Here’s a question for you:

Do you need a list to have a business or do you need a business to get a list?

Which comes first?

• Do you want subscribers first?
• Do you want customers first?
• Do you need subscribers to get customers?

I don’t believe the “money’s in the list” stuff. I think the money is in the relationship you have with the people on the list. I’ve said that before and I’m sure many others have too.

And there are more ways than ever to build relationships online.

So is it possible to just have the relationship without the list?

I think part of being successful in business is not just accepting what you’re told about how to do it.

That’s how you find out things other people don’t know. And that’s how you create your own path to a successful business.

Related posts:

1. (Real Stats) Making Social Media Pay

At first I thought “social media” was a bunch of fluff.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t have much need for or interest in small talk.

And a lot of social media chatter is small talk. Or whatever is smaller than small talk, if there is such a thing.

Nothing important, nothing urgent, just talking… A bunch of people talking a lot about a little.

That’s what I used to think.

Because even though I still look out at the social media landscape and see a lot of “chatter,” I also see how social media can play a very effective part in growing your business.

Even if you’re running a direct response business.

But it’s not easy…

It’s not quick…

And (if done well) it’s not automated…

It’s work.

And there’s the opportunity, because not many people are willing to do the work.

Social Media as “Hard Work” Spotlight

I think one of the most valuable benefits of social media, in addition to having new tools to spread messages and ideas, is that it makes it clear who’s investing EFFORT and who isn’t.

Who’s producing and who isn’t?

On the customer and prospect side, I think that EFFORT comes through and is perceived as CARING.

Fortunately, it makes the folks who are willing to work hard look really good.

And the folks that aren’t… well… how good does it look to you when you come across an abandoned blog or Twitter account or Facebook page that hasn’t been updated in months?

I used to have one of those. It doesn’t look good. You wonder, “Knock, knock, is anybody there?”

Maybe it’s a “blog” that got created just to promote a product launch, or a Twitter account that someone got going just to rake in six-figures while they slept.

Either way, the light’s on but nobody is home.

How social is that?

Here’s the deal:

Selling Online is EZ Compared to Building Relationships With REAL People Online

But it’s looking like enough folks are going to master the online relationship building thing that you should worry about the future of your business if you haven’t started doing it yourself.

Because if your competitor decides to put in the hours required to actually bond with their prospects and customers, then you’re gonna be out in the cold if all you’re doing is blasting them with “Buy Now” buttons.

So What’s a Direct Response Pro to Do?

So does all this social media stuff leave hardcore direct response guys (like me) out in the cold?

Does social media have a place in a profitable direct response enterprise?

Yep.

But it’s gonna require some new skills - actually a new discipline.

I think the new discipline is:

Consistency.

Particularly, content creation consistency.

Because with social media (or any type of relationship building), people have to have something to talk about. They can talk about content. And you can talk about content and add value without selling… even though you really are selling.

But how many entrepreneurs do you know who would list consistency as one of their strongest suits?

So for the direct response marketing business who’s ready to jump into the deep end of social media, here are a few suggestions:

1. Pick one social media tool (be smart about choosing - find out where the conversations are already happening) and stick with it for a while. Actually SHOW UP on a consistent basis. (Note to self: This showing up thing really works.)
2. Any social media that you can “automate” probably isn’t worth doing. Don’t fall for the line that says you can automate social media. Can you automate real conversations with real people? Who’d want to talk to someone like that?
3. Step back and try to take a more holistic view of your business. Is it really all about the response all the time?
4. The value isn’t in the tool, it’s in the message it conveys. That’s why it helps to have more of a message than, “Buy My Stuff.”
5. Think about how you can earn the response instead of manipulate the response.

It’s better to just get started than to “do it right” - whatever that is.

I’m not sure that social media is something you can learn in a course anyway.

After all, it’s about being social. And your idea of being social is probably very different than mine.

Being “social” is about being you in front of others.

