For well-seasoned service businesses, the linear progression from Getting Noticed to Getting Paid is likely well-understood and often considered. To be sure, attention snares time… and time controls the outflow of money. Attention is, ultimately, the underpinning of all spending.

Regardless of its form, attention must be a strategic pursuit.

For those with less experience or who have just started a business in the service sector, an analogy featuring the Automatic Teller Machine – or “ATM” as it has been known for decades – acutely (and abbreviationally!) illustrates this existential premise.  In my book, It’s Not the Bricks, It’s the Mortar: Optimize Your Retail Business for Lasting Success, I put it plainly and detail it definitively: Retailers only achieve revenue when they garner Attention in a manner that results in an allocation of Time that achieves a sale for Money.  As a business leader, there’s little reason to visit a bank-powered ATM for a withdrawal unless you’ve successfully proliferated this A-T-M effort!

The Sole Pursuit?

To be sure, this ATM mindset is relevant for both new and repeat customers. In those we’ve previously served, however, a prospective advantage is reposing as we wager on the trifecta of Attention*Time*Money. Yes, even the most loyal patron must have their attention and time captured again before they spend again… But it is a great victory, indeed, when fond recollections of our enterprise are the rationale for repeated investments of time and treasure!

Nonetheless, we often miss the figurative forest through the correlative trees.  With Attention out front, we look only outward to make our business boom. We squeeze out more content. We boost more posts. We put bigger discounts in brighter starbursts with more populous distribution lists…

In some instances, we evaluate these efforts. We then lean into (often misleading) Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) and Cost Per metrics. And in the best organizations, someone with authority wisely proclaims and inquires, “Let me remind everyone that we don’t sell impressions or clicks or awareness increases.  We sell (insert PRODUCT or SERVICE here). Did we sell any of that?”

So we analyze a report to find out.  We do our best to make the timing of the sales data coincide with the supposedly attention-grabbing campaign or tactic we’re reviewing.  We debate the percentages of lift or decline, the possible carryover effects and whether the initiative was even intended to impact sales. If there is no evidence it did, we suggest the affinity for our brand has likely increased or that “these things take time.”

Our words, actions and investments sufficiently demonstrate that absorbing the ATTENTION of an outside world is our sole pursuit.

It’s Linear… and Circular

The proverbial path from “Attention” to “Money” is a straight line. However, this linear thinking can also be the kind of thinking that is way too limited. It is at our own peril that we do not think often enough about optimizing the TIME from others we’ve earned. Man, I’ve learned this the hard way! But as we prioritize and make time for TIME, we will aptly conclude this is the “can’t miss” portion of our pathway. It is also when we realize that our route to sales growth isn’t a straight line.  It’s not a 100m dash, where you start and finish at different, but easily connected, locations on the same track… For Track & Field enthusiasts, it’s more like a 10,000m event, where, instead, you compete and win by strategically completing the same circuitous route time and again.

The Rinse and REPEAT Cycle

I refer to the graphic below as The Retailer’s Cycle of Satisfaction. Let’s take a look before we go further:

You’ll see that the first couple of elements are identical to the more straightforward Attention*Time*Money continuum referenced above.  The departure becomes obvious when recognizing that the third item, Money, is not referenced at all…

Yes, I can hear the prevailing thoughts pinballing in your mind from here.  “MONEY is not referenced? At all?!?!?”

But this should not really be a surprise or concern.  We already know there will be occasions when we successfully capture our prospective patrons’ Attention – and we dutifully honor their Time – but no sale transpires.  It may be the local florist who cannot accommodate a very last-minute delivery for Valentine’s Day, the real estate professional who spends a weekend with someone who, ultimately, turns down the relocation assignment or the salesperson who had the perfectly executed proposition overruled by a disapproving parent or spouse.  Alongside the instances when our efforts are not quite enough, the escape of a sale includes every relatable example in which the immediate acquisition of Money is, simply, beyond our control.

Here’s the antidote to such disappointment and the opportunity associated with such reality: The best service-first enterprises wisely embrace that first-time engagements are best defined by first impressions… and subsequent visits are firstly opportunities to improve or strengthen an existing relationship. To be sure, it is this comprehension that smartly suggests we remove Money as the pursuit and pinnacle objective. In its place, Satisfaction becomes that which we seek most to achieve.

Through service, it must be Satisfaction that is the objective… not a sale

Service Sets the Pace… and Defines Our Potential

With a glance back at our graphic, you’ll see it is Service that is located proudly in between the precious Time (of others) we’ve attained and the Satisfaction (of others) we pursue. This is not happenstance. As a doomsday scenario, there is nothing worse than an extraordinary campaign driving a swarm of visitors to a site or store… and an awful experience awaiting their arrival. The best consumer-facing enterprises understand that the Money associated with any sale completed is not nearly as valuable as the Satisfaction forever attached to the Service received. Leaders must be diligent. The craft of delivering Service should be given no less than equal time to the craft of curating Attention. It is Service (and not Attention) that will set the pace of growth after the initial climb. And it is Service alone that defines the potential we have!

This article was originally shared as a LinkedIn post. Join the conversation on LinkedIn.

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