We’ve done the research and we still think this particular company is the most affordable and best ‘bang for the buck’ when your company wants to stay in regular contact with your customers every month – which you need to be doing no matter what you are selling, whether it is goods or services. It is one of those “essentials” of good business. If you want to know the name of the company we use, please email us at info@optumconsulting.com, and we will be happy to tell you. I will post future entries regarding just how important building, sorting, cleaning, maintaining, and growing your email database is to any business.

In the meantime, let us focus on another issue regarding business which is just as important – responding to customer emails – or potential customer emails. When you’re in business, if you’re lucky, you are going to receive a lot of emails everyday. Some will be orders. Some will be questions. Some will be complaints. The most important thing you can do to grow your business and keep it growing is to reply promptly to emails from customers or potential customers. We have all heard the common phrase “If one of your customers is happy with your business, they will tell one or two of their friends. If they are UNhappy with your business they will tell FIVE of their friends.” Unfortunate but true. This is how you separate the men from the boys so to speak — to use an outdated and slightly sexist phrase.

So let us use a real world example and I will show you exactly what we are talking about here. We just received an email today from a new company in the “music business” that calls itself “Fanbridge.” Now new companies in the music business are not a new thing. Especially not NOW. In the new “renegade internet age,” a new “music business-related” company crops up every few hours claiming that they are THE THING that will help artists “skyrocket your career to the next level.” Why? Because let’s face it, it isn’t that difficult to start what “looks like” a new company in the internet age. You simply create a website and hope that people come along and lay down some money. Whether or not you deliver on the promises you make to your potential customers is an entirely different matter.

Now Fanbridge offers no less than the same thing to its potential customers as well – that they will help “skyrocket your business to the success it deserves” if you’ll only use their services to maintain your company’s email database. And they don’t have a problem emailing you once or twice a week to remind you of it. But just who IS emailing you? The problem is – like with a lot of new internet companies, especially ones that try to cater to ambitious musical artists - is that if you actually email them back to ask a question or two, you will not get a response from a live human being.

Advice? Don’t do business with them. There are plenty of reputable companies out there who WILL respond back to you. And fast. Not just in the music business, but in any industry that you are in. In the music business for example, Cdbaby, Stretch the Skies, MuzicReviews, are all good examples of companies who are out there being run by real live people who want to work with you and yes just might be able to help you “skyrocket your career” or at least give it a good jump-start. Why? Because they are run by real live human beings. How can you the customer tell? Because when you email them you will receive a prompt response to your query.

Personally speaking, one of our companies, our record company to be exact, has emailed Fanbridge three separate times now to answer some simple questions — and we have still not received a reply from them. But we HAVE received emails from them since asking us WHY we haven’t started using their services. Confusing right? You would think that if they wanted our business – and email database management is a profitable business – that they would respond quickly, politely, and effectively to push the sale through. Right? Wrong.

With Fanbridge, as with a lot of new companies cropping up on the internet, they have yet to respond in over a month of email queries from our company. And we have a giant database – which only bodes well for their fledgling company and means big money coming in every month and they need do nothing except teach us how to use their system and then answer a few customer service emails once in a while. Our monthly fee would be free money coming in each and every month as it is for any good reputable email database management company.

So how surprised were we to receive yet another email from Fanbridge today asking us why we hadn’t taken advantage of their “great offer” and migrated our database over to them? Well frankly not too surprised. For all we know it was an automatically generated message sent by a computer with no human being attached to it at all. The email claimed to be from a person named “Briana.” And they even included a picture of “Brianna” to entice us even further.

But you see, like most potential customers, we want more than a cute name and a pretty picture before we do business with a company. We want real people working with us who we know are going to take our business seriously and handle it effectively. That is only natural. If we have questions before we lay down money we want them answered. Again, only natural. Chances are your potential customers want the same thing from YOU and YOUR business.

The question is: are you able to give them that? If the answer is a resounding “YES” as I hope it is, then the best way to show them that is for you to make sure that no matter what you respond to every single email you receive from your customers or potential customers.

It isn’t easy. Nobody ever said it would be. But you CAN DO IT. You just have to delegate the task to one or two people in your organization and make that priority number one. If you’re a one-man operation, it will be even more difficult. But every email query you reply to personally brings you that much closer to closing another sale and earning a new customer. Of course the same thing can be said to every complaint you reply to or every single piece of email your company receives. Even if it is a simple “Hey guys, thank you!” You might simply reply, “No, on the contrary, thank YOU for your business! And for your kind words.”