And that’s where the value is. In that difference.

You just have to get it out there.

Related posts:

1. (Real Stats) Making Social Media Pay
2. Indirect Response Marketing: Will Somebody Please Call Claude Hopkins?
3. My #1 Recommendation for Boosting the Response of Your Salesletter

Chris Brogan set off a bit of a comment firestorm the other day when he inadvertently revealed how much he charges clients for a day of his time.

I thought it was really interesting to read the comments and see how people reacted to the 5 figure number.

Apparently, a lot of people had something to say about it.

One of my biggest accomplishments over the years really has nothing and everything to do with business.

That accomplishment has been the ongoing development of my belief in my own self-worth. Both as a person and as a business person.

And that brings us to Chris’s post (mind you, price wasn’t the point of his post, but it quickly became the focus).

When you’re providing a professional service, answering the question, “What to charge?” can get you all caught up in how you view yourself.

Are you valuable or not?

Is what you offer your clients valuable or not?

Is there inherent value in you simply showing up somewhere?

You’re the only one that can answer those questions.

When you BELIEVE that you are a living, breathing, bucket of HIGH value (and you act accordingly), then you’ll have no issues with communicating that to the world.

And they will return value for value. Either because you ASK them to, or they feel compelled to.

We’re talking about energy after all. It comes back.

But if you aren’t living with that core belief in your own value, it’s probably gonna piss you off to watch someone else benefit from the fact that he IS confident enough to feel that way.

It’s your problem not his.

If you don’t believe you’re valuable, or if you don’t believe what you do is valuable… well, you’re the only person that can fix that.

No related posts.

Buy now.

Order now.

Sign-up now.

Register now.

I threw in the yellow highlighting just for fun… it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to remember the good ol’ days of internet copywriting.)

The words above are the basic goal of many of the marketing books I’ve read since my business information addiction began back in 2002.

The focus?

Direct response marketing… The secret weapon of the “little guy.”

According to the experts, direct response is the smartest way to business success.

And I’ve had a lot of success using many of the old school direct response marketing methods that I learned in all those books and courses.

But I also bet that my intense focus on direct response has probably also kept a lot of other money from ever finding its way to my front door.

Because while I spent a lot of time building skills and value in the world of direct response, I pretty much ignored other tools of business building that are starting to become very valuable (if you’re smart).

Who knows, maybe I’d be a millionaire ten times over already if I had focused on building a brand beginning back in 2002 instead of focusing solely on “getting the response?”

WHEN Do You Want to Withdrawal Your Value?

I think it comes down to a decision on your part about WHEN you want to store and retrieve the value in your business.

Direct response marketing has a very “get it now while the gettin’ is good” feeling.

You send something out or bring the traffic in and then get them to do something.

The value transfer is fairly immediate - maybe there’s a marketing sequence or something, but the product/service is generally exchanged for moola, pretty quickly.

There’s not a lot of tension built up (we’ll come back to that later) because the transaction (sale or opt-in or whatever) happens quickly and the tension is released. The customer gave something… the customer got something.

People Who Ask for Things All the Time Are Annoying

But the landscape is changing now. And since almost everyone with an internet connection can start “asking for the order,” all that asking is starting to annoy the hell out of customers.

Maybe you didn’t piss them off, but you’ve still got to deal with it even if someone else did.

So it’s getting harder to “get the sale.” Harder to “get the opt-in.”

So folks resort to “try my $40,000 course for just a buck” kind of stuff which is just sad.

Eventually, we’re going to be giving away free cars just to get the opt-in.

So What’s a Direct Response Marketer to Do?

I know the direct response king, Claude Hopkins, might rollover in his grave at this point, but let’s face it:

We’re not living in Claude Hopkins’ world anymore folks.

Stuff changes. Keep up and change or you run into problems.

Or you could get down and dirty and try new stuff now before it’s too late.

