A Mystery at 32,000 Feet
It was set to be another routine flight on a hot 90 degree August morning when I reached seat 8D. As I overheard bits and pieces of conversation from my seatmate and his friend across the aisle describe their recent golf escapades and funny moments from last few days, I reached below my seat and grabbed a new book on sales I’d purchased and tore into with anticipation and a hunger to gain new insights and ideas.
Call it psychic phenomenon, but as we took off and gained altitude I could have almost predicted exactly what my seat mate was going to do next. Sure enough, I nailed it. Not more than five minutes into the flight as we ascended over the Memphis sky he grabbed his laptop computer, headphones and plugged them in. A few minutes later I glanced over and noticed that he turned on the card game solitaire along with his music. Nothing out of the ordinary I guess. An hour and fifteen minutes later as the Captain prepared us for landing I couldn’t help but notice he was still playing the game on his computer
Are You Learning and Growing Each Day?
As we touched down on the ground I glanced up at the right hand corner of my book page and realized I’d clipped off 79 pages of a wonderful book by Chet Holmes. As I glanced back a few pages I noticed several action items marked up and underlined to review and aid me in improving my game and to share with key clients.
As soon as I closed my book an impulse of ideas hit me and I grabbed a pen and wrote down a few observations on a sheet of paper that was being used as a book marker related to what had just occurred during the flight. When it comes to creating your business, career, income, dream lifestyle are you focusing too much time on playing when you should be planning? Why does it appear that everyone’s stressed out, busy, yet they still find time to read the newspaper, burn time on the Internet or watch hours of TV or new movies each day? Is it a time conspiracy or excuses and distraction getting in the way?
The young man next to me in seat 8C couldn’t have been a day over 30, and seemed very nice. I’m not judging him as a person but I do wonder though, if this was his habit of dealing with time. Instead of planning out the next day, his career, and ways to improve his life, was he finding or creating diversions and distractions to kill time versus investing it in himself and others? I mentally asked myself these questions because I still see so many people walking around in what appears to be a daze. Oblivious to any thought, as if they’re in a coma like state. Going through the motions, uninspired, and looking for something to distract them from the negative news and self-imposed monotony their life has become.
Two Questions To Think About Each Day
1. Are you playing like an amateur or a pro?
2. Is most of your free time spent on distraction or are you investing some of it in yourself and your future?
In conclusion, I wonder if the man in seat 8C ever considers these two questions. This is a big challenge facing far too many people who’ll unfortunately reach the twilight of their life and careers and wonder, where did my life go? If only they had known about and asked these two questions earlier than later.
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( 3 / 359 )With the current challenges facing the U.S. economy I’ve been getting more and more emails, calls and requests for my speaking and training services but especially for ‘Mind Capture’ customer service related programs. This should come as no surprise as I always believe that when markets tighten up and people watch expenditures even closer, that investing in good customer service and making more value-added offers to your customers is a smart marketing strategy indeed.
With that in mind I’d like to talk about what seems to be obvious, but is often hard to find these days – thanking people for their business and referrals. I’m going to go back to the first Mind Capture book, which you should own and have dog-eared, for this marketing lesson and share with you a quick checklist of 10 simple ways of the 27 discussed in chapter 15, Creating Customer Loyalty, to not only thank your customers, but to keep them coming back again and again.
10 Great Ways To Keep Your Customers Coming Back
1. Be fun to do business with
2. Recognize special events within your customers lives such as birthdays, anniversary’s, awards or honors
3. Create and use a company newsletter or eletter to stay in touch
4. Utilize contests and giveaways
5. Send hand-written thank you notes
6. Offer additional products and services of value
7. Have a professional answer your main telephone line
8. Offer a strong guarantee – back up your claims
9. Survey your customers to discover areas of opportunity and improvement
10. Stay in front of them with a well thought out marketing system
If you treat customer retention as a marketing strategy you’ll accomplish three key things with your business or organization:
1. Solid reputation and higher customer retention
2. Increased sales and growth
3. More referral business
Until next time, keep ‘Capturing’ Minds!