In this day and age, personal communication with your customer base and your potential customers is one of the single most important things you can do to keep your business growing. It isn’t going to be easy. But as I said before, you CAN DO IT. Just make it happen. Remember that every business and every business owner is in the same position. It is how we handle our business that determines the fate of our business.

We will post more detailed entries on this same topic in the future and go over some steps you can take to make the task simpler and more efficient. In the meantime, take stock of how many “unanswered emails” you have in your company’s inbox today and get to answering them. You should be surprised at the results this simple action step will yield in regards to increasing your business.

So what to do about Fanbridge? Great question. Well, we had no choice. We simply replied TO THEM instead.

Hi “Brianna,”

Since we have emailed you three separate times with questions regarding migrating over to use your services and have still not received an answer, we took the liberty of using this common trend in “new business modeling” so expertly exemplified by your company as a great example in a recent blog post to our own business consulting clients. Your lack of response to our simple questions - but continued solicitations for our business is becoming a fairly common trend – especially with internet-only businesses. Let us hope for all of our sakes, it does not continue.

The blog post is re-printed below. Hopefully you too might learn a thing or two from it. Consider it a freebie. On the house, from us to you.

Our questions are below the blog post should you care to respond. We are sincerely interested in doing business with your company should you turn out to be real “live human beings.”

Best of luck and success to you as always,

Ed Hale :: Optum Consulting

In the bigger picture what we are talking about in today’s post is something we call AVOIDING LEAKAGE. Look for past and future posts regarding this concept specifically. But in short, for the purposes of this post, “Leakage” is a term we coined at Optum Consulting that refers to that moment when your customers or potential customers “see through” one of your sales techniques or methods and it gives them a negative feeling instead of a positive one.

Oftentimes the consumer is not even aware of it. It is something that takes place subconsciously in the consumer’s mind and they aren’t even sure what it was exactly but something just turned them off. So instead of a sale, you get a “no sale” or a “walk away” or a “hang up” or a “delete” or even worse an “unsubscribe.” Now sometimes the customer IS aware of it. They know exactly what it was that turned them off. They notice something that just seems a bit “off” and it turned them off – such as when a company makes the mistake of advertising “the lowest price ever” for a product in one piece of sales literature but that customer also happened to notice that they offered an even lower price a few months back, or in another piece of literature that was sent to a different database and they just happen to be signed up to both databases. That’s leakage in a nutshell and you want to avoid it at all costs.

There are hundreds of mistakes a company can make in their sales literature and sales methods that can cause “Leakage.” Again, look for a more detailed examination of it in past and future posts. But you get the idea.

Today we will be discussing just one of those. And it can easily be summed up by the following words: STOP SELLING if you really want to SELL MORE of your product. Selling has always been a turn off to consumers. It is one of the enigmas of being in business. How to sell your product without actually SELLING. Or at least without letting your customer feel as though they are being SOLD TO.

One of the ways companies used to “sell” was to “threaten” their customers with “Supplies limited!” or “Act Now! Product Going Fast!” We call this technique “stressing urgency.” It used to work. And in some cases it can still work. But not very often anymore. Only in the lowest-value-product markets. Late night TV infomercials are good examples of products that still use this method. But even they are smartening up to the ever-smarter consumer and the new methods that are necessary to sell to them.

The days of threatening your customers or potential customers with “once they are gone, they will not be reprinted!” (as the company I am referring to had done in their newest newsletter regarding a book they are trying to sell) are over. And they have been for about ten years now. This was one of the many catchphrases that we used to use in the old-school business model known as “stressing urgency.” But those old-school days are over.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “But that used to be one of the RULES of selling!” “Limited time only!” “Space cannot be saved.” “Order yours now before it’s too late!”

And you’d be right. Just a decade ago those WERE the rules. But your customers have grown up since then. Haven’t you? And who are YOU? A consumer yourself? Right? Right.

Now do you really think that Mr. and Mrs. Potential Customer believe that if you were to receive twenty-thousand orders in the next two months for this very valuable five-volume book set that you WOULD NOT re-print it? Are you implying that somehow the very book itself is going to magically disappear like this is Lord of the Rings or something? (The idea is humorous when you come right down to it.)

Or do you think that they just might see right through this old seventies-style sales card-trick and realize that you are just trying to get them to “order today!” by “stressing urgency” — using one of those famous old sales catch-phrases like “Supplies are limited!” or “Limited Quantities on Hand!?”

What’s your guess?

Well you guessed right. Just like YOU, your customers have all grown up and out of those old tricks long ago. And this is a perfect example of Leakage. They see right through the technique and it gives them a bad taste in their mouth.

ESPECIALLY customers of higher-value-products because you are dealing with a much more advanced clientele than say companies who are selling “blenders” or “Grill Masters.”

And frankly, as not only a customer, but still a potential future customer of future products, when your company does this, you are risking coming across downright insulting to the very people that matter most to you - your customers.

There is plenty of work out there regarding this paradigm shift that took place in the mind of the average consumer. It is being called everything from “conscious consumerism” to “marketing to smarter shoppers” to…. fill in the blank. The nomenclature of the paradigm is always changing.

Just remember that there is nothing more stomach churching than a company threatening their customers with “order today” because “supplies are limited” in this day and age.

Consumers are just too smart now. They/we realize that there simply is no such thing as “limited supplies” anymore. Not now. Now if you are speaking of a product that actually does have a “limited supply” such as gold or oil or precious coins… that would be different. But books? Are you kidding me? Especially when everyone and their brother realizes that you can just as easily turn that baby into a downloadable ebook or a “kindle” tomorrow and not only help the environment but also have an endless supply on hand. Tsk tsk.

So instead of feeling that “rush of excitement” because you tried to “stress urgency,” your customers end up feeling insulted that you attempted to use such corny old sales tricks on them in today’s new marketplace.

If your product is good, and your customer base knows it, try being more honest, direct, upfront, and informational with your customers. Stress the VALUE of the product. Not the “limited Supply.” Speak from your heart. In other words “Stop selling. And you will sell more.” It works like a charm. (And that my friends is why we titled today’s blog post just that.)

The truth is that great products sell themselves. Think of BMW, the iPod, plasma flat-screen TVs. It doesn’t mean that you don’t need to advertise. It just means you don’t need to SELL. There are products with great intrinsic value. There is absolutely no need to SELL people on them. They sell themselves. All you have to do when you have a product that has built-in intrinsic value is OFFER IT and it will be ACCEPTED by your clientele.

The beauty is that they will adore you for offering it to them. Why? Because they like your product. They want your product. They already see and know its intrinsic value. (At least if you’ve good ad copy writers that is – which is a whole other story. And yes that is not only one of our specialties at Optum Consulting, it happens to be one of our passions).

I will leave you with this image to give you a real world example of just what I am talking about here. Think of your favorite musical artist. Everyone has at least ONE favorite musical artist. Maybe it’s someone older, or maybe it’s the newest act on the block. But go ahead and close your eyes and take a moment to think of who yours is. You just absolutely LOVE them and their music. Their music does something to you that you just can’t even put into words…

Now in order to get you to buy one of their new albums, do they market it as “buy now because we won’t make more!?” Or do they simply just let you know that “so and so” has a new CD out and it’s great!” Well of course you can’t wait to hear it because you already love that artist! Right? So what are you going to do? You got it. You’re going to buy it. Not because they’re going to “run out.” But because you already know it is of great value to you. And you are excited that it is now available. They don’t have to SELL YOU. They simply offer it up. And you the consumer naturally buy it.

As always, best of luck to all of you. But then again if you are reading this, you don’t need luck. Just keep up the great work. And here’s to more money and success for you and your company!

Ed Hale :: Optum Consulting

Right now the Internet is changing at a faster pace than it ever has before and it is for a variety of reasons. One of them is because more and more people from all over the world have access to it. And number two, technology is becoming easier and easier to use and manipulate - therefore more and more people than ever before are creating software, platforms, applications, widgets, and operating systems than in the recent past when “software developing” or “computer programming” was a trade that was in the hands of the very few.

Now we’ve got “third-party apps” becoming the hottest property on the net in weeks being developed by teenagers at home after school “just for fun.” And the truth is, it is fun to see what everyone will come up with next each day. At some point we will cover widgets and third-party apps and all that other fun stuff i a future post. But in the meantime, if it all “sounds Greek” to you, shoot us an email. We will help. Whether it is building your website from start to finish, helping upgrade your already existing website to a more modern dynamic Web 2.0 platform, helping you promote it and gain more exposure and visibility, helping you start or maintain a customer email address database and start doing regular email blasts to your customer base, or simply helping you understand what all this stuff means, it is one of the many things we do here at Optum Consulting. We aren’t good at it. We are great at it. And we are great at it not because it is our job - but because we absolutely love it and therefore choose to make it our job. And in fact, as many are now discovering in generation x and y, the key is not to have ONE job, but to have many hobbies - things that you LOVE doing and being a part of that just also happen to make you money. Speaking personally, this is what Optum Consulting is for me. It was a passion that I turned into a business because the business was already there. It was already coming to me. So I simply opened the doors and accepted it.

