I’ve always told my clients that the biggest key marketing success is having stellar customer service. You can’t sell it and if you promote it, you better be prepared to back it up. Customer service isn’t flashy, but it’s practically free and it’s got teeth that means return customers.

Enter Naomi (my muse as of late) with her post on Post-Sale Functions, or as she refers to it, the red-headed stepchild of marketing. In a few sentences, she pulls back the shiny veneer of most marketing techniques stating that if you aren’t making efforts to hold onto your customers, you just might be stupid.

Naomi’s post reminded me of one of my own personal customer service experiences. My wife and I occasionally go to a contemporary Italian restaurant called Bono’s on the popular 2nd Street drag of Belmont Shores. The food at Bono’s is always excellent and we always come away satisfied, but it’s a bit pricey for our modest budget. If the food was the only thing good about the restaurant, I probably wouldn’t go very often. What keeps us coming back is the customer service.

The restaurant can probably seat about 100 or so people with one medium sized dining area and small patio. I counted at least 12 employees on the floor, not counting the manager, bartender or hostess. That’s 1 person for every 2 tables. The place was busy and the staff were highly active, but never stressed. Everyone helped everybody else. One guy got our drink order, another brought water, someone brought bread and finally a water took our food order. We had someone at our table about every 5 minutes to drinks, clean up bread crumbs before the meal, take empty dishes, bring a desert menu and essentially make sure we never wanted for anything at any given moment.

As busy as it may seem, the service never seemed intrusive. I could maintain a conversation with my wife and hardly notice the buzz of staff around us. Most of the time, I never leave a restaurant feeling anything more than full. Leaving Bono’s, we were satiated and a smile on my face. That is why we will always come back despite the high prices. But how could Bono’s do better?

They should start with a better website. The lame flash intro (which I’ve linked passed for you) is arbitrary and takes too long to get to the information. My thought is that if you have to put a Skip Intro on your site, maybe you should have skipped the intro to begin with. Once inside, the site is minimalist to a fault. There’s hardly anything on the site that gives you a feeling of the restaurant. There’s no presence or attitude.

If they’re proud of their restaurant, and want to embrace customer reviews, they should add a link to sites like Yelp and encourage people to make comments about the experience. I know I would.

How about a mailing list. I would love to hear about special events or menu changes, or maybe an invite on my birthday or other cheesy way to get me back into the restaurant. They should swap out the typical email link to a web form asking for that information.

Just because you got the butts in the seats doesn’t mean you’re finished marketing. The way you deal with customers then and after is essential and will ultimately make your pre-sale efforts a lot easier and cheaper in the long run.

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I recently started reading Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start not necessarily because I was looking to start my own company, but more because I kept reading how good the book is. Part way into the book, Guy talks about bootstrapping a new startup and instead of using proven professionals who can be expensive, pick people with less experience and more exuberance. These folks don’t know what they can’t do, so they’ll try anything because they’re not as fearful of failing, or if they do fail, they’ll pick themselves up and try again.

I was a dot-bust casualty just prior to 9/11. Working for a small design studio that catered to some booming companies who eventually all went belly-up because of bad business models. When they were gone, half the staff was laid off including myself. The job market was severe, so I decided without hesitation that I was going to freelance. I was blissfully ignorant because I thought for sure I could handle it. I was wrong. I failed and eventually had to take a corporate job which I’ve been at ever since.

Talking a Good Game
I can’t even count how many times I’ve told myself I’m going to start doing more freelance consulting. I’ve repeated the process so many times, I’m beginning to think it starts with the lunar cycle. I have been making forward momentum though.

Over the past year, I’ve tried to ingest as much knowledge as possible because stepping away from the table for a few years left me a bit out of practice, especially when it came to new technology. I’ve read numerous books and subscribed to countless blogs. I’ve learned a lot but I realized I also became a bit more gun-shy about venturing out on my own because here are all these people that are smarter than me and doing it better. I sometimes feel like I can’t compete with these other pros.

Before I Knew You
The upside to blogging is building relationships with some really amazing folks, and in the marketing arena, it seems like there’s a lot of cohesion and support for one another. This is great, but the more I talk to them, the less confident I feel about my abilities. Then came Guy Kawasaki and another poignant lesson. With his comments about working with folks that “don’t know what they don’t know”, I realized that my problem was my lack of ignorance.

Before I knew any of these other marketers, I felt like I had what it takes to be a successful consultant. Now I’m more knowledgeable and better equipped, but less likely to make the jump. How screwy is that? If I had a therapist, he might say I just had a breakthrough. Now I just have to remember what its like to be ignorant without actually being ignorant.