For example, these days, you can stick out by not asking for the sale… by not asking for anything really. At least not every single time you reach out and contact the world.

And I don’t mean sending out 4,000 hours of free video to butter me up for your impending product launch.

That’s just so transparent it hurts.

I mean making your business about creating value all the time and getting paid for some of it some of the time.

Sounds crazy to Mr. Direct Responser, I know.

Creating a Value Imbalance

I know there’s no bank that lets you deposit “value” in the form of trust, goodwill etc., but if there was, I bet the rules of compound interest would apply.

What happens when you deliver so much value to a prospect that they firmly cement that idea in their heads?

YOU = VALUE

Then what happens if you keep piling on the value?

What if there’s an avalanche of value that you’ve provided for so long that there’s this tremendous imbalance of value (energy) between you and your customer?

Then what if you offer a way to remedy that imbalance (your product or service) by bringing back some of the value (money) to your side of the scale?

I think that’s when sales happen.

This is old fashioned selling right? Where Mr. Jones is happy to help you for 2 years before you need his services. Then when you’re ready, there’s no question that Mr. Jones is your man.

Well, now we have the tools to do that helping at such little expense it’s hardly noticeable.

Work Now, Get Paid Later

Doesn’t that just sound nuts?

Work now, get paid later.

A few years ago, I would have thought that was a recipe for going broke very quickly.

A tried and true direct responser would probably say the same thing.

Except I think it works now. And people like it.

You could say it still is direct response… except the response gets delayed. Maybe by a day, a month, a year… who knows?

Here’s how I think of it:

Storing Up Value for the Future Response

You’re basically making value deposits for the future. That’s why folks are building up their own vast webs and networks of stored value.

Blog posts, videos, books, PDFs… you name it, there’s value popping up everywhere these days.

(Of course there are some normal business rules that apply here. Like the fact that other people have to actually find value in your stuff. If they don’t, there IS no value. At least not in a business sense.)

This type of content makes value deposits without asking for immediate withdrawals.

Building a “web of value” like this takes time. That’s why I think that more of the “little guys” are going to win.

Time is valuable. And these folks have time.

Bigger slower businesses that are more focused on immediate revenue aren’t going to want to make a (risky) investment of their human resources like this.

That’s a huge opportunity.

Does it make sense that you would invest what is probably your most valuable asset (your time) into creating valuable stuff for your prospects even before they become customers?

Or do you invest your time trying to “sell” everyone who walks through the door?

How would you want to be treated?

There’s just one problem, running your business like this makes measuring things in columns with numbers and totals and percentages just a bit harder.

That’s a problem for my direct response mind, because…

If You Can Measure It, You Can Improve It

Except when you can’t.

Like when you send out a promotion and it doesn’t work. So you change it and it still doesn’t work.

What’s the deal?

The deal is that I think there are some important things in business that really can’t be measured. Period.

Read This Before You Pull Out the Flamethrower

My point isn’t that direct response marketing is dying, or bad or stupid. That would have made a catchier headline, but that’s not my style.

Clearly it works when used well.

My point is that the world of business is much, much, MUCH bigger than just direct response marketing.

So why not experiment and reassess the role that direct response plays in your business?

What about moving it farther towards the TAIL end of the relationship instead of being the first date?

Create value you can measure… create value you can’t measure… throw it all in a pot and see what happens.

Related posts:

1. Social Media’s Hidden Opportunity for Direct Response Businesses
2. The Future of Information Marketing?
3. 10 Things I Learned from Marketing Emails

Yesterday, my wife and I were working on a new product for a business we run and realized it’s been 8 years since we started it from our little apartment in NYC.

The first year or so, we were an offline operation. So there were paper invoices and checks in the mail. That’s how things worked back in the day.

Sometime in 2002 I decided to move our business online. I thought it sounded like the ticket, but I knew very little about two very important things:

1. Selling
2. Selling Online

Despite my shortcomings at the time, I put up a quick website, got a Paypal® account, contacted some previous customers from our offline days… and BINGO, we got our first order.