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( 3 / 405 )September has been crazy and I thought I'd share with you a timely article from my offline paid newsletter, A Captured Mind, to inspire you and make you think about your present situation in a different light.
What drives people to achieve? Seek a better life? Keep learning and growing each day? These are a few questions I ponder when I see people turning idle time into distraction to simply get through the day, versus investing this valuable moment of time to improve their life or situation. I recently witnessed something on a trip back from speaking in Phoenix that made me really reflect on these heavy, yet critical important questions that almost everyone of us thinks about at some stage or point within our lives.
A Mystery at 32,000 Feet
It was set to be another routine flight on a hot 100 degree August morning when I reached seat 8D. As I overheard bits and pieces of conversation from my seatmate and his friend across the aisle describe their recent golf escapades and funny moments from last few days, I reached below my seat and grabbed a new book on sales I’d purchased and tore into with anticipation and a hunger to gain new insights and ideas.
Call it psychic phenomenon, but as we took off and gained altitude I could have almost predicted exactly what my seat mate was going to do next. Sure enough, I nailed it. Not more than five minutes into the flight as we ascended over the Memphis sky he grabbed his laptop computer, headphones and plugged them in. A few minutes later I glanced over and noticed that he turned on the card game solitaire along with his music. Nothing out of the ordinary I guess. An hour and fifteen minutes later as the Captain prepared us for landing I couldn’t help but notice he was still playing the game on his computer
Are You Learning and Growing Each Day?
As we touched down on the ground I glanced up at the right hand corner of my book page and realized I’d clipped off 79 pages of a wonderful book by Chet Holmes. As I glanced back a few pages I noticed several action items marked up and underlined to review and aid me in improving my game and to share with key clients.
As soon as I closed my book an impulse of ideas hit me and I grabbed a pen and wrote down a few observations on a sheet of paper that was being used as a book marker related to what had just occurred during the flight. When it comes to creating your business, career, income, dream lifestyle are you focusing too much time on playing when you should be planning? Why does it appear that everyone’s stressed out, busy, yet they still find time to read the newspaper, burn time on the Internet or watch hours of TV or new movies each day? Is it a time conspiracy or excuses and distraction getting in the way?
The young man next to me in seat 8C couldn’t have been a day over 30, and seemed very nice. I’m not judging him as a person but I do wonder though, if this was his habit of dealing with time. Instead of planning out the next day, his career, and ways to improve his life, was he finding or creating diversions and distractions to kill time versus investing it in himself and others? I mentally asked myself these questions because I still see so many people walking around in what appears to be a daze. Oblivious to any thought, as if they’re in a coma like state. Going through the motions, uninspired, and looking for something to distract them from the self-imposed monotony their life has sadly become.
Consider Yourself Lucky
As a reader of these blog posts I know a little more about you than most people do. You’re driven to learn, share, and improve your life. How do I know this? It’s a common and easily identifiable trait that I quickly pick up from pros that amateurs haven’t quite learned yet.
Two Questions To Think About Each Day
1. Are you playing like an amateur or a pro?
2. Is most of your free time spent on distraction or are you investing some of it in yourself and your future?
In conclusion, I wonder if the man in seat 8C ever considers these two questions. This is a big challenge facing far too many people who’ll unfortunately reach the twilight of their life and careers and wonder, where did my life go? If only they had known about and asked these two questions earlier than later.
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( 3 / 401 )You make a purchase and the clerk hands you back your change, debit card or charge card along with your sales receipt. A simple, routine and mundane exchange that takes place millions of times every day as part of every sales transaction in a live, face-to-face setting.
It hit me just this morning when I went into my local Starbuck’s and my barista stamped my receipt in black with a note reading:
TREAT RECEIPT – Bring this in after 2 P.M. today and get any grande cold drink for just $2 (plus tax).
