Connecting is essential for growth

Connecting with your customer is a sure way to grow your business. In tutorials and training there is always a focus on the fact that we have someone - a customer on the other end reading our content.

You might be wondering why I chose a picture of a cupcake then as my cover image. Well, I would like to share a real brick and mortar business that I have seen how she applied this connection with her customers to build her successfull business. So much so that she now needs a bigger space.

So this is just a lovely baker with a heart of gold here on the sunny Central Coast of Australia that has a little cupcake shop. That is her main business and they are delicious I have to say but before you stop reading, let me share her business recipe with you.

Obviously her day starts early and every morning there will be a picture of the day's flavour choices on her Facebook page. Now, she calls her followers Cakies and her sense of engagement is really good. In the beginning she had polls to establish favorite flavours and of course there is a prize of 6 cupcakes at the end of the week. This created a lot of engagement and she grew her followers.

She also makes phenominal birthday cakes and so over the years her reputation grew by word of mouth and through social media.

Then covid hit and like many small business I am sure she feared that she had to shut down because cupcakes are not exactly an essential service. Well, some might argue that cupcakes are essential.

Now Kyla has a big heart and she is truly as authentic as they come. She started giving away a box of cupcakes to essential workers daily. Then her customers started joining her and paying it forward. The generosity of her customers made such and impression that thery had her on the Sydney news telling her story of making the world a better place... one cupcake at a time.

Her business has grown, so much so that she is moving into a bigger premises to be able to host birthday parties.

Yes, this is a physical brick and mortar business but she used social media and her website to connect with her customers. Daily, regularly, making them part of decision making, valueing their imput, giving back, expressing gratitude, paying it forward and all of that takes hard work. Doing the daily grind, starting baking cupcakes at 4 am.

She has been inspirational and when I get lazy or discouraged I think of Kyla and I realize that I can sit in the early hours of the morning of late at night working on my online business from my home. I just need to connect with my customers and be consistent.

Connecting is essential.