should know the statistics: It costs six to seven times more to get a new customer than it does selling to an old one. It's no news flash, but it's true! People that do business with you represent a gold mine of opportunity. You must collect their details, get to know them, treat them as special, keep in constant contact, and regularly invite them back as members of the family. These people are either going to make you rich or make you poor. But before we start looking at ways of getting rich, do you know how many times your customers buy from you at present? We're talking averages here, not the best or worst case. If you don't, then find out now. You see, if you don't know what your average number of transactions is, how will you be able to gauge whether you've been able to increase it through the strategies you're about to put in place? And how will you know which of them are working and which aren't? Here are a few ideas on how to go about measuring your current number of transactions: 1. If you have customer accounts, select a representative sample. Choosing 50 at random will do. Or choose all those whose surnames start with M. Then make a list of the number of times each purchased from you over the last 12 months. The list will have wide variances, because some might have bought once while others might have bought 20 times. That's OK. Add up the number of times they all purchased. This will give you a total of the number of transactions they all made over the period. Now divide this total by the number of customers. You'll now have the average number of transactions. 2. If you don't have customer accounts, you could survey your customers. Use a form similar to this: 122