Friction is the enemy of motion. It’s always pulling against progress. Push an object forward and friction is there to slow it down.

When you make your website difficult to navigate, you are creating friction for your customers. When you make your instructions hard to follow, you are creating friction. When you make it difficult for your customers to pay, you are creating friction.

What can you do to reduce friction for your customers?

Amazon’s one-click payment, Facebook’s signup page and WordPress’s easy-of-use are all great examples of customer experiences that involve little friction.

Where are your customers getting stuck?

Getting a date seems simple. You just need to pick up the phone (email, text, whatever) and ask. Right?

Not quite. Give it a try. Phone a random stranger and ask them out for supper. Chances are you will get a lot of hang ups and perhaps a restraining order or two.

Sure with enough brute force you could probably get a date using this method. You could, technically speaking, phone a thousand people until you find one that is crazy enough to go out with you. Your conversion rate would be way less than 1%.

Contrast that to phoning somebody who already knows you (perhaps you’ve gone out on a good date before) and inviting them out for dinner. One call. One date. Done. 100% conversion.

What does your marketing process look like? Are you phoning random strangers? Or are you building a collection of friends?

Three tips on making friends *:

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
3. Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.

*Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie