Dan Tudor - Landing the Deal Interview

Dan Tudor recently did a group of interviews that were fun, informative and with great people. Somehow I ended up in the mix with Seth Godin, Sam I am, and Jeffrey Gitomer. Not bad.

I thought that some of his advice might be great on this blog as well, because Buzz can create interest, but you still have to close the sale.

I will mention that I have not met Dan in person, and there is a good chance he is looney. He interviewed a Dr. Seuss character recently, and in my request I mentioned I would not do that, and he got very defensive.

Ron: I will not be interviewing any fictional characters or pet rocks, but I think it would be interesting to get some real "closing the sales" kind of stuff up. We have a lot of small business readers.

Dan: Ron, don't slam fictional characters. They are quite entertaining.

Later in the interview see how he replies to my question about his "Deer in the headlights" look. We also have reason to believe he posed as the complete cast of full house recently when commenting on a post. Read the interview that follows and see what you think of him.

Curious where the posts are?

For those of you wondering why I have not done a fresh post in several days, blogger has been having trouble and yesterday I lost a long post that did not go through. I guess I am getting what I pay for, and in over a year I do not have many complaints. Lets see if this goes through and then I may try another one.

Top sales interview of the decade...

Dan did a nice job building up to one of the best and most important sales interviews of the decade...

Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge

Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #19 - From the upcoming book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Call/Email a Person You Respect Difficulty: Simple Time: Quick Cost: Minimal Technology Required: Simple Think about someone you would like to meet. It should be someone you respect and someone that would be beneficial for you to get to know. In this challenge we suggest you stretch and think of someone that is not easy but not too difficult to get to know. Contact this person and let them know why you would like to meet them. Briefly tell them about yourself and propose getting together for coffee or lunch. If there is any way that you can benefit them, let them know. If not, you could propose that they act as a mentor to you in your career or for your business. Some influential people enjoy acting as mentors to people that are working hard to grow and succeed. I know several people that have famous mentors and they leverage the name and relationships to create more buzz for themselves and for their mentors.

The Annoyance Factor

What is the Annoyance Factor and what is yours? The annoyance factor is the % of people that are less than happy with your product or service but not so unhappy as to complain. Complaining is good. When you get a complaint, if you are smart, you address the issue, fix the problem and make that complainer into a fan again. Happy people are good. They tell people about you, promote you, buy more products and services from you, etc. Happy people are advocates for your business. Then there are the people that fall in between. You might think you have a lot of happy customers, but what you may really have is a lot of people that are annoyed, but not so much that they will go to the trouble of changing. Cell phone companies are a good example. I had T-Mobile and had horrible service. I had to call from my driveway to get a connection. I was annoyed. I complained to everyone, but not to T-mobile because they were not going to build a tower just for me. Yet it took a full year before I switched services, because getting out of the contract seemed a hassle. I was within their annoyance factor from the beginning to the end of the relationship, waiting for an opportunity to leave. Today I went to McDonalds after a meeting. I just wanted a quick bite. The menu in one place said medium fries were $1. In another spot, a piece of tape was over the word medium. They charged me $1.40. I asked why, and they said they were in the process of changing it. The menu did not state the change, and I was annoyed. No, I am not going to stand in a McDonalds and argue about 40 cents, but I really did not want fries yet I said to myself, it is just $1 more, so I got them. Then they were $1.40. Then I wished I’d not got them because my “It’s only a dollar more” became a lie and I was overpaying for something that was not good for me anyway. That brings me to software. Think about the user interface with the annoyance factor in mind. Most people will find ways around software quirks. They learn to get around the little problems. But is your software really good, or just not really bad enough to generate complaints? If a large percent of your users are existing in the annoyance area, you are sitting on a time bomb. Any seemingly minor hiccup could trigger widespread desertion that could put you out of business. To determine your annoyance factor, do a customer survey and ask some specific questions in relation to satisfaction. Here are some sample customer service questions.

• Would you strongly recommend us to someone if you knew they could benefit from our type of product or service?
• Has our product or service not met your expectations in any way?
• How would you rate our product or service? (Great Value, I got what I expected, Needs improvement. ) (A scale of 1-7 will give you better data.)
• Have you ever received less than fantastic customer service from one of our employees?

More questions like this, with clear guides to what makes someone fall into the “Advocate/Happy” category, the “I hate you” category and the “just waiting to find someone better” category will help you identify your annoyance factor and start working on a strategy. The more you can move people up to happy and out of the annoyance realm, the more successful your organization will be.

