Most people spend their entire lives searching for “The Answer”, the magic formula to bring in a flood of new customers and build their personal wealth. They are searching for the right ad, the right radio station or the right advertising agency. Just around the corner the secret to bringing in a flood of new customers lurks.

I have tried just about everything. The answer is so simple it will surprise you. The secret to bringing in new customers is to study the customers you already have. It is so important it’s worth repeating. The secret to bringing in new customers is to study the customers you already have.

Your business attracts a certain type of clientele. It could be because you’re located in a certain part of town. You might offer a specialty that appeals to a certain segment of the population. Young or old, male or female, rich or poor, corporate or small business, whether you realize it or not you attract a type of customer that can be defined by different variables. These variables include:

•  Demographic Variables - Customer breakdown by age, sex, income, socioeconomic level, number of members in household, etc.

•   Geographic Variables - Identified by where they live or where their company is located

•   Business Variables - Businesses can be classified by S.I.C., standard industrial classification (i.e. - manufacturing or retail), average annual sales, number of employees or number of years in business

•   Affinity Variables - This refers to what social, business or religious groups your customers belong to

Your job is to study your customers. Using surveys has worked great. Nothing is better than face to face customer interaction. Get to know your customers, know their hobbies. In what groups are they members? Where do they go to church? Before long lightning will strike, and you will uncover a variable worth pursuing.

Your future customers will be identical to your current customers. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Take the information you know about your customers and use it to bring in new ones. This is called targeting.

When I owned a catering company we noticed a few pharmaceutical reps were picking up a lot of catering on a very regular basis. These salesmen have to buy lunch just to get in to see the doctors. Talking to the pharmaceutical reps led to the discovery that there is a Pharmaceutical Reps Association. How long do you think it took to get involved with that group? Not long at all.

One of our favorite target markets is a large employer. It is three fold; we can draw from them for lunch and dinner and they tend to do some type of everyday catering and even throw the biggest company parties and picnics, thus spending the most money.

Your business might be different. If you target weddings, you will want to buy a list of couples getting married from a list broker. If you do a lot of tenant appreciation events, you need to go out and buy or assemble a list of all the property management companies in your area.