blending the mix

My Sony laptop is on the verge of packing in, after years and years of (ab)use it is at death’s door.

The CD drive does not allow me to burn back-up discs anymore and it is pot luck as to whether or not it will work from one day to the next.

So, I am offering a unique opportunity to sponsor ME.

Apple, Microsoft, Dell, or indeed any company willing to provide me with a half-decent laptop will have their name mentioned as part of my email signature.

In ALL communications in which I participate and which requires me to use the laptop (pretty much all the time!), I will apply the following signature text for a full 12 months (and I WILL provide weekly evidence of this):

Paul Fabretti

Director

Written on an Apple Macbook Pro by Company X.

Or

"Written using the latest Dell Precision M90"

or whatever suits the company providing it! You get the picture!

I may even think about something that sounds good too!

I am a minimum 3-times a day, 3-blog blogger with a (growing) average 800 unique visitors per month (ok, not a lot but growing all the time!). I am an active member of linked-in, openbc, ecademy as well as the pinkomarketing wiki and google group.

I am also an eBay (UK) Gold Power seller. A link to the company providing my laptop will also be included in ALL my eBay auctions.

Some will no doubt snigger at the visitor numbers (and advertisers may balk at the numbers!) but I am an extremely active member of the communities in which I mix, and present you with an opportunity to touch business professionals deeper than any banner ad would.

If this is of interest to you and you would be able to provide me with a laptop, I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Tags: ebay, Dell, Apple, Macbook Pro, laptop, pinko marketing

Seth’s Blog: Indispensable is a wonderful post about individuals being the company, individuals who, without them, the company ceases to exist.

He tells of how Michael Dell could leave Dell Computers but they would still be the same company. Bill Gates could even leave Microsoft and it still be the same company, but what about the small business owner?

How to make yourself dipensable again? Empower your straff. Make them feel like their actions count for something real. Don’t make them feel like they are earning a salary.
Maybe they don’t have a vested interest in the business, so make it part of their performance scheme that every satisfied customer they come into contact with, registers towards their bonus.

Customer leaving positive feedback or even non-buying customers that have left satisfied are potential customers that, treated well WILL come back.

This is as hard a part of the sales cycle as any so staff should be rewarded for it.

Seth Godin has a quick little post about the good and bad of customer relations.

1) Customer visits website to sign up for newsletter.

2) Customer previously delcares “no-mail” from company.

3) Website writes to confirm new newsletter instruction.

4) Customer is taken to a confirmation page where he is found to be considered a NON-ELITE customer.

5) Customer pisses-off elsewhere (presumably!)

Apart from the lesson about not hacking-off customers, there is an equally important point about the way we speak about customers between oursleves.

Elite or non-elite, if we learn to talk ABOUT customers in the same way we talk TO them when communicating with them, we learn to be naturally nicer about them, helping to ensure their needs are always met first.

Always talk ABOUT a customer in the way you would talk TO them.

Seth Godin writes a great anecdote about how one of his previous compay’s fired their biggest customer with only 6 weeks of payroll left in the bank - and survived!

He also goes on to talk about how a bad customer will bad mouth you no matter what you do to help them.

Granted, some customers are real pains in the ass but as long as you do everything you can to ensure they have nothing to complain about then the transaction may be uncomfortable but otherwise satisfactory.
Conversely, those customers that try to take advantage of you are bad news from the start (return used goods after 3 months for example or in one of our cases, claim lost parts after 3 months!)

So how do you deal with them? Seth’s advice is to be polite and decline to do business with them. Whatever happens, they are likely to bad-mouth you so what else have you lost? If you have no trading record with them, what justification or evidence do they have of impropriety?

As long as you are polite and do not rise to their baiting then they have nowhere to go.

Say someone comes to you saying that your competitor can do the same product $200 cheaper than you - so be it. If you are talking more or less the same product or field of business, you should know that the $200 the customer is quoting is rubbish.

Equally if a customer tries to claim a return long past its return date, quoting Company X as having a return period twice as long as you, let them return the branded item to them or ask the customer why they think Company X NEEDS such a long return period.

I often find when trying to get battered down on price or service that turning the query round on the customer makes them question their own reasons for bringing it up.

After all, if they wanted to get the item at the cheaper price with the longer service from somewhere else, why have they come to you?!