Category: Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Branding, Business Ethics, Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environmenl, Green Business, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, poverty, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , ,

On a discussion list, a startup entrepreneur asked,

I have noticed that many successful startups are advertising that they donate x% of their profit to someone in need or they help someone have a better life,etc. What do you think is the importance of such messages to gain initial traction and how does it help grow the company?

By the time I saw the post, several other people had jumped in to tell him that social entrepreneurship isn’t just a marketing trick. It must be genuine.

Globe showing various crises around the world
How some people view the world—Opportunity for businesses that genuinely care

I agree, but there’s more. Here’s what I wrote:

Yes, social giving has to be genuine–motivated not by marketing but by sincerely helping the world–but if you’re doing that, you gain huge marketing advantage if you handle it right.

Keep in mind: charitable give-backs are NOT the only model. I’m rather a fan of creating products, services, and business cultures that directly *and profitably* turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. In fact, in my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World–which is focused on this aspect–charity givebacks account for part of one chapter out of 22 chapters. In my speaking and consulting, I help companies actually develop these kinds of approaches. You can get a very quick early-stage introduction by spending 15 minutes with my TEDx talk, “Impossible is a Dare” https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809 (click on “event videos”)–but recognize that this was 2 years ago and the work has evolved a lot since then.
All other things (such as price, quality, convenience) being comparable, consumers “vote with their feet” to support ethical, green, socially conscious companies. So you, as a startup, have the chance to look at the skills, interests, and wider goals within your company…create products and services that match these skills, interests, and goals with wider goals like the Big Four I mentioned at the beginning…and market them effectively to both green and nongreen markets (which has to be done differently, as I discuss in the book). But please, do it with good intentions! (I can help, BTW.)
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Democracy, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , ,

NOTE:  I clarified my response–and especially the headline–in this later post.

I got an email this morning from Labor for Bernie, urging me to sign up to continue the movement. My wife saw a note from Bernie himself, on Facebook. Both urged us to join the ongoing movement by signing up at OurRevolution.com.

So I clicked over. And this is what I saw:

Landing page of OurRevolution.com
Landing page of OurRevolution.com

It’s designed like a classic marketer’s landing page with only two options: sign up or send money. Except that a classic marketer’s landing page describes the project it’s selling—sometimes, in great detail. This time—not a clue about what this organization is going to stand for.

I’m a strong Bernie supporter. I love that he was able to bring a progressive agenda into mainstream US politics—after watching so many fail before, from Jesse Jackson to Howard Dean to Dennis Kucinich. But I’m not signing.

Too many times, I’ve seen organizations co-opt supporters by turning out to stand for something other than they pretended, going back to the Socialist Workers Party’s attempt to co-opt the Vietnam peace movement when I was a teenager. Here, I don’t even see a pretense. I see nothing about what this organization will stand for, what tactics it will use, etc.

Even for Sanders, I don’t write a blank check. Not financially, and not in my commitment to an organization whose tenets I can’t describe. Even for Bernie, I won’t sign blind.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics: General, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The two big messages of the Democratic Convention were Hope and Inclusion. Hope, of course, was one of the two themes (along with Change) that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008.

The danger with memes like Hope and Change is that they leave people greatly disappointed when not much appears to change. Obama actually has a pretty powerful record of accomplishment (and here’s a shorter but more up-to-date list prepared by the Democratic Party). But he’s somewhat diffident about claiming it—and his legacy is much less than it could have been because of the concerted effort of the GOP to deny him any victory no matter how small. Here, for instance, is Mitch McConnell, early in Obama’s presidency, saying the President is not sufficiently bipartisan, despite Obama’s unprecedented and massive outreach to the other side at the expense of that agenda of hope and change—something even Fox News noticed. (Of course, by 2010, McConnell was openly saying his top priority was making sure Obama was a one-term president.)

I have plenty of issues with both Obama and with Hillary Clinton—but government is supposed to be bipartisan, not spoil-sport-losers-blocking everything. The Democrats even allowed George W. Bush to govern, despite his awful, destructive policies from which the country is still recovering. That Obama has been able to get anything done in this climate (and as those two links above prove, he’s done quite a bit) is remarkable. That the Republican Party has thwarted the will of the people over and over again these 8 years is shameful.

