by Kirby Hasseman
It’s Monday. Many people start off the week with a feeling of dread. But it doesn’t have to be that way! How can you get your Monday (and ultimately your week) off on the right foot? Here are a few simple tips that will help you start to love Monday!
Own the First 60 Seconds: The fact is, most of us start our day living in the past. We wake up and are immediately worried about the actions of yesterday or the problems coming up. That’s no formula for happiness or success. Take a deep breath and bring yourself into the now. Read more about this here.
Have a Good Routine: We all have routines that govern our life. Studies will tell you that between 60% and 70% of the decisions you make each day are on auto-pilot. So spend some time to create routines that serve you. Drink water. Exercise. Read. Whatever feeds your brain and your soul. Make that a part of your every day. Put IN Some Good: Which leads you to get some sources of inspiration that help to feed that brain first thing in the morning. My sources include Gary Vaynerchuck, Seth Godin, Ed Mylett and more. But if you need another, check out my Youtube Channel and subscribe. Our goal is to provide some education and inspiration as well!
Push Out Some Good: Another great way to get your mindset kicked off in the right direction is to simply do some good first thing. For me, it might be writing a blog post. My creative juices get flowing and I hope to affect some positive change. It might be sending a thank you card or email or text. Push out some good…it will make you feel great!
Chart a Course For Action: Now it’s time to be intentional. Don’t just let the day happen to you. Spend some time and chart a few things you want to get done today. Creating a short list of “must do’s” can help keep you on track when the whirlwind of the day hits! It’s time to take Monday back! Try a few of these simple steps to get you off on the right foot to attack your week! Now…let’s go do this!
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by Kirby Hasseman
Let’s address a “hypothetical situation” that happens all of the time.
You have taken the time to create a social media presence. Your Facebook page is solid and you post valuable content regularly. You are providing good information and engaging with the growing audience. You are killing it with your social media marketing.
Then one day, you get a negative comment. A customer came to your location and had a bad experience. They might have had an actual bad experience…or maybe they are just a difficult person. Their coffee was cold. Or their server was slow. Or their customer service representative was rude. Whatever the reason, they have decided to let the entire world know via social media!
What do you do now?
If this does not sound familiar yet, it will. The reality is, with the internet, everyone has a voice. And when people feel they have been wronged, they want to share that experience. The thing is, this is not a new thing. People have always shared their negative opinions. Now, everyone just has a larger audience. So what do you, as an organization, do when you get one of these negative comments online?
There are a couple steps to take (and they are outlined in detail in the GREAT book by Jay Baer “Hug Your Haters.“) But before we get to the simple steps, let’s reframe the discussion. We need to look a bit differently about the feedback. As I mentioned above, these conversations have always happened. But now you get to be a part of them! You get to address (the sometimes) very real issues with your service so that future customers don’t have the same experience. This is incredible intel to make your organization better! You need to start by looking at it that way. Don’t get defensive…get pro-active to fix the issue.
Now onto the simple steps.
When you receive a negative comment about your company, product or service, I recommend you respond to the comment by doing three things. Apologize. Empathize. Take it offline.
Apologize
Regardless of the issue, you don’t want your customer or prospects to have a bad experience, right? So apologize for it. “I am so sorry you had this experience.”
Empathize
This is when many of us feel the need to “give a reason” why this happened. This “reason” often comes off as an “excuse.” No one wants an excuse. They want to know they are valued.
Take if offline
I recommend you give them a number (to a real person) to call to discuss their issue. First, this shows you really want to handle it. Second, it keeps you from getting into an argument online…NEVER a good idea. This can be an incredibly effective technique. Often, you won’t ever get the call from the person. They just wanted to vent. But by responding, you not only responded to that customer, but everyone who knows them SEES that you responded. It shows you care enough to try and fix the issue.
And as customers, we know that caring can go a long way.
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by Kirby Hasseman
One question I get regularly is “how do you stay positive?”
Most of the time I struggle to really answer this question. There are several reasons why. 1. I don’t always “feel” positive. I have the same negative voices that everyone has. They are constantly in my head, reminding me of my failures and frustrations. 2. It’s who I am.
