I’m sure everyone has at least thought about setting some goals or resolutions for this coming New Year. I am one of those – I’ve definitely thought about it, but not actually sat down and put anything down on paper. I’m almost finished reading “The Magic of Thinking Big” by Michael J. Schwartz and that has helped me think about what I want to accomplish in the next 12 months. The plan was to sit down this afternoon and plot out my goals and then the path to those goals.
Bree McMahon
I took my power walk a little earlier today so I could get some extra blood flow to the brain in the hope that it would also help me get motivated to start the process! As I approached the soccer fields in the park, I noticed a group of girls in red and white soccer uniforms. They were having their group photos taken and there was much laughter and noise coming across the soccer field! A wheelchair caught my eye and made me think of a local Orlando girl – Bree McMahon – a soccer player who lost a leg this year while at a car wash raising funds for her soccer team and then to wonder how she was doing.
It’s a pretty sad but inspiring story of how accidents can happen and can change peoples lives forever. Basically, one of her best friends accidentally reversed the car they were washing into Bree and the wall behind her. She ended up having a leg amputated. You can read details of the story here.
I stopped to watch the girls goof around and get together for the photo. Did I mention that the wheelchair was empty? I sought out Bree in the gaggle of soccer-clad girls and saw her standing among them on her “new” leg. She acted no differently to any of the others. What a girl!
I continued my walk and when I got home, I searched for an update on her story. What I found was this video clip of her story that The Today Show did earlier this month. I want you to watch it, listen to her and then look inside yourself at your own “issues” and then put them into some kind of perspective. It worked for me!
After I showered, ate and powered down an XS energy drink, I sat down with a pen and paper and wrote down many goals for myself and my business for this coming year. As I was doing that, I stopped and realized that by sharing this, somebody else might be inspired to get focused on their own goals and the action needed to get there. If a teenage girl who lost a leg can continue to actively pursue her goal (pun intended!) of playing and coaching soccer, then I should be able to get my head around my own goals and the actions I need to take to accomplish them. My perceived barriers paled into insignificance beside her achievements.
Hoping that this story inspires you to take action and be thankful for what you have!
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
Instead of spending all of your time and money on looking for new customers to buy from you, have you thought about “mining” your past customers for “gold”?
What I mean by that is, if your customers have purchased from you at least once before and have enjoyed their experience of dealing with you, the chances that they will buy from you again are very good. So, have you contacted them and asked them if they are looking to buy something similar? If they are not, have you asked them if they would recommend you to their family, friends and acquaintances? Their recommendations can be an excellent source of unpaid “advertising” for you.
We all know how referrals work in our own lives – you have a great experience at a restaurant, or see a great movie and you tell all your friends about it. There is a very good chance that they will try that restaurant or movie based only on your recommendation!
Your customer is talking about your business!
Well, that same principle applies to the business of selling. Personal recommendations from your customers to THEIR personal circle will generate some form of business for you. It might not be in the form of immediate sales, but over time, it will result in sales and repeat customers. Remember that what other people say about you, your product or your service is far more powerful than what you say about it yourself.
This is where the power of Social Media can really help this concept. You should be using the power of excellent social media tools (e.g. Twitter, Facebook Fan Page) to communicate with your customers on a level that is NOT about selling. You should be learning about them, from them and giving something back to them. The power of the personal circle and recommendations can be seen daily on Twitter and Facebook and you should make that a part of this mining process.
You also need to communicate with your customers on a regular basis through email and print. If you don’t have an email newsletter, you are losing out on the potential of building really lasting, long-term relationships with your customers. Your communication to them is not a bother, if they don’t unsubscribe. They may not react immediately because they are not ready to buy. But when they are, because you communicate with them regularly, you are at the forefront of their mind when a particular need arises. Some will respond better to print so you should also use direct mail as part of your mining process. Continue to “mine” your list and communicate with them very regularly.
A nice reward
If you offer to reward your past customers for referring folks to you that do end up purchasing with you, you will have a better response. It doesn’t have to be anything major – although most folks would really appreciate a 53” Plasma screen TV! -it could be a discount off their own next purchase with you; it could be a $25 Starbucks card; it could be free pizza for a couple of nights – the possibilities are endless. They are limited only by your imagination!
If your customers ARE going to purchase again, then make them an offer they cannot refuse – while still making a decent profit from the sale. Be creative and make your offer so compelling, that they will WANT to come back and buy from you and are ready to buy now.
So, my advice is to turn to those that you have done business with in the past and “mine” them NOW for some “gold” in your business that is waiting to be found.
As we were having breakfast this morning, my daughter asked why the Angel was not yet sitting on top of the Christmas tree. I told her that Dad said we couldn’t put the Angel on until Christmas Eve. So she asked Dad why. He said, because Mom says we cannot put the Angel up until Christmas Eve. We looked at one another while she laughed hysterically at us!
Turns out that we were both respecting the others “tradition” … for the past 18 years I might add. There’s no such tradition in my Irish family, we always put the Angel or Star at the top of the tree when everything else is on there. There’s no such tradition in his American family either – go figure! So, we have now placed the Angel on the tree so she can shine away in harmony with the lights and decorations on the tree.
