Jermaine Griggs, Gary Vaynerchuk & The Thank You Economy
I was at InfusionCon this week and had a great time meeting other users, answering questions about how to use the software and enjoying some of the many speakers showcased at the event.
Jermaine Griggs
Jermaine captured InfusionSoft’s Marketer of the Year award last year at InfusionCon, and it was well deserved. It doesn’t take long to see that he LOVES his customers, and based on how they buy his products, they must love what he does too!
One of the things he does is thank his customers with little gifts. But he’s also smart about it. He uses SendOutCards integration with InfusionSoft to send a card and goodie to his customers at key points.
During one of the breaks I was talking with Jermaine about what he does and he said he spends about $5,000 each month thanking his customers through SendOutCards. Now, I have no idea what his sales are, but the loyalty of his customers is noteworthy.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Interestingly enough, last year, after meeting for dinner with some of our customers from our Short Sale Genius business (Dinner at a Brazilian Churrascaria, my favorite places to dine), I bought the Crush It! audio on iTunes and listened to it on the drive back from Arizona. The audiobook I listened to was very PG, but I knew that Gary likes to ‘spice’ up his language from the stage.
The book was great, but knowing Clate and Scott as well as I do, I was surprised that they were inviting the salty V to speak on their stage. I supposed his draw was worth the risk, as apparently they asked him to at least tone down the ‘F-Bombs’. Trent counted 9.
But I digress…
Gary V did an excellent job of illustrating two big concepts.
First, we’re just in the beginning of this internet thing. I believe him. There are a lot of folks who like to claim to be pioneers and therefore own the internet, and their mountains ought to be climbed to, hands and knees, to seek their wisdom, but, we’re still in the beginning stages. He put it this way, “We’re in the beginning of the National Anthem of a 19 inning baseball game.”
Second, the real secret of social media isn’t actually any feature of technology. It’s not a script that will create 20 tweets an hour, or schedule your facebook status updates, or follow a bazillion people.
The real secret of social media is that it allows you to know your customer at a much deeper level than was ever possible before. Why? Because everyone and their dog is putting out more details about what they think of EVERYTHING, where they’re going and have been and who they are doing it all with.
The Thank You Economy
Confession time. I haven’t even read the book yet, but the title and Gary’s keynote just about paint the picture for me.
Everyone is so self absorbed these days it’s almost impossible to break through.
As we were leaving Phoenix we stopped at Chipotle, which it turns out has out performed Apple in the stock market, and there was a kid in line ahead of us. He had his macbook pro on the ledge watching Star Wars with some big head phones on. He was charging his iPhone 4 with his macbook and was periodically checking facebook on the phone, then he switched over to some music artists website on the macbook (I guess he was tethering too). So he’s riding this mary-go-round for the 9 min it takes to get to the point were he could order and he closes up the macbook and walks out of the place.
I know it’s extreme, but it paints the picture of what your customers and mine are doing and what we have to cut through.
Selling alone won’t do it.
Extreme offers won’t do it.
We have to build relationship and the best way to start it is with a real, meaningful and unique thank you.
You could do it like Jermaine. You could do it like Gary V. You could do it in your own way. But by all means do it!