ideas succeed brilliantly because they were directed at exactly the right people.

Imagine your products and services directed at the right targets with optimal power? This book shows you how.

I often fly into Boston in the middle of harsh winters, only to see that the evergreens stand out even more against the blandness of the white snow surrounding them. Thats how your business can stand outand thriveif you heed the advice that follows.

Alan Weiss, Ph.D., author Million Dollar Consulting

April 2014

Feel free to start the music (or flip to a commercial) if I drone on too long.

Thanks to my parents, who always pushed me to create my own map and follow my own path. Thanks, Dad, for, as long as I can remember, telling me to write my own paycheck.

Thanks to my grandparents, the late Orville and Vera Fleming, June Farbiak, and especially Grandpa John, for sharing your amazement of life with me.

Thanks to my good friend Troy Loop. Your relentless daily mentorship, feedback, and ideas were invaluable during the writing of this book. Thanks to Shawn Veltman, the second-smartest person I know, for the almost-daily Skype chats, late-night phone calls, and brainstorm sessions. You are a true marketing genius.

Thanks to my literary agent, Esmond Harmsworth, for your wonderful advice, support, and encouragement while I was writing my book proposal and for your careful pursuit of the right publisher for this book. Thanks to the hardworking group at AMACOM, including senior acquisitions editor Bob Nirkind (you believed in this book from day one!), and the incredible design team (your cover design is ingenious!).

Thanks to my editor extraordinaire, Alison Hagge. Your attention to detail, optimism, and encouragement was invaluable.

Thanks to my mentor, Alan Weiss, for always reminding me the ultimate goal of writing a business book is not to be an author, but to help others improve their businesses and enrich their lives.

Thanks to Seth Godin, for dinner in Chicago, where you challenged me to ship. I still remember the response you wrote to my e-mail where I confessed that I wished that I could write books like you. You said, If you write a book, Ill read it. Well, here it is, Seth.