"Bowling or Senior Asset Protection...hmmm, which should I do first?"

Which of these two mailing pieces stands out for you?

I had started to use the one at the top for scratch paper when I noticed the other one in my in box. Out of curiosity I pulled it out and laid them side by side.

The one on top offers Senior Asset Protection Services. The other touts “Bowling, Food, & Fun.”

Now, I can probably guess what they were thinking. Someone told them to use a brightly colored paper in a simple bifold to make it easy and inexpensive to mail.

But with just a little imagination each of these could have done something to make them distinctive. Maybe some graphics, line drawings, photos.

What do you think? Was this a waste of money or just a little bad timing?

I love this sketch of me done by David Bamberg at today's talk!

I’ve had a great time today speaking to a group of business people in Magnolia, Texas about Rerferral Marketing and Relationship Bulding. The group meets at a place called Main Street Crossing with a HUGE projection screen and capacity for 200 people – a really nice venue. Being mid-summer and odd weather we had a moderate-sized but very responsive group.

As is often the case, the most interesting conversations occurred after the meeting. Several of us were sitting around getting an early lunch and talk turned to whether protected categories are a benefit or a detriment to networking groups.  To be totally honest I was a bit surprised myself by the candor with which I was taking the anti-protection position.  I’ve long held the opinion that having categories within relationship building (networking) groups fundamentally diminishes the potential of the organization and its benefit to members. I suspect that brushing up my presentation these last few days and then delivering it today had focused my mind on the need for abundance thinking and paying it forward. The very idea of establishing barriers to social intercourse through position exclusivity seems totally wrong headed.

What do you think? Closed categories  or open – which is better? Why?

I’m going to have to discuss this in a circuitous manner since the specific parties in question are not the point. If it matters to them, they’ll figure it out. They are officially smart people and can easily do so. However, the event time line is:

1. We meet someone and establish a business connection.
2. We often have occasion to see this person in social as well as business settings, and they are publicly demonstrative of close acquaintance.
3. We transact with this person several times over a period of many months to an amount in excess of $3,000 in a single year.
4. Although this person knows that we are in a business whose stated goal is to “change the world” by demonstrating appreciation and recognition in all walks of life, they never once tell us, “Thank you for your business.” [Hint: We're in such a business based on the fact that we subscribe to it's philosophical code. This stuff really matters to us! Get it?]
5. We stew and rankle over this until the next large purchase requirement arrives, then…

We do business with a stranger.

It turns out that this process is not just about us but is a psychologically predictable phenomenon. One of my favorite authors on this topic is Jim Novo, whose web analytics work is both superb and translatable into a variety of business circumstances. In his most recent newsletter he wrote the following:

The Social sword has two edges.  If you are going to use a two-way Relationship Marketing approach, you will create higher expectations with those who Engage.  If you fail to perform, or just act like an Advertiser would, then you will end up creating more damage than if you had simply ignored the two-way idea.

For Marketing, the important idea to understand is the human brain always questions actions taken, however briefly, and tries to resolve conflict.  Any unresolved conflicts tend to taint the action, they create Friction, and drive down the Potential Value of the experience.

[If you don't subscribe to Jim yet, you should.]

And there was, you’ll excuse the pun, the rub: the public demonstration of a close relationship was constantly at odds with the manner in which we were treated when we were paying customers. Unable to resolve the dichotomy, we just removed the “being a paying customer” element to dissolve it.

I would submit to you that there are far too many people who are silently excusing their social faux pas by saying, “They’ll understand. They’re my friends.” No, they will not. They believe (or believe that you want them to believe) that they are your friends and that they therefore require at minimum the consideration that you would afford a stranger who was not motivated to accept excuses of propinquity for rudeness. When they do not receive it, they notice the dissonance and will be forced by the basic framework of the human mind to resolve it, perhaps to a conclusion you would not have wished.

In the coaching biz, they refer to this as “being in integrity.” Think of it is having all of your actions being of a piece. This is what you want your friends, colleagues, and (yes) customers to experience in their exchanges with you. This is particularly true if you intend to frame them as (oh, the oddity of the word these days!) “social.”

The requirement for appropriate respect and appreciation could not be more clear than in the letter Judith Martin (a.k.a. Miss Manners) received from a reader:

DEAR MISS MANNERS:

Just recently, I received a note from my cousin which began, “Bill and I would like to thank you for the graduation gift you gave to Tom.” I was beginning to wonder whether Tom had not been taught how to write.

