Sean D'Souza: A bite of chocolate will have them back for the whole block

Dinner has a sequence. Religion has a sequence. Even good ol' school had a sequence.

And sequential empires - um, businesses - work no matter whether you sell a product, a service, or do some sort of training.

But as a seller of a product or service, a certain question must cross your mind: how the heck are you going to create a sequence when all you have is a single product or service?

Well, let's examine a business book you've read recently, to see how a sequence works. So there you are with this absolutely awesome book, and you're so excited about this book and its methodology. You feel as though you've just cracked the Rosetta Code. You really do feel that the book has solved your problems.

But actually it hasn't.

It doesn't matter how detailed a book. It doesn't matter how great a product or service, you are simply going to feel a temporary gain; a temporary high.

You are going to end up feeling as though you're biting into a tiny piece of chocolate.

One bite leads to another, and then suddenly you've eaten the entire slab. And the chomping should stop there but it doesn't, because you buy some more at the supermarket.

And then you buy some more. And some more.

And then you've got to huff and puff and run 30,000km to get rid of all that chocolate. But you still want more.

All products or services are like chocolate. They solve the problem, but only for a limited time. Then the reaction kicks in and the customer wants more. You give them more and they want even more.

If this is sounding evil, it isn't. And here's the reason.

I haven't told you about my "Global" Knife, have I?

Well there I was, your regular food-lover, and then I ran into this website which talks about knives. They also show me how to sharpen knives and cut onions, and remove that green stuff from garlic. And I'm hooked.

So now I own a Global Knife. And a Global Ceramic Sharpener (to hone the knives) and a Global Bread Knife.

Of course, I could still be using my old "whatever" knife, but now I'm on this "Global" trip. And someone else is on a chocolate trip. And a third person is on a lemon diet trip to cleanse their bodies of all impurities.

It starts off at one point. With a book. Or a product. Or a website. Or speech. And though logically that book, or product, or whatever should be the starting and end point, it never is. Once a customer has had a bite of the chocolate, the customer wants more.

Which brings us to a very valid point. What if you give your customers crappy chocolate? Most of us want to hide our so-called "secrets". So we give our customers crappy chocolate.

Heck, that's a stupid plan, eh?

But we're afraid if we give away all our information at once, what's left to give? How do we create a sequence? Won't we end up being like those pathetic one-hit wonders?

Actually, no you won't ...

For as you come to an end of a speech, a book, a report, etc, you'll realise there's so much more to talk about.

And if you don't come up with the realisation yourself, your customers will. They'll ask you how to do this or do that. If you've got a product, the customers will want you to develop more products or applications for that product. And the customers will give you all the ideas you require.

But only if you give them the chance to do so.

If a customer isn't sure how to contact you, then guess what? They won't! Unless you create a community either offline or online. A community that's like a forum or group that meets, and where you'll get questions that lead to the next product or service.

And then the sequence will begin to roll out. Your little empire will begin to spread its chocolaty tentacles. Each topic, which starts off rather insignificant, will become bigger, more detailed and quite quickly a sequence will manifest itself.

This is why you must do all of the following:

* Give your best in your product/service.

* You must also create a medium where your community can meet in future.

* Create a scenario or safety zone in which the community can come up with questions and suggestions.

Miss any of these three steps and you'll miss the plot. You can create the best product in the world, but miss out on the community and it's a silly move. Create a community that's figuratively "dumb" and afraid to voice their opinion and it's silly time yet again.

Sequences aren't so hard to create. They do take time and effort. But the pay-off is big. So get started on your chocolaty sequence! So your customers can chomp, chomp, chomp!

Sean D'Souza is chief executive of Psychotactics and is an international author and trainer.

www.psychotactics.com