photo credit: pedrosimoes7

Year after year, I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to watch young men turn from “typical 5th graders” into amazing young adult leaders. Because of that, examples of youth leadership in the news tend to get my attention.

Here’s a study in contrasts of leadership and character from two young ladies:

Got a reputation?

Earlier this week, actress Lindsay Lohan decided to sue E-Trade because they had the nerve to name a character with the same first name as hers in one of their baby commercials – and the baby just happened to be a “milkaholic”.

Lohan claims that the “milkaholic” baby was a jab at her substance abuse problems. Maybe it was and maybe there’s a lesson there about public figures, leadership, role models and so on. Just maybe.

An enterprising person or their agent might have contacted the California Milk Processor Board in order to leverage the alleged characterization into a fun, and probably popular, commercial for their “Got Milk?” campaign. But that didn’t happen. Too busy calling the lawyers to see a good opportunity, perhaps.

The shiny side of the coin

Later in the week, a client sent me a link to a leadership post about Megan, who convinced her big-time CEO dad that he needed to keep a commitment to run in a half-marathon, despite having a seriously overscheduled, busy executroid week.

Megan’s clearly a fine example of the ability of young people to lead. Her email was classic, post-on-the-wall stuff that every leader should read, file away and pull out once a month to review – just in case.

Now…think about your day. What example are you setting for the people around you?

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photo credit: matticgn

Yesterday, we talked about David Lee Roth’s M&Ms trick and how it acted somewhat like a canary in the coal mine.

It probably looked like a silly “diva clause” to everyone but Roth. A little, unimportant detail.

These little details that your competitors ignore or see as unimportant might be the one thing that customers view as an indicator of additional, more serious problems.

They’ll stick out even more when you take care of them, as if you pointed a laser beam at the very things they never wanted anyone to notice.

Don’t let those little things undermine your customer relationships. Use them.

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photo credit: Dave Hogg

Today’s guest post is from bnet, where they profile a Boxing-Day-style reality show where the CEO works on the ground floor.

What would you find if you worked the bottom floor for a few days?

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photo credit: Peter Kaminski

Today’s guest post is from Pragmatic Marketing and asks the question…

If you could say one thing to your company president without fear of reprisal, what would you say?

Here are the results.

The question is, what would your folks say to you…and are you big enough to let them do so?

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Is your business activity planned this far ahead?

This commercial screams Covey’s “Begin with the End in mind”.

Where do you begin?

And how far out is the End that you plan from? (not for, *from*)

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photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

Ever hear the term BSOD?

It’s an acronym for “Blue Screen of Death”, which is what you get when Windows barfs all over itself.

In my experience, you get that rare (for me) “I’m a PC” explosion when hardware is failing (and sometimes when you seriously, royally messed up).

Last week after a litany of BSODs on a 30 month old laptop (6 months longer than the typical lifespan in my use – thanks HP), I decided I needed to deal with this issue sooner rather than later.

Because I like The 3/50 Project, I called a local authorized retailer of the brand of laptop I had my eye on. I asked if they had any one of the standard models (a very common one) in stock.

“No, but we can order it for you.”

I replied “Sorry, I was looking to buy from a local company.”

Remembering why you have a storefront

You have a retail storefront. You’ve paid the manufacturer to become an authorized retailer (and continue to pay for co-op advertising, ongoing training, and so on). Yet…you don’t stock the product and you suggest that the service you can provide after all that investment in time and money will be to order one for me?

I can find Amazon.com (or whatever) on my own, thanks.

Retailers have complained incessantly about unfair competition from e-commerce stores, but not enough have done something about it. Many retail store failures have been blamed on online buying, while few get blamed on the owner / management / employees.

E-commerce succeeds because goods and services can be shopped for 24 hours a day, from any location,  in “any” store from anywhere.

Why do some retailers still try to make shopping right here in town *harder* than shopping online? I just don’t get it.