This reminded me of a story I had heard a few years ago. It was similar in that a little girl asked her Mom why she always cut one end of the roast and cooked it separately from the roast. Her Mom responded that that was how her mother had taught her to do it. They looked at the old recipe card and sure enough, it said to cut one end off the roast and cook separately.
So that Christmas, the little girl asked her Grandmother why they cut off one end of the roast – did it make it taste better, or cook faster, or what? Grandma was quite surprised to be asked this question and they went into the kitchen to talk to Mom and see that she was indeed cutting off one end of the roast.
Fitting your Roast in your Roasting Dish
Grandma looked at the roasting dish and told her daughter that she didn’t need to cut off one end of the roast because her roasting dish was big enough to fit the entire roast. She further explained that she had only cut the roast so most of it would fit in the roasting dish she had inherited from her own Mother, who used to do the same thing!
The moral of both stories? Communication can remove many incorrect assumptions that surround you in your daily life!
Do you have a similar story to share? Please comment below, we’d love to hear your own stories.
I spent a good 45 minutes this morning going through my inbox and making instant decisions on which email lists to stay on and which ones to unsubscribe from. Frankly, my inbox was just getting too crowded with stuff that I either never open or intend to open and read but never do. C’mon, who else doesn’t have this particular problem?!
Well, what started out to be a relatively quick and simple task turned into a bloody customer service nightmare – hence today’s blogpost! Thankfully, not ALL of the companies I was unsubscribing from made me jump through hoops, but many of them did. Being an email and direct marketer myself, I do understand the reasons behind it, but anything more than 2 steps is just downright stupid. One particular company had me take 4 steps and then had the audacity to tell me that they would email me to confirm my changes – for crying out loud people, I just told you I didn’t want any more bloody emails from you – get with the program and service the customer, don’t drive them away forever!!
Something I noticed about the really good ones was that their system put my email address on the screen where I had to click the unsubscribe button, confirming to me that I was unsubscribing that particular email address. It was quick and painless, with no more than 2 clicks to finish the process with a confirm page on my screen before I closed it out. Unfortunately, they were very few and far between. Most companies made me type in the email address I wanted to unsubscribe. As a customer, I much preferred the former.
My least favorite of all, Build A Bear, made me go to their website – which took way too long to load – and then go through no less than 5 choices to find the email unsubscribe function. Once I found it, and entered my email address to unsubscribe I got a pop-up message to tell me that if I unsubscribed from the email newsletter that I would also forfeit my Stuff Fur Stuff membership and any existing points in the account (my daughter’s account). Does anyone else find that completely incomprehensible? What the heck does an email newsletter have to do with a membership where you accumulate points for the things that you have already bought or plan to buy in the store? With blood boiling, I hit the unsubscribe button, only to get yet another page asking me to confirm my changes…. again! Why don’t you just call me stupid, stupid?! I can tell you, this particular Mom will NOT be shopping at that store ever again. I hope whoever designed their unsubscribe process gets a right butt-kicking at some point in their miserable lives.
On another note, while somewhat annoying, I did complete the couple of surveys that the very savvy companies used, trying to find out why exactly I unsubscribed and if there was anything they could do to improve the emails for me. My favorite was from Sur La Table. All of the good ones also gave me the option to immediately opt back in. And the really, really good ones thanked me for being a customer and said they were sorry to see me go. Even though I know it’s an automated process, it still did it’s job – gave me warm and fuzzies about those particular companies. I will in all likelihood continue to patronize those businesses even if I don’t want their email newsletters.
Many of them I will probably also continue to interact with in different ways, such as Twitter or Facebook, because I can control that interaction myself. The big majority of the companies that I unsubscribed from today, had their social media links prominently displayed close to the unsubscribe button. These guys at least recognize that I am not the only one limiting emails and moving my interaction with them to new mediums. Kudos to them and I’m happy to remain a customer of this savvy set – Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Sur La Table, PacSun and Macy’s.
This post doesn’t have anything at all to do with effective customer communication!
But it’s not everyday you see such a sight outside your own front door, so I thought I should communicate with you today by sharing the.. ah… experience. I waited a week or so before posting this because I wasn’t sure that I should – but after much to-ing and fro-ing (in my mind at least) I decided it is worth sharing.
According to my neighbor, he felt pretty helpless when he realized what was happening. He had just gassed up, cleaned up and was powering up for a trip to take his daughter back to college so the RV was sitting outside his house, connected to an outlet. Something sparked in the wiring and set the RV aflame. He said he was shocked at how fast it happened and how little there was that he could do! After calling 911, he could only wait for the professionals to come help. One of our other neighbors offered help in the form of the little fire extinguisher from his kitchen. As you can tell from the flames, that wasn’t a lot of help!
The boys from the local fire station did a bang up job in putting out the flames and dousing all the wiring so the fire would die fast. Kudos to the team from Station 58 in Orange County!
I believe the sheriff’s department will be in touch to talk to us about our neighbors and why we think their RV went up in flames. Let the truth be told!
Are there any lessons to be learned from this wild view from my front door? I have no idea!
RV up in smoke
Please comment away below and let me know what you learned, think or just plain have to say about it!
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