My fears were allayed, however, when I received a canceled check endorsed to “Tom Smith.”…

She advises, “Generosity and gratitude should always travel together, and since the gratitude is absent, Miss Manners suggests you squelch the generosity.”

Thank you, Miss Manners!

1. Don’t spam
2. Listen
3. Be generous

Notice something about this list: with the smallest amount of tweaking these rules apply for just about any social setting in any age. They can be pretty much summed up with the simple phrase “behave yourself.”

Social Correspondence

Don’t Spam

Make your contributions appropriate to the conversation.  Whether you are at a cocktail party,  a business mixer, the neighborhood BBQ, or online, be considerate of other people’s time and feelings. No one cares for the self-centered, self-promoting blow-hard who has to outshine every other light in the room.

Listen

Remember these old adages:

Two ears, one mouth. Use them in that proportion.

Samson killed 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Every day sales are killed the same way.

If you aren’t listening, you aren’t learning.

Be Generous

Another adage, made famous by Zig Ziglar: “You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want.”

You don’t have to give away the farm, but it doesn’t hurt to help the hungry when you have bounty to share.  In my sales training days we used to teach that professionals who solve their clients’ problems before they become clients tend not to have clients. We called it “unpaid consulting.”   I still think that is largely true. But I’ve tempered my thinking over the years with the realization that when you give away vast amounts of your expertise or deliver at low price points (for relatively low time investment) people will pay a premium for the best you have to offer.

I liken this to the endcap samples at the superstore where you can graze on a Sunday and practically have lunch for free but you end up leaving the store with two or three items that you did not intend to purchase. Because someone was confident enough to deliver free samples, you left with the whole package and will likely come back for more.

Generosity pays, besides just being the right thing do to.

All of these principles  are as valid today as they were in the 1890′s. They just have more leverage and momentum now, which means transgressions are punished with brutal swiftness.

New? Really? Still?

It truly puzzles me that some sales and marketing gurus talk of listening to your customers, speaking from integrity, and coming from service as if these are novel concepts. Any professional sales person who has advanced past the rank of peddler knows that the customer is always in the driver’s seat  (they do write the check , y’know) and that whatever you do that does not serve their highest good is ultimately going to be to your own detriment.

This is not just a truth, it is an old truth, and the best sales training companies have been teaching this for decades. Yea, there are a few charlatans around who try to perpetuate the pressure strategies made infamous by movies like “Boiler Room.”  However, since my first entry into the world of sales training back in – shudder, at my age disclosure – the 1980′s, the best companies have taken the high road. Though each may use somewhat different formulas and models they all tend to focus on understanding the client’s needs, helping them to understand the impact of their own problem, and co-designing a solution that both solves the problem and adequately compensates the solution provider. The only real difference now is that the word gets out faster (for good and bad) and the customer is in a far better position because of the free access to information.

The simple truth is that few professionals, either sales pros or professionals who have to sell, are inclined to the tactics promulgated in earlier times.  People have a gut knowledge that acts done out of integrity will undermine them both as a person and as a professional and that, as the word gets out, their reputation and business will suffer.

And unlike in the time of Harold Hill, The Music Man, it’s getting harder to get out of town to find a new bunch of yokels.

I don’t take issue with the current band of pundits who are promulgating this “new philosopy.” I just wish they’d be a bit less disingenuous about it being new.

Here’s a couple of gems from the conversation:

Bill has never met anyone who is very successful who wasn’t a great giver.

Bill once had the title of “Donut Man.”  When he was a newbie  in insurance he had a scheduled weekly trip to a local medical center with 5 dozen donuts.  He wrote a lot of policies because he became known as “The Donut Man” instead of  “that insurance agent.”

He was engaged in quiet repose in a large pot in our garden that I intend to fill with caladiums, and while I would normally have headed swiftly indoors, perhaps to the accompaniment of a subtle squeak of alarm, I decided this time – I made no commitment to more than just this time – I would get close enough for a talk and a photo.

I let him know how attractive I thought him … very like one of my cats, whose tabby coloring is so like his own. After a time, I let him know that I would be leaving him to the rest of his morning in privacy, but would look forward to seeing him again.

The lizard, of course, is not inclined to a fixed address, but we shared an unexpectedly pleasant few moments together.

The real key here was my decision not to be afraid of him so that he would not be afraid of me. No preconceptions. No expectations. No stress.

Something to remember with people, too, I believe.

You just never know who you might meet!