Tough times call for the power of Kina'ole. This is a valuable lesson learned during a week of business meetings in Hawaii.

Considering the price of gas and the value of your time, we'll save you expense of the trip to Hawaii and deliver this gem of information immediately--today.  If you take time today, Sunday, to sit with this concept--in a quiet place, with your marketing plan in hand, then bake it into your business and your commitment to customers, it may be the most affordable, effective and simple thing you can do to attract customers.

Many years ago, great customer satisfaction weighed in at "99 and 44/100 percent pure" and today it's more like "over the top and more than 100%" if you want to attract customers, wow them, get a positive word-of-mouth referral, or keep them coming back to you.

Kina'ole is about flawlessness.  The traditional definition of kina'ole is:

Doing the right thing in the right way, at the right time, in the right place,
   to the right person, for the right reason, with the right feeling, the first time.

In ancient Hawaii, if you were skilled, trained or a professional in any line of work or service, the specific tasks or activities that you engaged in were expected to be performed without defect or flaw. 

Kina'ole is a powerful philosophy to adopt into your business, your customer relationships and your life.  It's based on constantly rising standards. As you do your best, you make improvements and positive changes to work towards flawless performance.

Can you think of any business or customer situation today that is not rapidly evolving, technologically speeding up or pushing the limits on standards?  Me neither.

Is this about the always-futile attempt at reaching perfection?  Not at all, because we know that is unrealistic.  This is about doing your best--and knowing that is your best.  This is about making improvements and driving positive changes--not waiting for someone to complain. 

When you ask your business buddies, "How's business?" and the answer is "No complaints" what does that tell you?  Wouldn't a better answer be "kina'ole" which means "I'm doing my very best, striving for improvements and could always use a great referral from you."

We can challenge ourselves to value and be guided by kina'ole because it will always stimulate our desire to be the very best we are capable of, not only for ourselves but for everyone we work and play with.  This attitude ensures superior customer service for those we serve -- our customers and partners and everyone we touch in our community.

Eight books and about 10 years ago we learned that customer value is the simple core of any company, according to Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.  Their most recent book, Rules to Break and Laws to Follow, even has it's own website and invites you into the conversation about the importance of balancing the priority of developing customer trust, even though your business wants more access to private information about your customers and their behavior and attitudes.

The "laws to follow" are imperatives, not suggestions.  They are requirements that must be met if any business wants to succeed over the long term, beyond the current financial period. There are 12 laws which yield to a sorting into four groups:

1. Customer value
2. Trust
3. Workplace culture
4. Balancing short-and long-term objectives

These laws help us face the daily challenges and show us what matters and what doesn't matter.

Isn't that all we wanted, anyway?  Great customers and a simple plan for a complex world?

What all of this has to do with my customer base--national associations, certification organizations and professional services businesses will be explained, in person, as Martha Rogers chats it up with the association executives in the Chicago area at the Association Forum of Chicagoland's  Annual meeting June 17th.

I'll be there and you might want to start making some plans to get thee to what will be a memorable and action-biased conversation about trust, social networking, innovation, empowered customers and networked employees.

We used to love that opening question, "So, how's business?"  These days, you might not like the answer.  There's not as much to brag about when customers are cutting the one area they think they can sacrifice--marketing.

When business slows you have two choices:  Use all that newly opened time, where billable hours used to be, to take a vacation and come up with fresh ideas for customer attraction.  The other option is to find some people doing well--making money like there's no recession, and listen to their advice.