Obama also has a tendency to “roll over and play dead” unnecessarily. To name one example, that he gave up so easily on filling the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Scalia’s death is shocking—and very bad precedent. As a former community organizer, Obama should have had a clue about how to break he deadlock—keep the apparatus that twice elected him president active, to deluge Republican legislators with calls and letters supporting particular pieces of Obama’s agenda—to keep people involved and motivated while at the same time disassembling Republican intransigence, making its revelry in being “The Party of No” politically difficult. Obama could have organized a backlash in the 2010 election and accumulated massive majorities in both houses. But he let his eager champions wither on the vine.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

Inclusion may not be as powerful as hope, but it’s a very strong meme nonetheless. This year’s Republican candidate openly embraces hostility to inclusion—attacking Mexicans and Muslims along with immigrants in general, mocking disabled people, and even attacking the patriotism of decorated war hero Senator John McCain. So it’s a good move for Hillary Clinton to reclaim the emotional territory she gave up to both Sanders and Trump during primary season—and in this case, I do think it’s genuine. The first night of the convention, especially, was all about outreach to those who’ve felt disenfranchised (including the millions of supporters of Bernie Sanders). Clinton’s good dose of Policy Wonk may also be the antidote to Trump’s sketchy sound-bite promises about how he would govern.

The themes of inclusion, hope, and competence were in tremendous contrast with the Republican Convention, whose dominant message was fear—expressed in xenophobia. The other message of the Republicans was “we don’t have to give a crap about people we can beat up”–a big rallying point for those who agree, but a big push-away for anyone who might be a potential victim–and that’s a LOT of people. This is essentially the message of fascism, and it scares me to see it coming out of the mouth (and Twitter feed) of a nominated major-party candidate for President.

And this is why I will vote for Hillary even though my own politics are closer to Jill Stein’s, and even though I live in a state that will vote Democratic no matter what. I am not thrilled about voting for Hillary, but I will vote for her. I consider Trump the greatest threat to democracy and liberty in my lifetime. His repeated use of Hitlerian memes is very troubling. And I think very deliberate. I want Trump’s margin of defeat to be so “YUGE” that we never see his ugly politics again.

Looking at the election as a whole, I’d bet that Trump, a master marketer for decades, has studied NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming—an extremely powerful approach to getting inside people’s minds through the use of deep psychological triggers) and is far better at getting his (loathsome) message across than Clinton is. The Republicans have been using sound bites that appear to be based in NLP techniques for over 30 years, but Trump has taken it much deeper. Clinton, by contrast, is an old-school politician who hasn’t quite figured out the 21st-century shift in marketing from push to interactive. And Sanders has probably not studied marketing but he’s a natural. His brand is wrapped in an integrity that neither party nominee can offer—and he has a long background in (and deep understanding of) community organizing as well as electoral politics. When he started as a politician, Vermont was not exactly a progressive hotspot. I believe he helped create the climate where his state is now among the bluest in the nation.

Interestingly, all three are around the same age, spanning from Clinton’s 68 to Sanders’ 74 (Trump just turned 70)—yet the oldest, Sanders, had the strongest appeal to youth. And the younger candidates, from O’Malley to Rubio, were all eliminated months ago.

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By Posted on Posted in Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity, General Commentary, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , , ,
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.

Legendary marketer Seth Godin recently wrote about offering the benefit of confidence, rather than the benefit of the doubt.

He said:

Someone faced with doubt rarely brings her best self to the table. Doubt undermines confidence, it casts aspersions, it assumes untruths…

[W]hat happens if you begin with, “the benefit of confidence” instead? What if you begin by believing, by seeking to understand, by rooting for the other person to share their best stories, their vision and their hopes?

I’ve never articulated this, but it’s a key part of my business philosophy. I assume the best intentions, and the ability to rise to greatness. Sometimes there’s a lot of doubt to overcome.