The funny thing about breakthroughs is that they aren’t a fix, but rather just a realization that you’re somehow broken. The fixing takes time. Thankfully I have a few people I’m working with that are extremely appreciative of my work and advice. Without them, I’d probably still be second guessing myself instead of finally making plans to build a business.

Thanks to them and thanks to those fellow marketing geniuses that have helped me, directly or indirectly. Even though I’ll be pretending to be ignorant, I won’t forget you when I’m nationwide.

I read a fascinating piece on Madison Avenue Journal today by Paul McEnany. Paul is a marketing strategist for Levenson and Hill in Dallas and also has his own blog, Hee-Haw Marketing. The piece he wrote for MAJ, entitled Consumer Generated Reviews and the ROI of Impact, makes the assertion that brand trust is harder to come by than in the past mostly due to the ease of individuals being able to reach out quickly and easily to obtain information about products and services or spread information themselves.

A new Deloitte study revealed what most of us probably already knew, consumer generated online reviews received insanely high trust scores. 99% of internet users find them either very or somewhat credible. Which begs the question, where the hell do we fit in? Strategy doesn’t mean much when the product has a fatal flaw, and no matter how deftly we build up a media buy, it falls flat if the product happens to, let’s say, poison children. But it’s even scarier in the un-extreme cases where brands mean less because they signify less. Lower priced items still have to beat the quality barrier to have a shot of making it past the reviews, so it starts to become much like the pharmaceutical problem of two identical products with different labels.

Between Useful and Inept
McEnany goes on to say that the future of agencies will see them be divided into to factions, some that, “focus on the need to capture imagination, to gain attention, to give permission for companies to be talked about”, and others who, “satisfy the need for business strategy, a direct response, ROI driven model that is all about immediate needs of the marketplace…”

In complete honesty, not being as deep involved in the industry as McEnany, I’m a little unsure of his references, but my crude assumption is that he means it’s Flash vs. Bang, Form vs. Function.

The difference in strategy with experience is that we’re not just creating ads for the sake of informing the publics, but we’re leading the loudest 10% into deeper relationships, while giving them permission to discuss these with the other 90%. This is what makes integration so vital. You don’t walk away from awareness and reach for a deep connection with a few, just like you don’t walk away from the few for the many. It’s the advertising equivalent of the balance of faithfulness and promiscuity.

It’s no longer just about just pushing out campaigns that inform or create buzz. Once the buzz has started and people go looking for more information, agencies and their clients need to be prepared with a plan of action to keep their interest, help them for opinions and provide useful and easily transferable information so they can run off and tell their circle of influence.

My wife and receive a few subscriptions to various interior design magazines, most recently Elle Decor. I read it partially by a sick need to torture myself with products I could never afford and for generating ideas I can use around our home. I also look for items to talk about over at ColorThemes.com, my mothers interior design blog. If I find something cool advertised within the pages that needs further investigation, I’m usually on the web immediately looking for more information. I don’t know how many times I’ve searched out sites looking for quality info only to be handed over to a pretty site with minimal amounts of quality information, if any at all. That company just lost out on an opportunity to not only help promote themselves, but to somehow control lead the conversation. Now I might still talk about them, but my comments will also be tagged with, “the website doesn’t really provide much info.”

All that aside, I believe McEnany’s main point is he believes agencies need to find ways to incorporate the Flash with the Bang. That since the rules of marketing are changing, balance between the two is essential so success.

While our strategies are becoming more involved, and expanded to include more methods, it’ll be even more important to have steady hands to guide the process, understanding not only what makes people tick, but what makes business tick and finding happy balances that bring both these goals into alignment. That’s the kind of integration we need in order to stay relevant.

I think McEnany makes a really great point and has keen insight into the subject. My argument is that most on Madison Avenue aren’t listening to this Jerry Maguire-esque manifesto. But what do I know? You read the article and judge for yourself. Then go tell someone about it.

Paul - if you’re listening in and feel I’m missed the mark, please feel free to join the conversation and set me straight.

We don’t get much personal mail these days, not that we’re unpopular (which may be true I guess), but most of our interaction with friends, family and associates is through email, instant message or cell phones. We opt to not receive hard copies of our bills when we can and pay them online. If we get any mail, its either a magazine or some form of junk mail. Today was no exception.

I reached into the box and pulled out a single, lonely postcard. I figured it was from some mortgage company or real estate license because that’s about 80% of the junk we get. Not this time, though. This card was extra special, an offer for sand bag delivery. Yes, sandbags, like, “The levy is gonna burst. We need more sandbags!” I should also note that they do silt fence, straw wattles and visqueen, whatever the f**k those are.

Even though I live in a beach city, most of the homes sit on a large bluff far from the reaches of a potential squall or tsunami. There’s also a huge breakwater about 1,000 yards offshore specifically for that reason.

