The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 45 Degrees
So much of business is flavored with the process of doing things in hopes of getting something back. You can feel it when that’s the typical process for a business.
If you want to stick out, stop doing that.
Do what Frank Brock did with his 6,000 active customer accounts at the First Bank of Troy in Idaho. That’s 6,000 active accounts in a town of 514 people.
Frank didn’t spend his days dreaming up an “if I do this THEN I’ll get this” series of marketing campaigns. He actually trusted. He knew that if he put in the right ingredients, the right cake would be made.
What were these magic ingredients?
“Brock’s entire day was spent in his office going over his list of customers and clipping newspapers. Whenever someone would marry, die, move away, give birth, etc., he would send a remembrance. All of his customers received a personal note or a telephone call at least once a month from Frank Brock.”
You know how many business books you have to read to figure this out?
ZERO.
In fact, you CAN’T do things like Frank Brock did if you spend your entire day learning about how someone else thinks you should do things.
Caring takes time. That’s the price. Figure out if you want to pay the price or not.
I know we’re supposed to think we’re all in the marketing business. I get it. It sure does put a sexy spin on it, for sure…
But I think the “we’re all in the marketing business” approach puts our focus on the getting part of the equation. This is not sustainable without increasing levels of effort.
Mind you, when ONE person is trained that way, he cleans up out there… maybe for awhile. But when everyone is trained that way, we get customers and clients who are skeptical about everything. They’re skeptical because they’re tired of feeling USED.
We’re in the providing great service business. Put that as the foundation and put marketing on top of that. And by marketing, I simply mean the telling of the stories about what you stand for, how you do what you do and how your customers and clients benefit from that.
You can read the entire article about Frank Brock here.
And a big thank you to the Client Letter reader who sent it my way!