Coffee and Consequence

 I had my semi-annual meeting with consultants in what has half-jokingly become the “Secret Syndicate.” Fittingly enough, we met in an Italian Restaurant reserved months in advance.

The waiter was incredibly attentive. Responded to half-empty wine glasses with a silent, refilling flourish. Accepted the incredibly complex request of one of our pickier Italian members. (He asked something like, “I want al dente pasta, but don’t insult the prosciutto; I’ll know if you do.”) Our waiter took pictures, making sure the lighting was right, and that my head was actually visible in the photograph.

The meal was superb. Conversation and connection abounded. Toasts and plans made. My standard writer’s Manhattan clinked gently as I thought fondly of my departed family of writers who preceded me. For the waiter, a well-deserved 20% on the $770 meal.

Then something happened. His unassailable customer service shriveled against an idiotic policy. A small chink caused a fissure in the evening, prompting conversation and shaken expectations. My marketing coach Dan Kennedy often says, “Little hinges swing big doors.” Never more true.

After I had signed the check and calculated the tip therein, my partner in conversation smelled the espresso. “Ahh, that smells great,” he said looking up at the waiter, with check folder now in hand. “May I have a shot?”

“Sure” said the waiter. Then he did the unthinkable. 

He extracted my now signed copy of the receipt, and said, “I’ll print you up a new one to include the coffee.”

My jaw left chin marks on the table. All of ours did. My espresso-desirous friend was agog. “Did he really just do that?” he asked with incredulity. “Did he just risk a $155 tip for a $3 cup of coffee… on a $770 bill?”

Yes, he did.

And I had to refigure and re-include his tip when he brought it back. I probably should’ve impugned the act with greatly lessened total. Yet, countering his near sabotage of the tip was my decision to disallow pettiness to color this grand evening. Perspective. As I handed the check folder back, I saw him, the management, their idiotic policy and the restaurant in an utterly different light. So did those who witnessed it.

This incident has never left my mind because it taught me an important lesson I’ll never forget. Small things matter. Your otherwise perfect service call goes up in smoke when a size 11 mud print lands unapologetically on the Oriental Rug. Your flawless furnace installation results in a frustrated callback when you forget to tell the homeowner how to use the thermostat. Your $3,000 panel replacement is a riddle of confusion without labeling the circuits.

Give your team members the authority to exercise intelligence when a small missile of discontent is launched, or better yet, train to avoid it entirely. Don’t just fix the equipment; fix the customer.

After the Italian restaurant fiasco, I had lunch with my retired psychologist neighbor. It was his 78th birthday, and my treat. We finished a great meal and always captivating conversation. (Not many of my lunch mates regularly quote Dostoevsky and Maritain.)

After the check was presented and totals totaled, my friend said in eerily parallel fashion, “That coffee smells great. If my young friend has time, I’d love a cup.”

He looked at me for approval – and if you know anyone who can dismiss the birthday wish of a wizened friend, I don’t want to meet them. So with a nod, the kind waitress trots off and brings back two cups.

“Please add that to my bill,” I encouraged.

“Are you kidding? It was my pleasure.” And she turned away. She may be surprised to see an extra $10 bill on top of her ticket, with the words, “Mine too.”

Small things matter.

Adams Hudson

How to Increase Your Clicking Traffic

Is your website feeling a little lonely lately? Are you like the webmaster who sees how his site is all dressed up for prospects to drop in for a visit … with oh, so much to tell, so much to share… and yet it just sits there hoping someone will enter its awesome URL in the browser field?

Well, there’s certainly more than one way to win customers and influence prospects in the online marketplace. And one of the most effective strategies for getting people to click through to your site is through the use of effective banner ads. (“Effective” being the most important word in that sentence.)

Banner ads should be at the forefront of your marketing strategies in order to match your site with the prospects it deserves – and not as an afterthought that’s thrown together quickly. After all, your goal is not just “Let’s add some banner ads,” but to look for ways of creating highly effective banner ads that will get you clicks. To do so, ask yourself these questions:

Where is your traffic coming from? Assuming you’re already using banner ads but want to make them more effective, study what’s happening with what you’re already doing. Give a close look to your metrics to understand the traffic your ads are currently generating. Where is it coming from and what can you learn from these activities?

Where is your traffic going? You surely want to know not just where your visitors are coming from but where they are going on your site. For example, if your banner ad directs to a lead-capture form, the call to action may be: “request a free estimate now.” Or if you’re leading to an informational online video, your call to action may be, “learn more.” Look for what you can learn from what’s taking place on your site.

