SubscribeThink about it for a minute . . .
When you have a choice, who do you do business with?
Typically, we do business with people we know, like, and trust. As a business owner the one thing that we are constantly striving to achieve is the ever elusive, customer loyalty. Why, because we know that it is infinitely more expensive and much more difficult to find new customers than it is to keep the ones we already have. So, how do we get our customers to know, like, and trust us; how do we achieve customer loyalty?
According to American psychologist and philosopher, William James, the deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. It would then stand to reason that if we appreciate our customers or clients that they would like us and trust us. Don’t believe Mr. James’ opinion? How about another American icon, Oprah Winfrey? Oprah has said, be thankful for what you have, you’ll end up having more. Maya Angelou perhaps has said it the best, People will forget what you do, they will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. If we appreciate our customers and clients, we will make them feel good . . . now that’s customer loyalty. Taken to the next step, customer loyalty not only means that they will most likely be your customer for life, but they will tell their friends about you, and they will become your customers for life too.
How do we make our customers feel good; how do we show appreciation? Here are a couple of sure-fire suggestions:
- Smile often.
- Make it about them, not about you.
- Make unexpected phone calls just to connect (1 to 3 per day).
- Give small gifts (1 per week).
- Send unexpected heart-felt greeting cards through the mail (3 to 5 per day).
Avoid sending notes of appreciation through e-mail. This might be a wonderful medium for quick informational business communications, but it is much too impersonal for heart-felt messages.
Mark Kay Ash built a 1.2 billion dollar cosmetic empire by instructing her associates to send three handwritten notes every night before going to bed. Try this technique your self for 30 days and tell us your results.
To Much Success with Your Appreciation Marketing.
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Hard to believe isn’t it; another year coming to an end.
2010 . . . what are you grateful for this year?
Did you achieve your 2010 goals or did you fall short?
There are less than 20 days left in the year.
What would it take to finish 2010 strong and enter into 2011 with momentum?
Here are a few points to ponder . . .
- Review your goals daily – it’s easy to allow life to steal your dreams.
- Appreciate that our greatest achievements occur as a result of helping others achieve their goals.
A plug for SendOutCards . . .
Did you realize that . . .
While the network marketing industry through 2010 is down, SendOutCards is up.
While most other network marketing companies are slow during the holiday season, SendOutCards is bursting at the seams.
In fact, this will be SendOutCard’s biggest week in history. We purchased $99,000 in stamps just yesterday! We will have multiple days this week where we send out several 100,000 cards, and we expect to peak out at 500,000 cards in one day! (that’s 4 cards a second!!).
So if you click on our site and have to wait for a few seconds, that’s normal for our business this time of year. Thanks for your patience! Have fun sending your Holiday Cards!
Do you want a way to . . .
- Send all your holiday cards in minutes?
- Act on your promptings to connect with friends and loved ones?
- Have a vehicle to supplement your income or create a Plan-B in your life?
Do you want a way to make serious changes in your life for 2011?
Examine the possibilities; go to http://www.RelationsBuilder.com.
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Many years ago I had a business coach that used to say that a short pencil was better than a long memory. This saying appears to be more and more true in recent years. Whether it is the aging process or the fact that more information is coming at me at breakneck speed, the truth is that I am finding it more necessary to jot things down.
Since this blog is all about connecting with and showing appreciation to others, let’s talk about that for a moment. Have you ever had a prompting to connect with someone for a particular reason, but by the time you remembered to act, it was way too late?
Tip of the Day: Put a small pad in your car or carry a piece of paper and a pen to make a quick note whenever those promptings come into your head. This way you will never forget to stay connected with the important people in your life.
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Along with all the joy and festivities, the Holiday Season also brings with it a fair degree of stress for most of us.
A few simple tips can help you avoid a considerable amount of this stress. Read on…
A daunting Holiday task that is typically left for after the Thanksgiving feast, after the gift buying, and pretty much after everything else, is the sending of the Holiday Greeting cards, a task we look forward to and dread at the same time. Wouldn’t it be nice to get them out with less stress? How about having a system that can save you a whole lot of time and effort? A little LESS STRESS this Holiday Season sounds good, doesn’t it?
- Obvious, yet worth repeating: Start Early. In fact, start now by thinking about the card(s), the message, and what pictures you might want to send with your card.
- By early November start (1) picking up stamps, (2) Pick out your photo(s), and (3) review your address book. Update, delete and (4) determine how many cards you will be sending.
- By mid-November, (1) Purchase your Cards, (2) Print
Special Message, a brief update about you and your family from the year. (3) Gather everything together; cards, stamps, photographs, Special Message sheets, as well as your address book. - By Late November start addressing your envelopes, stuff them with your cards, messages and pictures, and put on the appropriate amount of postage. Complete and mail 20-30 at a time.
Now, here is an even BETTER tip: especially useful if you are interested in significantly reducing your time spent on this task. I have found an online system to send your traditional physical greeting cards through the United Postal Service. Yes, online to snailmail, and it is very cool!
From the comfort of your own home, it’s real simple . . . go online, select your card(s), easily customize them with your own words in your own handwriting and signature. 
You can even add your own pictures and even a gift! When you click the SEND button, we print, stuff and stamp your envelope, AND we bring it to the Post Office for you. You can send one card at a time or 100’s of cards at once, all for as little as $1.06 per card, including postage! That’s it, finished, completed, DONE! Send all your holiday cards in as little as 30 minutes! NO stuffing envelopes, NO licking stamps or envelopes, and NO going to the Post Office! This process will save you a lot of time and it is undoubtedly less expensive than what you pay if you do it all yourself!
Now this is a refreshing way to handle a daunting Holiday task. If you would like to test drive this time-saving system for free, just enter your contact information on the right and click Submit.
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Several years ago our local newspaper hosted a seminar on TOMA – Top of mind awareness. Many facts, figures and studies were referenced and without going into all the boring details, the bottom-line message was simple, stay in front of your target market. Coming from the newspaper’s perspective, they were obviously very happy to help us reach our target market with regular and frequent advertising in the paper; size and frequency determined by your budget. At the time, my budget allowed for weekly business card sized ads.
While I do not disagree that this can be a good approach, the truth is that to be really effective it needs to be consistent, uninterupted, and never-ending; it requires deep pockets. The problem is that this is cold-market advertising.
It is much less expensive to keep a current customer or client than it is to find a new one.Used with your warm-market, TOMA advertising is very cost effective and has a much higher return on investment. The way it works is to send 2 or more greeting cards to your customer or client base annually. Your cards should celebrate life, like a birthday, anniversary, and/or a holiday card, or it should provide information relative to your business or profession. While you may also send promotional cards, it is not a good idea to incorporate an office promotion in a birthday card.
Take a look at the system we use in our office.
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How important is it to show appreciation on a daily basis? Just ask people like Mary Kay and Joe Girard.
We all know Mary Kay as the cosmetics mogul. She grow a huge sale force in a network marketing business model. Perhaps the reason for her success can arguably be attributed to the gratitude and appreciation she shows to the people all around her. In fact, it has been said that she instructs her sales associates to write three notes of appreciation every day before going to bed.
Similarly, Joe Girard has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Greatest Salesman. He reportedly sold on average 5 cars a day. His claim to fame? Joe sent out hundreds of notes of appreciation every month to the people on his list.
Mary Kay and Joe Girard both developed and grew large customer bases on the principle of showing appreciation. People love to be acknowledged and appreciated.
Be Grateful for what you have,
You’ll end up having more.
Don’t believe me . . . try it for yourself.
My challenge is for you to send 2-3 greeting cards everyday.
Do it for three months and see how it affects your life.
At first you might be hard-pressed to come up with even one a day, let alone 2 or 3, but soon you will learn not to suppress your feelings and your thought process. The best way to do this is to simply act on your promptings. Carry a small pad and a pen to jot down those names as they pop into your brain.
Who do you know that . . .
is a new customer, a returning client, a referring client, had a baby, bought a new house or a new car, got a new job or a promotion, sent you a gift, gave you a call, invited you to play golf, went to dinner or lunch with, shared an important idea, exhibits exceptional trust in you, keeps their account up to date, gave you good service in a restaurant, the manager of the restaurant you frequent often, fixed your car, fixed your pipes . . .
Of course you shouldn’t forget the birthdays, the anniversaries, and the all important “just because”.
With the card and gift program I use it is easy, efficient, and economical to show appreciation daily. In fact, I typically send out between 150 and 200 greeting cards every single month, which is not too difficult since I have nearly 2000 people in my Contact Manager. This could be Challenge III, increasing the number of people in your contact manager.
To your success and thanks for visiting . . .
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Here’s an automatic action-reaction. You are steps behind someone entering a place of business. They purposely and deliberately hold the door open for you. You react with an off the cuff, thank you. A nice exchange; something that occurs countless times right in our own neighborhood. This is definitely a nice gesture. In fact, it is often an instinctive thing to do and should happen all the time.
There are a myriad of acts of kindness that we can do during the day. We just have to keep our eyes open and have that give-to-give outlook on life.
When was the last time you drove by someone who was broken down on the side of the road? Stopping to help is often a much needed random act of kindness.
While in fast food drive through you will make the day of the person behind you if you pay for their lunch order. You could do the same at a toll booth.
Perhaps you know a couple who both work very hard, but never seem to get ahead. How appreciative would they be to receive an anonymous gift card to their favorite restaurant?
Of course our own finances may determine the degree to which we are able to give a random act of kindness.
The way I like to express a random acts of kindness is by sending a greeting card. The written word can have a very powerful impact on the recipient. Additionally, since we don’t often receive a greeting card, it is a memorable occurrence.
With SendOutCards I have a very unique system that allows me to send handwritten greeting cards with my pictures, and I can even send a gift along; there are hundreds to choose from. Now this is a random act of kindness. In fact, send me your snail mail address, and I will send you a random act of kindness.
Thank you for your time.
Be grateful for the people in your life . . . you’ll end up having more.
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The following article by Tom Hopkins is well worth sharing . . .
I learned the value and power of thank you notes early in life. When I was a young child; my parents occasionally went out with friends for dinner. Invariably, when my parents returned from an evening out, I saw my mother sit down at her little desk in the hallway as soon as she got home and began to write. One night I asked her what she was doing. Her answer came straight out of Emily Post: “We had such a wonderful time with our dear friends this evening that I wanted to jot them a note to thank them for their friendship and the wonderful dinner.” My mother’s simple act of gratitude, expressed to people who already knew that she and my father appreciated and enjoyed their friendship, helped to keep my parents’ friendships strong for their entire lifetimes.
Because I understood that building relationships is what selling is all about, I began early in my career to send thank you notes to people. I set a goal to send ten thank you notes every day. That goal meant that I had to meet and get the names of at least ten people every day. I sent thank you notes to people I met briefly, people I showed properties to , people I talked to on the telephone, and people I actually helped to own new homes. I became a thank you note fool. And guess what happened? By the end of my third year in sales, my business was 98% referrals! The people I had expressed gratitude to were happy to send me clients as a reward for making them feel appreciated and important.
“As you know I built my real estate business to a 98% referral business by using thank-you notes. Your greeting cards are fabulous and I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to build their business and enjoy a greater degree of success.” - Tom Hopkins
For more information about Tom Hopkins go to www.tomhopkins.com
For more information about the card system he uses fill in your contact information on the upper right.
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Studies have shown that 67% of your customers or clients will leave you because of perceived indifference. They feel unappreciated.
In these tough economic times, competition is rough. You can see it everywhere with all the special deals being offered by retailers. Even when you think you have provided outstanding service at a fair fee, customer loyalty is almost getting to be a thing of the past. Doesn’t it make sense, now more than ever, to do all you can to hold onto as much of your customer base as possible? So, as business owners and sales managers, how do we do this?
Show Appreciation and Give Thanks
The best way to fix our leaky bucket is by showing appreciation, and to do it regularly. Let’s explore the various ways we can do this.
- The obvious, say thank you with a big smile and a handshake.
- A call on the phone after the sale to confirm satisfaction.
- Send a thank you e-mail.
- Send a handwritten thank you note or greeting card.
- We can even send a small gift or token of appreciation.
All of these steps are important and as obvious as item 1 is, how many times do we not even get this after a fairly sizable purchase? Don’t over look the obvious.
Conversely, don’t underestimate the power of going the extra mile by sending a handwritten note or greeting card. It is unexpected, very much appreciated, and does not go unnoticed. E-mails are quickly deleted and forgotten. A handwritten note is very nice, but greeting cards are typically displayed on a desk or shelf for others to see, making this a win-win option.
A leaky bucket can be devistating to any business, not just for the loss of business, but also because it costs more to find new customers than it does to keep the ones we have.
Fill in the form in the upper right and I will show you a system that will never let you forget a client or customer again. The system will also allow you to send cards and gifts to your friends, loved ones and customers, economically and efficiently. In fact, you can send a regular greeting card for as little as $1.06, including postage.
Try the system on me.
Thanks for your time,
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