Instant gratification goes both ways

People say e-commerce is all about instant gratification. That people can buy online and immediately feel the rush of a successful purchase.

Horse hockey. Instant gratification (or close enough) happens when I can drive 18 minutes, walk into the store, plop down my Bert and Ernie-branded Mastercard and walk out with a product under my arm after being helped by a salesperson or clerk who acts like it matters that I walked into their store.

Ecommerce makes me wait at least until tomorrow. Where’s the instant gratification in that?

Retail stores often fail because they don’t exist to serve the customer, or they don’t recognize that the reason for getting a sale is to get a new customer.

This local store lost a $2000 sale in a two minute phone call – and may also have lost a long-term customer, which is even worse from my perspective.

I called a Montana-based chain store who deals in the same product and they had them in stock. But they’re “just” a retailer. They don’t do consulting or offer anything of that nature like the other business does – so it doesn’t matter all that much to them whether I’m a long-time customer or not, at least from the perspective of that purchase.

What should have happened?

What should the first guy should have done when I told him I wanted to make a local purchase? He should referred me to the other local dealer and offered to help if I needed it (since it’s obvious to *anyone* that the other store doesn’t do that sort of thing).

You want more customers. Do what’s in *their* best interest and it’ll come back to you. Remember, I came to you to ask for help. Instead of solving my problem, you offered to do what I can do from my La-Z-Boy.

Call it karma if you wish. Call it good business. Regardless, think of what the customer is trying to accomplish and help them do so. Next time, they might think of you again – and you might actually have the item they need in stock.

Tomorrow, we’ll address that stock issue.

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photo credit: Meanest Indian

Yesterday, we talked about fierce competition from other places and other businesses, as well as doing your homework.

At the end of the day, all things pointed to a single bottom line: What has happened to our business(es) and thus to our communities is JUST NOT FAIR.

If Pittsburgh’s businesses have better internet or manufacturing facilities than your town: That’s not fair.

If businesses in Mumbai only have to pay their workers $10 an hour while you have to pay $42 an hour: That’s not fair.

You get the idea. In fact, I’m sure you could reel off other examples that are meaningful to your business, but ultimately, we’ve gotta find someone to BLAME. So let’s get to it.

Assigning blame

Let’s call the union bosses and blame them for not protecting our jobs. Let’s call the politicians and blame them for raising taxes. Let’s blame engineers, programmers and their employers for creating the technology and automation that’s stealing work from us.

And let’s most definitely blame those danged “foreigners” because they don’t want another generation of their kids living in a disgusting slum and drinking from a stream that 4000 of their neighbors pee into.

They have a lot of nerve, don’t they? We deserve that work.

Let’s blame Microsoft for changing their software too quickly (or too slowly). Let’s blame Apple for putting out a “phone” that made everyone rethink what mobile could really do for us.

Wait, I’ve got it… we’ll say these companies are “ANTI-COMPETITIVE”.

We can get our politicians to put them out of business, or at least make things fair. Maybe we can get the Feds to hobble them somehow.

But let’s not spend any time or money investing in ourselves and improving our business, our people, and our products and services. Let’s not totally rethink the market we serve and how we serve it.

That’s what those other people do.

We’ll continue the discussion tomorrow. I think you see where we’re headed.

In the meantime, I’m curious: What does “anti-competitive” mean to you?

PS: The girl in the photo has a lot of nerve helping her brother and sister with their homework using a small chalkboard while sitting on a piece of slate on the dirt floor or her parents’ shack, don’t you think? It just isn’t fair that her parents aren’t paying school taxes or private school tuition. In fact, she probably isn’t even following the approved government-mandated curriculum. If that’s not anti-competitive…

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photo credit: Falling Heavens

It’s a classic, if not overdone scene.

A plane, low on fuel and starved for altitude, flies over the ocean. As far as the eye can see, nothing but water. Her crew hustles to throw unnecessary items off the plane to lighten the load in hopes of gaining altitude and getting a few more miles out of what little fuel remains.

