How I Market Myself and Adelsberger Marketing Part 3

I make stark raving fans.

Well, at least I try to. Sometimes it’s out of my control. But as far as it goes with me, I try my best to meet and exceed my customer’s expectations. When I am able to make customers into fans, I am able to create a base of people who want me to succeed as well as pay me. It’s a great combo.

How do I do that? I am still figuring it out, but here are some thoughts:

Deliver:
Make it happen. Everytime. Sometimes you land the plane with no sleep or in the Hudson, but you still land the plane. When it comes to delivering on a project, you need to be willing to move heaven and earth to accomplish something you said you would do. Failing to deliver is not a way to make stark raving fans.

Being willing to say: I don’t know or that I was wrong.
I make mistakes sometimes and sometimes I don’t know the best solution for my client. I am willing to refer people out to a better solution. (Most) People appreciate honesty. I tend, to be honest enough to lose business sometimes and so far it’s worked out really well.
When you make a mistake, be willing to take a hit financially as well. If I screwed something up, I am willing to take a hit financially and have. But offering your customer a discount or a refund on a mistake is treating the customer right and that is a great way to make a stark raving fan.

Answer the phone/ talk with everyone:
I love learning about other people’s businesses. Because of that and general human decency, I talk to everyone who wants to meet with me. This can be time-consuming, but you never know where the next meeting might lead.

I also answer the phone. Let me be clear when I say answer the phone, I mean I call everyone back. My phone is almost always on silent and especially during times of focus, I leave my phone out of reach so I can get some work done. So I will call all my customers back in a timely manner, every time, every day. Communication with customers is a key component of building stark raving fans.

Don’t nickel and dime people:
I quote things by the project. This pricing allows me to take care of everything people need and not has to keep coming back to them for more funding. So when I give them a price for social media content creation and management, that includes photos and video. When we build a website that includes content creation and strategy.

This also means going above and beyond the contract sometime. When it’s needed sometimes you need to do that extra thing, beyond the original scope of the project. But it is that kind of effort that can make start raving fans.

You can read part 1 of this series here and part 2 here.