It is the same for the other members of our graphics, internet, and technology team here. These are guys who eat, sleep, breathe, and live technology and design. These are guys who send you IMs at 4:30AM about a new blog plug-in that they just discovered - and disturbingly YOU also happen to still be awake and sitting behind your computer. That is passion. Which is what we bring to every client we work with.

Let’s cut to the meat of this particular piece because this is important stuff. I’m going to give you a quick overview of the paradigm, a few dos and don’ts and if you want more information just shoot us an email.

Number one and most importantly, if you own any kind of a business, and that means even if YOU yourself are the product - such is the case with web designers, models, actors, etc - then you need to be doing two things: staying in regular contact with your customer base, and constantly searching out ways to find new customers. Print ad campaigns and direct mail are the old fashioned traditional way of doing this. And yes we still recommend this method to some of our clients depending on their business model and customer demographics. But these methods have slowly been on a downward spiral because they are expensive compared to email campaigns and newsletters. Call them eZines, email blasts, webzines. It’s all the same. But it is certainly a less expensive alternative than snail-mailing a printed newsletter to thousands or millions of customers. As I said, it all depends on who you are and what you are selling.

If you are not sending out regular emails to your existing customer base, call us now. We will help you set it up. It is not expensive nor difficult to do and it is easy to teach you or we can do it for you. So do not be afraid of it. (i cannot tell you how many people I speak to on a daily basis who don’t do this simply because they are intimidated by “starting it.” Once i explain how easy it is, they feel much better and they off on their own in no time. It is an imperative aspect of your overall business plan.

If you are already doing this, here are some tips. There is a tendency today for individuals and companies to make one or more of several mistakes when sending out emails to their customers. One of them is to not send them out regularly enough. Bad move. Choose a date, perhaps once a month, bi-weekly, or every two months and implement a regular schedule. Do not waver from it. Your email can be something as simple as offering a few simple tips, offer a sale, or update your customers on your latest news. But you have to keep your name or your product’s name in the eyes of your customers or your potential customer’s eyes on a regular basis.

Another mistake many companies make is just the opposite: they send out too many emails to their customers. Bear in mind rule #1. YOU ARE a customer. How many emails do you receive each day? Get the picture? If you are sending out more than two emails a month you are most likely bothering people. It doesn’t matter how much they like you or your product. They, like you, are receiving too many emails to keep up with each day and chances are the majority of your emails are being deleted before even being scanned over let alone read. Stick to no more than twice per month, if that.

Yes there are exceptions. Michael Masterson’s “Early to Rise” newsletter goes out every weekday and is known to have the largest opted-in subscription database on the planet today. But though I love reading some of the articles in his newsletter I still relegate them to my junkmail folder simply because sending out a newsletter everyday is just too much for your customers to deal with. That way, if I want to check out what Masterson and his crew is up to, I head to my junkmail folder to read a few issues, but they’re not clogging up my precious inbox. Rob Brezsny’s Freewill Astrology is another exception because he sends out weekly horoscopes. But he only sends them out to people who have subscribed to receive them. So they already know they are going to receive weekly emails from Rob. Great stuff and highly recommended if you haven’t yet discovered him by the way.

Another mistake many make when sending out emails to their customer base is to clog them up with too much information. Border’s booksellers is notorious for this. Their emails are so damned crammed up with pictures and adverts and sales and God knows what else that I cannot help but hit delete the moment I see their name appear in my inbox. Too bad, because I like reading. I like books. But Amazon.com does a much better job at it because they keep their emails nice and clean and simple with plenty of white space. They send you a few recomendations every few weeks and the email is clean and clear enough to keep your attention and sometimes actually make you want to “click through.” Keep your emails clean, clear, on message, simple, with plenty of white space.

