Buzz Builder

All CEOs Should Act Upon the Wise Advice for United Airlines' CEO from Zane Safrit

What if you consistently experienced your company in the same way that your customers do? And, to supplement the experience, you invited your employees and customers to share their issues and suggestions directly with you while you were trying to live in their shoes.

Surely, seeing your company from the perspective of your customers and frontline employees will spark ideas. And, if you honestly shared your experience and what improvements you will seek in response to it in your company blog, newsletter, and other communications vehicle in your own plain-spoken words (and not some hyper-polished PR speak), imagine the postive buzz that you would generate.

Such is a recommendation that Zane Safrit, a business startup consultant and former telecommunications companny CEO, makes for the CEO of United Airlines in a thought-provoking recent post in his always engaging blog.

Surely, the CEO of United Airlines, which has many detractors including now famous ones (thanks to YouTube) like a singer who I blogged about a couple of times in 2009, should follow Zane's advice.Actually, all CEOs who live in the shoes of their customers and frontline employees consistely will find that is one of the most valuable ways to spend their time.

"Go for No!" and Ask for Online Testimonials Where They'll Have the Biggest Impact on Sales

A couple of years ago, my wife and I stayed at a great bed and breakfast in Bend, Oregon called the Cricketwood Country B&B. We had never stayed at a B&B where we could get free cookies, ice cream, and beer at no charge whenever we wanted. Also, the hospitality of the owners in making us feel welcome at their beautiful and relaxing place on 10 acres with stellar views and comfortable rooms made our two-night stay particularly memorable. The gourmet breakfast, which is included in the room rate, simply has to be experienced to be believed.

When it came time to check out, I told one of the owners how much we enjoyed our stay. He said that he appreciated the kind words. Then, he whipped out his business card and said, "If you wouldn't mind sharing your opinion with others, I would really appreciate your taking the time to put your comments on one or both of the websites that many people who visit Bend check out." On the back of his card, the URLs for TripAdvisor and Yahoo! Travel, two of the leading travel websites, were noted. Of course, as marketer, I admired his focused approach at directing testimonials and had to ask whether this was helping his business. He asked me, "How did you find Cricketwood?" When I responded that I chose Cricketwood because it was (and still is) the top-rated B&B in Bend according to TripAdvisor, he just smiled. 

Of course, it's nice when customers tell you nice things about your business. But, do those words have a long-term impact. Why don't more business owners direct fans to customer review websites where testimonials will reap long-term benefits? I'm sure that fear of coming across as demanding is a major concern. Yet, if people love a business, many will be happy to post a testimonial or review online where it will most impact the business. They just have to be asked to do this.
 

Experience has taught me that many business owners don't direct testimonials because they fear hearing "no." To get over this concern, I strongly recommend a powerful book called "Go for No!" which is an engaging story about how embracing "no" rather than fearing it is the path to success. If you like the book, you'll enjoy the entertaining and motivating "Go for No!" movie which is now out on DVD and features interviews with 50 top performers in a variety of professions sharing their stories about how they achieved success following a simple principle: "You can achieve virtually ANYTHING you want in life if you are willing to hear 'No' often enough!"

Why Last Impressions Are Essential to Generating Referrals

A few years ago, I wrote about how critical first impressions are to business success. But, a company’s last impression with a customer carries even more weight when it comes to generating repeat and referred business.

Recently, my wife Ellen and I spent three nights at the Trumpeter Inn, a bed & breakfast on San Juan Island in Washington State. During our stay, Geoff and Shaun, the attentive husband-and-wife owners, provided top-notch service which included answering all my inquiries about the best things to do and places to see (no easy feat when you consider that Ellen calls me “The Question Man” for my propensity to grill people for information).

On our last night, we told Shaun that we needed to catch the 6:00AM ferry to the Mainland. It pained us to leave early since breakfasts had been so delicious. Shaun promised to have brown bag breakfasts waiting for us when we left. While other hungry ferry passengers had to make do with stale vending machine food and coffee, we enjoyed a breakfast bonanza which included homemade muffins, yoghurt parfaits with fresh fruit and granola, boiled eggs and juice. We sipped gourmet coffee out of takeout cups that she had thoughtfully left for us next to the coffee machines, which were programmed to kick into action when our morning alarm sounded. The Trumpeter swans that Shaun drew on our breakfast bags made us smile as we unpacked them on the ferry with San Juan Island receding in the background.

Over the years, I’ve left stayed at enough bed & breakfast inns to know that I would have to fend for myself if I checked out before the standard breakfast hour. By doing something completely unexpected in such a classy way, the Trumpeter Inn stands above it competitors and it’s no wonder that it’s the top-rated B&B on San Juan Island according to TripAdvisor, America’s leading customer review website for travel recommendations.

It’s not just B&Bs that benefit from leaving customers with a strong positive impression. With the weather heating up in the Pacific Northwest, I hired a company to power wash and seal our back deck. After I was given the price for the job and the work had started, I asked the owner of the company whether he could spray off our outdoor table while he was at it. Not only did he do this, but the job took longer than expected because he took extra time to thoroughly wash the table and all the outdoor chairs so they look almost new again—at no extra charge.

