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October 22, 2008

Where's your cinnamon buns?

Andy Sernovitz shares the story of a restaurant in Chicago, Ann Sather's, that gives every customer one of their famous cinnamon buns at the start of each meal. (I'm with Andy. Meals should start with desserts.)

And then at the end of each day, the restaurant gives away any remaining cinnamon buns to anyone who walks in and asks.

What a way to start a meal or end a day! Delighting customers, surprising them, and giving them something they can share and talk about with their friends and neighbors.

Andy offers some examples of companies who could do the same: hotels or car rentals, with unused inventory or free upgrades.

Zappos upgrades customers deliveries to overnight...with no extra charge.  I told 5-10 people about it. Our whole family became their loyal customers after that.

At a former company, we sent flower bouquets to new customers and to customers who sent us referrals. That was a nice treat, flowers at their desk. Inevitably the customer would be asked "who sent you flowers?" And their answer would be followed up with ..."why"?

So, ask yourself: Where's your cinnamon buns? Where's the extra treat you can give your customers, just for being your customers? It's gotta be meaningful to them, appropriate with who you are as a company, and right for their audience, too. ( Doncha wish you made cinnamon buns as you ponder this question? )

There are digital versions of cinnamon buns. Google Reader is one such digital resource you can use to share digital cinnamon buns. Sharing an article to read with your followers is the digital equivalent of a daily cinnamon bun.  Becky McCray, from Small Biz Survival,  shared this article in her Google Reader today. Thanks, Beck, it was delicious.

Your blog's another. Andy Sernovitz's blog is a great source of mental calories for word-of-mouth energy. Becky McCray's is a great source of inspirational calories for small business and rural communities.

Both are yum-yum for the tum-tum. ( Ok. I spent the weekend with my 3-yr old niece and 2-yr old nephew.) Regardless, read 'em.

Posted on October 22, 2008 at 10:50 AM in WOM |

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    a bigger challenge than I predicted. It’s not what to say that challenged me. It’s what NOT to say. I start reading and within 3-4 paragraphs, I’m nodding my head and saying Yes, yes, exactly. Bam. Bam, baby. Yeah, come on. Can I get a witness. Then I want to share verbatim Jackie’s translation of Gaga’s strategy. Here’s why. It’s a strategy with 7 steps that any, ANY, business can execute under its own terms and under its own budget no matter how small or large. Granted, I enjoy reading this strategy as it’s applied to Gaga. And Jackie's a good writer. But, what's really inspiring is understanding how even a car wash could apply this strategy with these 7 steps and find success. You could build a global empire selling gardening mulch if you followed these 7 steps. And you could lower your advertising and marketing budgets, to boot.

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