A client of mine who has now worked with me for several years first approached me by mailing a poorly written typewritten manuscript (probably typed in the 1970s) to my postal address, without including either a phone number or an email, with an almost incomprehensible cover note. I overcame my skepticism and modified and printed out a copy of my response to book shepherding queries, and told him in the letter that he had to give me an email address and phone number, and to get the book into a computer so I could send it to an editor. While I didn’t really expect to hear from him again, I think I may have gotten the job because I was polite and responded as I would to any other prospect. I said nothing dismissive or condescending and simply outlined the (many) steps it would take to turn this into a publishable and published book, and some idea of how much that would cost. He has done everything I suggested and the final book was so good that it won an Ippy Award and the screenwriter we hired to do a movie treatment fell in love with it.

While this was an extreme case, quite a few of my book shepherding clients were starting from an extremely rough place (including several whose first language was not English). They spend several tens of thousands with me by the time the project is done—and they are thrilled and amazed by the finished product. Quite a few have won awards.

On the green and social entrepreneurship profitability/product development and marketing consulting side of my business, I see similar patterns. Some companies would like to go green but have no idea. Others are already going down that route but would like to find a way to tie their work to something bigger. They want to do something that turns hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. Again, the process can be long and slow, but the results are worth it.

So while I’ve never articulated Godin’s “Benefit of Confidence,” I’ve lived it. Thanks, Seth.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Branding, Business Ethics, Democracy, Entrepreneurship, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Donald Trump and the late Muhammad Ali had at least three things in common: personal wealth, a love of bragging and a willingness to speak their mind even if others were offended. But there’s a big difference: Ali actually had something to brag about. He really was the greatest at what he did, racking up an amazing 55 victories over 61 fights in his career, and going undefeated in his first 30 bouts.

Muhammad Ai probably wore gloves like these. Photo by Wojciech Ner.
Muhammad Ai probably wore boxing gloves like these. Photo by Wojciech Ner.

He was also a man of deep principle, foregoing his career for three years after refusing to fight in Vietnam.

This is what he said about that choice:

Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.

Agree or disagree with him , you knew where he stood.

Ali was also a humanitarian and philanthropist, using his fortune—a fortune amassed not through inherited wealth and speculative business ventures, but by coming up out of poverty and putting himself in the ring to be slugged again and again by some of the strongest people in the world—for social good.

By contrast, Trump brags about screwing people over, is very quick to unleash insults on others, and yet is very thin-skinned when anyone criticizes him. He even revoked the Washington Post’s media credentials to cover the Trump campaign because he didn’t like the things he said about them.

Let’s listen to Trump in his own words:

“The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.” –Donald Trump

Of course, it helps that he inherited a fortune from his father, a large-scale NYC landlord whose racist policies were so bad that Woody Guthrie (his tenant, briefly) wrote scathing songs about him. Trump’s own record includes lots of failure—including four bankruptcies. It’s hard to imagine him getting rich if he hadn’t had the springboard of his father’s wealth. And he brags about using bankruptcy as a tool to screw the public to further his personal fortune. This quote is on the same 2011 ABC news report on the bankruptcies:

I’ve used the laws of this country to pare debt. … We’ll have the company. We’ll throw it into a chapter. We’ll negotiate with the banks. We’ll make a fantastic deal. You know, it’s like on ‘The Apprentice.’ It’s not personal. It’s just business.

Two more very telling quotes from The Donald:

“If you can’t get rich dealing with politicians, there’s something wrong with you.”

“I rented him a piece of land. He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn’t let him use the land. That’s what we should be doing. I don’t want to use the word ‘screwed’, but I screwed him.”–Donald Trump

Has he reformed? No. Just look at the recent flurry of news stories quoting everyone from the conservative National Review to the New York State Attorney General calling his Trump University “a scam.”

Results for search for "trump university scam" from Washington Post, CNN, Wikipedia, and National Review
Results for search for “trump university scam” from Washington Post, CNN, Wikipedia, and National Review

This is the continuation of a long history of unethical business dealings, as this story in US News and World Report notes.

As it happens, I’ve heard both Muhammad Ali and Donald Trump speak in person—Ali at an Aretha Franklin concert in Harlem, in 1971, and Trump delivering the keynote for a conference where I was also speaking, in 2004. Ali’s speech left me feeling empowered. Trump’s left me feeling I’d been slimed by an exhibitionist in a public place.

This bullying, thin-skinned, name-calling racist and sexist who brags about how he gets rich on the backs of others has no grasp of the issues, and apparently no ethics. He  doesn’t belong in the White House.