Most know that Southern California isn’t known for a heavy rain season. The threat of 6 inches of rain in a single day are pretty much non existent. Of course it’s always possible, but highly unlikely. So unlikely that there really isn’t much need to keep note of sandbag companies even if a huge storm is bearing down on us. Preparedness for this type of event isn’t a Californian strong suit. Now earthquakes are a different story. We brace the hell out of everything because we don’t want our precious china cabinet crashing down on our heads during dinner, but I digress.

I’m not exactly sure who sold the Saddleback Materials Company on the idea of a direct mail postcard to the residents of Long Beach, but I’m guessing that they’re sitting over the phone waiting for hundreds of phone calls to come in after this fantastic promotion; dozens at least.

I can’t figure out for the life of me why Saddleback would think they could find new customers by using direct mail to an obvious miscalculated demographic. Sandbags are obvious an old school market. They do business face to face and rely on relationships with contractors to increase business. Even if I was a contractor, what is the likelihood that I’m going to call Saddleback? I probably already have a company that provides me sand when needed. Why would I change just because someone sent me a postcard.

This postcard doesn’t represent the company. Even though it says they have fast friendly service at the right price, why am I to believe them? Because they have a photo showing mountains of prefab sandbags and a nice shiny truck for deliveries? Even if this postcard went to every contractor in the SoCal area, I doubt they’ll gain much from it.

I’m guessing grass roots selling is the best way to gaining business, direct contact with their intended clients. They could also stretch the boundaries a little. Instead of printing postcards, how about a message on the sandbags that says, “This home saved by Saddleback.” I’m tossing out a crazy one here, but how about inviting all your clients and their families out to the property for a treasure hunt amongst the sand mountains?

I guess I just don’t understand how companies go immediately to the default methods of promotion. I know that 90% of business have not read Seth Godin, but when you have a marketing budget, why isn’t the return ever considered? If I called Saddleback and asked them how they are managing their leads from this promotion, I’m almost sure they wouldn’t have any kind of analytics in place. I’m making a huge assumption, but call it an educated guess that Saddleback is not measuring their ROI in the slightest. They’re sending out random postcards to people they’ve never talked to and praying that a few call. It very well may happen, but I’m pretty sure they could spend that money elsewhere that has a much larger impact on their customers as well as their revenue.

This has been a powerful week for me. Lately I’ve been contemplating the idea of doing more marketing and design consultation but I usually get discouraged thinking I haven’t learned enough to warrant the kind of reputation needed for that jump. I always talk myself out of it, but this week was different because two separate times, two completely different people complimented me on my knowledge of the subject. Usually I’d blow off the sentiments but because they came from people I’d never worked with before, I took them a bit more seriously, but it wasn’t just the compliments, but the conversations that made me realize my own potential.

Earlier in the week, some coworkers and I were lamenting about the fact our magazine was down in page count because ad sales came up way short. Of course we talked a lot of smack about the sales guys, but when my editor related a conversation he overheard about one of the sales guys not being able to close a sale because of $25, I knew why immediately. I don’t consider myself a salesman by any stretch, but I live with one of the best. Because of conversations with my wife, I know that the reason our sales guy couldn’t make the sale was because he was trying to sell ad space instead of selling the benefits. He’s selling a 4×6 inch blank space instead of giving the client a perception of value to the advertising investment. In the sales guy’s defense, the team gets very little if any training, so it’s not a big surprise he can’t close the deal. He’s an order taker, not a salesperson. If he took the time to find out the client’s objectives, present the benefits and features in a way that appeals to the clients sense of urgency, he’d be a lot more successful.

The other night, my friend PC (Phoung-Cac) joined Leslie and I for dinner. PC designs these unique high-end accessories she calls keychains, but they’re much more than that. Each one is a unique, hand-crafted piece of wearable art. They’re beautiful and she’s getting noticed slowly, but still isn’t making enough to live on. We talked in length about how to improve her website and how to hit her desired market. The more we talked, the more I realized that for her to successful, she needs to stop looking at them as a mere keychains and start treating them as a high end accessory. I added that she might consider naming each one, like an artist would name a painting. They are works of art after all. Despite what it costs to make one, presenting them at a much higher price point will give her the perceived value she needs to sell them at to be profitable. This is absolutely a Long Tail product that will do better if she sells “less of more”.

After my conversation with PC, I realized that I might actually be able to make it as a consultant because I know now that part of my success is going to be in my perceived value. The way I present myself will determine a lot of the business I get from potential clients. Having a belief in my skills and knowing in my heart that I can help folks improve their businesses is crucial to my own development as a professional.

On that note, you might see this site change again soon. Time for a new facade perhaps and a new attitude, but don’t worry, I’ll always be that same self-deprecating, rock-n-roll clown, just without the red squeaky nose.