“Click-throughs” by the way are the goal of your sending out those emails in the first place. Some call it “conversion.” How many readers of your emails can you convert from readers into buyers by getting them to click on a link and read more or make a purchase? That’s that key. That’s the endzone. But lately there is a new trend in email newsletters that is leading to more “deletes” than a business owner would ever want to see on a monday morning analyzing his “stats report.” And it is this: Sending out an email that announces that you “just posted a new blog entry or just upgraded your website, so have a look.” Unfortunately for those who are doing it, it is an increasing trend.

Let me copy and paste a few examples here:
————————————————————————————————-

Hi everyone,
I just updated my website and thought you might want to check it out. To visit, just click on the links below or paste the URLs into your browser. iWeb Ella
title=”http://web.mac.com/jaybond/Jays_Site” href=”http://web.mac.com/jaybond/Jays_Site”>
Jays Site http://web.mac.com/xxxxxx.Site
Take a look and let me know what you think!
————————————————————————————–

Here is another one equally poor:
Dear Customer,
I’ve just posted a new blog entry/article: Building Trust http://www.xxxxxxxxxx.org/blog/2008/05/09/building-trust/
Do check out the article and leave me a comment. Let’s start a discussion.
Speak to you soon.
Music Business Consultant
—————————————————————

So what’s the problem here? Well the first one has one goal in mind: he wants people to check out his new website. But he offers no incentive to do so. Just a another one of hundreds of emails clogging the inbox that we cannot wait to delete, and worse, it is a bland generic email that only an old maid in a nursing home with nothing better to do would ever click on.

The second one has the same goal: he wants people to read his new blog entry - and he comes off desperate to let you know that - which is another subject that we will touch on in another blog post - avoiding showing your hand; but again, regarding this specific subject, he offers no incentive. Just a plain white ghostly email with a link. And of course his is just one of the hundred-plus emails you received that day. So what are you going to do? Click to open a browser to read his blog? Or delete?

Damn right you’re going to delete because deleting one more email out of that already over-crowded inbox is a great feeling. In today’s day and age it’s one of the easiest feel-good actions we can do. Let’s face it. Deleting email just feels good! Because that’s one less email that you have to deal with. But we don’t want our customers, clients, or prospects to ever get that feel-good feeling from DELETING our email. We want them to get it from READING OUR EMAIL and then forcing a click-through based on something that read right then and there that just made them HAVE TO CLICK TO READ MORE.

Consider this a freebie because it’s some of the most important advice you need to run a successful business in today’s world if you are using email as a form of marketing - which at this point you SHOULD be and NEED TO BE doing.

Now here’s the catch. There is a reason why some individuals and companies are doing this. Some do it because it’s just a lot easier than creating a custom-email newsletter each time and perhaps they just don’t have time or resources or money to hire someone to do it for them. So that is all they can muster. But that is still no excuse. Whoever you are using to host your email address database has pre-designed templates that you can use and all you need do is fill in some information, add a pic or two, and you have created at least SOME content to whet the customer’s appetite enough to get them to click through.

As for the second example, this gentleman who I admire greatly by the way, is taking this new strategy because he is trying to increase his “traffic” to his website. You see, if he pastes his “new blog” into his email then he knows people are going to just read the blog post right there from his email and perhaps not click through to his website. He wants more traffic on his website for a variety of reasons. He wants his stats to be high. He wants people to post comments in order to build “community.” He wants to be able to sell advertising based on high traffic. He wants them to see other things that are on his website that he is selling. We get it. But it isn’t going to work.

The problem is that people are not going to click through just to read your new blog entry when they just received a hundred other emails at that same moment. Sure a few die-hards like “mom” might click once in a while just because they love you to peices, but let’s face it, we click through when we are enticed to. And it takes a lot to entice any of us - and remember WE are ALL customers - to click a link from an email these days because number one we are receiving too many, and number two, we are all just too damn busy. Best case scenaro for these poor fellows above is that some diehards might “flag” or save the email for a few days in the inbox telling themselves that eventually they will get to it. And then a few weeks later it will dissappear into that netherworld of the bottom of the inbox along with those Blue Mountain Greeting cards you still haven’t clicked to open from Aunt Pat, or they will eventually just get deleted because they are now “old news.”

So what to do? Simple. If you want to capture your customer’s or a potential customer’s attention and convert them into a click-through or a possible sale, or at least a “comment” on your blog, give them something in the email itself. The aforementioned Early to Rise newsletter is exemplary at this. Each newsletter is filled to the brim with useful information and keeps you interested long after you should have hit delete. But they are successful at doing this because they offer something in that email. And that something can be anything. It can be an article, a blog post, a picture that will take them to a photo slideshow if they click-through. It can also be a video that if they click on they can watch right there from your email. It might be a few new news items, or the opportunity to take advantage of a one-day sale. That of course is up to you. But for God’s sake do not take the risk of having 99% of your database delete your email simply because you want “more traffic to your website” so you force your customer’s to click in order to get any content.

