The 10x rule ffirs indd I 3/14/11 10: 22: 47 AM ffirs indd II 3/14/11 10: 22: 47 am the 10x rule The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Grant Cardone John Wiley & Sons, Inc

134
THE 10X RULE
Exercise
What have you learned about criticism now?
What criticisms would you most like to hear from 
people?
Give three examples of when you have seen people go 
from criticizing others to admiring them.
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135
CHAPTER
19
Customer Satisfaction 
Is the Wrong Target
T
he topic of criticism provides an appropriate segue into 
a discussion about the overused and abused concept of 
customer satisfaction. One of the fi rst protests I hear from 
people to whom I promote the idea of 10X actions is their 
concern that customer satisfaction will be damaged. They 
worry that if they and their company push too much or 
become overly aggressive, they’ll somehow hurt their brand’s 
reputation in the marketplace. Although I suppose that’s pos-
sible, it’s much more likely—due to the overabundance of 
products and organizations available today—that no one will 
even know about you or your company or notice your brand in 
the fi rst place. The board of trustees of a national cable chan-
nel I was working with became concerned that a new show 
that the executives were very excited about did not fi t the 
network’s brand. I told them, “If you don’t start bringing TV 
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136
THE 10X RULE
to people’s homes that is current and relevant and that people 
have to tune in to, you ain’t going to have a brand to defend.” 
When you fail to fi nd supporters, establish customers, secure 
investors, and close the deal because you fail to do whatever it 
takes to get the job done and then you hide under the excuse 
of protecting brand and customer satisfaction, you’d just as 
soon have a shovel in your hand and dig your own grave. 
Customer service is the wrong target; increasing customers 
is the right target. This doesn’t mean customer satisfaction isn’t 
important. Everyone knows that customers have to be satisfi ed 
and happy in order for them to return and give positive word 
of mouth. If your service or product or investment isn’t built to 
satisfy, then you are a criminal, and this book will only land you 
in jail sooner. Make your primary focus commanding attention 
and generating customers before you worry about making them 
happy.
Let me explain simply. Customer satisfaction doesn’t 
concern me very much! Why? Because I know that we over-
deliver to our clients and provide customer service that is well 
beyond “satisfactory.” We overdeliver to every client, and 
we never say no until we absolutely have to. We don’t even 
talk about customer satisfaction in my offi ce. We do talk 
a lot about how to get more customers because attracting 
customers to our program is the only way to increase customer 
satisfaction. You get it. Increasing customer satisfaction is 
impossible without increasing customers. Whether someone 
signs up for our free tip of the week or buys a book for $30, an 
audio program for $500, or a long-term training contract for 
$1 million, we always overdeliver what is expected. I only con-
cern myself with getting more customers, then I overdeliver 
to my clients. 
I am most worried about noncustomer satisfaction; that 
is, the people who are dissatisfi ed because they do not have 
my product and may not even know that they are unhappy. 
I know that the only dissatisfi ed clients we can have are those 
who don’t have my products or who have them and are not 
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Customer Satisfaction Is the Wrong Target
137
using them correctly. We talk about how getting our clients 
to increase their usage of our material, systems, and processes 
is the only way to increase customer satisfaction. Not get-
ting a client or having the client use your products incorrectly 
are bigger “outpoints” than most of the ways that customer 
satisfaction is thought of. A customer getting the package a 
day late is an issue and should be handled, but the client who 
never buys your product suggests that you have a real serious 
customer satisfaction problem because you never made that 
person a customer. The fi rst problem you can easily fi x. The 
second one will kill you.
I seek out clients who are qualifi ed to do business with us. 
I then attend to that individual or company until they agree to 
hire me, knowing that until they get my product or service, 
they can’t be satisfi ed. This isn’t a pitch. This is what I believe 
to be true. The attainment of the customer is paramount to 
customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction cannot exist 
without a customer! The attainment of the customer is the 
most important thing to me. Same thing in relationships: 
fi rst it is getting the wife, then it is keeping her happy, then 
it is growing the family, and then looking at new ways to keep 
everyone happy. What was most important? Getting the wife 
was paramount to wife satisfaction.
It is impossible for a company to create success by just 
focusing on customer satisfaction. I believe that the trend of 
focusing on customer satisfaction has been detrimental to 
customer acquisition. Companies become so consumed about 
their current customers’ “satisfaction” that many are failing to 
aggressively acquire and expand their market share. 
Customer service is a business term meant to measure 
how the products and services that companies supply meet—or 
exceed—customer expectations after the purchase. This assess-
ment is supposedly a key differentiator between the brands 
customers follow loyally and those that they abandon entirely. 
Yet most places I go into never service me enough before 
the sale to ever acquire me as a customer in the fi rst place. 
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THE 10X RULE
Executives tout the importance of customer service from their 
ivory towers, yet they forget to promote the attainment of the 
customer to begin with. Most products don’t get my attention 
so completely that I’m compelled to purchase them without 
the assistance of the company. Unfortunately, most salespeople 
never bother to ask the customer to buy when given an oppor-
tunity, and then they fail to follow up. Thus, they never make 
a client. 
We do mystery shopping campaigns for companies and 
have validated this over and over. The biggest problem with 
companies is that they never make a customer in the fi rst place! 
If you have a subpar offering—a product that doesn’t do what 
you state it will and that makes people feel like they’ve been 
cheated after purchase—the marketplace will dispose of you 
sooner rather than later. But most people don’t fail because 
their offering is inferior or they have a poor product. Most 
people fail because they never get enough customers!
Does Starbucks offer the very best customer service and 
coffee available? I don’t know. I do know that the company 
has made a serious investment in making it easy and conve-
nient to buy its coffee. Is Starbucks concerned about people 
standing in line too long and getting the right coffee and 
being greeted? Of course. But I assure you the company is 
concerned fi rst with the acquirement of the client. Does 
Google provide the best search engine and the best customer 
experience and service? Does it look to improve the experi-
ence? Certainly. But fi rst it dominates the space so clearly and 
gets so much attention that it’s the fi rst site used. What’s my 
point here? Brands that truly deliver customer satisfaction 
do not talk about customer service; they focus on customer