For a struggling business owner, the situation might not seem all that different.

Like a plane empty of unnecessary gear still flies because it has the essentials (thrust from the engines and lift from the wings), the business owner sometimes has to focus on survival strategies that keep them from crashing.

The trouble with working from a survival strategy is that’s all you often accomplish: Survival.

Your goal isn’t to just to keep from crashing, it’s to thrive, to accomplish that big thing that got you into this business in the first place – whatever it might be. It’s tough to see that when you’re barely afloat, but that focus is exactly what you it’ll take to get your business out of that survival mode.

Sure, spending time on the things that will get you over that current bump in the road is important – but if you do nothing else, all you’ll do is barely get over it and then be faced with the next. And another. And they’ll keep coming.

So what do you do? Take some time to think about where you really want to be. If everything worked out perfectly, what would you accomplish? It’s essential to spend time focusing on the long-term. “Where am I going?” is easy to look at as fluff, but that mission/ vision / goals stuff isn’t fluff because it drives everything else when nothing else will.

It tells you who you serve and who you don’t. It tells you what you focus on and what you ignore. It gets you out of bed in the morning when nothing else will. It’s what you talk about when anyone will listen. You know what you’re heart’s in. Admitting it to yourself is the hard part for many, especially you tough guys.

Without that and the focus it brings, your business focuses only on surviving (don’t let the plane crash), rather than cruising at 33,000 ft.

Find your mission and refocus on it

Spend some time over the next few weeks focusing on the real mission you want to accomplish. What got you interested in what you do? What gets you out of bed in the morning, excited to do this work? Cash flow – while critical – isn’t it. Sure, it’s important, but few people get into a line of work solely because of it.

You’ll spend a lot of fuel climbing to cruising altitude, just like a plane does, but you’ll still be interested in the destination once you get there.

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photo credit: Alex E. Proimos

In the days before 9/11, our local airport (Glacier International aka FCA) had a mix of mostly Boeing 737/727, prop and regional jet traffic.

Since 9/11, most of our traffic other than flights to Minneapolis are regional jets or props. When I fly Delta to Salt Lake, for example, I’m usually flying some Delta Skywest regional jet (typically a Canadair model) that is codeshared with Delta.

Before much of the economy cratered over the last year, it wasn’t unusual to see two pilots in the cockpit of these regional jets that looked young enough to have just finished Rush Week at a local university.

Now, I don’t mean to put them down – after all, we always flew safely, never had an unprofessional effort by the pilots and the overall quality of the flight itself appeared no different than any other trip with more experienced pilots – still, there was always a comment or two by passengers when they saw a flight crew that looked like they had been shaving for less than 10 years (in the case of a male crewmembers).

With all the shakeup in the economy and airline industry, these regional jets are now being captained by what appear to be very experienced, mostly white-haired guys who are probably old enough to have flown combat in Vietnam.  As the airlines downsize the number of flights, experienced pilots get pushed down the system to the regional jets.

The smart thing that the airlines are doing – at least SkyWest – is pairing these experienced pilots with the younger pilots who were already flying with them. The ability to let these experienced folks mentor the younger pilots is huge – and it wasn’t something the airlines appeared to be doing prior to changes in the economy.

I talked with several passengers about this during my recent trip to Vegas and all of them found it not only smart business – but comforting to have 30+ years of experience in the cockpit instead of the assumption of 5 or 10 years – even if the younger pilot was doing the flying.

How does this relate to your business?

• How are your new staff members learning the ropes? How are they getting “co-pilot” experience with the equivalent of your white-haired, experienced pilots?
• Looking up into the cockpit and seeing a 50-ish white-haired guy brings confidence in the delivery of air travel without saying a word. For all we know, that guy had no more experience than the co-pilot, or came out of a 20 year retirement due to losses in the stock market and might have fewer regional jet flight hours than the young co-pilot. Didn’t matter, at least until we had the chance to find out more. What gives your customers’ confidence about your business’ ability to deliver with safety and high quality? What are you doing to show them the “white hair” or whatever it takes in your line of work?