How well do your ads communicate value? Though not in these words, effectiveness is determined by a prospect’s ability to answer this basic question: “If I’m your ideal prospect, why should I click on your ad rather than any of your competitors’ ads?” Effective banner ads answer this question sufficiently; ineffective banner ads under perform. Keep your message focused on your prospects, so your website will be lonely no more.

Successful Strategies Preferred

Apparently, not all customer retention strategies are successful. This news came from research released by Acxiom, Loyalty 360 in which 84 percent of companies said that they make customer retention marketing strategies a part of their campaigns.

This was a survey of 129 executives – not exactly the same as surveying the world. Still, they lacked satisfaction. Only about half – 48.8 percent – believe their strategies are effective; 12 percent didn’t believe they worked at all. Reasons determined? Lack of budget and effort. Unfocused strategies.

So what can you do to make sure your customer retention strategies are proven successful? Don’t take the lead of those 129 executives. Instead, point your focus to the areas they were missing: budget and strategy.

Customer retention, if it is to be a “strategy,” must involve: planning, tactics, application, measurement. Planning also involves budgeting. For example, in our current budgeting model for the moderate marketer (invests 6-8 percent of sales in marketing), 11 percent of that should go towards customer retention.

The average business loses 20 percent of its customers each year (for some it’s as high as 80 percent) just because they didn’t tend to the relationships. For contractors, tending to relationships looks something like this: 

·         Thank you cards, calls, emails after service/installation

·         Newsletters with helpful home content

·         Maintenance agreements to keep you “economically” connected

·         Reactivation letters to bring the straying back into the fold

·         Referral requests to bring more in

·         Social media content/interaction to stay connected and in sight

Keep this in mind: A business that retains 80 percent of its customers each year, and adds new customers at a rate of 20%, has no growth. But if it retains 90 percent and adds 20 percent, it has 10 percent growth which, in seven years, doubles their customer base. How’s that sound?

Let a Hudson, Ink Marketing Coach help your business. Email one today at coaches@hudsonink.com. 

Boating Tips for Well-Intentioned Idiots

Okay boys and girls, it’s boating season! This means another season where Ol’ Skipper Hudson shares tips a’plenty with ye land lubbers. (This is how real sea-men talk.)

Now, first up is my most recent adventure in “letting” my wife see how to properly launch the Sea-Doo. Figured I start her off slowly. As I skillfully back the trailer – since that’s man’s work – I can tell she’s impressed by the way she is faking boredom.

My plan was to back the Sea-Doo in the water, let her hold the bowline whilst I park the truck, then gallantly mount said craft and ride to our dock just a couple hundred yards away. Simple enough, right? Done it a hundred times, right? Yes, but one thing changed. Just one.

And this one thing changed everything in the universe.

See, to be helpful and “sensitive” – since as all who cross my presence know that I emanate sensitivity – I added a much longer bowline. That’s because I didn’t want to back the trailer into the water and have the super-short, manly version of the bowline pull my wife into the lake, since this might greatly accelerate the reading of my will.

Admittedly, and with very soggy hindsight, I probably should’ve tied a Boy Scout-approved knot for this extended bowline. But, well, I was, you know, very busy being all sea-like and manly, and had to back the trailer and, well… something happened that I’m not all that proud of.

My wife is standing there holding the Sensitively-Extended Bowline as the Sea-Doo gracefully slid off the trailer. Perfect. Yet, the knot for said extension was a little too sensitive and scarcely even slowed the craft as it became completely untied.

From the truck, I can see she is now holding a thoroughly limp rope watching the Sea-Doo escape. This is when I used what might’ve been a colorful expression in a “non-inside” tone of voice. (Now I know why those sailors have a reputation for their language: bad knots.)

Since I’d only been planning a short journey on the Sea-Doo, I was in blue jeans, so when I jump in the lake, a sixth of the lake’s entire mass was instantly absorbed into my pant region. And though my mind was saying, “Race toward your gallant and errant steed!” my legs were saying, “Whoa. When did you put on 600 pounds?” It seemed a fair question.

I eventually captured the craft by its short, manly rope and trudged back toward the ramp, clearly having saved the day.

Yet, my wife is staring at me, holding the other rope that now looks vaguely noose-ish, with a look that seemed to say, “You have the sense of an under-achieving gerbil”.

She dutifully got into the truck, nodding her head in a disapproving and superior fashion. Clearly, she failed to understand that my launching lesson included this meaningful demonstration on “What Happens When You Tie a Dumb, Ineffective Knot”.

