Jay Walker was a great speaker and he focused on providing us with ideas that we can use immediately to grow our businesses. He said one of the most effective strategies that you can use is to do a more creative and strategic job of getting your current customers to buy more from you. Another approach is to ask your current customers to help you with referrals. He recommended sending an article or another type of showcase for your business and ask your customers to send it to one contact that they think might enjoy reading the piece. Offer to make a donation to a local charity for each “pass along” article sent. I think this is a very cool approach and will let you build lots of good will in your community.

I loved his discussion about breaking out of the “commoditization” mold and making sure you are doing a good job of differentiating your company’s services or products. Even if your business is selling pens, make sure you have key messaging that makes your pens stand out from your competitors – whether it’s a wider range of color choices, functionality or fast service . This is really crucial because in a lot of cases, companies who have a lot of competition start to sell on price. That takes money out your pocket and is what I call “a race to the bottom.”

Jay Walker also talked about the importance of segmenting your customers to increase sales volume. I don’t think any of us do enough of this. He asked us to ask ourselves questions like: how many of our customers have bought in the last 30 days – 90 days – the past year? The bottom line is: what is the lifetime value of each of your customers and what are you doing to keep the ones that are the lifeblood of your business?