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photo credit: Todd Baker << technowannabe

Vann’s @NathanReep passed this on over the weekend and it’s a major league topic that’s definitely worthy of a guest post.

5 generations of workers in one workplace. How will you cope?

Different things got them there, different things motivate them. Whatever it takes to lead individuals from one of those groups is often quite different than what it takes in the others.

The differences in these groups are staggering.

The kids of the Greatest Generation started life with rotary phones, a couple of grainy black and white channels with nothing on and aspirations of gold watches and funded retirement plans.

The youngest of these generations watches video on their phones and wouldn’t typically expect a CEO to fund a retirement plan, much less expect it to be there when they retire.

All 5 groups possess valuable skills. All 5 contain great workers. All 5 tend to (as a group) value different things.

And you get to lead them all toward the same goals. Yours.

Leadership Flathead discussed this 2-3 years ago when I went through it but I’ve yet to hear much about it publicly since that time (there are a few local exceptions, but… few is the operative word).

The folks who figure this out first in their niche have a substantial advantage over their peers.

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photo credit: maessive

Today is about setting expectations.

When you go into a doctor’s office, most people figure they’ll wait 10-15 minutes whether it makes any sense or not.

If that doctor’s office happens to be an OBGYN, you can reasonably expect that it might be 10 minutes or 3 hours, which goes with the OB part of the territory.

The leg, again

So yesterday, I went back to the doc to get that spider bite thing looked at (again, I’ll spare you the photos). After waiting 10-15 minutes to get the standard temp/bp and probing questions, I somehow managed to find a way to wait for 30 minutes before seeing a doc.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore, I had to poke my head out and ask where ye old doc was.

Why, he’s right outside my door, finishing up some paperwork from the prior client. He looks up, smiles and says “Sorry, had a little crisis, but I’ll be in to see you in just a moment.”

Had Blood Pressure Boy (sorry, don’t recall his name) stuck his head in the door and said “hey, we’ve got a little crisis down the hall, it might be 20-30 minutes before the doc can see you”, expectations are set and reasonably so. I’d sit there and watch “History of the electric light bulb” on the History Channel and be all mellow and such.

Silence, on the other hand, just has me sitting there stewing as I stare at a swollen, red leg wondering if everyone went out for happy hour or over to Costco to taste a few samples.

15 seconds: the time it would have taken for someone to poke their head in and set expectations.

Power to the people

Over the weekend, we had a bunch of wind push over a tree onto the power poles just down the road. 1 pole got creamed, which put tension on the one in front of my drive. It ended up badly cracked. 6 hours without power.

When telephone poles get creamed by falling trees on my road, I expect the power to go out…just not randomly for 3 to 6 hours each day for 4 days.

Yesterday, I walked out to see if they were going to change both poles that day (not sure) and they volunteered that the power would be out for several hours in the afternoon. That allowed me to schedule around the power situation without a loss of time, productivity and so on.

Today, they showed up again. One of the trucks is parked on the road in front of my place.

It might have taken 2 minutes to walk down the drive, knock on the door and say “hey, we’re taking the power down in about 10 minutes and it’ll be down for several hours”.

But that didn’t happen.

Mid-morning, the power went out without warning.

Now, I knew that it was going to go out sometime during the day,  but not when. The effort to share that tidbit would have saved me no time (due to short-term UPS batteries protecting my gear), but it would have let me prepare my schedule around it.

The slight edge, again

It’s not a huge deal, but it’s one of those slight edge things that great businesses do for their customers.