Epilogue:

The Sea-Doo and I made it safely home. And after 4 days in a solar furnace, my jeans dried out (though lake levels are still down). Then I reflected that any change in “routine” can summon the Gods of Practical Jokers to greatly alter the outcome.

It is this way in your “routine” of work, your “normal” drive home, your “normal” safety routine or a “normal” job that goes completely haywire. (And by the way, The Gods of Practical Jokers often make sure if ONE thing goes wrong in the routine with a customer, seven more you’ve never experienced happen with the SAME customer.)

The real lesson is to watch your addiction and complacency to routine. What is worth changing to achieve a better outcome? What have others experienced with that change? Maybe it’s time to extend your reach. But if you do, please double check the knot.

Happy Boating,

Adams Hudson

Questions for You:

1)      What have you recently changed in your “normal” routine of business? Was the outcome good, bad or still on the learning curve?

2)      What routines of yours need changing? Are your ad campaigns old and crusty? Salespeople presentations gone stale? Does your website have cobwebs on it?

3)      Is your Social Media marketing nearly anti-social and not really marketing? (In other words, are you still wondering when the leads are finally going to pay off?)

Send any answers (or other questions) to coaches@hudsonink.com. 

Creating PR-Influenced Social Media Marketing

“Can we get some free PR somewhere?” “Can’t we promote this on social media since it’s free?” We sympathize with the desire to get something for nothing. However, there’s hardly been a professional marketer who hasn’t had to explain to a client at some point why a non-paid platform isn’t the same as free marketing.

Public relations has long been about communicating with your market through non-paid media – but never free, because it always employed certain strategies and content development. Now, social media is also tantalizing by its “free distribution” but it still takes strategy. Apart from Facebook and PPC ads and the like – which are designed to generate leads and get clicks to your landing pages –  most social media communication is about building relationships.

Facebook – Here you can have conversations through comments, likes and shares. Feedback in any of those forms is a good sign because your interaction is generating connection. Be sure to respond to any feedback through your own comments and messages.

Twitter – It’s a good location for networking, following trends and getting news. Search for content that is interesting to you. Follow those accounts. As you favor and retweet their tweets, you’re building connections and followers as well. Good tip: use a hashtag for topics, such as #saveenergy or #electricalsafety, or an industry, such as #plumbing.

Blogs – When blogs are placed on your website, and their content includes keywords that your searchers use to find you, they improve search engine results through the act of adding fresh content and through keywords that bring relevant searchers to your site.

Another upside from a public relations angle is that you no longer have to pitch to the media to cover or publish your story; you can do it yourself on your own timetable. But be sure to make this content of value – informative, entertaining – and reinforce your value proposition.

 Ask a Hudson, Ink Coach how you can boost your social media marketing. Email one today at coaches@hudsonink.com. 

Measurement That Matters

We’re warned that pride is a bad thing. And I fully understand. Pride entraps its victim in a blanket of mock superiority on its way to personal doom. Boasting becomes pride. Pride becomes conceit. Conceit becomes no one.

Funny, but the ever-boasting blowhard of self-achievement ‘thinks’ that their accomplishments make them more attractive, more fun to be around, more likable. None are true. Just as this paragraph started, they make you a blowhard. Knowing all this…

I am extremely proud of my children. There, I said it. Both are very accomplished and excel further than I could have ever imagined. And all this was achieved with at least half of their parents not being all that great of a student. (Guess which one!)

If my chest pokes out any further, I will have Eva Mendez’ profile… or snap a rib. So, I’ll stop.

In the job world, the surface measurement of success is usually money. This – along with pride – is another set up for the Scriptural Sin Grab Bag. Sure, many worthy alternative definitions of success abound: title, influence, responsibility, result, impact. All are important; all are worthy of your focus. Harder to measure, but worthy.

Yet, here is THE problem with most contractors’ measurement and focus –

Most don’t measure, OR focus on measurements that matter. Look at your business license. Unless it says “charitable organization,” your obligation is to earn a profit. This profit – unlike the snide redefinition by the largely unproductive that consider profit as pure evil – became yours when customers paid you more than you paid for it. Simplified, but true.

I’ll go so far to suggest that accolades, unless they add to your cache, boost your position in the marketplace, distinguish you from competition or can be monetized, mean little. Even the Boy Scouts plot Merit Badges toward a larger goal.

