Try a Random Idea
It’s been a while since I cracked open the old Creative Whack Pack. It’s a great tool to inspire your thinking whether you’re working on a new article for your newsletter or brainstorming a new marketing idea. Today’s draw of the cards led me to “Try A Random Idea”. The challenge was to open any book at random, put your finger down on a word and consider how that word relates to what you’re doing. What random ideas can you try?
I think this is a great way to shake out the cobwebs when it comes to communicating, especially if you find yourself in a bit of a communications rut. I know that it is so easy to fall into doing the same old thing whether it’s corresponding with your customers, writing the company newsletter or even blogging. The idea of choosing a random word can really work - even if you do what I did, and land on the word “the”.
At first I was tempted to flip pages and do this again, until I found a better, more stimulating word. But that wouldn’t be really exercising my brain and my creative muscle now would it? Think about “the“. How can you incorporate that into what you’re communicating about your company, cause or self? For me, it made me start listing out ways I can focus on being “THE” PR Chick in my professional community. What are some simple steps that would propel me into top-of-mind awareness in my field? Got ‘em. Okay, next. What about my clients? “THE” All About You Recovery Salon. What will it take to position them as “THE” place to go when you’ve got cancer recovery needs. It brought me back to thinking about their brand flywheel we developed and focusing on the personality traits that make this team amazing.
And of course, I love etymologies, the roots of words and their evolutionary development. So I hopped over to webster.com to check out “the” and lo and behold, you’ve got to scroll down the page to get everything on this seemingly simple word. So that got me thinking about the breadth and depth of the projects I have on hand. This simple word has now encouraged me to take a step back from each project I have on my plate and consider whether or not the work I have planned really communicates the diversity, uniqueness and intrinsic value associated with each client, product and project.
The power of “the”- a Random Idea that has really stirred up my creative juices.
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Vibrant Resource: It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last, that I highly recommend Roger vonOech’s “Creative Whack Pack” or just about anything from Creative Think.
Vibrant Challenge: Try this exercise today. Then mark your calendar or set a reminder for 30 days from now. Do it again and see how it helps. Let me know how it works out for you!
Customer Care… or don’t
You know, 6 years ago I saw this crusty old magnet on my husband’s bachelor pad refrigerator and had a chuckle over it. At the time he and friends were on the front lines in an incredibly high-volume call center in a high-tension industry. The quote on this magnet, “If we don’t take care of the customer, maybe they’ll stop bugging us,” was probably just a macabre daydream at the time, because in all actuality, he cared a great deal about his job. So much so, that now, he’s in management fighting the good fight against representative apathy and burn out.
Seeing this picture again did get me thinking. Are the cobwebs and dust gathering on your end of the phone line? By that, I mean, are you picking up the line to ring the client? What is your customer care strategy?
Note here that I used two distinct words. Not “service”, but rather “care“. And not your “philosophy”, but rather your “strategy“. Because when it gets right down to it, it’s not what you think you do for and communicate to your clients - it’s what you actually say and do. Right down to the way you greet them on the phone, to your voice mail, to your voice mail return time, to your follow up plan, to your regularly scheduled communications strategy….
Wait, you say you don’t have a regularly scheduled communications strategy with your clients? Ahhhem. Dear reader, dear reader you must. You simply must! And yes, I do know it’s easy to slip off the communications bandwagon. I’ll admit it, I’ve let follow-up calls or check-in calls slip by me, I am human and so are you. So let’s make a plan.
Whether you choose a formal means of communicating regularly with leads, colleagues, clients and former clients such as newsletters or e-campaigns or you choose to pick up the phone every Thursday morning for an hour and make a round of hello calls- you need to choose something. I cannot emphasize enough that whatever you choose should fit the personality of your company or yourself. When it comes to frequency, that’s where we stop thinking of ourselves and start thinking of our customers. How often can we stay in touch without being annoying? I recommend you consider the depth and breadth of your service to said person or company to help you make that decision.
Should you choose a more formal means of communication, please be sure you tap in to the most talent you have on hand. If that’s calling your favorite PR Chick to get you started with email templates or writing guidelines and key words so be it. Make sure that whomever is in charge of your regularly scheduled communication pieces internally has the ability to communicate in “The Voice” of your company, has a good eye for editing and has the ability to identify when they’ve reached the limits of their capabilities and/or work load. There is nothing worse than getting any newsletter (e or otherwise) that is so slapped together you wonder whether someone’s child did it for extra-credit.
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Vibrant Resource: Constant Contact continues to be a very cost-effective way to introduce yourself and your business into the e-mail newsletter arena. It is also a great tool for other marketing strategies. While there are certainly more robust platforms for e-marketing, I recommend Constant Contact as a great starting point.
Vibrant Challenge: I challenge you to do an apathy check on yourself and your team when it comes to truly caring about your relationship with your customers. Are you communicating not only that you appreciate and care about their business, but also communicate the benefits of your continued partnership? Do the self-check. Analyze your results. Create strategies to improve or enhance.
Weekend Posting
So today I had the opportunity to speak to a group of professionals and entrepreneurs at Dr. Rorree Tillman’s SOULutions workshop. It’s always inspiring to see people committed to growing their business and as professionals. Let’s face it, not a lot of people would give up half a beautiful Saturday for continuing education.
Kudos to those who attended and thanks again for the opportunity to share my passion, creating a living brand. I’m currently developing a webinar that you’ll hear more about soon on that very topic.
I’ve written here before about the power of integration and consistency. But you’ll be hearing more from me this month on brand self-awareness, and how public relations tools can help you communicate based on your self-awareness.
Stay tuned dear readers.