• “Hey, we’ve got a crisis in room 11. It might be 30 minutes before the doc can see you. Would you like a cup of water or something?”
• “Hey, we’re cutting the power in 10 minutes and it’ll be down for several hours, just a heads up in case you need to shut down computers or something.”
• “Hey, it’ll be 2 weeks before I can get to your mower, will you need it before then? If so, stop by and I’ll give you a loaner.”
• “Hey, there’s a rebate on that item, better take this form with you. May as well save a few bucks where you can.”
• “Did you know that our clients who sell this item sell 20% more if they present it this way? Might give it a try if you can.”

You get the idea.

Expectations can change in a mere 15 seconds. So can your entire relationship with a client.

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photo credit: shioshvili

Today’s guest post is from John Hunter over at Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog.

John’s a big Deming fan (as you should be) and despite the value of the list, he kept it short and sweet. Check it out at http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2008/11/13/6-leadership-competencies/

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photo credit: fazen

How do you keep up?

I was speaking to a group of small business owners the other day about websites and (to their surprise) mobile technology and how it should affect their internet strategy – or at least, provoke them to have one.

After (probably) scaring them a bit, that was the last question I was asked: “How do you keep up?”

Meaning – how is a small business owner who has to deal with sales, marketing, managing their staff, sweeping the floor, doing the books, promoting their business on Talk Like a Pirate Day and 117 other things – how does THAT person keep up with all that stuff, let alone have their fingers on the pulse of all this new mobile technology, their website, etc?

And how do they manage to find the time to keep their website updated?

If you don’t, you’re training your customers to not visit it.

Additional question I might hear from coaching clients: How do I keep up with all that stuff, plus the things you suggest that I should be doing???

Short answer: You don’t keep up with it all. So don’t sweat it.

Long answer: If it was easy, anyone could do it. Keep reading.

But what provoked the question?

Perhaps the fear of the unknown or the huge amount of change I laid in front of them.

One

So how do you keep up?

You really don’t. One thing adds to another thing, adds to another thing.

That’s one of the reasons my email newsletter signs off with “Do at least one thing today to get, or keep, a client.”

Set aside a little bit of time every single day, just like you do to work out, play golf, relax with a hot cuppa and the paper, and so on.

Put this “one thing a day” time in your calendar. The earlier in the day, the better. That way the crisis of the moment doesn’t come along and knock you off the rails.

• Maybe today you spend 15 minutes writing 2 blog posts, or an email for your email newsletter.
• Or you contact (or delegate it) 1 customer a day who hasn’t spent money with you lately.
• Or you contact your newest customer and ask them what they think about what you’re doing for them and why they chose you. Keep going in reverse order till you get to the customer you’ve had the longest.
• Or you contact the customer you’ve had the longest and ask them why they still use you. Again, keep going in reverse order till you get to your first customer.
• Or you read a chapter from a marketing, strategy, operations, social media (etc) book. Or a blog that offers similar assistance.

One thing a day. Same way you eat an elephant.

Then what?

If these things start getting traction, maybe they get more than 15 minutes a day. Maybe you hire someone to do them, or delegate them to a staffer you already have. Or you do less of the stuff that isn’t really having an impact. Or you automate what you can of the tasks that are now paying off. Or the ones you can’t stop doing that don’t appear to be making a difference.

Maybe you ask each department (if you have them) to do the same thing. Or you ask each of your employees.

Do one thing a day. 5 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever you can manage at first.

When you push water from 211 degrees F to 212 degrees F, amazing things happen.

One thing a day may be all it takes for your business to do the same kind of thing.

Once you spawn a culture of continuous improvement, hang on tight.

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photo credit: aturkus

Millions of people depend on Gmail.

Sometimes it goes down unexpectedly.

Not long ago, people all over the world were “freaking out” and saying the F word (“Fail”) because Gmail was down.

In addition to numerous posts via Twitter and other social media, here’s how Google communicated a problem when they had a major downtime (their description – the downtime was not quite 2 hours).