Just when things looked the worse (before the government checks to boost the economy arrive in May), here comes the Microsoft Small Business Summit 2008 for an entire week of help and practical ideas.  Here's a few great points to act on:

• Four days of great presentations and practical help, starting  Monday morning, March 24th at 9 a.m. Pacific/12 p.m. Eastern.
• Four hours of presentations each day, one hour each.
• No charge.   You just have to register at the Microsoft Small Business Summit website.  While there, look at the line up of speakers and business coaches who will be speaking every hour.  Three or more speakers for each hour that the summit comes streaming to you through your web browser and speakers for your computer.
• John Jantsch is the kickoff speaker at 9 a.m. Monday (Pacific) presenting Duct Tape Marketing (simple, effective and affordable) and you also have the choice of hearing Andrea Lake present "Fearless Marketing" and Brian Kane present The "Word" on Marketing.

Personally, this will be a great adventure.  Call it the BlackBerry convention.  I will be on the go and in meetings most of those four days (taking care of customers) and my BlackBerry and blue tooth earpiece go with me.  I registered, studied the speakers/sessions possible each hour,  and can dial in and view the browser at the same time.  Because you can multitask and tune in to multiple presentations with multiple browsers, this means we can hear more of the presentations that we first thought possible. 

There's some other great reasons to experience as much of the Small Business Summit as you can.  If you had to pay a registration fee for this caliber of program, you'd probably be in the $850 range.  Extra benefits include the fact there is not exhibit hall in a massive concrete building that kills your arches and back after walking the aisles for several hours each day. This summit does not require the cost of airfare, hotel rooms, food and ground transportation.

What If You Need Hands-On Help and More Than a Presentation?

If you still want to do the in-person conference experience, which includes the added value of meeting people, networking and getting away from the normal office routine, we found another meeting for you on April 21-22 in the Houston, Texas area.  It's the first ever Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference and the registration fee is $850.

This one might appeal to you just on the merits of their promotion copy.  If they can get your attention, then they can show you how to do the same for your prospects and customers.   Search Engine Guide and Small Business Brief are the sponsors and gave it a catchy title: A Different Kind of Marketing Conference. Real Ideas for Real Budgets.

It seems so obvious and simple that you wonder why you need to buy a book to guide you.  It's the golden rule taken to the next notch up and it's called The Celebrity Experience, Insider Secrets to Delivering Red-Carpet Customer Service by Donna Cutting.

We talk about and hear about "the customer experience" and the question for you is, do you know how to replicate that in a consistent, systematic way?  Chances are when you were being treated like a superstar or grand celebrity, it wowed you so that you were just soaking it up and not taking notes.  For sure, you will never forget it and that's a good start.  Now go back in your memory and start detailing that out so you can do it to others.

Maybe you do not always get celebrity treatment, Donna points out, but there is no excuse for failing to provide such an experience for your customers.  There's two great reasons to focus on this and practice it every day--you and your customer feel great and it's profitable.  You can stop haggling price or worrying about low bidders when you get good at treating customers as superstars.  Before we go on about how to improve your customer service performance, you get this great rule to live by when it comes to price.  The truth about price is it puts you at the mercy of your most stupid competitor.  People who don't know a thing about staying in business will drop a price so low they are bankrolling their  own customer's projects.  So concentrate on differentiating yourself and focusing on what makes your customers feel like the hundreds of celebrities and "celebrity handlers" that Donna interviewed and included in her book.

Affordable, effective and simple--that's the Duct Tape Marketing way.  The same formula works when creating exceptional customer treatment. Practical, profitable tips and success stories included in this book came from interviews with celebrity personal assistants, public relations representatives, concierges, television executives, producers, image consultants, hair stylists, agents, red carpet escorts, craft service providers and more.

So, what happens if you think you are giving great service?  First, we say bravo, followed up by "are you sure you are doing all you can do, easily, and consistently?"  If you think all of your customers love you already, then there is a double reason for reading, then living The Celebrity Experience.  National statistics tell us there are a lot of owners of small businesses who have plans in writing or in their head and never implement it fully.  That's because it's easier to bump along from day to day without being held accountable.  Read this book and notice all of the specific tips and solid information on what works--every time.  Hold yourself accountable or get a customer experience buddy in your organization or network of close business friends and ask them to help you get in the groove and stay there on this Exceptional Customer Service track.  You'll have fun.  You'll learn what works better than what you think you are doing perfectly,

You'll make more money--a lot more than you are thinking of right now,  because of customer retention, loyalty, referrals and repeat business.