Yet, many businesses don’t make the measurement ‘connection.’ They look at some surface indicators and skip to the next. Just like a “great” student can be a common-sense village idiot, one needs to look deeper, ask the better question.

The oft-braggy points of “followers on Twitter,” “friends” and “connections” are fine gold stars, but unless convertible thereto by sales alchemy, they mean little. A friend of mine who runs a fine business here was awarded as a “Top Emerging Business” from the Chamber. When I congratulated him, he quipped, “Now if I could only use that award to make payroll.” He has his head screwed on very straight.

So, what do you measure, and how do you measure up?

Ø  Lead Generation – This is the ‘surface’ seekers determinant of future sales. A good measure, resultant from good and steady marketing – italics intended. Yet, many contractors who get low lead counts don’t measure that about 60% of the marketing dollars should be in Direct Response marketing. More leads should result in higher…

Ø  Monthly Sales – Another surface measurement of health, but the more “telling” figures are just beneath: a) What is the average transaction compared to year ago, b) What are the source of leads that got these sales? Usually, people DON’T ask the preceding, but jump straight to…

Ø  Sales Closing Ratio – The number of transactions resulting from the number of leads spits out this over-rated measurement. Since profit is the business’ goal, the deeper motive should probe: a) Gross margin per sale, b) Gross profit per salesperson, c) Source of highest margin sales. Closing ratio is important, but only within meaningful profit ranges. Seek both. Higher profit allows for excellent customer service, more marketing presence and the wise businessperson’s Holy Grail toward the measurement of…

Ø  Customer Retention Rate – Most don’t measure this, so here’s my first installment of Dummy’s Guide to Business Math. If you’re acquiring customers at a 15% rate (contractor average) but losing 15%, then the ‘next level’ will remain elusive. I figured that out by myself. You think the “15% loss” is over-stated? Contractor average is between 9 and 11%. If you’re making no effort to keep, you’ll eventually run out of “new” customers to acquire, and will have paid a fortune for that lesson. You’re going to lose 5% of them because they died or moved, which makes them very difficult to service. Work at Customer Retention, and you’ll naturally get this…

Ø  Customer Referral Rate – Another unscratched area that can have a profound impact on your business. Most contractors “accept” referrals – who wouldn’t? – but what if you pursued them? Reward, incentive, remind, request, just plain ASK for them in a polite, non-threatening way, and you’ll eclipse most of the dead-heads “waiting” on them to happen.

Our job, your job, is to earn a profit. In the end, the marketplace will tell you if you’re entitled. Repeat customers and referrals tell you even louder. Having the brightest employees show up to compete to work there says it louder still.

Measure the right things.

Make your customers proud to call you their own.

Adams Hudson

Question: What is a measurement YOU use successfully in your business? Answers to coaches@hudsonink.com. 

How to Integrate Email into Just About Everything

What’s in your email outbox? The communications that depart your company with your strategic outreach are still vital players in marketing today. So don’t throw out your outbox for the cooler, hipper social media. Or the be-all-end-all PPC. Keep it and apply creative strategies that include elements of social media and website integration.

How Can You Use Facebook to Build Email Lists?  

Let’s say you’re running a contest on Facebook for oldest AC, heat pump, etc., and the prize goes to the homeowner with the oldest equipment provided they pay for installation. So… you could make the email address a required part of the signup form. Create personalized emails to update entrants on the contest and to announce the winner.

Also, to boost your Facebook likes, you can place your contest behind a fan-gated Facebook tab so that they have to like the page to get the details and sign up. Another side benefit: you’ve got a list of leads and email addresses for future marketing – in this case, to people who think their system is pretty old, or in almost any case, people who have expressed an interest in services your company provides.

See how things just sort of connect? There’s a word for that: integrated.

Also, you can build an email opt-in form on Facebook to build your list. You don’t necessarily need a contest to encourage entrants but using an incentive of some type is highly advisable – whether it’s $35 off the next service call or a free whatever.

How Can You Use Email to Build Social Media Connections?

Make sure you include social media icons in your emails – but you don’t have to leave them for the bottom, as an afterthought. Go ahead and place them at the top, near your header, and you’re planting the seed for people to connect with you through social media. Also: encourage sharing. It’s not so hard – maybe just use the words “Share this email” above your social media icons. Doesn’t that sound pretty clear?

As a side note, don’t forget your blog. By all means, give your blog readers the option to receive posts by email – another useful way to build your list.

How Can You Integrate Email with Off-Line Marketing?

