Carlon Haas.com

When we do business, we will get customers who are not satisfied with our products services for one reason or another.  Yesterday, I talked about 3 things you can do to provide world-class customer service.

But what happens when the client is still not satisfied?  

The answer is simple (and key to your future marketing efforts).  All you have to do is…

…give them a quick and hassle-free refund.  

Easy, huh?  

But this is where most people miss a valuable opportunity.  And what opportunity is that?  I’ll get to that in just a second.

First, let me say that when marketing our services, one of the most powerful tools we have is the testimonial.  For every satisfied client, you should be getting a testimonial from them to give you credibility with future clients.  

And most of us use them.  On my site, I have them in nice yellow boxes for everyone to see.  

But what does this have to do with refunders?  It’s easy…

…ask them for a testimonial.  

I know some of you are thinking I am nuts.  But if you are selling a product (say a book), getting a refunder to give you a testimonial can be more powerful than all the praises.  Think about it.  What if you read a testimonial like this:

“I bought Carlon’s course, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be.  I thought getting a refund would be a hassle, but Carlon promptly refunded my money.  You can’t trust many people on the internet, but I can tell you that his 1-year no hassle money back guarantee is for real.”  

What does that testimonial tell you about me?  It says I am honest, I back up my guarantee, and it answers that one big objection: what if I don’t like it.  It is also a powerful testament to my credibility because it comes from someone who is NOT my buyer.  

So, before you write off a refunder for good.  Think about getting a testimonial from them.  It just might be worth the cost of the refund.

To Your Success,

Carlon Haas
www.carlonhaas.com
results@carlonhaas.com  

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I just read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal.  It talks about how although “customer service” is a big buzzword right now, but few firms actually do it.  

I agree.  

But that’s good news for you.  

Why?

Because by giving outstanding customer service, you can take a ton of business from the big guys.  

I am not kidding.  And in fact I am shocked at how bad customer service has gotten.  My clients actually thank me constantly for being on time.  

Being on time!  

Can you believe that?  I think punctuality should go without saying, but it just goes to show you how little clients are appreciated by some companies and independent professionals.  

But you can fill that void.  The bar is set so low now (pathetic but true) that just doing the bare minimum can get your more clients than you know what to do with.  

I do what I call the 3 “up”s for excellent customer service:

1. Show up on time to meetings.  In fact, show up 15 minutes early.  People appreciate when you respect their time.
2. Stay up on the deadline.  Never miss a deadline.  In fact, overestimate the time it will take to finish a job.  Then deliver it early.  Besides, if something comes up you have a little extra time to get the job done on time.  
3. Follow up after you’re done.  When you finish a job, send an e-mail and ask how it went.  The feedback you get will be more valuable than anything else you will ever

That’s it.  Show up, stay up, and follow up.  Seems simple, but you’d be shocked at how many people don’t do these things.  Follow the 3 “up”s, and you’ll be on your way to excellent customer service.

To Your Success,

Carlon Haas
www.carlonhaas.com

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I always preach to my clients, you should look for lessons in business and marketing from every source possible. Develop funnel vision, instead of tunnel vision.

Well, it seems that every week I am always hit over the head with insight from an unlikely source…

…my violin teacher.

For those who don’ know, I thought it would be a good idea to pick up the violin after I turned 30, with no musical training whatsoever. I got a violin, got a teacher, and 2 years later…

…I still suck. But at least I can kind of play in tune.

I had another teacher for the first year who gave me some VERY bad habits. But my violin teacher now…for lack of a better word…rocks!

She’s a “no excuses” violin teacher.

Don’t believe me?

Check out her studio policies, and tell me what you think. In fact, it was her “no excuses” policy that got me to take lessons with her in the first place. And I highly recommend her to anyone in the Austin area who wants violin lessons for themselves or their kids.

Anyway, yesterday my violin teacher asked me about how my bowing was coming along. And I began this long tome about my bowing, intonation, the superiority of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony over the 5th…

…luckily, she stopped me before the lesson expired. And she made an enlightening comment. She had asked me about bowing (and ONLY about bowing), but I went on about everything about playing the violin. She told me that when learning the violin I have to take each part separately and pointed out that I have a tendency instead to “take on everything at once” ( I do…ask my wife).

Well, marketing can be like that too. While it is a good idea to do everything at once, you need to make sure you are getting the parts right. Your direct mail pieces should be converting, you should track your internet conversion rates, tabulate the response rates to ALL your ads.

And as you go along, you should tweak your ads to make sure that you are getting the most response and the most sales from them (you must split testing all ads). And just as even the greatest violinists keep practicing and refining their techniques, marketers and businesses alike need to develop and refine their ads to get the best results possible.