Every four years we get the gift of time--an entire extra day.   What did you do with this most precious gift of your life?  Before I tell you want happened on my Bonus Day 2008, I want to ask you this:
How many times do you say "I don't have time"?
How many time do you hear your customer say the reason they do not engage with you is "no time"?

Today, everyone got the time they are begging for.  What you did with that extra day may say more about your commitment to your customers than all of your rhetoric and blog posts.

My choice was profound.  Maybe you ought to try it.  I devoted the entire day to "Appreciation of Abundance," my customer commitment that started with the first day of 2008.  I took a good customer for 6 years to lunch and just celebrated our abundance.  The conversation shifted, for this one day in our relationship, to a total focus on all of the reasons why my firm and me, personally, appreciate this relationship and the abundance of talent, ideas, achievements and learning we have both experienced, because of this customer.  As super busy as this executive always is, he took near 3 hours out of his day, just for that lunch and the conversation--all about appreciation.

On the one day a week, I do this three times --three customers.  A celebration with each.  So I'm really taking the whole day for this and each customer is probably taking more time for the Appreciation of Abundance than they ever have done, except for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

Feb. 29th was a great day to do this, but this actually started the first week of January.  Here's the epiphany that came right after my last blog (when the ball dropped in Times Square).  I realized life is really short and I can continue working 60 hours a week Monday through Saturday and still take one day of the "normal work week"--like every Thursday, off, just for the Appreciation of Abundance.    The customers who see us every day get the benefit of our appreciation constantly.   That's why we went to our VIP list of clients who have retained us for years but are currently not paying us a nickle, and invited them to a day of Appreciation of Abundance.

When I made this resolution, we didn't know the stock market was going to tank, starting with the first week of January and doing the deep dive daily.  Today, the worst day of all saw the market drop more than 350 points! Now it seems totally amazing that we are emphasizing abundance in a time when too many are fearful and pulling back on marketing efforts and budgets. 

Guess what?  The response to our invitation to "just take the time for one day to celebrate abundance and our appreciation for all that we know and share" has been beyond imagination. Do you suppose the human spirit and leadership qualities in our customers tell them this downturn is not forever and appreciating abundance is a way to look at the world differently while many others stop making bold decisions and stop innovating?

I suppose we could have done this any time over the past 25 years.  But working 70 hours a week is what owners of smaller businesses (50 employees or fewer) do to remain strong and visible in their business and community.  Cutting back to 60 hours seemed severe. 

This is going so well that we might not wait until 2009 to see what happens if we cut back to 50 hours and devote two days every week to the Appreciation of Abundance with our customers and best prospects.

In a few minutes we will watch the ball drop in Times Square and bring in 2008.

Every good intention of taking the day to just ponder the past (2007) and plot the goals for the new year just never happened.  Why"  Customers!  You would think they would take the day off.  You would think the phone would stop ringing for a little while. 

As it turned out, this was a super busy Monday.  Customers sending email from their iPhones, BlackBerry devices, and laptops everywhere. We love it.  We adore customers because they are 24/7.  Their needs never stop, nor do their expectations.

Happy New Year

In our constant quest for common sense and desire to reach common ground in conversations about social media, we delight in clarity and agreement about terms and meanings.   

That's why it's refreshing to follow the thinking and writing of Jeff Zabin, who writes for Chief Marketer and would like to discuss with us, Social Media Monitoring and Analysis: Call It What You Will.

His entire article is worth reading--several times.  He make so much sense when he writes,  "Consider the diversity of terms widely espoused over the past couple of years to describe a set of technology solutions now offered by upwards of 40 marketing vendors and deployed by a rapidly-growing number of major companies within the realm of consumer-generated content. These terms include brand monitoring, buzz monitoring, social media monitoring, market influence analytics, and online consumer intelligence."