Think about how your business responds when there’s a problem.

Do you keep it under your hat?

Do you update your clientele frequently so they remain calm, even if things aren’t going so well.

When things aren’t going so hot, it quite often ends up being more important how you communicate with your clientele when there’s a problem.

Here’s an example that’s a bit more serious.

It got worse for the business because they handled communication poorly.

Railroaded

A few months back, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) suddenly started buying (or trying to buy) pieces of track-side real estate in Whitefish MT (a resort/ski community in Northwest Montana) and Somers, MT (a lakeside resort area not far south of Whitefish).

No reason was given for the sudden interest in track-side land but people started talking. Conspiracy theories were abundant.

Here’s an excerpt from an early newspaper column about BNSF’s behavior:

Burlington Northern Sante Fe is up to something. The railroad giant has approached property owners in Whitefish and Somers, offering to buy their land. No one knows why, exactly, not even those who have been asked to sell. And BNSF isn’t talking – leaving entire neighborhoods apprehensive…

Eventually, residents got wind of BNSF approaching their neighbors and started asking questions. BNSF was mum about it, not even talking details with those they offered to buy out.

As a result, the residents made the natural move – they got attorneys.

Feeling the heat, BNSF decided to admit what was going on, albeit a bit too late to avoid looking a bit slimy.

By then, the tone had been set. Lying until you get caught is how things were gonna work, even if they were “only” lies of omission.

Coming clean only works in your favor when you do it upfront.

Without Grace

Not unlike W.R. Grace’s behavior in Libby MT (which echoed its earlier behavior in Woburn MA including lying to the EPA about their chemical use), BNSF had set the stage such that nothing they said was going to be trusted.

Before long, the EPA got involved and now BNSF has to do things the hard and likely more expensive way. Just like Grace, at least in Woburn.

While the BNSF and Grace situations are substantially more serious than a mere 100 minutes of Gmail downtime, that really isn’t the point.

Choice

The point is that there are two choices: Communicate in a manner that generates trust, or communicate in a manner that destroys it.

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photo credit: tm-tm

Earlier this week, Matt Mullenweg (whose software runs this blog) wrote a post about starting a bank.

BUT…it really wasn’t about starting a bank. Not if you look under the covers just a bit.

It was really about how to look at your market and stand out because you don’t do all of the stupid, annoying things that everyone else in your market thinks is OK.

And it was really about standing out in your market because you do all the things that other people are afraid to do, too lazy to do, too stupid to do (and so on).

You know, because it’s always been done that other way. The same way everyone else does it. Cuz that’s just how our industry does it.

Read the first 10-15 comments on that post. Look how many people resonate the thoughts about banks that do this and that and so on. EVERYONE knows those things. Matt didn’t invent them. He *did* have the nerve to suggest the he would do things differently.

What are you willing to do differently? Start by sacrificing your industry’s sacred cow.

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Forty years ago tonight, two guys stepped on the Moon for the very first time (as far as we know, anyhow).

They did so not by accident or happenstance, but because of an explicit choice (and a challenge).

One of the things that always intrigued me about President Kennedy’s speech was his use of words when he suggested that we go to the moon:

“We choose to go to the moon…”

Choose.

Not think about, mull over, ponder or consider, but choose.

It’s an important word. It means get off your keester and take action – one of the most important things you can do.

Make a choice to improve your business, to start one, or to start another one. Make a choice to do something that will completely transform the success of your business. Ask yourself “Why not?” if something pops up and tells you that you can’t do something, or that it wont work.

You choose to sit around or you choose not to, which reminds me of an old acronym: YCDBSOYA

YCDBSOYA is an acronym for “You cant do business sitting on your ass”.

Decide. Make a choice. GOYA.

Do it today. Choose to go to the moon, business-wise.

Maybe even further.

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photo credit: C.P.Storm

Today’s guest post from Guy Kawasaki talks briefly about the current state of the economy and more importantly about the economics of starting your own business these days.