America's Funniest Home Videos as your blog strategy

We frequently talk to people about blogging and they think it is hard to create all that good content. Think about that show, America's Funniest Home Videos. People everywhere are creating content for it. All they do is create a wrapper and publish the best. This is how you blog as well. You create the blog, give it a purpose, a focus, and you add color commentary and let other people help out with the content. Dan Tudor is doing that a lot this last few weeks - see Seth Godin's comments on blogging as part of the interview Dan is doing. Rumor has it that Bob Saget and Dan Tudor are really the same person.

Landing the Buzz

Dan Tudor at Landing the Deal just did a 10 part interview with me. I answered the questions and he added the color commentary. Good fun. He did an excellent one with Jeffrey Gitomer and is going to do one soon with Seth Godin, so I feel in especially good company. Here is part one of my interview: Follow the links as they are in order and you can navigate each question. For those of you wondering if blogging is valuable, consider that Dan and I met through blogging, we both have learned a lot about each other and he is interviewing all kinds of authors and experts, as well as establishing his own expertise. His interviews are a great sample of how to create value with a blog without even having to create all the content yourself.

What are 5 things you can do today to create a little buzz?

• Tell one success story about where you work to someone that does not understand what you do well.
• Give a good business referral to someone.
• Surprise someone with an email or letter that is unexpected.
• Email a blogger or post a comment on a post. Make it thoughtful enough that they may highlight it in another post.
• Surprise someone with great customer service that goes above and beyond.

While one person doing these once is not going to create a lot of buzz, creating a culture of buzz will make any organization stand out from the crowd.

Success in Word of Mouth

I got the Make It Great newsletter today and saw this quote:

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out..." - Robert J. Collier

Our philosophy on buzz is the same. Buzz is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out by all the people that are passionate about the success of a product or service.

Word of Mouth Marketing Study

I hate when competitors do something better than me, but oh well, let's not be stingy. Todd Tweedy at BoldMouth has put out a very good and comprehensive word of mouth marketing study that is a great intro to the topic and a convincing argument that, if you are not on the band wagon yet, you need to get hopping. Here is what he wrote:

Wanted to let you know about a study we published with Osterman Research titled Perceptions, Practices, and Ethics in Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

Here’s a link to the pdf: pdf link

I’d love to get your feedback on the recommendations section.

P&G Moms

Tim Raines pointed out a post about P&G recruiting moms for word of mouth marketing campaigns. I am not sure this is new news, but interesting none the less.

Landing the Deal - Dan Tudor

Dan Tudor had a post about firing your customers. I left him a comment on not making a snap decision and he reposted the comment as a blog post here. Not only is this particular post interesting, but it is also a good lesson in how blogs scratch each others back. My comment added content to his blog post. He then used that content to create a new blog post, linking back to me, now I am blogging about it here linking to him. It is a win/win with content and links. Dan also sent me some interview questions, so he got more content and I got more exposure. Seems simple, but how often are you reaching out to people and creating these win/win scenarios?

Are you a business composer?

In honor of American Idol, which I do not watch but I understand a few other people do, I am writing this blog on music composers and how they are exactly like business owners. A composer and singer may sit down and compose 20 new songs in a year, record them, test them, create a fancy wrapper and then wait and see what happens as they try to get people to buy it. If you are a small business owner, you are probably creating new programs, new packages and new products in an effort to meet customer demand and expand your income and reach. In both cases, most of the ideas/songs seem great. However, we all know how rare a CD full of hits is. My point is this. Create your packages and products with the same dedication and understanding of the audience as a musician has. You are trying to create an emotional response that makes people want to have what you are offering. Accept that some efforts will be good and others that seemed great will not hit. Any one might be a top 20 and make up for all the duds.

Happy Birthday

Today is Buzzoodle's 1st Birthday. Wow. We have had some successes and failures. The DIY Buzz Software was not the hit we thought it would be, but the message, the brand, the courses, speaking engagements and training programs have all been fantastic and the plans for the coming year are even bigger. Thanks Jessica, who runs our Outstanda Referral Program for pointing out the important date.

Buzzoodle Challenge #11

Buzzoodle Challenges #11 is a Buzz Marketing challenge to get you to connect, create some buzz and get out of your comfort zone. To see the first 10 Buzzoodle Challenges, visit my Squidoo Lens. #11 Go to a conference, expo or convention that is outside of your industry. Meet lots of people and learn about how that industry works. I was recently invited to attend the Book Expo America by David Lorenzo at Career Intensity. I do work with some publishers, but the industry as a whole is not something I know well. The expo opened my eyes to how it works, what opportunities there are to work with authors, and gave me a chance to meet some great people and strengthen some existing relationships. What will come out of it remains to be seen, but I can assure you I made some great connections and I am coming back to Ohio and discussing with authors here some ways to improve sales and exposure. Find something that interests you and go to one of their events. You will meet new people (Since it is not your industry) and learn new things. Unless it is a secret serial killer convention, it should be nothing but upside.