I’ve never recovered since seeing that magic happen. Value was delivered over thousands of miles. WOW.

I knew that if I was going to turn this into something real (and I needed it to be real since we had just moved across the country to Arizona with no other consistent source of income), I’d have to start learning.

That’s pretty much when my information and learning addiction kicked in.

It’s been around 7 years since that time and the business is STILL alive and kicking.

We’ve thought about closing it down every now and again, because it’s not a huge money maker. We’re not talking a million dollars here folks.

For some reason, we’ve never done it. Lucky for us, because we love it.

Looking back, I’ve learned a LOT during those 7 years. Here are some of my observations when I think back about how far we’ve come…

1. Just keep going. That’s a big part of success in business and in life.
2. The quickest way to get your customers coming back is to be GREAT at doing something. No marketing “tricks” are required.
3. When you stick around for YEARS and have some of the same customers for years, there’s a relationship that gets created. Trust gets created. Try to remember not to take that for granted.
4. Business is about people. I LOVE hearing how our little business helps people in their lives. How it makes their lives easier. How it changes their attitudes. It makes me feel good - like what I’m doing MATTERS. Honestly, I don’t know if that was our goal at the beginning, but it sure is part of the payoff now.
5. Despite what the gurus say, you don’t need a big list to have a nice business.
6. In the end, I think people want to be treated well and they want to get value for their money. It’s really that simple.
7. Stand for something unique. Looking back, I think that’s been a big part of our success.
8. I don’t think what we’re selling is the same thing that our customers are buying. You read that in marketing books, but now I SEE what that means. After all these years, seeing the difference our products make in people’s lives… and hearing them tell us about it… THAT’S what I think they’re buying. That’s the end product. Do they think that? I don’t know. Do they feel it? Maybe.
9. Don’t try to make a business something that it isn’t. This is not a million dollar operation. I enjoy it more when I don’t try to make it one.
10. You might piss some people off. It’s usually not about you - unless you did something stupid. Don’t worry about it too much. Don’t worry about anything too much. It’s a waste of energy. Just do your best and keep trying to help people. Life is not black and white. If your eyes are open, it’s ALWAYS many, many shades of gray.

Related posts:

1. 10 Things I Learned from Marketing Emails
2. The Hello Kitty Helmet: Business Lessons from a 5 Year Old

There’s a lot of hype right now about how the future of selling stuff online is to use VIDEO.

I’m not so sure. Here’s the big problem:

VIDEO in Its Current State is Pretty Much Linear

It has a timeline that needs to be followed for a complete message to get delivered.

Duh, right? It’s just like T.V.

I guess you can blindly skip around the sales video if you want, but some of the newer video promotions don’t even give you that option.

The real strength of the internet is that it is non-linear. You can go hopping all over the place… go from point A to point Q with one click.

That’s how a salesletter is online. The reader can skip around and find the information he needs before he buys.

But with sales videos like they’re being served up now, it’s a little more like locking your reader into a rollercoaster ride and waving goodbye.

Is that smart? Time will certainly tell. But something in my gut says it’s not.

Here are some benefits of selling with video from the view of the entrepreneur:

1. Production time is often much faster than writing.
2. Seems a whole lot easier to create and distribute to the world.
3. Enough people are still enamored by video that it doesn’t take too much effort to get them to press play.
4. Expectations of quality are low enough right now that very little editing is often required.
5. People can get a feel for the salesperson and that enhances the bond with the viewer.
6. Mass media has trained a whole lot more people to watch videos than it has to read a page of text.

Sounds great right?

It’s easier, cheaper and faster than print.

But here’s what I see when I look at sales videos from the point of the viewer:

1. I have to digest your sales message at your speed, not at my speed.
2. I don’t really have an efficient way to get the information I want, when I want it.
3. A 20 minute sales video isn’t very respectful of my number one asset in my life: my time. If you entertain me enough, maybe I won’t think about it… THIS time.

