Street Corner Selling – Lesson #6

Today’s topic is: Developing Enthusiastically Satisfied Customers

Businesses that focus on cultivating enthusiastically satisfied customers will typically generate a loyal customer base that will gladly refer that business to their friends and family. Drug dealers must also develop enthusiastically satisfied customers because nearly all of their sales growth is tied directly to customer referrals.

Bruce Jacobs furthers this thought in his book, Dealing Crack.

In the world of illicit street drugs, the mythic importance of a good connection cannot be overstated. Most people involved in the generic process of purchasing want the most and best product for the least amount of money, and crack buyers evaluate dealers by seeking out those who are perceived to offer the best deal.

A number of sellers attempted to target their market strategies accordingly. Selling the fattest stones, offering more product for the money than was customary, and giving credit were all geared to entice customers to seek them and them only.

Read these smart street-level quotes on how drug dealers develop enthusiastically satisfied customers:

Bo Joe -- “The bigger ones [rocks] you serve, the more customers you get. You don’t gotta worry about no one else getting’ the sale because they [users] want you.”

Ice-D -- “You give’em more than what you should because they look at their competitors and know that ain’t what so and so gave me [last time].”

Deuce Low -- “Everybody try to keep they own clientele. Homie spoiled a customer so much last night, he don’t wanna deal with me – only him."

K-Rock -- "Providing fat stones may hook customers into buying from a particular seller, but smaller quantities – provided sometimes at reduced cost or free of charge – keeps the addiction going. Cultivation is arguably most effective (and most appreciated) when users are at their height of desperation, In the twilight of a binge, for example, even the most meager form of generosity can look colossal and reflect positively on the dealer who is “compassionate” enough to offer a free or cut-rate nugget."

“When a customer’s geekin’ … I’ll break off some pieces like give’em a fifteen for a ten, or a ten for a five, or just break off like two and three dollar pieces. I kinda feel guilty – know that they got kids. So I don’t be taxin’ like that. You’re gonna lose money, but you're gonna keep your clientele. You know they get paid at the first of the month, and they gonna keep spendin’ with me [because I did that for them]. I’m true to the smokers. That why my clientele be so high.”

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Street Corner Selling Curriculum:
Lesson #1: Customer Acquisition
Lesson #2: Ten Minute Rule
Lesson #3: Procurement
Lesson #4: Merchandising
Lesson #5: Angel Customers and Demon Customers
Lesson #6: Developing Enthusiastically Satisfied Customers (pt. 1)
Lesson #7: Developing Enthusiastically Satisfied Customers (pt. 2)

Comments

[hugh macleod]

What a great idea for a book. Thanks for sharing it.

This is what I learn more and more as I get older: that we're all governed by the same laws of nature, crack-dealer and CEO alike.

"Pat the dog, he likes you. Feed the dog, he likes you better."

When I hit my early 30s in the ad biz, my work changed. The message suddenly tapped less into a person's "vanity"... "Hunger" was a better button to push. "Hunger" I mean in a psychological way, of course.

So now when I'm selling something, I find "primal" works.

[johnmoore]

I hope Duece Low writes the book. He summed up how to create a loyal customer better than any Chief Marketing Officer or marketing pundit that I've heard by simply saying, “Homie spoiled a customer so much last night, he don’t wanna deal with me – only him."

The key to creating a loyal customer is to "spoil" them to the extent that they do not want to buy from someone else. That's the down-low by Duece Low.

[hugh macleod]

Hey John, you in Austin?

I remember the Wholefoods on Lamar, back in my UT days.

I've been keeping bees and producing my own honey for the last couple of years.

One of these days I might write something about what beekeeping could teach a budding capitalist.

High-grade honey is intereresting stuff. It really is like crack to some people. And the thing is, you can't buy the high quality stuff in a store... the beekeeper keeps it for himself and his "inner circle".

All your links to lesson #5 appear to be broken. Were you threatened by the authors of the book by the same name or what?