How do you decide where to shop or whom to select as your service provider? If you are like most people, there are a variety of factors to consider from price, quality, location, convenience, reputation, and trust. Those factors also come into play when people decide whether or not they want to conduct business with your company.

As a business owner, it can be daunting to think that every single one of your employees represents the face of your business. Do the employees care about the company as much as you do? Will they do everything in their power to earn and retain a customer’s business? Will they safeguard the company’s best interests? Do they tie their own personal futures to the success of your company?

Customers know your business by the person who services them. Your front lines need to reverberate your set business principles and service standards through every action they take.

That’s where our first law of establishing and keeping Customers’ Loyalty comes in:

1. Build staff loyalty

It’s a fact: firms with high levels of customer loyalty have also earned high levels of staff loyalty. The key rule of loyalty: Establish trust, goodwill, and relevance with your employees so that they, in turn, serve the customers on your behalf.

2. Practice the 80/20 rule

Roughly speaking, 80% of your revenue is generated by 20% of your customers. A smart company segments customers by value and monitors activities closely to ensure high-value customers get their fair share of special offers and promotions.

3. Know your loyalty stages

There are seven stages of customer loyalty: suspect, prospect, shopper (first time buyer), customer (repeat buyer), member or client, advocate and raving fan. By understanding where your customers fall in that matrix, you can better determine what’s necessary to move that customer to the next level of loyalty.

4. Serve first, sell second

Today’s customers are inundated with a variety of both feeble and brilliantattempts at garnering their business. They have quickly developed an intolerance for “being sold” and instead prefer to do business with personable and knowledgeable professionals who stand behind their products and services and value their customers’ experience. Drive the value of your customer service and sales support as much as you do the value of your products.

I’d like to share five more imperative rules to help companies establish and keep customer loyalty, and I’ll reveal those in my next blog. In the meantime, what do you think they are? What keeps you frequenting selected businesses? And can you take a “customer’s view” of your business to see where it may be lacking in any of the aforementioned areas?

Stay tuned for the remaining five keys to successfully retaining your customers’ loyalty and let me know what you think will round out the final five. I look forward to your feedback!

People often ask me why I chose to become an ActionCOACH.

I have to say, I didn’t choose my profession—it chose me. In answer to that question and others pertaining to what qualifies me to be a business coach, I thought I would take this opportunity to share my background with you.

I am a trained Pilot, Staff Officer and Commander, having commanded a unit with over 700 personnel and earned a promotion to Colonel within my first 20 years of service. Those titles likely call to mind certain attributes, and most of them are probably true. I am decisive, skilled, and execute a structured flow in business, allowing it to run like a well-oiled machine. I’ve relaxed a little since the military, but I have retained the principles that drove me and those in my command to success.

As a multi-time National Award Winning Business Coach, I have the privilege of not only coaching businesses, but also training the coaches within the ActionCOACH organization. In short, I’m a coach and a coach’s coach. I’ve developed many businesses throughout my career, contributing to major corporate trainings within Coca Cola and AT&T. But don’t worry; I don’t work exclusively with the big dogs. I developed a one-man show into a major supplier for Home Depot in less than 24 months and work with countless small to mid-sized businesses as well.

I use my strong discipline, keen sense of observation, and critical thinking skills to help direct people to their own successes. My job is to analyze and guide a business owner’s decisions to achieve optimum health for his or her business. I’ve studied and executed the principles of human behavior, economic and workforce conditions, and applied business methodologies—all crucial components to success, and all challenges my clients face in one form or another. I also follow my own advice and create a balance in my life, meeting my work goals and nurturing my mind and soul through workouts, avid reading, ballroom dancing, and playtime with my grandchildren.

Sometimes I see business owners who sense things are off kilter but don’t know what steps to take to restore profit, morale, or structure within their organization. I see them sacrificing more than ever with longer hours at work, cuts in pay, and pouring personal finances into their business just to sustain themselves. It doesn’t have to be that way. As a business coach, I help people work smarter, not longer or harder. I also help people untangle their financial, emotional, and personal stakes in their business, restoring balance, clarity, and focus.

I am interested in hearing about the current health of your business. I’d also like to invite your questions and answers. What challenges does your business need to overcome? And if you could paint an ideal picture of your business’ health, what would it look like?

All of this talk about the economy has become more than just talk to the majority of business owners. For many business owners and managers, it’s become a day-to-day battle they contend with at work, only to “escape” to home and face the same financial difficulties and pressures there.

If you are like many, your household may be running on caution–dining in more frequently, holding off on large purchases, and exercising more attention to detail on everyday spending habits. At work you may have had to lay off a loyal employee, find new ways to cut spending, increase the number of hours you spend at your business, or tap into retirement savings or family funds to sustain this slow period.

When the dust settles and America restores balance to its financial framework, there will be businesses left standing. How will they do it, and will yours be one of them?

Experts say recessionary conditions both flush unstable businesses and prompt new ones to grow. Are you feeling sucked down the drain or inspired to beat the odds and come out on top? There are proven principles that successful businesses adhere to, in good times and in bad. If your business hasn’t gone through a period like this before or doesn’t have the planning experts or advisory council in place to guide it through, where do you turn?

Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO, Google says, “The Best Advice I Ever Got – Hire a Coach.” (CNN-Money, July 13, 2009). I’d like to share with you a little bit about what a business coach does. Short of personal stakes or invested emotion, an ActionCOACH (a highly skilled business coach who receives rigorous training through the ActionCOACH corporation), can take a detailed look at current business practices and offer objective solutions for both short, intermediate, and long-term success. Through a detailed analysis, an ActionCOACH guides business owners through a gamut of successful business strategies from stabilization and growth, effective production planning, satisfying and growing their consumer base, and cost-effective operational decisions.

An ActionCOACH can not only restore profitability, but he can also work with business owners to reinstitute stability and that much needed peace of mind, replacing the constant sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs with relief and a renewed sense of enthusiasm and purpose.

Doesn’t that sound like something we could all use? Please let me know if you are currently experiencing any of these problems and would like to discuss effective solution planning for your business.

What are you currently doing to keep your business afloat? I’d love to hear about your thoughts and methodologies