Communities can be a sharp knife, both useful and dangerous

Some industries foster communities.

If you sell surfboards, blenders, or crafting tools, you already know your customers talk to each other.

In these communities they share ideas, help each other, and recommend products and services. They also report on bad products and experiences.

More and more communities are forming now as there is no technical barriers to entry any longer. It just takes time, effort, and passion to form a new one.

Some communities are micro communities. I'm in one that is of my close neighbors who live on a single small street who are also gardeners. There's 10 people in it, yet it shows all of the characteristics of much larger communities.

This means that you have to have a plan for how you treat customers, repeat customers, and communities. If you just treat them all as transactions, don't expect them to have any loyalty to your brand. "It's a good product but don't expect anything good from the company" is a phrase heard often in these situations.

You might be fine with that. Just know you could be giving up potential business and that one mistake could have a major impact if it ripples through the community.

One of the best ways to build a sustainable business is to get your customers and their communities to come back and buy again. Mastering that simple process can be difficult, but builds a lifelong business.

Repeat Customer Insights can help you understand your customer's behavior. With its collection of behavior reports, you can see what they're actually doing instead of throwing darts at the wall.

Eric Davis