Make a point to include your email address in your call to action, such as “call us at or email us at .” Your email address should be an extension of your URL. (If it’s not, that’s not good; it lacks professionalism and legitimacy.)  Also, place your email address (or email links) prominently on your site, so prospects can very quickly click to get in touch.

Make it easy, make it happen. And the email addresses are yours to keep.

Your Role is Calling

Recently, my wife went out of town.

Her absence meant that my dog Harry and I were left to fend for ourselves. My wife – who majored in “Being able to find everything in the world” and “How to turn on major non-TV appliances,” – even left me with lists. This list included a few ridiculous things.  

First up: “Remember to feed the fish.” That is so dumb. I mean, nobody sprinkles fish food in Lake Michigan, and they seem fine. They’re fish. So I crossed those losers off the list.

Another one: “Water the potted plants.” Right. Like something’s going to happen to them in the 106 degree Alabama heat. If they can’t take it, they need to move to Iowa or become fake or something. Another chore gone. The next one was more worrisome.

She’d written down something about laundry and dryers and lint screens that I breezed over. That’s because of a previous terrifying encounter with the washing machine. See, I had expected it to have the only essential buttons to do its job: On. Off. That should be enough, right?

Noooo. It had settings for “Delicates” and “Spin speeds” and some reference to a “Pre-rinse.” Are you kidding me? Pre-rinse? Is this so your “delicates” can get used to the water temperature first? I’m convinced all these buttons actually do the exact same thing: 1) Water 2) Soap 3) Slosh around.  So, from sheer intimidation, laundry got crossed off too. Man, this is getting easier!

Can you guess where this episode is going?

Over the 4 days, my hygiene slipped a little. Movies more violent. My dog started smoking and stayed out once ‘til 2 am with no explanation. I attempted to subsist off Pringles and mustard, but this got old quickly. At the point when I considered a goldfish and dried camellia salad, I knew we were in a maelstrom of maledom.

About mid-way into the trip, I received a phone call from my wife. After I told her Harry and I were “fine” (though smelly and starving), she mentioned, “How insane the airports were, the Rental Car people had tried to double the rate without warning, the driving, navigation, luggage loading and unloading was such a hassle.”

It occurred to me that these were all things I’d have handled if with them. She completed that thought with, “I wish you were here.”

Me, the dog, the fish and a few crispy plants all repeated that phrase back to her. “Awww,” said the clearly-moved audience. But it’s true.

We all have our roles, jobs, specialties. We play our part on the team. When you don’t play your part on the team, the team fumbles, falls or fails entirely. When a team member is out, that absence had better be felt or somebody ain’t that valuable. Oh sure, I’m a fan of cross-training to cover gaps, but it takes a trainer to do it, which is another gift entirely.

In our business you can take the ‘team’ conjecture to individuals and entire departments. Their cooperation and mutual skill sets must enmesh. But do they?

Seeds of Contention

Does your Accounting department assist the Sales department… or feel they’re a bunch of irresponsible overpaid babies?

Does your Web Marketing department assist those in Traditional Marketing… or feel they’re outdated has-beens trying to resurrect the stone-age?

Does your CSR assist the technicians… or get sick of constantly having to make “excuses” for their tardiness, sloppiness and call-back rate for which the CSRs indirectly get blamed?

And let’s go ahead and get brutal here: Does the boss assist all the team members in letting them do their jobs well… or represent eternal task interference and complaint on minor things while taking home a major paycheck?

Do you have cooperation or contention? And have you ever asked? I’d consider either question as among the most valuable a team leader can ever utter.

True Confession Time: A couple of years ago, Hudson, Ink embarked on a new product/service line. As is too often the case in my “Ready, Fire, Aim” mentality, there were some teething pains. Skillsets were still forming. Roles were unclear. Some feelings got hurt. A door or two got slammed. There were tough conversations.

Yet, in the depths of this learning curve and from our different vantage points, a shared destination loomed into view. It’s as if we all began taking turns at the wheel. One did the organizing, another the technical, another the marketing, another the sales funnel, another the customer service…

Respect restored. Roles refined. Goals defined. It was beautiful.

Midway through each year, I encourage you to look at your company goals. Are you getting closer or farther away? To what team are they assigned, and do they have the talent and drive to reach them? If they’re merely ineffective bystanders giving you the false comfort of “Everything’s okay” as you glance off the iceberg, put them in a rowboat. If they’re willing to make the tough choices, and either admit or stretch their limits, keep ‘em.

No matter what, your role is calling.

Adams Hudson