There are seven distinct phases to the Perfect Customer Lifecycle:

Attract Traffic
This includes all of the work you do to generate interest in your business, like website traffic, foot traffic, etc. that comes from online/offline advertising, partners, etc.
Capture Leads
Smart businesses are very intentional about capturing contact information for interested leads as well as permission to follow up. As a real estate agent you run a small business. You can’t follow up if they leave your site or store, open house or showing appointment without giving you their info! What thing of value can you offer in exchange for their contact information.
Nurture Prospects
Let’s face it, some leads are hot, and some are not. Smart businesses have appropriate follow-up in place to educate & build trust with their new leads. Some take 5 minutes to warm up, some take five weeks, some take five years, but when you nurture well, you are the one they think about when they are ready to buy. Real estate agents a a little different though. Since we are the ones wearing each hat in each department of our business it becomes very easy to only work with the hottest leads and the luke warm ones sometimes slip through our fingers. There are some great systems you can use to capture leads and drip information to them over time while they are warming up to the idea of buying a home. When they become ready to buy, working with you becomes a natural choice.
Convert Sales
Once prospects are hot, it’s time to turn them into customers. Whether you have a sales team, or you use automatic follow-up to get the job done, you’ve got to close the business.
Deliver & Satisfy
What are you doing to make sure that every new customer is completely wowed by you? In addition to delivering your core service, there are many small but powerful strategies for creating happy customers
Upsell/Repeat Customers
We all know that it is significantly cheaper to resell a new product to an existing customer, but too often we aren’t systematic enough about offering additional products to customers who’ve already bought.
Get Referrals
Finally, there are never any better leads than those who come from referrals. What are you doing to ensure that your customers are referring you when they get asked the questions.

The key takeaway to think about is, “How does it fit in your business?” How can you benefit from incorporating this thinking into the way you operate your marketing and sales functions of the business? As I’ve watched business owners use this Perfect Customer Lifecycle guide to map out their marketing plans (many of whom actually stick it up on their wall in front of their desk as a constant reminder) here’s what I’ve observed:

Chaos turns to order—Everything you are doing finally has a place.
Goals become clear—Rather than doing stuff just to do it, each marketing activity has a distinct purpose.
Gaps become clear—Now that the comprehensive plan is staring at you in the face, it’s simple to identify additional opportunities that you can jump on.
Structure breeds innovation—Although counter-intuitive, the structure and focus you provide yourself while planning will free your mind up to powerful innovation.
Printing and posting helps you execute—Those who print their one-sheet marketing plan and tape it to the wall where everyone can see it find that their ability to execute on the plan increases.

I’m excited to dig deeper on this and share best practices for each phase of the lifecycle. If you want to know more about the Perfect Customer Lifecycle, leave a comment with what you’d specifically like help with and what intrigues you the most about it.