Content is what it is all about. ITunes are experts at this. Sign up for their weekly New Music Tuesday newsletter. Every tuesday like clockwork an email will appear in your inbox with content galore. It isn’t overcrowded. They use plenty of clean space. But they sitll manage to feature enough pictures and brief descriptions of new music to force even the most dedicated working professionals to click-through in order to listen to a track or two or perhaps even make a pruchase. Digital downloads of music on iTuens have been steadily rising for years straight now and there are many reasons why. This is one of them.

The point is this: If you want your emails to work for you, yoru company, or your products, don’t make your customers work for your emails. If you make them workin the least bit, they are going to hit that delete button. Entice them with your emails. Tell them something, offer them something, and then get out of their way. You are merely one out of a hundred emails they will receive that day alone. If they are interested enough, and they should be if you are good at creating enticing emails, you will accomplish two remarkable goals: you will put your name in front of their eyes that “one more time” that will continue to increase your exposure and brand recognition, and you may just get them to click-through and make a pruchase, or subscribe, or post a comment, or whatever else your particular goal happens to be.

Continued Success in your email ad campaigns! As always if you have any questions please feel free to contact us. We are an email or a phone call away.

Ed Hale :: Optum Consulting for Business

Obviously the first consideration is going to be “Can this holiday afford our company any additional sales compared to any other normal day.” Many companies choose to take advantage of holidays by holding one-day “holiday sales.” Often times it works. Consumers like holiday sales. But it depends on what sort of business you are in and what kind of holiday it is. Remember that “holidays” in and of themselves are an odd paradigm. Some are related to specific religions. Some are related to country and patriotism. Some started out as just covert advertisements themselves and took on a life of their own — Mothers Day is an example of one of those. But who isn’t going to support a special day to celebrate their mother? Originally created as a way to sell more greeting cards as the story goes, it turned out to be not such a bad idea afterall. But a company needs to be very careful in how they use Mother’s Day, or any holiday for that matter, as an advertisement opportunity.

A florist could have a field day with Mother’s Day. And they should. A simple “Show your mom how much you care this year by sending her a lovely bouquet from some of the most beautiful new bouquets in our collection, and save 20% if you order before Wednesday” is guaranteed to boost sales and not offend anyone. One can safely assume that a real estate company or a hardware store wouldn’t necessarily benefit from such an ad campaign. And they’d be smart to realize that and not do anything at all.

Sending out an email to advertise your company or your products on a holiday, any holiday, is tricky business. Many companies choose to take the conservative approach and not do anything. This is a safe approach. Not always the best, because you may be missing out on a big opportunity. But at least you aren’t risking offending anyone nor risking your most valuable commodity — your reputation.

What kind of business you are and what sort of product you sell is what determines how you take advantage of potential profit opportunities in holidays. A law firm is not going to offer its clientèle a holiday sale. Neither would your local doctor. But they can still profit from holidays by simply sending a greeting card to wish you and yours a happy holiday. This is good business. If you are in business, almost any business, no matter the size, it would be a good idea to initiate and set up a holiday greeting strategy starting right now and put it into action from this point forward. It is an easy way to do two very important things: Number one, it shows your customer that you care and that you appreciate their business. Number two, it is an easy way to put your brand in their attention field if even for a few brief seconds. They are reminded that you do indeed exist. And when needed, you are there for them.

Choose the holidays that your company feels aligned with and more importantly the ones that you believe your customer base feels aligned with. Then decide on how you are going to communicate with them. Could be a card. Could be an email. Might even be a sale, depending on your product and business. But make it short and simple, knowing that your customers, for we are ALL customers, are receiving a lot of these.

Last Christmas I received hundreds of Christmas cards - from friends, family, and businesses alike. I received greeting cards in the form of “We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued patronage” from my chiropractor, from my doctor, my accountant, from several law firms, and from many businesses that we work with in a variety of different arenas. All were appreciated. Smart business people.

