Make the Connection: Improve Your Communication at Work and at Home

70. “Guerrilla Marketing”Makes Sense

While this pervasive problem can happen anywhere, it seems particularly bad in the public sector. When was the last time you had to go to a DMV or unemployment office? Did you ever ask yourself why you feel like anything but a valued customer? It’s because for the most part, those in charge of these organizations don’t see you as a customer. They figure you have no other choice but to be there.What are you going to do if you don’t like the way you are being treated at the DMV? Go to a different DMV office around the corner? There is only one. Much of poor customer service comes from organizational leaders communicating negative messages. If those at the top provide no customer service training or do not monitor their employees’ communication style with an eye toward improving it, why should frontline people really care? Employees who go the extra yard with customers need to be rewarded and recognized. Examples of first-rate customer service need to be applauded and modeled.When bosses fail to do this, employees are demotivated. If organizational leaders don’t do customer surveys or seek feedback on how to improve these interactions, the message sent is that those things aren’t important. No matter what business you are in,ask yourself the following question on a regular basis: “What message am I communicating both in my words and actions when it comes to our customers?” Ignoring this question is risky indeed. Chapter 70 “GUERRILLA MARKETING” MAKES SENSE Virtually every professional is involved in promoting, selling, or advertising something. Put together, these activities come under the umbrella of marketing. A colleague of mine recently described marketing this way: “Marketing is the strategy you apply in order to sell your idea, concept, service, or product to a group of targeted customers.” Even if you don’t advertise, you still must have a marketing plan. 150 MAKE THE CONNECTION And while today’s buzzwords around marketing include such terms as branding, imaging, positioning, and synergy, all this comes down to communication. There are countless books, newsletters, and infomercials about how to sell more effectively. It’s much harder to get quality information around the broader topic of marketing. One of the best books on the subject is called Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business. The book’s author, Jay Conrad Levinson, has written a dozen books in the“Guerrilla Marketing”series. Levinson’s advice is straightforward, sensible, affordable to implement, and relevant to any business or professional. Here are some of the key “Guerrilla Marketing ” themes that might be helpful to you: • Marketing is everything you do to promote yourself and your business. It includes the name of your business, hours of operation , how you package your product or service, and the color and design of your business card. • Marketing involves such things as how your people answer the phone, follow up with customers, and greet people when they walk in the door. It’s also about your presentation to an individual prospect and the personal note you send after the meeting thanking the prospect for his or her time. It’s all marketing. • Clearly, money is a factor in marketing, but unlike more traditional marketing activities that are heavily dependent upon big bucks,“Guerrilla Marketing”is more about how you manage your time,energy,imagination,and resources.For example, you can spend $1 million on a bells-and-whistles, super-slick advertising campaign while the receptionist who answers the phone in your company is rude and unprofessional. It doesn’t cost you more to have a good receptionist, but it does require you to take the time to make sure the person in that position has the right attitude and the necessary skills to perform that function. • While some business experts will tell you that it is essential for your business to diversify,“Guerrilla Marketing” says that you should specialize and narrow your focus in an area that allows you and your organization to stand out among the competition. The Customer Is Always Right 151 • “Guerrilla Marketing” promotes the idea of using a combination of techniques and tools to communicate with existing and potential customers.Some people swear by the Internet as a marketing tool and put all their eggs into that high-tech basket . In fact, in most situations a more integrated marketing approach...