On the other hand, I have been working on being more positive for a long time. At this point, I don’t know if it’s genetic, or if it comes from a long focus. But it is (now) my default position. So it’s a little bit like asking someone “why do you like food, or running, or whatever?” The answer is often, “I don’t know, I just do.”
With that being said, I was thinking about this question the other day and realized that I do one thing that does help me set my mind right first thing in the morning. The concept is simple and foundational. Just like in a house, the foundation of your day is super important. It doesn’t matter what your house looks like. It might be straight out of a movie. The house might be huge and have all of the amenities in the world. But it doesn’t matter if you have heated floors, huge windows and a 5 car garage, if your foundation is not done right, that house will crumble.
The same is true for your day.
That’s why it’s so critical for me to own the first 60 seconds. Most people wake up and immediately start to relive yesterday. They look back at the stresses and failures of yesterday and their heart starts to race. Their mind starts to fill with dread and stress and BOOM…you are done. You are living in the past. The day is no longer yours. (The same is true if you immediately jump to the stresses of the upcoming day). I have those voices too. But when I feel that stress start to flood my mind when I first awake, I do two things.
1. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself.
2. Then I go through a simple gratitude exercise.
I think of the things in my life that I am grateful for or excited about. They might be my daughters or my co-workers or my wife or my bed. They might be projects at work, or people who have helped me. Whatever. I take a full minute to try and re-calibrate my mind and get it ready to attack the day with a different, more productive, mindset. For me, this is the foundation of the day. So try it for the next week and let me know how it works for you. Set the right foundation and the rest of your day will improve.
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by Kirby Hasseman
So there I am. It’s early in the morning and I am having my first cup of coffee. I am using my time to go through social media accounts to check for people that I need to respond to, or to connect with. I go through and comment on a few posts and congratulate connections on birthdays or work accomplishments.
My mouse hovers to Linkedin and I check to see if there are notifications there. I love Linkedin and I enjoy the engagement there. In addition, I do want to grow my network there! So when I notice there are notifications in the “My Network” tab I quickly go to check them out. Who might be reaching out to connect? If I know them, the decision is simple. Click a button and expand my network. Done.
But what if I don’t know them? Do I so quickly connect? Wait…let me see what other mutual connections we have. Hmmm…just a few. Do I accept? Do I move on? What am I afraid of? The goal is to grow my network, right? We never know what person might be THE person that helps to grow my business!
So I click “Accept.”
Then…ding! A message instantly comes through Linkedin! Damnit. THAT was what I was afraid of! The instant sales message. I don’t even have to look to know it. This is the person who assumes that since you have accepted their connection, it’s time to put on the full court press. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know if you need it. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know what other solutions you have. They have a quota and a goal and they are coming for you!
This, my friends, is the problem with a short term sales vision.
It’s the reason why it matters that you have a “long term” focus in sales. As I say all of the time “I am looking for 20 year customers.” When you are in sales, it’s hard to focus on the long term. The fact is, you need to sell something in order to make ends meet. That’s not only your goal, it’s your mission. I have been there. But having made some of those short term mistakes, I want to challenge you to think bigger.
Here are a few reasons that focusing on long term success helps you in sales and entrepreneurship.
You Look Less Desperate: What short term salespeople don’t understand is, they will sell less for less money. As consumers, we can smell it. We know when someone is just pushing for the short term sale. They don’t take the time to develop a relationship. They don’t take the time to really explain. They are too busy trying to sell me now. Oh, and if you are in that big a hurry, usually the only thing you have to sell is price. As Seth Godin says, that’s a race to bottom…and that’s a race you don’t want to win.
You Have Time to Push Out Good: People who are focused on long term success understand that a good marketplace leads to good sales. If your customers and community are doing well, you will do well. So it allows you to take the time to help. It will come back.
You Get To Say No: When you are not focused ONLY on this next sale, you get to decide if the prospect or customer can help you create a long term business. When the service or product or values don’t line up, you can politely move on. There is a true power in that.
The reality is, focusing on long term success is how you build relationships and a business that lasts. It’s harder. Sometimes it takes longer. But what are you trying to create? It’s up to you to decide.
