Seth Godin: Feet on the street
Expert Advice August 22nd, 2012 — admin
Reprinted from Seth Godin’s Blog. Original post here.
The complement to the brilliant strategy is the thankless work of lower-leverage detail.
An organization with feet on the street and alert and regular attention to detail can build more trust and develop better relationships than one than hits and runs.
• Contact every user who stops using your service and find out why.
• Create a newsletter for every journalist who covers your space, and deliver it every three weeks, even when you’re not asking for anything. Just to keep them in the loop.
• Eagerly pay attention to people who mention you online and engage with them in a way that they prefer to be engaged.
• Sponsor industry events and actually show up.
• Write a thank you note every single day, to someone who doesn’t expect one.
• Build your permission asset by 1% every day. Every day, 1% more people are eager and happy to hear from you.
• Write a blog every day, not to sell, but to teach.
• Connect people in your industry, because you enjoy it.
• Host community meetings in your store.
• Put a lemonade stand in front of your business and let the local kids donate the money to whatever charity they like.
• Hand out free samples every chance you have.
• Keep in touch with people who used to work with you and continue to help them get great gigs and new business, even years later.
• Put together an honest buyer’s guide, pointing out in which instances your competitor’s products are a better choice.
• Run classes for your customers.
• Run classes for your competitors.
• Build a recruiting pipeline that is in place more than a year before you need to hire someone.
• Create a newsletter for every journalist who covers your space, and deliver it every three weeks, even when you’re not asking for anything. Just to keep them in the loop.
• Eagerly pay attention to people who mention you online and engage with them in a way that they prefer to be engaged.
• Sponsor industry events and actually show up.
• Write a thank you note every single day, to someone who doesn’t expect one.
• Build your permission asset by 1% every day. Every day, 1% more people are eager and happy to hear from you.
• Write a blog every day, not to sell, but to teach.
• Connect people in your industry, because you enjoy it.
• Host community meetings in your store.
• Put a lemonade stand in front of your business and let the local kids donate the money to whatever charity they like.
• Hand out free samples every chance you have.
• Keep in touch with people who used to work with you and continue to help them get great gigs and new business, even years later.
• Put together an honest buyer’s guide, pointing out in which instances your competitor’s products are a better choice.
• Run classes for your customers.
• Run classes for your competitors.
• Build a recruiting pipeline that is in place more than a year before you need to hire someone.
None of this is sufficient. Your product and your strategy have to be brilliant. But a lot of it is necessary. Hearts and minds…
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