My point is not that stuff like this isn’t working right now. Right now, video is new enough that it gets people attention (maybe) simply because it’s different.

My point is that, long term, I don’t see how it’s in the best interest of your customer’s experience during your selling process to put your whole sales message in a video.

And that’s really something that you should focus on. The experience. Because eventually it’s going to affect your numbers.

I think EXPERIENCE is going to be very important as the customer’s number of choices expands.

Selling online is starting to move away from being just an event and towards becoming more of a process. It’s like direct response marketing and “indirect response” marketing are merging together.

I guess you could call it:

Breadcrumb Selling

Look at how so many people are building real businesses and real brands using this simple idea. There are plenty of free tools available to do this now, and all it takes is having an important message to spread, something to sell, the discipline to stick around, and the desire to care.

Here’s the quick summary about how I see this working:

1. You build a relationship with people…
2. You leave bits of value (breadcrumbs) scattered around the internet…
3. You gently invite them to buy things…
4. They buy not when you tell them to buy. They buy when they WANT to buy. (I think that’s how happy customers are created.)

Rinse and repeat.

This is a process right? It can take a while.

You often don’t know exactly when the customer is going to pick up enough of your breadcrumbs to buy, but if they do buy, they’re probably going to do it from the person they trust and know already. Unless you’re in a market where price is the only real differentiating factor. (In which case, maybe you should run for the hills

But Numbers Don’t Lie

OK, so if you’re reading this and just got done making a million bucks using a video like the one I’m describing, then I guess you could say, “Hey, the proof is in the pudding. If it works I’m gonna do it.”

I guess I’d answer that in two ways.

1. More power to you. But just because it works today doesn’t mean it’s going to work tomorrow. So you might have to start looking for the NEXT big thing that works pretty soon.
2. The results of one sales promotion are pretty much an isolated number in time. If you’re just in the business of throwing out “promotions” every few months, then I guess good luck. But I’m talking to the folks who want a business with customers who come back again and again. You don’t really have any idea how your treatment of your customers today will affect their buying habits tomorrow. You’ll only really be able to understand that looking backwards… and by then, it might be too late. Why not treat them right NOW?

You could also say, “Hey, the folks that aren’t going to sit through my video aren’t the buyers anyway… So who cares?”

Well, I think you should care. Because that type of selling is more like throwing stuff up against the wall and seeing what sticks.

When I think of REAL professional selling, I think of people buying things maybe they didn’t plan on buying.

That takes a real salesman to accomplish a result like that. It takes a real salesman to point out how buying a product or service NOW is in the customer’s best interest… and to do it in a way where the customer still walks away happy.

Deep down, do you really think holding your customers “hostage” in front of your sales video is smart for their LONG TERM happiness? And if you’re not interested in their LONG TERM happiness, then good luck.

It’s About Time

As the glitz and glam of Web 2.(whatever number we’re up to) starts to wear off, I think more people will start realizing just how valuable and important their TIME really is.

And they will not appreciate business owners who waste it to sell them something.

So what’s a better idea?

Why not do both?

If you want to do video, how about giving your customers a choice? Give them a sales message in print as well.

Sure, it’s more work… more time… But these are your customers we’re talking about.

Related posts:

1. The Future of Information Marketing?

I just ended a small “free shipping” sale in a niche business I help run.

I took the 22 qualifying orders that came in during the promotion (I excluded orders where they didn’t use the coupon or ordered something electronic) and did some quick math.

The average order value was $61.95.

Now if you add our normal shipping charge of $6.50 to that “average” order value, the total would be $68.45.

So the average order basically got 10% off.

So we COULD have called this a 10% off sale. Except that’s not what we said… we said FREE SHIPPING.

(Granted, the smaller orders saved a larger percentage than 10% with free shipping, but that’s not really my point.)