Have a Great Weekend,

Carlon Haas
www.carlonhaas.com

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I thought I’d give everyone an extra Valentine’s Day post…

…not about marketing though.

The hardest part about living and working with the woman you love is that it’s hard to surprise her.

Think about it! I can’t just sneak out of the office. And we’ve known each other so long that she always knows when I’m up to something.

But she is now putting our 2 year old to sleep, and I am free to post my love for her to the entire blog-reading world!

So, to my wife of 6 years…who’s been my best friend for the last 10 years…

…Happy Valentine’s Day.

And for the rest of you…

…I hope you had a great Valentine’s Day.

To Your Success (and Happiness),

Carlon Haas
www.carlonhaas.com

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Sometimes when you aren’t getting sales, it may not be your ad copy. When I work with clients as a marketing consultant, one of the first things I look at (other than their list, if they have one) is their offer.

Time and time again, I notice that their offers are either priced incorrectly for their target market or the way they phrase their offer has a lot left to be desired.

Think of the sales you typically see in retail. Think of the many ways they could craft the offer. Let’s say an office supply store is selling pens at half off for the weekend. Here are a couple of ways to phrase that offer:

All pens 50% off.
All pens–buy one get one free.

Now most of us like the second offer better than the first. Most marketing consultants or gurus will tell you that the word “free” gets a higher response. So, more people will respond to an offer with the word free in it.

But I like one more thing about the second offer—it puts a minimum purchase at 2 rather than one.

With the first offer, it says I can buy one pen at 50% off. But with the second offer, I feel almost obligated to buy 2 pens (if I buy one, I get a second one free).

Most businesses should concern themselves with the response to their offers, as well they should. But response is just one part of the marketing equation.

When crafting irresistible offers, ask yourself 3 questions:

1. Can I get more people to buy?
2. Can I get them to buy more?
3. Can I get them to pay more?

Then go out there and test your offer. If your offer can do all 3, then you will see exponential sales growth.

To Your Success,

Carlon Haas
www.carlonhaas.com

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Last night, I went to an amazing networking/non-networking event called the 8 Minute Ripple. I won’t go into too much detail, but if any of you are in the Austin area, I would highly recommend it.

The gist of the event is that you ask and answer pre-written personal questions to someone else for 8 minutes to try to make connections with people before talking about business. For guys like me that absolutely abhor networking as we know it, the structured environment made it easier to talk without having to take out my “elevator speech” every other minute.

But the cool thing is that although I met a lot of good people, I got more out of it than that. This event had me observing people and actively listening to them. And from that, I was able to learn a great many things I may not have taken the time to learn.

I was able to see how many people have developed “tunnel vision” when it comes to their businesses and even in their lives in some respect.

Tunnel vision is only looking at the narrow confines of our own business and sometimes even limiting ourselves to the contextual framework of our limited life experiences.

I have always recommended “funnel vision” which is looking all around in unrelated businesses and taking the successes from those businesses and integrating them into yours.

To your Success,

Carlon Haas
www.carlonhaas.com

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One of the best lessons I ever got in life-time value of a customer was when I worked customer service for a retail store while I was in college.

One day a kid came in to return a walkman. It was 15 days past the return date, and I told him that he couldn’t do it. But as he was about to leave, the manager came out.

“It’s all right. We will return this for you.”

The kid looked at me like I was a jerk and thanked the manager. I had the honor of ringing up his refund.

Later, I went to the manager because he was constantly letting customers return things past the return date and I wanted to know why he did it this time. I mean, he was just a kid, right?

Well…

…I got a big-time lesson in lifetime value of a customer.

He told me: “Look, he might have been a kid, but one day he’s going to grow up. He’ll be a teenager and buy stereo equipment. He’ll get out on his own and want to buy a TV, refrigerator, and all sorts of other stuff (that we happen to carry). The question is: who will he buy it from. That kid will remember the kind service he got from us and how we gave him back his money even though we didn’t have to. We might lose $50 now, but we’ll get a customer for life.”

I didn’t quite “get it” at the time, but I preach the same message now. Think long-term. And always think about the life-time value of your customers.

Keep the life-time value of your customers in mind when coming up with a marketing campaign. It will go a long way in helping you decide on how much you can spend to acquire a new customer.

Have a great weekend,

Carlon Haas

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I’m going to lay this on the line for all of you out there:

If you’re in business, any business, the WORST excuse you can ever give is…

…blaming the customer for your mistakes.

