Marketing

As you may have seen from our whitepaper and online social activities, Inner Circle recently completed a Member survey based upon the methodology in Fred Reichheld's book, "The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth."  The ultimate question to ask your clients is this: "How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?"  At the end of the day, this is the only answer that truly matters.

I know they say you should never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry. I hope it’s OK to blog.

I’ve been daydreaming about a favorite ice cream shop where they offer every customer a Ziggy. You order your cone exactly as you want it, but they go one step further in serving it to you. Using a melon-baller-size scoop, they add just a little bit more, the Ziggy. You can have one extra bite of your favorite, vanilla on top of vanilla for those who like to keep it simple, or you can satisfy your taste for that runner-up flavor that didn’t get picked this time as the main attraction —Mint Chocolate Chip on top of Elephant Tracks (peanut butter cups in chocolate ice cream), for example. Hypothetically, of course.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a Buffini & Company webinar regarding referral based lead generation.  If you're not familiar with Buffini, they are the nation's largest coaching organization founded on the referral based lead generation strategies of Brian Buffini.  Their strongest niche is real estate professionals and here's an interesting statistic: Buffini-coached realtors earn, on average, 7 times more than non-Buffini realtors.  Wow.

Courtesy of Michael Synk, Owner, Inner Circle Mid-South......

A major insight from Inner Circle#45 this past week, is that if you want to succeed at something (rolling out a new product line, adding a new sales person, setting up metrics to measure success, it really doesn't matter what) you have to put effort into allowing those involved to succeed. Adding a product line and just giving the sales force some brochures and telling to go sell, just won't cut it. Likewise with adding a new sales person. Giving him a territory and briefcase and pointing him at the door or phone will get you failure rather quickly.