Guy’s post offers more reasons why I keep pestering local folks to start their own business - *especially* if they are currently laid off.

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photo credit: geoftheref

Today’s guest post is from @BradRourke, who posts on a litany of topics revolving around self, community organizations, business and things in-between.

The Mark Sanford meltdown was just one of his topics recently, but not so much about the paparazzi angle.

Instead, he writes about what it might take to get a fine upstanding citizen like yourself to go over the edge like Sanford did.

Hopefully you aren’t there and no one you know is there, but just in case, give it a read and see if his story (which isn’t about Sanford) sounds familiar.

You just might save someone – and it might even be yourself.

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photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

Today’s guest post is from former Pitney Bowes CEO Mike Critelli, who talks about why CEOs matter.

Not just CEOs of Fortune 100 corporations, but CEO of your business as well.

In particular, in fact.

Check it out.

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Since January 2005, I’ve been spent a lot of time explaining how Business is Personal.

When I started this journey way back then, I named the blog “Pancake Bunny“.

I called it that as a result of a customer service interaction where a company’s CEO told a customer that their message made no sense and then included the pancake bunny in their reply (click here to see the original pancake bunny).

It struck me that I had work to do.

Not solely because of the bunny remark, but because of a pervasive antagonistic attitude toward customers – especially by many in tech-related industries (remember, Ive been in the software biz since 1982).

Nine Hundred Eighty Five

Nine hundred and eighty four times I have posted here in order to teach this one important lesson. This one is number 985.

I’ve shared little anecdotes here and there, stories, admonitions, an occasional rant or two – whatever it takes to make you and your staff attract, sell, talk to, think about and work with your customers as if they are real people.

Like your grandma. Imagine that.

That lady you were snarky with on the phone this morning is probably someone’s grandma, or mom or something. Would you talk that way if she were in front of you? Hopefully you aren’t the snarky one in the first place and that was intended for someone else cuz you’d never do that.

Progress

I know that in many cases I am preaching to the choir, but I also know that many people have related personally to a story here and it has changed their business. They have finally seen how treating their clientele like a friend, a partner, a family member – changes their business.

Others have finally figured out that hiding from their customers, treating them poorly (if they treat them at all) and thinking “Damn, if those customers didn’t keep interrupting me I’d get some REAL work done” is not how business is done.

Instead, it’s how your “Dear Valued Customer” becomes someone else’s.

If you haven’t gotten that yet, today might be your lucky day.

Enter Mister Butts

Earlier today I got an email from a Twitter acquaintance named Rick Butts. He’s one of those internet marketer types (and he just winced when he read that – sorry Rick).

EXCEPT, he isn’t like many of them. He’s a regular guy who gets the Business is Personal thing.

If after reading Rick’s email, you don’t understand why you simply have to treat someone who is viewing your blog, your newsletter, walking into your store, calling you on the phone, or tweeting you *like your grandmother*, then I suggest going back to post #1 and read a few posts a day.

I can’t help but think it’ll help.

Here’s Rick’s email. Enjoy.

I Am Joe’s Email List – An Open Letter To Internet Marketers

Hi,

I am Joe’s email list.

Joe calls me his list, his peeps, and sometimes just “the list.”

But, I am not a list, really, I am not a crowd, or an audience. I am not “everyone out there” as they teach new broadcasters to say.

I am me.

One single person with hopes, dreams, stresses and fears.

In many ways I am just like you – the way you describe yourself in your hungry years before you went to that life changing event, read the book, and started making money online.

I get email from you Joe.

I can’t remember for sure, but I think I “joined” one day when you offered a free report or video and I had to put my email address in – and confirm – in order to see it.

In my inbox, Joe, your email looks just like the personal emails I get from my daughter or son, and sometimes, sadly, from my ex.