And this brings me to an incident that occured at the grocery store that will remain nameless. Here’s what happened:

I’m at the store to buy my favorite beer, New Belgium 1554 Black Ale.

I get to the register and it rings up $7.57. So, I ask the cashier (we’ll call her D.), “Why is it $7.57?”

“It’s because has $.58 tax.”

“But the sign said it was $5.99.”

Not wanting to bicker, I suggested we go have a look at the sign, which is a few feet from the register. We can do this because the store is dead.

“See, the sign says $5.99.”

Now the fun begins.

D. exclaims, “No, I think you are looking at the wrong sign.”

“You mean the one that says 6 pack 1554 Belgium Black Ale for $5.99?”

Rather than be defeated, D. continues pointing to another beer sign that says $6.99 and insisting that the lager beer is the one I’m really trying to buy.

Pointing to the six pack in my hand, I say, “No, it is the 1554 beer that I am buying, not the lager.”

“Oh, I see,” D. says.

I breathe a sigh of relief…

…a little too early it seems.

“But these are for the 8 ounce bottles. Your beer bottles are bigger than that.”

“It says 8.32 cents per ounce! $5.99 for the 6 pack!”

Finally, D. relents and gets the price changed.

Here’s the thing: I think everyone who reads this blog has had a similar experience. Businesses of all sizes can make mistakes. And when you do, don’t make excuses. And never ever blame your customers for your mistakes.

One bad experience can turn a customer away from you for life. And that dissatisfied customer will tell 10-12 of his good buddies. Believe it. It happens like that.

But luckily for the unnamed grocery store, I thought the little exchange I had with D. is was funny, and since I have never had that kind of experience at this particular grocery before it won’t affect my business with them.

But D. does get my excuse-maker of the week award.

Hoping for a “no excuses” weekend,

Carlon Haas

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The other week, I went to a grocery store (name withheld to protect the innocent) to buy 2 things:

1. Paper towels
2. A can of cooking spray

When I went to the counter to pay, the cashier asked me, “Would you like some ice with that/”

“Ice?” I replied.

The cashier looked a little dumbstruck and nothing further was said.

This, my dear blog readers, was perhaps the worst attempt at cross-selling I’ve ever seen.

Cross-selling is something I encourage everyone to do, but remember the key to cross-selling is offering a complimentary item.

For example, if I am buying beer, then it would be quite proper to ask me if I wanted ice. But cooking spray, paper towels, and…

… ice?

If someone out there can find the connection, I’d be willing to entertain your theories.

Remember if you are going to cross-sell…

…make sure the items cross-sold are related and seem like a logical compliment of one another.

Your bottom line will thank you.

To your success,
Carlon Haas

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Monday was supposed to be the day that I sent out my annual best wishes for the New Year. You see, I lived in Korea so long that I still tend to celebrate the Lunar New Year as my new year’s day.

But the e-mail didn’t get sent out on time.

You see, the night before my 2 year old daughter spiked a high fever in the middle of the night. My wife and I were up till almost 6:00 am bringing the fever down. Needless to say, my schedule didn’t get back on track until right now.

Our daughter has had a febrile seizure in the past, and so we have to be extra careful when she gets sudden fevers to prevent another seizure (doctor says we’ll have to do this till she “outgrows” it at about 9 years old).

For those who don’t know about febrile seizures, let’s just say that the doctor says they’re not a problem to the long-term health of the child, but they are scary as hell to watch a child go through.

But seeing my daughter like that the other night reminded me of how easily the things we take for granted in life can be taken away. One day everything is fine, the next day…

…BAM…everything is upended.

It does happen that way to some people.

Every day I look for more ways to make people (and myself) money and make their businesses successful. And, to be honest, I love what I am doing and can get so totally engrossed in it that I do ignore things in my life that I should not ignore.

Not often…but we all do it from time to time.

I’ve never really subscribed to the whole “make money at all costs” theory, but sometimes we get so caught up in what we want to do that we lost sight of what we’re doing.

We lose sight of what’s really important and take the things that we have for granted.

But we can lose those things at any moment.

So, I think it’s a good idea to sometimes take stock of our lives…

…look at what we want to achieve and why we are doing it.

I am not saying that we should not go all out to achieve our professional goals or that we shouldn’t try to make as much money as humanly possible.

I am saying that every so often we should put our lives into prospective.

We should ever forget the reason why we do what we do. And we should not neglect the things that are really important because sometimes…

…by the time we get around to it, it just might be too late.

To your success,

Carlon Haas
P.S. My daughter is perfectly fine now and is back to running my wife and I ragged. Time to take her to “Uncle Steve”’s house again.

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