Buying Customers by Brad Sugars

Turn Happy Customers into Raving Fans
It's not enough to spend money to get your "brand" out. It is important to bring customers to the door, but how do you keep them coming back?
"Buying Customers" shows you how to change the way you view your business. Bringing in new customers and looking at the profits per sale sounds good. 
Buying Customers is about "profit per customer". Bradley will show you how to turn Happy Customers into Raving Fans. This is a must read. 
- Vicki Long

Needing better quality leads and generating more repeat business is essential to my success. This book helps in both areas. 
Don't think that you can only use this book if you are an entrepreneur, business owner or marketing professional, "Buying Customers" can be used in many areas such as hiring employees. It is all about how you want to define customers. If you switch the word customer with any other you will find insights and inspiration that will turn any operation into a `results-driven' process.
- Michael L. Gooch, Author of Wingtips with Spurs.

"In Buying Customers, Brad Sugars reveals the true science of creating ROI in any business model.  Are your marketing dollars, coming back in multiples through your sales dollars? Are your customers your best and biggest asset in creating sales dollars? Is your customer base expanding while your acquisition cost per customer is shrinking?  If not, Buying Customers will fine tune your efforts into guaranteed results."
Sharon Lechter
Author of Save Wisely, Spend Happily
Co-Author of Outwitting the Devil, Three Feet From Gold and Rich Dad Poor Dad and 14 other Rich Dad books

"For many businesses, their biggest expense is marketing, but they aren't sure what they are getting out of it," Sugars said. "They say, 'I'm on the radio, I have an ad in the paper,' but how are those ads growing their business? They aren't, they are just an extra expense. But if those same business owners understand why customers buy from them and how to get the right customers in the door, over and over again, it can make a huge difference for their company, and their life."

From building a target market, to incentivizing referrals to profit margins and everything in between, "Buying Customers" goes through the step by step process of building and growing a profitable, commercial enterprise that works...without the business owner.

"The ultimate goal for any business owner shouldn't be to just have a well-paying job, it should be to build a business that runs smoothly if they left for a month or even for a year. If you take the lessons in Buying Customers and apply them to your business, you will have the kind of business that serves your customers with value and you with profits and time to enjoy the fruits of what you've built," 

-Brad Sugars

This book is 221 pages with short concise chapters making for an enjoyable and impact filled read. As a management consultant, I have always enjoyed the actual seminars, retreats and workshops I provide for business leaders but I have always struggled with the advertising and marketing arena. I see them as a huge expense. I recognize I have to perform this aspect of the business, but I do not enjoy it and view it as a nebulous expense and a drain on my energy. I also sometimes doubt if all of my efforts pay off or would I be just as well off to use a rabbit foot.

That is why I enjoyed Bradley Sugars' new book. Needing better quality leads and generating more repeat business is essential to my success. This book helps in both areas while additionally providing assistance in a plethora of areas. These areas are in the following eleven (11) chapters:

1. The Five Ways to Profit
2. Allowable Acquisition Costs
3. Conversion Rates
4. What is Lifetime Value?
5. The Principles of Lifetime Value?
6. Ways to Boost Lifetime Value
7. Getting Their Attention
8. Building Your Team
9. Strategies for Lead Generation
10. Buying Customers Conclusion

These 11 chapters can be an invaluable guide for getting more (and BETTER) customers while making your marketing efforts truly a ROI. Working with the 80/20 rule, the author teaches how to segment your customers so they become your biggest asset. The majority of your resources should be focused on the top 20% of your customers. As the author notes, these numbers may vary but the principle is the same and sound advice at that.

While I am in business as a lone wolf, the team building aspects in the book were not extremely useful for me but there was gold to mine in each of the other chapters.

I also appreciated the highly useful Chapter Review - "9 to Grow On" at the end of each chapter. This provides the reader with a simple to follow to do list along with the accompanying "3 Things to DO after your Review. Sugars has performed the heavy lifting for us and lays it all out in a simple, concise format. Want to generate more leads? There is a written plan on page 193. Want to get your customers attention? Turn to page 142 for the guide.

As a former instructor in SPC (Statistical Process Control) the chapters on the importance of your numbers and the 'testing and measuring' of your advertising / marketing efforts rang very true to me. And while I realize the tremendous value in testing and measuring the results, this book really reminded me of the critical importance this aspect plays in our long term success.

Don't think that you can only use this book if you are an entrepreneur, business owner or marketing professional, "Buying Customers" can be used in many areas such as hiring employees. It is all about how you want to define customers. If you switch the word customer with any other you will find insights and inspiration that will turn any operation into a `results-driven' process.

I hope you find this review helpful.

Michael L. Gooch, Author of Wingtips with Spurs.

  - Link: http://www.amazon.com/Buying-Customers-Bradley-J-Sugars/dp/0988426102