Welcome to Musings—a space where we cut through the noise and get to the heart of effective leadership and strategy execution. Here, we share hard-earned insights, practical frameworks, and candid reflections to help you navigate the complexities of leading teams and driving change.
Each post is designed to be a quick, impactful read—something you can digest between meetings and apply immediately. Whether you're refining your leadership approach, tackling execution challenges, or seeking to foster a more cohesive team, you'll find valuable takeaways here.
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Bought Loyalty vs. Earned Loyalty
Acquiring new customers is hard work, but turning them into loyal customers is even harder. The acquisition efforts can usually come almost solely from the Marketing department, but customer retention takes a village. And all those villagers have to march to the beat of a strategy that effectively balances the concepts of bought loyalty and earned loyalty.
I first heard the concepts of bought and earned loyalty many years ago in a speech given by former ForeSee Results CEO Larry Freed, and those concepts stuck with me. They’re not mutually exclusive. In the most effective retention strategies I’ve seen, bought loyalty is a subset of a larger earned loyalty strategy.
So let’s break each down a bit and discuss how they work together.