The Itch Cycle

by Graham Denton

Seeking leads in accordance with the "itch cycle" is a Tom Hopkins technique for securing repeat business. Noting that people generally get an "itch" to replace or upgrade purchases at regular intervals, Hopkins refers to that interval, or average turnover period, as a customer's "itch cycle." In real estate it's about four or five years, in automobile sales about every thirty months. Whatever it may be in your product or service area, you can appreciably increase your chances of getting repeat business if you anticipate when your customers are approaching their "itch" period and make yourself available for consultation at that opportune moment.

To do this effectively, you've first got to determine your customer's itch cycle. Hopkins suggests that you do this by starting with your company files and spending a day contacting former customers. What you want to find out is not just when they last bought your product (you ought to have that on file already) but how frequently, over the past decade or so, they have bought and replaced that or competing products. Hopkins gives the example of a boat company salesman who discovers that a given customer has bought five boats in the past fifteen years. What's his itch cycle? Divide fifteen by five. The answer is three years.

Having determined the itch cycle, your next logical step is to start to prospect for that renewal just a little before the customer is likely to be ready. How much before? Hopkins recommends a sixty-day rule of thumb, but he also advises seasonal and personality adjustments.

• Seasonal variables.Most product or service selling cycles have some seasonal aspect, and virtually all are affected by fourth-quarter buying spurts. Christmas in particular exerts considerable pressure over buying decisions, "generally delaying every decision it doesn't accelerate." So if your customer's itch cycle is coming due around the beginning of the holiday season, you've got a choice: Approach him a little bit early or wait until January. Hopkins's solution to this dilemma is pretty straightforward. Don't take the chance of these customers "recommiting" elsewhere. Contact them before they start to itch, and then renew the contact when the holidays are over.
• Personality variables. Individuals can make repurchase decisions quickly, slowly, or somewhere in between. Often this difference in decision speed relates to personality, so it's important, the very first time that you close a sale, that you assess each buyer as impatient, average, or steady. Then, when a person's itch cycle is approaching, you adjust your recontacting agenda to account for the differences. Call your "jumpy" buyers (they'll be about 10 to 20 percent of the total) a little bit early, your slow-deliberating buyers (another 10 to 20 percent) a little late, and the average majority the normal sixty days in advance.

The itch-cycle technique is really just a refinement of a broader approach to your customers: regular contact. Top salespeople never lose touch with their customers. They know the importance of follow-up, thank-you notes, and periodic visits. "If you don't maintain contact," Hopkins sensibly advises, "you don't have a clientele; your ex-buyers are abandoned soul looking for a new home." Get that home ready for them before they're ready to move in.