Give people HOPE!

OK, you know how I am always talking about how giving back is good marketing? You have another chance to participate and make a difference in some one’s life.

And you could and should do it in the name of you and your company! This helps people – and makes you and your company look good.

There’s an event in Atlanta early December that will raise money for the Furniture Bank of Metro Atlanta and MUST Ministries. The event is the Not So Silent Night Holiday Bash!

Register for the event RIGHT HERE!

We look forward to having a great time AND doing some good all at the same time!

[Disclosure: I am on the Board of Directors for the Furniture Bank of Metro Atlanta]

Last night's Delta cattle car...

OK. So I flew on an airline today. So yes, it is no surprise that this is a post about customer service.

I had to fly to Las Vegas to do a little business and attend a wedding. Living in Atlanta, I flew Delta. So, greetings from seat 35A.

And my seatmate says hello too. (Delta thought it would be fun to pair the two tallest guys on the plane right next to each other…)

While this post may seem to be a hit on Delta, it likely represents most airlines. Most I say, there are some airlines that are profitable. I better understand why.

But three things happened. Three things, in my opinion, that shouldn’t have happened. Three things that left me as a customer, stressed and frustrated.

One, when I booked my reservation, Delta didn’t give me a seat assignment. When I checked in, I was instructed to go to my gate to get my assignment. Why?

This doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough that I got really frustrated about what it meant. Stress. (Did they overbook?)

Now I asked several Delta employees the reason for this, and got no explanation. Why not? Tell me the story. I might understand. And at least I would have answers. Instead? I’m blogging and tweeting my frustrations.

Two, when I finally did get to my gate to get my seat assignment, I was forced to deal with a gate agent who could not have cared less that I was frustrated. Not one bit. Not one damn bit. She acted as if she had total job security. I mean, I don’t think she would have acted any differently if her supervisor was standing behind me in line…

When she ultimately got me my boarding pass, she hit two buttons on a keyboard and the thing printed in seconds. Yet she made me wait over five minutes whilst she messed with other paperwork. Never mind the growing, tense line behind me.

(The only benefit to my five+ minute wait was that I had more than enough time to tweet my Delta frustrations…)

Third. In the air, 31,000 feet. So my seatmate needed to use a credit card to pay for stuff. His headset, his meal, and his drinks. Early in the flight when they were passing around the headsets ($2) he said he only had credit, and the flight attendant said to use the honor system and tell her about it later when he bought snacks and cocktails.

So after he ordered his drinks and she was conducting the transaction, he reminds her of the $2 headset. She had forgotten them, but actually canceled the transaction to redo it including the $2. (She actually said, “Good boy! Good job remembering!”)

Maybe if I was looking at Delta’s balance sheets every day I would feel differently, but I can’t believe she didn’t comp him the headset, especially since he proved to be an honorable fellow.

Am I nuts here? $2 for a crap headset? And even after he spent one thousand dollars on a plastic container with three grapes, four crackers, and a slice of apple. And drinks. And a damn plane ticket.

Delta, for God’s sake, empower that flight attendant to comp a $2 headset…

The lessons for you here?

1. When you have a policy that ends up agitating your customer – have an answer that explains why. Give them a reason why. We’ll probably understand. And if you don’t have an answer, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

2. Really profound here, but treat your customers with respect. Don’t be rude. Care, or at least pretend you care. Treating them wrong leaves such a bad taste…

3. Don’t nickle and dime your customers. But more importantly, reward honorable behavior. Trust me, this goes a long way towards building a little customer loyalty. Especially when you need it, like airlines.

I hope you apply these experiences in ways to improve your customer experience. Thanks for letting me vent about my flight experience. I look forward to writing a post about a positive experience on an airline.

But I trust I will have to come up with other topics in the interim…

Be Intrepid.

While I appreciate that some entrepreneurs just start trying things and executing on new ideas without a lot of thought, small businesses are so much better off when their efforts are coordinated into a broader strategy. Think about that very carefully as you begin to prepare for 2010…

Good luck. And Be Intrepid.

In this episode of He Said, She Said, Stephanie and I discuss some alternatives to interruption marketing. And, stick around to see a surprise ending!


A great thrill for us to have Chris Brogan join us for He Said, She Said. Thanks Chris, you are a class act!

Here is the original post on the He Said, She Said blog. Here is Stephanie’s version of the post from Radiant Veracity.

Miriam Salpeter, Chris Brogan, Stephanie Lloyd, Todd Schnick

Be An Intrepid Marketer – Recommendation No. 33 -

So, I have recently gotten connected to a great PR service called HARO, or Help A Reporter Out.

This service, which has been around for a while, is a means by which journalists can submit queries to a broad audience, and make it known about specific sources they are looking for their article, book, blog, radio show, etc…

[I am an active user of HARO for both my radio show and my author's book tour project - both from High Velocity...]

Why is this important to you? Well, for one, if you are looking for sources for your blog or podcast, HARO is something you should explore.

But…

The simple goal of this post is to give you one simple idea that can help you both serve your existing clients – AND wow your existing prospects.

And it is this: forward specific HARO requests to your clients and/or prospects to let them know you care. They will appreciate that you are looking out for their best interests by giving them helpful tips to advance their PR efforts. It can go a long way towards helping you stand out from all the clutter with the other people in their world.

How does it work? Once you start receiving the queries from HARO, it will be easy. You will receive daily emails from HARO with a list of queries such as “need digital media success stories” or “need money-saving tips for entrepreneurs.”

