Great service isn’t in abundance in America. Great service isn’t expected here either. And that’s a shame. I feel really special when I get great service; wouldn’t it be cool if it just became the standard?

Photo credit: Louthor

My good friend called me and was raving about the new phone she just bought. I asked a few questions and then got off the phone thinking I couldn’t survive another day without an iPhone! It’s that easy. We trust the people we know (and like) – for their opinion, their recommendations and the people they know. After all, we tend to hang with people that are a lot like us! By the way, my iPhone should be arriving in the mail this week! We have a lot of choices in our lives. Refer people, refer products, refer business – make those choices easy! When you get information via word of mouth it is just more trustworthy!

Photo credit: John of Dublin

We’re big believers in the marriage of PR and Experiential and we can walk, talk and guide you towards these budgets that you probably don’t get to see very often. As Edelman believes, “there’s never been a better time to break the stereotypes about what a PR agency can bring to the mix.” Click here for a link to the full article.

Steve Randazzo and Cathi Kennedy
Sponsors of the 2009 Worldcom PR Conference in Puerto Rico

Obviously there are many variables to consider as you decide when and where to take your brand. Who’s your target audience? What kind of environment does your experience call for? What time of year do you want to activate? In which markets do you want to reach consumers? What does your budget look like?

Answer those questions and you’re off to a good start, but every project deserves its own customized location search to ensure the objectives will be met. A bad location choice can destroy any project’s metrics. Not to mention, who wants to explain to the boss why no one – or worse, the wrong demographic – showed up to the experience?

Keep an eye out for more “Location, Location, Location” posts. I’m going to highlight some of the venues where we’ve taken our clients’ brands, as well as the reasons we chose the places we did. In the meantime, feel free to comment and let me know where you’ve seen or hosted great events and how that important location choice made a difference.

• Be very, very persistent, i.e., stalking (because most people these days love getting 10-12 emails and voicemail per day from the same person).
• Make sure your product is something your prospect would only use on Leap Year.
• When you do get someone on the phone… be vague. Give them no clue about why you are calling and what your product is.
• Do absolutely no research on your prospect. Buyers really like spending their time explaining their business to you so you can then try to take their money.
• And for a closer, to ensure they will not even attend an industry event if they see your name on the roster… once the prospect tells you they are not interested, be sure to call back the very next day and leave several messages saying; “it is obvious that you just don’t understand what I am trying to tell you!”

If you stick to these few, but basic techniques I can almost guarantee you won’t have to worry about this problem for long.

Photo credit:  blknauss

My four kids had two days off last week because of the doom and gloom predicted by the local weathercaster. They called the first day off the night before and I swear it was more dangerous walking through my kitchen with all of the snow boots and snow suits piled up than it was on any road within a 20 mile radius of my house by 10:00am. The second day they called off school there might have been 3 inches total of snow which in the school district’s mind is a blizzard. The only reason they feel this way is because every media outlet is “Live” on top of some overpass all day long talking about the perils of “Winter Storm 2010.”

Luckily with my job at Pro Motion I am able to work out of my house every now and then. On both of these days I was faced with several phone calls with clients and a webinar or two on Field Marketing and Event Management. The rest of the time was spent on making Mac n’ cheese and hot cocoa production for half the neighborhood while cycling gloves, scarves, and socks through the clothes dryer for maximum outdoor enjoyment.

I decided in the afternoon on both days to take a page out of our industry of experiential marketing and turn my house into a mini event. I was able to include several stations all of which were geared to the target consumer (the kids) and would represent the brands focus (How do I keep the kids busy so I can get some work done?) (O.k. no more shop talk- I promise). I had a coloring/art station where the kids were instructed to make either snowmen (my 6-year-old daughter informed me that snowperson was the correct term) or snow flakes, a chill lounge in the basement where they could watch movies on the big screen with popcorn and drinks, an XBox tournament for the older guys, and Nerf wars in the back bedrooms. They loved it! And they haven’t stopped talking about it.

My wife is already feeling the pressure… all the kids have informed her that Dad’s Snow Days rock!

I can’t wait for spring…

I’m sure that I loved them because all of my friends had them. We wore Keds every day. We wore them with jeans in the winter time and shorts in the summer time. I even wore mine to gym class! They were great because they went with everything.

The only downside to Keds was that they got dirty so quickly. That wasn’t a problem for me, because as soon as that canvas started to get dirty I would quickly spring into action and begin the process of personalizing my Keds. That’s right, Keds served as more than just a shoe, the white canvas was literally my art canvas as I used puffy paint, markers, sequins, ribbons you name it, if I could find it in a craft store I probably painted it, hot glued it or tied it to my Keds in some fashion. I guess Keds took the hint as you can now design your own unique pair of Keds on their website, www.keds.com.

I might have replaced the comfort of the white canvas with high heels and I certainly don’t puffy paint my best friend’s name on my shoes anymore, but I will always have fond memories of the Keds from my childhood.

So, what was your first brand relationship?

Photo credit:  keds_1916

“What’s with the “enthusiastic” tagline? What does that have to do with your business?” he asked.

I knew the answer like it was etched in my brain with a giant Sharpie, but rather than try to explain the justification process that got us there, I wanted to help him figure it out so it would stick. It’s never too late to teach an old dog or middle-aged engineer new tricks.

“Did you ever meet someone who was totally engaging and truly happy to be talking with you?” I asked.

Interestingly, he had an example right away. “Sure, there is this kid working at our local Domino’s. Every time I walk in the place she sings out with a big ‘hello’ and ‘Here for pick up again?’ – always smiling, always a bright spot even when it looks like chaos in the back, they’re all that way.”

Nice, this is going to be easier than I thought. “So, do you go there a lot?”

“Yea, I go there all the time. It’s close, fast and hot and my kids eat it like they’re breathing air.”

“What about Pizza Hut or Imo’s?” (a local St. Louis favorite)

“No, mostly Domino’s, it’s not any closer, just … I don’t know, just easier.”

“Really, are you sure? What about the reception you have when you go there? Don’t you feel like you matter, like you’re important?”

“Sure – good customer service, happy employees, positive people. But what does that have to do with your company? You guys do cool trucks and events.”

We get that all the time. It’s like telling someone from NASA, “You guys launch rockets.” The fact is it’s the people behind and in the rocket who make it all worthwhile.

“True, but those are just tools we use to get attention out in the world. We help companies create relationships with customers using great “enthusiastic” people – people like your Domino’s guys.”

“Ah, makes sense.”

“People relate to enthusiastic people because it’s personal, it’s real and when you can look someone in the eye you can tell if they believe in what they’re doing. That’s why “pure enthusiasm” is our tagline. “

Just when I was wrapping up this blog post, we had three employees from the local Smoothie King drop by our office with free Smoothies for everyone in our company. A local school had over-ordered and they had to give them away. They had seen our logo and tagline on the front of our building and said they wanted to meet the “Pure Enthusiasm” people and find out what we did. I love good branding.

One engineer and three smoothie chefs converted, ten million people to go.

If you were there, it was only a matter of time before you were looking for an Energi to Go, a battery operated phone charger, allowing you to continue to walk the floor and make the deals – and this time batteries were included. Attendees and exhibitors were delighted to find Energizer giving away the Energi to Go battery operated cell phone chargers. All were delighted except for the one attendee who had walked five blocks to Walgreens and paid $25 for a new charger.

Now we’re off to the next city bringing a charge to those in need!