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By Posted on Posted in Branding, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , ,

The 21016 US presidential race shows that branding repels as well as attracts.

Three of the five remaining candidates have very strong brands. Trump has the strongest, clearest brand: “it’s all about me; the issues don’t matter.” I found him repugnant 11 years ago when he keynoted a conference where I was speaking, and find him even more so today. What part of his brand that is not based in Donaldism is rooted in misogyny and racism. His cult of personality is far too reminiscent of dictators in other countries, other centuries. His cluelessness on the issues, tolerance of violence at his rallies and in his campaign leadership, and his blatant disregard for truth create a strong brand indeed—but it’s strong like the odor of raw sewage, a push-away. This is not who I want governing the country!

Next strongest is Sanders, who is all about integrity, consistency, and giving a leg up to those who’ve been squeezed out by the 1%. And who got my vote in the primary. While just as much an outsider, Sanders is the opposite of Trump. I think ultimately Sanders’ “we” will trump Trump’s “me.” Win or lose, he is out there to build a movement, and is universally respected for it.

Interestingly, both of these two have built brands on their outsider-ness. Not a good year for the mainstream candidates, even those who are the son/brother—or wife—of former presidents.

The third brand-builder is Clinton. She is very much a mainstream candidate and has built her brand around “isn’t it time for a smart, powerful woman to be in power?” Like Trump, she’s a “me” candidate, but with more appeal to constituencies that vote. Unfortunately for her, it’s been wrapped up in a package of entitlement, incompetence, lack of transparency, and settling for crumbs.

That Sanders has even been a contender, let alone actually won so many contests and nearly tied several others, shows some of the flaws in Clinton’s strategy. Without resorting to attack ads, he has successfully pointed out that she is a Janey-come-lately on issues ranging from LGBT rights to the TPP trade agreement, where he has been forthright and consistent for decades. He is the first serious contender in decades to raise a viable campaign budget from a broad base of millions of supporters. Meanwhile, she tells the American people to be satisfied with what they have, while he talks about redistributing wealth from the 1%.

There is certainly some part of the Clinton brand that is wildly successful. She is perceived as greater a friend to people of color, while even though Bernie grew up in ultra-diverse New York City and marched with Martin Luther King while she was working for Barry Goldwater, he is perceived as trapped in whiteness. And she has successfully outflanked him from the left on one issue: guns. But the perception is that she doesn’t see the big picture, doesn’t understand the shift in the culture, will be at least as obstructed by the other side as Obama, and expects people to vote for her just because she’s been waiting so long.

Of course, two other candidates still remain on the Republican side: Cruz and Kasich. Neither has really built a brand. What Cruz stands for—a hard-right agenda fueled by religious conservatism (and, seemingly, some personal unlikability)—is not widely known around the country. If he becomes the nominee, the Democrats will build his brand for him, warning of the apocalypse to come (as they’re already doing regarding Trump).

As a relatively personable moderate with a reasonable track record, Kasich would actually be the Republicans’ best hope if he had any marketing traction. Of the three remaining, he’s the only one who could get independents and centrist Democrats aboard. Fortunately for the Democrats, he doesn’t. The GOP clearly wants an extremist this year, and Kasich has won only his own state of Ohio.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Psychology Tagged with , , , ,

In September, 2011, a small group of  protestors took over New York City’s Zuccotti Park, one block from Wall Street. They called themselves “Occupy Wall Street.”

This action was the first in a national and international Occupy movement that sprang up in parks and elsewhere, and lasted for months. I visited Zuccotti Park, as well as Occupy parks in Boston, Northampton (MA), and Montreal; it was clearly a powerful movement. It sparked global awareness that a lot of people, especially young people and people of color, felt pretty marginalized. It popularized “99 percent vs. 1 percent” organizing slogans. And it forced US President Barack Obama to move his rhetoric leftward, and to at least verbally champion the dispossessed.

That action continues to reverberate through American and world politics, four and a half years later. The movement around a $15 minimum hourly wage is just one of its legacies. Another is the amazingly strong presidential campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an outspoken progressive. Sanders, with no ties to the power structure and no reliance on conventional political funding, was given no chance of even having an impact; now, he’s ranked as the contender likely to most easily beat either Trump or Cruz in the general election.