He offers a special report, free, to help us all understand each other better while we use all of these terms and work toward something simpler and consistent in meaning 

Co-sponsored by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, an Aberdeen Group report will be published in January and Jeff is offering a complimentary copy, when published, to all readers who take the short survey at www.aberdeen.com/survey/social_media.

Jeff Zabin is a research fellow at the Aberdeen Group, where he covers customer management technology, and is the author of "Precision Marketing."

Personally, I know this is good because the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is involved.   They are based in Chicago and this summer I got to know Greg Fine, who worked at WOMMA and had just arrived for his new job as director of communication for the Association Forum of Chicagoland.   I am a member of the Association Forum, which s an association of association executives.  Essentially, it's a group of savvy builders of all kinds of professional communities and industry communities.

Small world.  Through only three degrees of separation, I can identify with everything Zabin writes about and trust that he is helping, more than further confusing the conversation about social media marketing.

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For nearly two weeks we've been up to our hips in the quicksands of Social Media and if you find yourself slip sliding away, too, then this blog's for you.

So much has happened all at once so let's start with some truth from the top of the mountain by our trusted advisors at Marketing Profs.  We love the Daily Fix and this one on Social Media Marketing: Who's Full of Hot Air? Who's The Real Deal?  will make you feel like Dorothy, going behind the curtain to discover the real Wizard of Oz.

That story takes you to B.L.Ochman, the publisher of What's Next Blog and president of whatsnextonline.com, an Internet marketing strategist.  From B.L's lips to your ears, "While there is no shortage of consultants who blog, talk, present at conferences, and preach about social media marketing, only a handful in the world have actually created successful campaigns for actual clients."

Well, thank you B.L. Ochman!  The moment that statement hit my brain, I realized I'm in that handful who actually do this and know it's not easy.  It is essential and it's where the customers are,so learning this and doing it well is not an option.  Failure is not an option either--for me, for you, for our customers.

What hit me recently is that I've been doing this social media for as long is it's been a concept and practice.  So let's get that on the table before I tell you about my Social Media Immersion lately.

What qualifies me to guide you? I a proud to be a pioneer/consultant with Peppers & Rogers Group/Carlson Marketing, and pioneer/authorized coach with Duct Tape Marketing--both were doing social media marketing before it had that name.  That means before it was the hot buzz of 2007 it was happening on a less massive scale inside visionary companies and organizations for more than a decade (1995-2007).

It gets better.  How about this? "I will dedicate my next 100 posts to a specific mission: helping you grow the value of your social media and social networking efforts. "That comes from Chris Brogan,Vice President, Strategy & Technology, CrossTechMedia, who advises businesses, organizations and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value and tells us, in Cafe Witness

There's nothing involved in social media that isn't already obvious to the average person. There's nothing awe-inspiring about aggregating followers, spreading a message or spurring individuals to action. We like to think there is but, truth be told, humans have been doing that since the Stone Age.

Even so, there is a feeding frenzy going on.  My customers and everyone else I know can't get enough of anything pitched in the name of social media. For example, in the certification industry, which is all about community and the value of a credential, went wild over the social media presentation by Chris Carfi, a speaker at the December 2006 Certification Network Group.  A year later, the group wants more and invites Kevin Jerge of The Port Network to bring social networking and practical examples of what works, to the gathering of 100 or so decision makers.

Also at the first of December the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership comes out with a printed, special insert on "Social Media" to their 23,000 members--mainstream business as represented by every profession and industry on the planet. My friend, Andy Steggles, fellow ASAE member and Chief Information Officer, Risk & Insurance Management Society, Inc.,volunteers his time and expertise to share his experiences and success stories with social media with us. Andy is out there as the pioneer on Facebook doing an association of association space.  So in addition to our traditional networking through a dues-paying association, we also have the association community on Facebook and all that costs is our time and commitment to come back and keep the community vital.