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by Kirby Hasseman
In today’s culture, it feels like “headline reading” is an Olympic sport. Every day we are bombarded with the salacious, sensational headlines that predict the doom of one thing or another. Then, to compound the problem, most people never seem to read the article! So we live in a time when people are under-informed and over-reacting.
One of the headlines that I have seen parroted quite a bit is the idea that “direct mail is dead.”
The idea behind the headlines and the article is that direct mail has lost its effectiveness over the past 10 years. Here’s the problem with this rationale. It’s not the medium. It’s the execution. This is true of any marketing technique or platform. If you are not executing well on the idea or the platform, the marketing will not work. In those moments, marketers and entrepreneurs will throw up their hands and say “direct mail doesn’t work.”
Maybe it’s you. Here are a few ways to improve your direct mail impact quickly and easily.
Make it Colorful
We are proud of a simple direct mail piece we did recently for one of our clients. The Physicians and staff were moving to a new location and they wanted to let the community know. We helped to craft a plan that included social media, press releases, and direct mail. We opted for a colorful postcard that included good-looking images and graphics so they would not be missed in the mailbox. The results were sharp and got attention.
Make it Bumpy
Bumpy mail (or dimensional mailers) are packages that are odd-shaped or bumpy. This unique shape calls to the customer or prospect “open me!” Curiosity will help you “kill the cat” because your potential client will want to know what is in the package. But don’t just take my word for it! Let’s take a look at a study done in 1993.
This study, done by Baylor University, sent packages to 3000 school administrators. They were divided into three groups. The first group received an envelope with a sales letter, sales collateral, and postage-paid business reply card The second group received an envelope with similar contents plus a promotional product. The third group received all of the contents listed above, delivered in a box with a die-cut slot, instead of an envelope. The results (as you might expect) were impressive.
- Those who received a promotional product in a dimensional package responded at a rate that was 57% higher than those who received the same promotional product in an envelope!• Response rates for the dimensional package recipients were 75% higher than for the group who received only a sales letter! In case you were skimming, you might want to read that last line again. Response rates for the dimensional package recipients were 75% higher! Wow!
Add Value
As we look at the postcard we sent out for Coshocton Regional Medical Center, you will notice a magnet too. We wanted to provide the information AND an easy way to keep it handy! So we added that simple attachment to add value to the recipient. It’s a simple, cost-effective, and powerful way to make your next mailing more impactful. So Direct Mail is not dead. As a matter of fact, done well, you can really stand out in a sea of “blah” in the mailbox.
Want to learn more about direct mail or our print capabilities? Head to our print page here…and contact us with questions. Make sure you never miss an update! Sign up for our VIP newsletter here.
by Kirby Hasseman
One of my goals with this blog is to provide value to those that read it…and make sure we, as a company, help to keep you informed. Whether we show the latest promotional merchandise, or keep you up to date on trends, we want to help you in your marketing and branded merchandise efforts.
That’s why I want to talk about Tariff’s today. Wait! Don’t click away or fall asleep! I will keep it brief!
As I mentioned in this recent blog, at the PPAI Expo (the largest promotional trade show in our industry) Tariffs were the talk of the show. Everyone is talking about them, worrying about them, and asking questions about them. Why? Because when it comes to branded merchandise, a huge percentage of the items that are sold in the industry are imported from China. This is such a concern that there are suppliers in our industry that have printed their entire catalog without putting in pricing! Why? Even those that have included pricing have included less information or large disclaimers saying that “pricing could change.”
So what does that mean to you?
It means, quite simply, if you use branded merchandise, your budget very likely could be affected. This is not a threat or a political statement. It’s just a fact. If the tariffs continue, the price of your promotional material will go up.
So what can you do?
There are a couple of things I am recommending.
1. Begin to adjust expectations. As you move into 2019, just understand that the pricing for promotional items are in flux. If there are items that you order regularly, you might want to stock up a bit or check in on pricing.
2. Consider domestic options. Though I do not expect to see American manufacturers of promotional items start popping up everywhere, I do expect an uptick for those that already are here. When you are creating a marketing plan, make sure to include something made in North America. This is not the end of the world and the sky is not falling. I just wanted to spend a few moments to put this trend on your radar.
If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out to us and we can discuss it! Make sure you never miss an update! Sign up to become a VIP here.