Two Bernie Sanders volunteers decided to set up a short-notice phone bank for Bernie…right in Zuccotti Park! The symbolism of raising money to fight Wall Street in Wall Street’s own shadow—and at the very scene where a bunch of “riff-raff” took on the power structure—is clear…and beautiful.

It’s been a good week for symbolism in the Bernie camp; a few days ago, a bird landed on his podium while he was addressing a rally, and he immediately dubbed it “a dove asking us for world peace.”

A bird lands on Bernie Sanders' podium (PBS)
A bird lands on Bernie Sanders’ podium (PBS)

His campaign is gaining traction all the time. I hope the Democratic Party has the courage to let him be its standard-bearer this fall.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Peace and War, Politics, propaganda, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

I deeply resent Hillary Clinton’s message that we can’t go for what we really want. Barack Obama beat her in ’08 because his message was “hope” and “yes we can.” He made some of that a reality in spite of tremendous resistance–more than I’ve ever seen for ANY president’s policies. But he would have gotten much more accomplished if he’d continued organizing: bringing the same coalition that led him to victory into supporting his agenda and pressuring that reluctant Congress. As a former community organizer, he should have known this.

Bill Clinton’s presidency shows the dangers of the HRC approach. By dismissing any effort at real change right from the start, he allowed himself, over and over again, to back away from meaningful change and turn what should have been the post-negotiation fallback position into the starting gate, and then allow that to be whittled down further until the change was so small that Grover Norquist actually could drown it in a bathtub.

Obama made the same mistake. “Single payer isn’t on the table but we have a public option” turned into. “no public option.” And the ACA as finally passed was a giveaway to insurance companies. Yes, it made people’s live’s better and I’m glad it passed. But Obama squandered the potential for much deeper reform.

Isn’t it so much better to aim for what you really want and get only three-quarters of the way than to aim for what you think is “achievable”—and still get only three-quarters of the way? It’s a very rare football play that gets a touchdown from the kick-off point. Much more commonly, the team advances the ball, play by play, and starts again from the end point of the last play. Then they get the touchdown.

It took 100 years to eliminate slavery in the US. It took another 100 to pass meaningful civil rights legislation, and it may be another 100 before the cancer of racism is nothing but a memory. It has already taken about 80 years to get even the wimpy ACA; that doesn’t mean we say we don’t need to make more progress. And it certainly doesn’t mean you have to tear down the ACA before you have something better in place.

Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”

Muhammad Ali put it this way:

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.

And I personally have taken on the “impossible” goal of showing the business community how to turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance—at a profit. Taking my cue from Ali, when I speak on this, my talk is called “Impossible is a Dare!” I’ve also written a book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, that demonstrates how these future victories are actually quite possible. I’ve done “impossible” things before. Why restrict ourselves by thinking small?

I have other issues with Hillary besides her willingness to settle for less even before the negotiations start. HRC’s ties to Wall Street make me nervous. Her hawkish rhetoric, even more so. And her Middle East policy is just plain shameful. As an American Jew, I stand up and say “Israel right or wrong” is as misguided as “America right or wrong” was in the Vietnam era—and I further say that we progressives knew that going into Iraq as we did was a terrible mistake. I was out there in the streets with millions of other Americans, saying “don’t do this, it will be a disaster.” There is zero justification for her vote to support the worst foreign policy disaster in history.

I will proudly—excitedly—vote for Bernie in the primary. Nonetheless, if Hillary is the nominee—and she probably will, due in part to Party rules that allocate delegates to high-status mainstream Democrats over and above those allocated in elections—I would support her unequivocally over any of the Republicans running. I think she has a good heart, I’d much rather see her in charge of picking the next members of the Supreme Court than any of that bunch, and I would see her election—as I saw Obama’s—as getting us closer on the path from the kick-off to the goal.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Democracy, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,
Top of a special Bernie Sanders fundraising offer involving a very special custom pint of ice cream
Top of a Bernie Sanders fundraising offer involving a very special custom pint of ice cream
Farther down the page, showing the whole container
Farther down the page, showing the whole container

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you already know I’m supporting Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. And if you read this blog regularly, you know I’m both a long-time student of marketing and a long-time advocate of marketing with honesty and integrity.