Professional service providers can also find ways to leave their customers impressed. Whenever we complete an engagement for a client in which we’ve carried out a successful media relations campaign, there is always the possibility that journalists will contact us about a future story. Whether we are billing a client or not, we promptly follow up on media opportunities and respond to queries on the client’s behalf without charging anything. We’ve learned that the hours we work for a client without being paid after an engagement officially ends is a wise time investment because it dramatically increases the chances that the client will reengage our services and recommend us to others.

In these tough economic times, those companies that find ways to leave a great last impression will not only survive but thrive.

Matt Weinstein in "What Bernie Madoff Couldn't Steal From Me" Video

Last December, my wife and I were extremely lucky to travel in Antarctica for nearly two weeks with a group that our client OCSC, a sailing and adventure travel company in Berkeley, had organized. The trip was even more spectacular that we had hoped. The scale and grandeur of Antarctica never ceased to amaze. But, we never expected to learn so much from a fellow traveller.

On our boat, we met Matt Weinstein, a successful professional speaker and all-around great guy. Midway through the journey, Matt was called up to the ship's bridge to take a satellite phone call from his wife Geneen Roth, an accomplished author and healthy eating expert. Geneen told Matt that they had lost nearly everything that they had saved for retirement since they had invested with the infamous Bernie Madoff.

Unable to rush home since there are no flights out of Antarctica, Matt still had about a week left on the journey. During this time, when we talked with him, we were amazed that he didn't demonstrate much anger or grief. Surely, we thought, he must be in a state of shock which would morph into rage as time passed. But, over the past few months, we've seen that Matt possesses an amazing ability to reflect on what's really important in life. While he and Geneen will likely only recoup a small percentage of the money that Madoff stole, he has earned something of greater value.

Below is a video of Matt presenting an insightful and entertaining speech on "What Bernie Madoff Couldn't Steal from Me." It's the best eight-minute presentation I've ever seen. If you like it, please forward it to a friend. Here's wishing that Matt gets a lot of groups to hire him to speak about what's really important in life!

Independent, Electic Alberta Street in Portland, Oregon Gets New York Times Buzz

I was thrilled to read a travel story in The New York Times yesterday extolling the virtues of the eclectic and charming Alberta Street in Northeast Portland, Oregon. Since Alberta Street is the closest commercial street to my home, I spend a lot of time there and I've always admired its cool galleries, diverse restaurants, and colorful street scene. Too often, when I travel, I feel as if the commercial areas that I visit are cookie cutters of one another. You won't find a single chain store on Alberta and there are still plenty of artists in the neighborhood. That uniqueness has gotten the street plenty of buzz over the years proving that being different is a great way to get people talking.

Photographer Adam Bacher Finds a Unique Way to Promote His Blog, Photograpy Business and Itafari Foundation

Happy New Year to all readers! We live in a land of plenty yet we often forget this. Instead of dwelling on what we didn't get for the holidays or how much our 401(k)s have suffered over the past year, it's enlightening to reflect on what we have, how billions of people just struggle to make ends meet, and what we can do to help others.

Adam Bacher, a friend and talented professional photographer, is traveling in Africa right now to document an innovative goat program that the Oregon-based Itafari Foundation is carrying out in Rwanda. Goats are being given to parent less households in Rwanda empowering children to care for themselves and their siblings.

Today I received a New Year's card from Adam featuring a South African Boer Goat on the cover. Inside was a boarding pass inviting me on a roundtrip to Rwanda and Kenya to accompany Adam on his journey (click on above image to enlarge). The fine print on the boarding pass instructs me to visit Adam's blog to accompany Adam on his journey as he posts photos and stories in real time. What a creative way to create buzz for a blog and get people to check out a worthwhile cause!

Derrie-Air Generates Lots of Buzz But Is It Good Marketing?

Many marketers are more concerned about showing off their creativity rather than creating meaningful results for their clients. A great example is the recent advertising effort from Gyro, an ad agency in Philadelphia, to build buzz for a Philly Media Holdings which publishes the Philadelphia Inquirer and other large newspapers in Pennsyvlania.

Recently, Gyro launched a spoof campaign for Derrie-Air, a fictitious airline that charges passengers by how much they and their baggage weigh - given the recent cust-costing announcements from many airlines, it's not much of a stretch to believe that such an airline might actually exist. Large display ads ran in various newspapers which Philly Media Holdings controls sending people to a very realistic looking website.

The hoax was set up to see how many people would fall for the idea. It was designed to "demonstrate the power of our brands in generating awareness and generating traffic for our advertisers, and put a smile on people's faces," explained Philly Media Holdings spokesman Jay Devine.

Can this guy be serious? For owners of furniture stores or an automobile dealerships, two of the biggest type of companies that advertise in newspapers, this spoof campaign proves nothing since their products don't lend themselves to such an attention-getting angle. 

Even though the display ads for a fictitious airline with a crazy business concept are humorous, they do fail to counter the argument that newspaper advertising is in steep decline because more consumers are going online for news and advertisers are following them there as Eric Alterman's excellent article in The New Yorker explains. Instead of creating gimmicky campaigns to fool their readers, Philly Media Holdings would be much better served making their websites more robust and user-friendly to attract an increased share of the growing online advertising market.