What is easy to do, is easy not to do.
by Clay Campbell
A friend and I were just talking at his house this week, and he pulled a card off his desk and said, "Look at this!"
It was a very cordial, personal thank-you note, from the salesman he had bought a shirt from, in Nashville, at Brooks Brothers. It was very nice, hand-written personal note.
He said, "I bought a lot of things, and spent a lot of money, in stores this past year and this was the only thank you note I received. Wasn't that nice of him to send me that note?" I assured him it was nice and he assured me that he would go back there the next time he was going to buy any clothes.
Now how much stuff did you buy last year? How many hand-written thank you notes did you get last year? It would have been easy, for any one of the people you bought from to either call you, or send you a hand-written note.
At our business, we have a lot of tour bus groups, church groups, and senior citizens center groups coming to see our shows. We send a hand-written thank you note to every one of them within just a few days of them being there.
I have a car dealer client that told me, "Every time someone has over $400 worth of repair work done, I call them on the phone, and ask if everything got fixed to their satisfaction." He said they almost always are surprised at getting a call. He says it makes an enormous impact, that they remember 36 months later when they are getting the itch to buy another vehicle. It's easy to make a phone call; but it's easy not to do.
Those who want their business to grow, with a good percentage of repeat business, could benefit greatly by implementing two simple things: send hand written thank you notes, and making phone calls the see if your customer was happy with the job you did. It does not matter what kind of business you have you could find a way to do this. It is easy to do (make a phone call or send a thank you note) but what is easy to do, is also easy not to do.
2 Types
of Customers and 3 Keys to Win Each Type
Which Martket: Interest of Exchange?
by
Roy H.
Williams
Transactions can be immediate or transactions can happen over time.
The purchase of a "Flashing Blue Light Special" is an immediate transaction. I give you something. You give me something. Now we're done. Transactions like these indicate an Exchange Market where customers are in Transactional shopping mode.
Make no mistake about it: Big things can happen fast when you make the right offer in an Exchange Market.
The danger of an Exchange Market is that customers can be lost as easily as they were won. You might sell 10,000 customers in 2 hours but these customers were never attracted to you, they were attracted to your product and its price. If a snazzier product comes along, or the same product at a better price, "your" customers will become someone else's customers.
It is extremely difficult - but not impossible - to build a strong company using the methods of an Exchange Market. K-Mart thought they knew how to do it. They were wrong. (K-Mart and WalMart are 2 of the case studies we'll reveal in our upcoming class, How to Make Big Things Happen Fast. If you want to leap forward in 2010 you really need to come.)
Growing a fruit tree, winning the heart of a woman and building a brand happen over time, like putting money in the bank and receiving interest on it. Big miracles that happen slow and steady are the product of Exponential Little Bits. Transactions like these indicate an Interest Market where customers are in Relational shopping mode.
If you buy gasoline wherever it happens to be cheapest this week, you buy your gas Transactionally. But if you buy your gas from the same one or two places, you're buying your gas Relationally. Maybe you know why you always go to those places. Maybe you've never really thought about it. Doesn't matter. You're making your decision based on something other than price-per-gallon.
Half the nation buys gasoline Transactionally. The other half buys gasoline Relationally. Both halves are convinced they are typical. Ask them questions about advertising and marketing and they'll tell you with deep conviction everything you need to do to begin selling "everyone." In the end, you'll be as confused as a termite in a yo-yo.
The keys to winning short-term, Transactional customers in an Exchange Market are:
- Make a compelling offer and
- Impose a time limit, or
- Make a limited quantity available.
The keys to winning long-term, Relational customers in an Interest Market are:
- Specific details.
- Honest evaluation.
- Deliver what you promise.
(And be sure to leave a little bit unpromised so you can add "a delight factor.")
The things I've told you today are true and reliable. But if these things were all you need to know, we wouldn't be having a 2-day workshop, now would we?
Jon Spoelstra has written a number of bestselling business books. So have I.
I like Jon a lot. His talents and preferences are exactly the opposite of mine. That's why he was chosen to co-teach How to Make Big Things Happen Fast.
Would you like your company to be 1 of the 5 that Jon and I develop to show the rest of the class how it's done? Between the two of us, Jon and I have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in countless real-world experiments over a number of decades. These dollars and years allow us to separate good ideas "that ought to work" from the good ideas that actually do.
A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid that mistake altogether.
Be the wise man. Come and learn How to Make Big Things Happen Fast, March 30- 31.
Roy H. Williams
Perhaps now would be a good time to have a
complimentary meeting with a Wizard of Ads Partner.
Links to their websites and blogs are listed down the right side of
The
Wizard Times. Hundreds of their articles with free insightful
advice can been seen at
www.americansmallbusiness.com 2009 would be a
great year to attend a class at the
Wizard Academy 21st Century Business School in
Austin Texas.
What is the Wizard Academy?
See you next week.
Clay Campbell
Wizard of Ads
PS.
Need help to attract more customers and grow your
business?
