Wizard of Ads Partners

"What are you doing to not only satisfy but delight your customers?

Are you looking at every touch point, every interaction, every click on your website? Are you creating personas and making sure each one has a positive total customer experience?

Remember, everything is marketing. But you don't have to do it alone.

The art of balancing a complete marketing strategy takes time and practice. Trust us, as long as you give yourself enough time, keep your eye on the big picture, and assemble a strong team to pay attention to every detail, you'll not only have more customers, you'll have happier, more loyal customers."

- page 171, The Soccer Mom Myth by Michele Miller and Holly Buchanan

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“Who you are is a direct consequence of what you do!” -  Brigadier Bruce Scott, gold medalist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

The Magic Question

By Holly Buchanan, co-author of the best selling book, The Soccer Mom Myth.

I recently met with one of the best salesmen I’ve ever seen (male or female). He owns his own house cleaning company. Many things impressed me about him, but what really got my attention was one specific question he asked.

"If there’s one piece of cleaning that must be done in order for you to feel completely happy with the service, what would it be?"

He went on, “I talked with a woman who said, ‘my stovetop is really hard to clean, but when it’s really spotless, I am a very happy woman. Even if you don’t do a perfect job on the rest of the house, that’s ok, as long as that stove top is look terrific.’ Is there anything like that we should know?”

I hadn’t really thought about it til he asked, but, yes, there was something I was really particular about – mopping the bathroom floors. I told him so.

What a terrific question – and I loved that he gave a specific example. Imagine if you could get this information from your customers. What’s the one thing that really matters to them that you must get right. Even if you don’t do a perfect job, what’s the one criteria that must be satisfied in order for them to feel really good about doing business with you?

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to work that question into the introduction call of every engagement from now on. I hope you will, too.

From the Editor: If you liked today's tip from Holly, make sure you subscribe to the SMM weekly newsletter.

"Any conversion process is like a leaky bucket - you pour water in, and water spurts out all the holes. You can keep adding more  and more water to the bucket, or you can patch up the holes. Clearly, patching the holes first makes much better sense. Create the delightful experience first then drive the traffic."

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark by Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg with Lisa T. Davis

By Mark Fox, Wizard Academy adjunct professor

From the Editor: The below story is from Mark's new book... DaVinci and the 40 Answers. A Playbook for Creativity and Fresh Ideas. You can download more sample chapters here.

I used “Peel the Onion” a couple of years ago with one of my clients. She sells pigs for a living – not exactly rocket science.

“So what issues do you want to work on today in our creative thinking workshop?”

“We need more sales!”
(Never heard that one before)

“Why do you think sales are not growing like you want them to?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Does your competition provide a better product or service?”

“No, in fact even our competition will admit we have the best bloodline and breed of pigs on the market. All of the review magazines rate us number one; in fact, we have the highest customer retention rate in the business: 98%. The 2% of customers that actually leave us leave because they got out of the pig business all together or the owner died!” (FYI – yes, there are pig review magazines out there.)

“Well let’s peel this onion back a little. If you have the best product on the market what is stopping you from getting more market share?”

“Customers just don’t want to switch providers even when they know we can offer them something better.”

“Why?” (keep peeling)

“Well it is the risk of switching to us. The average herd is about a $250,000 investment and they feel the risk in switching is too great. If they switched to us and our herd acquired a disease or something the loss could financially ruin them. They can’t afford that kind of loss.”

“Does this ever happen with your pigs?”

“No never. We have the best breed on the market.”

“Never? Really? Never?”

“No. Never.”

“Then why don’t you eliminate the risk for them? Put your money where your mouth is. If you are so confident that your product is superior and that there is literally no, or at least a very remote risk of illness, why don’t you guarantee potential customers that you will pay the $250,000 if anything happens.

Promise to replace their herd with the herd of their choice if they get sick.”

“No one in the industry offers anything that radical.”

“Why not be the first and dramatically differentiate yourself  then?”

To their credit, and my joy, they implemented this policy. They are quickly gaining market share. I don’t mention the company name at their request; they want to turn the industry on its head before the competition knows what hit them.

From the Editor: Guarantee $250,000! Courage and commitment, are just 2 of the ingredients required if you wish to boom your business.  Do you have them?

About: Mark L. Fox is a leading authority on teaching practical creative thinking techniques for business.

Mark has an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering with an MBA. Having held top management positions in Rocket Science, Aircraft Hydraulics, Engineering Services, Customer Service, Software, and e-Business, Mark has an extremely diversified background. He has held positions ranging from Management and Operations to Sales and Marketing and Research and Development.

Some of Mark’s unique accomplishments include increasing e-business sales 600 percent in one year, receiving NASA’s highest recognition of “Launch Honoree” at the age of 23, and being the youngest person promoted to the position of Chief Engineer on the Space Shuttle program at the age of 31. Mark was also the Chairman of the “orbital debris” committee and an eight-time collegiate “All American” in Marksmanship. Mark also designed and built a 10,000-pound rocket, built his own airplane, and flies hot air balloons.

"The customer doesn't expect everything will go right all the time; the big test is what you do when things go wrong." - Sir Colin Marshall