In light of this, I received a mailing from one of the groups allied with the Sanders campaign, and immediately noticed some things I wanted to share.

  • The product is totally in keeping with Bernie’s message, talking about the “1%” chocolate layer on top of the ice cream
  • The video featuring Ben Cohen explaining the flavor to Jerry Greenfield, is hilarious, especially where he talks about breaking through the one percent barrier to spread the wealth (the chocolate) throughout the pint
  • Most marketers, when faced with the opportunity to offer a single unique item, set a stratospheric price—but even with a total production run of just fifty, and only one being given to this organization, the price is only $50 (once again reinforcing the brand messaging)
  • However, it’s something of a lottery; only one person gets the prize, but anyone who contributes $50 or more by the deadline gets to play
  • There are also a number of less exclusive rewards—democratizing the lottery somewhat.

If you’d like to see the other prizes, or make a donation and enter the raffle (deadline is tomorrow), visit https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/wewantbernie

Disclaimer and disclosures: I am not involved in any way with organizing this promotion and don’t benefit financially. I have given money to the Sanders campaign and I’ve probably also given money to Progressive Democrats of America, the sponsoring organization.

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By Posted on Posted in Business-general, Customer Service as Marketing, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , ,
The brain of a call center clerk ("Call Center Dave," by Ray Smithers)
The brain of a call center clerk ("Call Center Dave," by Ray Smithers)-graphic
The brain of a call center clerk (“Call Center Dave,” by Ray Smithers)

Dear business owners and bureaucrats: If you fill your customer positions with stupid people, or if you don’t empower them to address issues that come up, you damage your own brand.

All customer service people are by definition part of your marketing team. If they perform badly, they drive customers away.

I’ve just had one-too-many encounters with a stupid person in a customer service position, and I realize I won’t get any real work done until I can blow off some steam. So I may as well blow that steam as a blog post. I’m overdue for a good rant in this space.

I’m helping an 85-year-old, not-very-computer-savvy Japanese citizen renew his passport. The Japanese Consulate Boston website says their online renewal form only works with PCs; my friend has a 12-year-old Mac. So I called them to get an application form mailed to him.

The idiot I spoke to was amazingly UNhelpful. First she said we had to send a self-addressed 9×12 envelope to Boston with $1.20 in postage just to get the forms. And then she refused to give me the consulate’s address and told me to get it off the website (which is in Japanese, which I don’t read). I actually had to yell at her before I could pry the street address out of her.

You would think they could simply mail out the packet, and tack an extra $5 onto the renewal fee if using postal mail.

This has the effect of pushing Japan farther down on the list of countries I’d like to visit.

It also got me thinking about the hundreds of times I’ve encountered an employee charged with “customer service” who either didn’t have a clue about what customer service actually means, or haven’t been empowered to actually deal with situations that come up.

I’m remembering in particular the time (about ten years before they went out of business) that I was in a Blockbuster Video and I saw a sign with great language about how they empowered every one of their employees to do right by their customers. I was writing a book on marketing (as usual 😉 ) at that time, and I asked the counter clerk for permission to photograph the sign so I could quote it in my book. And this disempowered employee in this supposedly enlightened store said he didn’t have authority and I’d need to ask headquarters!

It wasn’t so much his inability to let me do what I asked. It was the disconnect between what the sign said and the 180-degree-opposite reality that completely wrecked my perception of Blockbuster’s brand. I never set foot in a Blockbuster again. They lost a decade of my business for being stupid.

Then there was the chief mechanic at my local Toyota dealer, who called me after several days of non-response to my status queries and told me I had 24 hours to get my car off his lot, and by the way, the engine is in pieces in the trunk. I was so appalled I wrote a long letter to the VP of customer service for the United States, and I never went back to that dealer for anything else, ever, not even a tube of touch-up paint. I drove 40 extra miles round trip when I needed something from a Toyota dealer. And the next time I bought a new car, it wasn’t a Toyota. That mechanic threw away 20 years of brand loyalty and a lifetime customer value in the hundreds of thousands.

Let me say it differently: front-line customer service reps are either your marketing ambassadors (think Southwest Airlines, Nordstrom, Ritz-Carlton) or your marketing saboteurs. Which do you choose to represent you?

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