But i also received an email from a non-profit that i work with that I found particularly disturbing simply because it said something to the effect of “As the year ends, now is the perfect time to support our most important cause etc etc…” I must say, i don’t know if the head of this normally decent and respectable charity had just been celebrating too much or what, but that was absolutely just about the dumbest thing I’d ever seen a company do on a holiday. The last thing people are thinking about during those six weeks leading up to Christmas is supporting our charity.

If you step back for even a moment and look at your own life, you’d realize that as everyone else in the free world, during that frantic period people are primarily concerned with buying presents for everyone on their list and making sure they get all those holiday cards filled out, signed, addressed, stamped, and to the post office in time. Nope. Not a good time to send out a solicitation for your non-profit. (Though it would have been PERFECT opportunity to simply say “We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support this year and wish you a happy holiday.”) Too bad they didn’t get this.

As you might guess, it lost them a bit of respect and reputation in the eyes of many of their supporters. And often times this isn’t even conscious. Remember that consumerism in general is not a conscious affair. It is often impulsive and works at a very subconscious level.

If a company is smart they can use this to their advantage. When in doubt, do nothing. If anything at all, use the above strategy of simply sending a note of appreciation. Another method that can work for some but not all is to have someone from the company recall a memory or an anecdote of some kind that relates to the holiday. “Memories of Mom” by the vice president with nothing more than a “Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there” wouldn’t be a bad idea. It would be difficult to offend many and it would still do the trick of putting your brand in the eyes of the customer one more time.

DO NOT offer a sale with the above strategy. You don’t need to. And in fact, it would reverse any potential benefit your little heart-warming gesture might create. (I have copied and pasted just such an example of this idea at the very bottom of this post from Ms. Jacqueline Whitmore of The Protocol Post. It was a smart move. Accomplished the goal. Read it and learn what you can from it.)

With that said, I will leave you with an email I received on Mother’s Day this year as a perfect illustration of just that. Here is a company that is in the “self-empowerment” business. They sell a very “hot product” in today’s world: self-help, self-improvement, and self-discovery products are all the rage these days. But they wrote one of the most smarmy emails I ever read and created a “special mother’s day sale” because “isn’t your mom worth it?” This is what we would call “an ad campaign from hell.” Whose ever idea it was should be shot on sight. Or at least never allowed near the advertising and marketing department again of this fine company. That’s for sure.

Read on and learn. The feeling that you will be left with is exactly what you do NOT want to leave your own customer’s with. Ever.

Ed Hale :: Optum Consulting

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Dear Customer,
I just got back from the florist and was thinking…
Have you realized that we spend most of the week time with people we hardly know? And what little time we have left is usually spent worrying about this or that.

It’s so easy too forget to show our family that we love them. The reason is simple - it gets so natural having them around and feeling their support that we “forget” about it…. and then only see how good we have it when it’s *gone*

It does not have to be that way. Let’s take a moment to show a loved one how much they mean to us.

Remember that this Sunday is Mother’s Day!

To help you show your love, we created the single best offer we’ve ever run on our site. For that special lady: Your Mother.
Learn about it here: http://www.silvalifesystem.com/products/promo/mothers-day-special

Because the offer is so good, it expires on May 12. It’s not for everyone, but as a long-time subscriber of our newsletter, I just thought I’d share this with you

Jill Magso
SilvaLifeSystem.com

PS - A mother deserves it, doesn’t she? Let a special “mother” in your life (is your wife a mother?) know how much she’s loved. Visit the link below

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A note from Optum Consulting:

Now we may appear to be damn close to being psychic here simply because we are so good at what we do, but in fact we are not. So I cannot speak for you, but as an “already established customer” of the above company and their products - their second most valuable asset - an already established customer - I found their “Mother’s Day Special Sale” nauseating, truly offensive - almost to the point that I committed the most unholy of all acts that every company in the world should dread beyond all other’s besides “charge-backs, returns, and refunds” - I almost unsubscribed. In the end, I didn’t. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume that someone in marketing got carried away with a bad idea and no one else was smart enough to stop them.

The point: DO NOT sugar coat your company, your product, or a sale you decide to have with some sappy bullshit pseudo holiday greeting such as “Isn’t your mother worth it?” when trying to sell your own product. We the consumer know what our mothers want, need, desire, and deserve. And we are smart enough - or at least think we are - to make that decision on our own. Consumers have grown up a lot in the last five years. Grow with them.

And now here below is an excellent example of how to use a holiday to your company’s benefit as explained above in a positive way. Notice that she uses the strategy exactly as descirbed above - not actually “selling anything” but simply using the holiday as an opportunity to put the company name out there one more time and help brand the company “that much more.” She also creates more customer loyalty by adding a personal touch to her company - a proven method to increase sales to an already established customer base.