Social media--we're doing it and making it vital to our marketing efforts, every day.  There's a lot to learn, a lot to practice and a lot of snake oil salesmen pitching social media marketing.  So let's come back here for further discussion on this, shall we?

Comment if you are wondering about social media marketing or if you have the answers.

Just about the time you think you know something about marketing, along comes our friends at eMarketer (The First Place to Look) in their Nov. 30, 2007 issue, "What are Marketers Thinking?"

Before I give you the link so you can see the answers, I have some mind-bending questions for you.  (Oh, I can see this is not going to work because you are scrolling to the end for the link.  I'll bet you go to the last chapter in the mystery novel to see how it ends, too.  Don't you?)

The eMarketing issue just sings customership!  They surveyed more than 600 members of the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) to identify the Top Marketing Trends for 2008.

This is great, useful information if you are polishing your marketing plans for 2008.

First question.  Where do you think the hottest action and greatest results are in marketing?
Is it search engine optimization, personalization, green marketing, word of mouth, marketing basics or something else?

Next, how savvy are you on the demographics?  Which are the most important? Go ahead. Before you peek at the answer is it Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Z, Boomers, or some other group?

How are you doing so far? Where is the greatest opportunity for marketers in countries other than the good ol' USA?  Is it India, Brazil, China, Eastern Europe or somewhere else?

This question is the most fun.  Who are the most important marketing gurus? There's a whole list and our personal favorite, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers were right in there, with Seth Godin, Peter Drucker, Malcolm  Gladwell and Tom Peters.  But where did they fall on the scale?   

Give it your best guess and then look at the answers. Then get back to working on your marketing plan for 2008 because it's December already and you need to put that plan into gear, soon.

If you need help attracting more cuistomer or wowing customers in 2008, give me a call or drop an email. It's what we do.

For most of you this is a long weekend about turkey and gratitude.

For 78,000 in Arrowhead Stadium tonight, for millions watching on TV and for all of my fellow alumni from the University of Missouri, this weekend is about tigers.

I hope you are asking, What does the tiger have to do with your customers and all that you are doing to grow your business, achieve career goals and overcome some barriers that always seem to get in your way? 

One answer is in A Tour of Tigers by Roy Williams. He wrote it just for you on November 12th.  It's about ferocity, passion and being fully into the experience, whether that is your life, your business relationships, your customers, or whatever matters most. If this is the first you've hear about Roy and the Wizard Academy, you want to go to his archives and look at the first tiger tale a year ago, on November 20, 2006, called Live Your Crowded Hour. 

While you are on his website, make sure you subscribe to Monday Morning Memo.   It's the best thing I get in my email all week because it has the one thing I value the most--authenticity. In this world of more information than we can use and 112.8 million blogs, according to Technorati, you don't see much that is authentic.  Therefore, it is rare and that makes it extremely valuable. 

Roy Williams promises the Monday Morning Memo "will never contain anything you've ever read before."  Sounds bold.  It's true. I'm a lifelong seeker of authenticity because it's such a rush to read something original, hear music, see art and to innovate.

Final thoughts today on customers, passion and tigers.

The best business advice I ever heard was this: "When the passion goes, so do the customers."  In A Tour of Tigers are many clues on how to make sure there is passion, and plenty of it to attract and keep great customers.

When MU and KU play tonight, I will not be passive.  I will have my MU sweatshirt, slacks, socks, visor and game face on.  If it were legal, I'd be on the field.  I'll dig out that  "Screw KU" button from my jewelry box and wear it.

Authentic.  Ferocious. Passionate. Can you say that is in everything you have done in 2007?  Can you make sure it's in your vision and commitments for 2008?  It will get you all the customers you've ever wanted.

Let's go Mizzou!

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