The Results are In

Remarkable wins.

In a previous post, aptly titled Learning from Customers, I published my implementation for a customer gift this past year. The idea was to give something a little different instead of the usual seen it before gadget. In order to sell my idea better to management, I had to wrap it into a two-part concept, with one part including the "safe" bet. Let's review:

Part I -- the car toolkit with imprinted corporate logo. Even though this is something that everyone may already have, the packaging is compact, the tools are still useful, and the message is still relevant: we care about your safety.

Part II -- The Big Moo. Even though this is a book written by a renowned group of modern thinkers and practitioners and led by Seth Godin, not everyone knows Seth, not everyone wants to risk sending something unusual that people may not be ready to receive, etc.

And this part included a message on giving back to three deserving charities by virtue of accepting the book.

What happened in the field? I'm very fond of field research and real time observations so I had included my business card with each gift and cover letter.

• Right after the gifts were received by our sales team to hand out to the customers, one of my internal customers, a field manager, called me to ask where he could purchase more copies of the book for his family and friends. I put him in touch with Aaron Schleicher at 800CEORead and Aaron was kind enough to extend him the discount we received for the 700-book purchase.
• On January 8, just a few days after receiving the gift, one of our customers took the time to send me an email to thank me for "the wonderful book the Big Moo. What I have read so far has been very useful and insightful," it said, "I appreciate the effort and thoughtfulness in sending me this gift..." No mention of the toolkit.
• In a conversation with one of ous sales managers three days ago, I learned that "many of my customers are loving the book. I tried to read a little of it in between travel, it sounds really good." Still no mention of the toolkit.
• Last night another one of my sales managers left me a voice mail with a name and phone number of one of his customers who remarked how much he liked the book and that he'd like to talk to me. Since he's based on the West side of the country, I'll be calling him in a few minutes. Maybe he wants to order some for his customers as I suggested in my cover note. The toolkit was not mentioned here.

And these are early days; some of the gifts are still being distributed. I promised Seth an update and I always keep my promises. Do you see how easy it can be to break from the pack and do good at the same time? Do you see how difficult a sell this can be because it looks so easy?

As Seth wrote this morning "surprise matters". What kind of projects that seemed simple surprised you and your customers?

Comments

[Stephanie Quilao]

Wow! That was a very cool gift idea. The Big Moo is a terrific book. For me, it always inspires my heart...However, now, I'm dying to know about the tool kit ;-)

[Valeria Maltoni]

The tool kit contained universal tools for nuts, bolts, every kind of screw, jump start cables, gloves, and a couple of first aid add ons. I just heard form the editor of one of the publications that writes about us and he used the cables a couple of weeks ago.

What makes the kit so useful is that it's compact and easy to store.

[rick]

Nice post. What a great idea about giving out the books. I'm a huge book junkie, and have found that when someone recommends a book, they are actually passing along their feelings in the form of the authors words. Make sense?..Now about those tools.

[Valeria Maltoni]

What this audience doesn't know is that a while back, way back, Rick and I struck a conversation after both posted a trackback to Seth's site and I quickly learned that he loves to go fishing.

Since we had done a dimensional mailing with a good fishing lure, I volunteered to send some that had come back to Rick.

So now he may be fishing for some tools(?).

I agree with you on the book. In this case, as the cover letter from my previous post stated, the book was meant to spur ideas and insights for our customers to grow their business.

Thank you for stopping in, Rick. I always value your input.

[Mark Howell]

Great idea, great post, and a cool addition to my bloglines feeds. I'm recommending your blog as a good stop to make!

mark

[Richie]

Yes, books can be a very personal gift. When you enjoy a book that someone recommended, or gave, you really feel as if you are on the same wavelength as that person.

Excellet work Valeria!

[vaspers the grate]

Great post topic, this is uber marketing, the down low and scroungy reality of productivity and morale boosting.

The best gift you can give your employees is a Tom Peters, Laura Ries, Seth Godin, Peter Drucker, Harvey Mackay, Debbie Weil, Dave Weinberger, Robert Scoble, Shel Israel, Christopher Locke, John Battelle, or Jeremy Wright book.

Who the heck cares if the book and author are "unusual" I wonder? Really? It takes Business As Usual fear to kill a company. We must, to survive, go to Business As Phenomenal, just to stay alive in the ferocious global tech-driven economy.

[vaspers the grate]

PS the CEO should give the book...AND demand a book review written report in 45 days, with a test at the end of the reading period.

For every one to be on the same page, they have to read the same books.

[Stephen Denny]

Can I shamelessly plug a book that you should read, give away, and also require your team to read with a mandatory test at the end? And that I won't make a nickel selling to you?

Go out and get and read and then give away The Science of Influence by Robert Cialdini.

I've done all of the above with this one. (Sorry for the interruption. But operators are standing by!)

[Valeria Maltoni]

Mark -- thank you for stopping in and for taking the time to make the recommendation.

Richie -- I think that's the reason why print is not going away any time soon; we love to hold a book in our hands. Seth had it right; it's a great compendium of knowledge to carry around for reference.

Vaspers -- and it was stealth training as well. One thing my sales group in the lead and the customer service reps with them do really well is listening to our customers. So my idea was to give our customers something to read that our group would then want to read as well. It worked!

I had given a galley copy to our CEO back in March of last year as I was planning to do this and he was behind the move 150%. He let me take the initiative. There can be enlightened moments, that was one of them.

Stephen -- I read that book, thank you for the advice. In this case, my audience travels a great deal and spends a lot of time in the field. There are many unintended interruptions for them during the course of a day. I was going for something that could make an impact in small doses, and would let us give back. The Big Moo was the perfect choice.

In the end it boiled down to doing something I love -- sharing information and knowledge with our customers. And that clearly came through.