My point is that FREE SHIPPING just SOUNDS more exciting.

There’s nothing that seems to fire off more sales in this little business than FREE SHIPPING.

It’s happened more than once. I’m not pretending to know WHY this is true, I just know it is.

I can’t imagine we would have gotten as many orders as we did if we had had a “10% off sale.”

How sexy is THAT? For some reason, that just doesn’t get my heart pumping.

Related posts:

1. I’ve Never Eaten SPAM (But Does That Make It Evil?)

The other day in my post about the Future of Information Marketing, one of the commenters asked about some practical applications of how this idea (the one where you treat people like people) could look in reality.

Here’s one idea:

It’s a simple skill called LISTENING.

For some reason, one of the most satisfying things is to BE HEARD.

And from a business perspective, I think it’s one of the smartest ways to sell.

Back during my banking days, we went through a few weeks of training where they basically taught you how to listen. To engage the person on the other side of the desk, to let them talk, and then just listen for selling opportunities that jumped out at you.

Being a church musician for much of my life also gave me many, many chances to practice the art of listening. On more than one occasion, someone would walk up to me and start telling me a story about their childhood… how either a relative played the organ or some pipe organ related story from when they were younger.

Sometimes I enjoyed the stories, sometimes I just stood there and endured them.

Now that I’m a bit more mature, I realize just how much of a GIFT listening really can be to the person that is being heard.

It’s kind of weird when you think about listening. Nothing tangible gets delivered. But value is definitely being transferred.

Don’t you love it when someone actually LISTENS to you?

How many ways are you LISTENING to your prospects and customers? How do you communicate that you’re listening?

Do they GET it that you’re listening?

Listening means just listening. It is a very passive looking act on the outside and a very active act on the inside.

You have to pay attention. (If you don’t, I think everyone can tell.)

Listening isn’t enduring long enough till the other person stops talking so you can start talking and tell them how great you are. Listening isn’t about solving anyone’s problems. It’s just about listening and acknowledging that the other person is talking.

It’s about acknowledging that their talking has value all by itself because they have value.

People like being treated like they are valuable.

As I think about this more carefully, I believe the only real requirement is that the person you are listing to knows you are listening to them.

That’s when the magic seems to happen.

So how do you build this into your business? It depends on who your customers are and how they like to be “heard.”

You have to find that out first.

So how could you put the art of listening into practice in your business?

Here are some ideas to consider:

1. You could have a simple call in time with the CEO or something. Some time of the week where people knew someone important in the company was going to LISTEN to them. I was talking to a friend about this idea the other week and he mentioned that 37signals already does this. Dang those guys are good
Of course you can’t listen to everyone at once if you’re only one person, but I think people knowing that you give some customers an option to be heard would be better than some of what we’ve got today.

2. You could ask for feedback from your customers for no other reason than to sit there and let them talk to you. This isn’t a survey situation where you’re just asking them questions so you can figure out what to sell them next.

3. You could humanize the “support desk” if your business uses one. I used to be a technology consultant. I liked it because I’m a tech nerd and it’s easy for me to learn new stuff. But phrases like, “submit a support ticket” just don’t sound fun. They aren’t fun for your customers.

Now for those of you who think this is all fluffy nonsense, here’s a quick summary of what I’ve said for the number crunching, profit pulling entrepreneurs out there.

1. Listening builds relationships. I don’t know why, it just DOES.
2. Relationships are the connection that is used to buy/sell things.
3. The stronger the relationship is with your prospects or customers, the stronger your business will be.

IN A NUTSHELL: Listening will make you more money. (And it’s a nice way to treat people too.)

LISTEN. People want to be heard. Don’t you?

No related posts.

My #1 recommendation for boosting the response of your salesletter is to sell something worth buying.

Which means not selling “junk.”

That’s not a new idea.

And sorry if you were expecting a copywriting “secret” or something.

