One of Seth Godin’s recent thinkpieces made an excellent point. In The circles (no more strangers) he reminds us that strangers are expensive to reach and hard to persuade. And yet that’s where so much of our marketing expenditure is directed. Instead of spending £1 each trying to get to 1,000 people we don’t know, maybe there’s more business to be had in spending £10 each on 100 people we do know, or £100 each on the 10 people we know best of all. There’s an obsession with reaching new customers, encouraged by the advertising media who want to help you find them, but that increased turnover you’re after could come from much closer to home.