He quickly explained as he counted my change that it was a new promotion they were offering with any purchase before 2:00PM and to hold onto my receipt in case I came back in later that afternoon for a break or to enjoy a cold beverage. When I walked away from the register with my coffee, a thought crossed my mind that I share with many audiences, clients and in my writings as it relates to customers. I believe that once business has been earned, it is your duty to be on the lookout for logical and congruent products and services to offer your existing clients to not only improve their situation, reward them, but also to increase sales and profits.
In marketing circles what Starbucks is doing with the sales slip and promotion is presenting an upsell offer to their customers. While I could debate the pros and cons of the actual offer, I’d prefer to discuss a few benefits that something as simple as a sales receipt can provide if used within your marketing. Smart marketer’s often take this common interaction and use it in a variety of ways to build their business and increase the bond with customers who choose to do business with them.
Here are three quick ways to use a sales slip in your marketing:
1. To promote
2. To collect information
3. To reward patronage
One, to promote. The Starbuck’s promotion I described is one example of using the receipt as a way to roll out and announce a new promotion. Many a business could model this approach and use something similar where additional purchases are rewarded with discounts when the receipt is presented on their next visit. A deadline is strongly suggested when using this strategy, as it increases the likely hood of someone seeing value in the offer and to create a sense of urgency for them to stop back sooner than later.
Secondly, to collect information. Two examples that immediately come to mind are from local office supplies store Staples, and Applebee’s restaurant. In the past few months alone, I estimate that I’ve been asked to fill out a survey when being presented my receipt no less than two to three times at each business. The cashier or waiter will quickly explain that if I take a couple minute to do a simple phone survey I can win a shopping spree if selected or I’ll earn a $3.00 coupon to use with my next dining experience.
Gathering information on your customers is critical to your success for many reasons. If you can’t track where your business is coming from, and what suggestions, good or bad, customers offer up to improve your business, you’re missing a ton of opportunities such as;
*Finding out what additional products/services they’d like to see you offer
*Why they choose you over other competitors
*Recommendations to help improve your customer service
*Collecting contact information so you can send them special updates, offers, or future communications via email or through direct mail
Third, to reward patronage. For example, my local bookstore uses their sales slip as a great way to track my purchases in total dollars spent to encourage me to come back regularly to receive my future reward. Once I hit $100.00 in accumulated purchases, I receive a congratulations from the sales clerk and a free $10.00 coupon on my sales slip for any future purchase when presented. This is not only a great way to foster and encourage repeat business, but also a way to reward your best customers who shop with you frequently versus those who stop in sporadically.
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( 3 / 408 )I recently had the pleasure of reading an advance copy and then interviewing fellow Morgan James author and NY Times bestselling author, Joel Comm, about his new book, Click Here To Order.
We'll be featuring my 45-minute interview in the upcoming 'Captured Mind' offline, paid newsletter and CD interview. If you aren't yet a subscriber, shoot me an email: tony@mindcapturegroup.com and I'll send you over more details.
On the eve of his book launch I wanted to strongly urge you to get your very own copy of this piece of Internet Marketing history on September 2nd: Joel¹s new book, Click Here to Order, isn't your typical book about Internet marketing.
With all the fervor of a tent-revival evangelist, Joel retells stories such as:
- How the Army helped Mark Joyner become a millionaire (read page 129 and see how he could have learned the lesson without the Army).
- Why Declan Dunn became known as the online guy (page 64).
- The event where the Unknown Copywriter was christened (were you there?
And who is this mysterious person? Read page 79 to find out).
- The fourteen year old girl who started a simple website that will pay her way through college (page 86).
- One of today's top marketers who walked out of a job interview at IBM because the interviewer didn¹t like his tie (no joke - read about it on page 181).
Keep an eye out for a special email tomorrow if you're one of our eletter subscribers or if you can't wait, simply visit: www.ClickHereToOrderBook.com for details and special offers Joel's making available.
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