Now that you’ve been sending me email – as well as some of your “good friends” – I have begun to be able to see in a glance that they are just offers, sometimes disguised as important messages, sometimes blatantly, not.

Whenever I see the word “this” in your subject lines, like – “this won’t last long” – or “have you seen this?” I know it’s an offer.

Since the Product Launch Formula I and especially II – I’m amazed at how many times per month I am literally inundated with emails from so many people all about the same exciting product.

They arrive over multiple days, culminating in a bonus orgy that is just overwhelming.

I read a clever post in a forum once, that “the bonuses are so comprehensive, it makes me wonder what is covered in the course, that is not already covered in the bonuses!”

That made me laugh.

I’m writing you today, to share something important about myself – and I hope you’ll take the time to consider my feelings, ok?

I have to get off of some of these lists.

The volume of email and the distraction of chasing the offers is just crippling my time, my focus, and my ability to get things done.

When Rick Butts asked his readers to consider unsubscribing from the people who sent you Stompernet Launch offers IF they had not provided any useful content in the last month – he really got me thinking.

Then Ed Dale made a video saying, basically, that no one is holding a gun to your head and that if you wanted to stop getting offers – stop bitching – and just unsubscribe.

But here’s the deal. I’d LIKE to learn from you Joe – and to be able to know that being on “your list” is valuable to me, my business, and my future.

So, please don’t think me a big whiner, I’m a customer, and here’s what I respectfully request:

1. Slow down the frequency of mailing to me, Joe.

Do not email me every day – that’s just way too much now.

2. Don’t mail me offers all the time.

I’m reading a lot more RSS feeds from bloggers who are putting out great content. If you are using Feedburner or Feedblitz or Aweber’s blog notification service that mails me when you update your blog – then, cool. I’m good with that.

3. If you do mail me an offer PLEASE don’t cut and paste the pre-written one from the creator of the product.

Do you know how stupid that makes you look to me? And, how insulting it is to get them from multiple people?

4. Try giving me some TRUTHINESS in your communiques to me.

If you are really making money in the non-marketing-to-Internet-marketers, then tell me some useful tips that are working for you. No, you don’t need to tell me your market niche but hey, every once in a while how about your show me how valuable I am to you buy sharing one of those SECRETS?

5. Show me some stuff that made less than $1,000,000.00.

I’d be immensely interested in real world examples of success I can get my head around. I’m never going to build a big list of “biz-op” peeps and hammer them with a big JV launch. Show me how I can make $500 a week – then be able to replace my income and quit my skank job.

6. Stop bragging about your zero-gravity dives and how you are spending my money in outrageous ways.

Trust me, this is a lot more fun for you, then it is for me to read about it. You may excuse it as “inspirational” but I dont’ even think that works in MLM anymore. It just annoys me. A little “high life” goes a long way and I’m more impressed by how Internet marketing lets you enjoy your family.

7. Please, please, please, for the love of God, stop participating in these dreadful launches!

Let me believe you are successful enough without having to bend over and schlup me and the rest of my list mates through your embarrassing attempt to get me to “buy from you” and help you win a contest.

The reason Rick Butts wrote about the 12 Biggest Whores, without naming anyone, is that we have all watched the emergence of about that many well known marketers who cross-promote each others stuff so regularly it is hard to imagine that they do anything else.

I think that gives you a pretty good idea of the kind of things that would make getting email from you valuable again – and persuade me not to unsubscribe from you forever.

Final thought…

The blowback from the “unsubscribe” and “launch fatigue” has been to accuse me and my list mates, the little people, of being whiners.

And while there is no shortage of whiners in the world, I want you to know that from the bottom of my heart – I am pleading with you to not dismiss me so easily.

What most of us really want is for you to provide us with value, treat us like a long term relationship, and we will, certainly reward you for helping us get to the next level.

Now back to check my email, I think there’s a Traffic Secrets 2.0 launch today?

Sincerely,

Joe’s List

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