HARO will provide you with an email address to contact the reporter if you are, or know of, a good source. All you have to do is forward that to your client/prospect, and recommend that they contact the reporter directly.

Boom. You’ve done that person a nice service. And whether or not they take any action on it isn’t your concern. But more importantly, they will remember you!

Be Intrepid.

cartoon by @gapingvoid

Mashable just reported a statistic that blew my mind: 76% of small businesses still do NOT find social media useful in generating business.

Gasp!

I have to be honest, I just don’t understand it. I will further admit, I don’t know the details of the study, but I wonder how many of those small businesses haven’t tried social media versus having tried social media without success?

It is an important distinction.

But ignoring social media, or pretending it doesn’t exist is a one-way ticket to oblivion. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon.

For those of you still stuck in the first of these two scenarios, here are 4 things to think about:

1. Marketing is changing. Deal with it. The longer you wait to start, the harder it will be to catch up with your competition.
2. If you are still afraid of giving the world a chance to speak negatively about you or your service, deal with it. The ability to talk about a business online is only going to get more pervasive.
3. The content problem. If you are afraid that you don’t have enough to say, then you just don’t understand how social media works. Content is easy. All you have to do is think. And, you know, talk to your customers once in a while.
4. And if you think that you won’t have enough time, then you are doomed. Folks, this is where marketing is going. And if you don’t make time, you will ultimately fall way too far behind. That said, it doesn’t take as much time as you might think…

So, those are the four main reasons I hear every day about why most small business people don’t believe in social media. And while I want to fault them, I will not. Why?

Because it is my responsibility, and the that of every marketing influencer. We have so far failed to help these folks understand not only the power, but the necessity, of integrating social media into your small business marketing program.

But why are we failing? Are we not telling the story enough? Is it because we can’t easily explain the ROI of social media? Is it because we don’t want to let people in on the magic formula, and keep them at a competitive disadvantage? Who knows.

But I think the reason that 76% of small business people don’t believe is that they just don’t believe yet. Maybe they think that the new marketing requires more work than the old style of marketing, where you just paid money to advertise. The new way, you have to actually engage with people. And that’s not always easy.

So I think it is a combination of us marketing influencers doing a better job of articulating this new way, and in a way that is more easily understood and actionable. AND…I think small business folks need to – with this new understanding – take an educated leap of faith and learn this new way of marketing.

In the end, we will all win. We will be better connected, serving one another in a better way, and running stronger businesses.

What do you think?

Be Intrepid.

Stephanie is host of Dream Job Radio, and Todd is co-host of the High Velocity Radio Show…

To see the original post of Round 7 on the He Said, She Said Blog, click here!

To see Stephanie’s Radiant Veracity version of Round 7, click here!

from Coca-Cola Art Gallery on flickr

I spent a good part of Saturday with one of my clients, FuegoMundo, assisting with their booth at a local Latin street festival. It was a lot of fun. And it was good to get out into the trenches to do some real hand-to-hand marketing.

Before the festival started, all of the exhibitors (Latin restaurant merchants) were invited to hear from Jose Espinoza, Director of Multi-Cultural Commercialization + Customer Programming for Coca-Cola North America. He did a presentation on how to strategize around the Latinization of American cuisine. It was an interesting discussion.

During his talk, he made reference to something that got me thinking. Speaking about Coke, he said that they don’t really have to work on “building” the brand we know as Coke. Being one of the most recognizable brands on the planet, people either love the brand – or they do not. But he said the most important thing they need to do is MAINTAIN the brand. They have to be sure that the experience is always good.

Coke doesn’t want you to have a flat soda at a restaurant. They don’t want a product you buy at a store to NOT be what you expect. If your experience with a Coke product is sub par – even one time – it begins to erode their brand. In addition, they have to worry that a poor Coke experience at YOUR restaurant negatively impacts your restaurant’s brand too.

Now, save for a few other companies on the planet, most of us do not have the brand affinity – or the brand awareness of Coke. But we do have brands. And that brand is EVERYTHING to us – and impacts our ability to go to market.

But just like Coke has to work to maintain it’s brand, so do we. We have to be certain our customers continue to get the experience they expect. And whether you like it or not, this is a 24/7 undertaking. Here are a few things you can do to do some marketing maintenance:

Get feedback from customers – Always be seeking feedback from your customers. Did the experience live up to their expectations? Find out direct from the source how you can improve and perfect! And then APPLY it where appropriate!

Question everything – How is this decision I am about to make going to impact my customer’s experience? Will it make it better? Don’t assume anything. Always challenge yourself and your organization! And empower everyone in the organization to question things…

Test, test, test – Test everything. And test it again. Don’t launch a new idea, a new service, a new website, etc., until you know it will deliver as intended and expected.

Demand the best – Always demand the best from the people in your organization. If people who work in your organization aren’t giving their best effort, remove them. Find someone committed to the principles your organization – and your brand – is built on.

Take pride – If you aren’t taking pride in everything you do, then you will ultimately fail. Or at best be mediocre. And this even applies to the person cleaning your shop at the end of the day. If the cleaning crew takes pride in what they do, you have a fighting chance!

So, there are a few ways to maintain your brand. What do you think? And what are other things to think about when doing maintenance marketing? Just keep in mind that all of us, not just Coke, have to maintain our brand!

Be Intrepid.

This post was picked up by The Customer Collective!

Enjoy this TED video by Rory Sutherland!

[a quote from the presentation --> "Poetry is when you make new things familiar and familiar things new."]

Be Intrepid.