But in my experience, it’s easier to sell stuff that’s worth buying.

Because you don’t really have to “sell.” You mainly have to “offer…”

Sounds obvious doesn’t it?

It certainly doesn’t seem so earth shattering when I write it out now, and I bet that it probably doesn’t rock your world either.

But I wish I had been a bit more conscious about that when I was getting my freelance copywriting career going.

I learned a lot my first year as a copywriter (I put a lot of it in my book), but this is an idea I wish someone had told me to keep in my head from day one.

Look for clients with excellent products to sell.

Today, I do work with clients who sell excellent products and services. But now, I also am on the “business owner” side of the fence a whole lot more too as I market my own products and services.

And man, it is so much easier selling stuff that’s truly worth buying.

One of the greatest things about that is that people talk about your products without you doing anything! It’s a beautiful thing.

I think it’s hard to explain just what “something not worth buying” is. What’s junk in one market could be gold in another I guess.

But I think if you’re selling “junk,” you probably know it deep down.

However, I think much of the junk out there has a few things in common… things like:

• Big promises made and few promises delivered.
• Lots of glitz before the sale, very little substance after the sale.
• Being overly sales and marketing centric instead of overly customer centric.

Warning: Just because something isn’t junk doesn’t mean that it will sell. I wish I could change that. But then I’d probably be a super hero and wouldn’t have time to write on this blog.

But if you’re currently selling junk, then it’s my opinion that the number one way to boost your results is to start selling good stuff.

It’s probably going to take some work.

And if you’re already selling “good stuff,” then how do you boost the response of a salesletter?

Ahhh… that’s where great copywriting comes in

Related posts:

1. Indirect Response Marketing: Will Somebody Please Call Claude Hopkins?
2. In the Trenches Feature: Top Copywriter, Marketing Strategist and Cashflow Generator Michael Silk
3. Social Media’s Hidden Opportunity for Direct Response Businesses

I just spent the last few minutes of my life trying to cancel an online service I don’t really want to use anymore.

I used the site’s online chat feature to attempt this.

My request was pretty simple:

“I need to cancel my account. The service is great, but I don’t use it. Please let me know if any refund is available since you just charged my card.”

First, I was transferred to someone else.

That’s when the real fun began…

I was reminded that this service has been proven to increase website sales.

(That’s great, but since I told the guy I don’t use the service, this really didn’t mean much.)

My annoyance at having to spend so much time trying to cancel makes what happened next hard to remember, but at some point, I was offered a free month and a reduced rate going forward.

I took it. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed the “service” I was getting at the moment to stop.

I have a life to live after all.

So what did this company gain by “saving” this customer?

They did “gain” a customer right? Or at least retained one. I would guess that’s their view of things.

Except I don’t care about their view of things.

And what price did they pay, from their point of view, for this “retention?”

Well they gave me a free month, a reduced rate going forward, and it took some time for the customer service rep. to do the transaction, which they paid for.

Those are the costs that will show up in their accounting of the exchange.

Except that doesn’t take into account the BIG price they paid that will probably never be a specific line item on any P/L statement.

Because they really pissed me off for not honoring a simple request.

I doubt this is the employee’s decision to sink his talons into a customer that wants to leave and hang on for dear life.

Of course, it’s probably a “policy” that someone, somewhere created.

I guess in the old days, customers couldn’t really DO much about the “policy.”

Now things are different.

Because NOW, customers have tools which are basically MEGAPHONES to spread the message of their experience in no time.

I finally gave up because I just wanted to make it stop.

I didn’t cancel, I took their free month. And NOW I have another task for my todo list: CANCEL BEFORE NEXT MONTH.

Do you think I’m looking forward to that? Yuck.

So I guess you could argue that the service rep. did his job. But in this case, the end result of him “doing his job” was one super annoyed customer.

NOTE TO SELF: Don’t do this to people. It’s annoying.

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