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Greetings!
As we all know, a person is not born with manners. Manners are either learned through careful observation of others’ behavior or they are instilled in us by friends or family members. Manners aren’t about being stuffy or artificial. Good manners are nothing more than a series of small, inconsequential sacrifices.

It seems fitting since Mother’s Day is right around the corner that I recognize someone who made an extraordinary amount sacrifices for me throughout my life. My 82-year old mother, Elsie Whitmore, not only showed me the importance of being polite but she also taught me how to make other people feel very special. When I was growing up, I spent many hours after school playing at my mother’s beauty salon. She always insisted that I meet and greet every customer who sat in her chair. Little did I realize that I was learning social skills while talking and listening to others as they got their hair cut, curled or colored!

I am thankful that my mom cared enough to teach me the importance of developing personal relationships, socially and professionally. I hope that you take the time this month to thank that special someone who cared enough to give you the gift of good manners.

Dedicated to YOUR success,
Jacqueline Whitmore

I will write another post exclusively dedicated to the benefits and details of such training. I spent many years seeking out and being trained and mentored by the absolute best on the planet because I was committed to not only being the best business owner and executive that I could be, but also to becoming the absolute best person I could be. From Avatar training to walking on hot burning coals with Tony Robbins, from years of twice weekly personal and professional coaching from some of the world’s best organizations in the Coaching business to every seminar and conference one can name - I put one-hundred-and-ten percent of my efforts into mastering everything that was out there to learn, grow, excel and become the best at everything I attempted. (This also included hundreds of hours in schools around the world learning to speak five languages as well. But that too we will save for another post.)

One of the areas that I enjoyed being trained in the most was something known as Etiquette or Protocol. This type of training includes mastering the skills of how to eat in polite society, how to dress, how to speak to foriegn dignitaries, telephone etiquette, business etiquette, and sometimes things as simple as how to shake hands like an executive. One of the companies that I received training from was The Protocol School of Palm Beach. Just to set the record straight and to show just how much I appreciated all the training I received from this organization, I will tell you that I have not had much communication with them for some time, because I moved to Manhattan five years ago. I am not being paid to endorse the company and in fact they have no idea that I am even recommending them to my clients. But do a google search in the town that you live in and see if you can find a good ettiquette or protocol school. It is worth every penny and hour that you will invest and then some.

In the meantime, I have reprinted below an excellent piece from Jacqueline Whitmore, the owner of the above mentioned school. I believe you will find the advice valuable.

Ed Hale :: Optum Consulting

You only have one chance to make a first impression, so make it a good one. Research shows that you only have seven seconds before people form an opinion about you. Often, that’s before you’ve had a chance to say, “hello.” Here are some tips to help you create a great first impression.

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• Don’t just arrive on time for a meeting; arrive ten minutes early. This extra time will give you an opportunity to gain your composure, go to the restroom and check your appearance one final time.

• Be on your best behavior as soon as you get out of your car. You never know who you will run into in the parking lot, hallway, elevator or restroom.

• Turn your cell phone on “silent” mode. Nothing is more embarrassing than hearing your cell phone ring while you’re in an important meeting. While waiting in the reception area, refrain from talking on your cell phone. Be mindful that others, i.e., the receptionist or administrative assistant, may be listening to your conversation and forming opinions about you.

• Stand tall. Pull your shoulders back and hold your head high. This posture makes you appear poised and self-assured (even if you feel anxious and tense).

• Smile. Whenever you smile, it makes you look more confident and approachable.

• Make eye contact and offer a firm handshake. A Yale University study found that people believe you possess the qualities associated with your grip. For example, a limp, clammy handshake can make you appear nervous and shy.

• Focus on the other person and less on yourself. The keys to being likeable are to be empathic and interested. Empathy means that you care about what the other person is saying. Interest means that you want to get to know the person better.

• Listen with the intent to understand. Begin the conversation by putting the spotlight on the other person. Say something like, “Tell me, what did you have in mind to make this program more successful?” If you want to increase your chances of getting what you want, allow the decision maker to do most of the talking.

• Let the decision maker have the last word. When the decision maker ends the conversation with an opinion or suggestion, show him some respect and don’t make the conversation linger. Instead, thank the person for his time, shake hands and don’t forget to follow-up with a handwritten thank-you note.