Raving Fans!

What is a raving fan? As Ken Blanchard wrote in his best-selling book Raving Fans, "if you really want to 'own' the customer, if you want a booming business, you have to go beyond satisfied customers and create raving fans."

How loyal are your clients? Are they telling others great things about you? Are they blogging about YOU? (Just thought I'd throw that in since I'm a veteran blogger of 6 months).

Local Story #1 ~ With a customer event a few days away, I stopped by the Matthews Beantown Tavern location and approached my new friend, Beantown owner Donnie Gaskin, about my purchasing a handful of ten dollar gift certificates and "borrowing" a pot of his AWESOME clam chowder so we could give out free tastes at our client cookout. Good for us, good for Beantown, right? Whoa, check out what happens next. Donnie said, "I'll be back in a minute" and left my sweetie, Dianne and me eating chowder at our table. Moments after Big Papi (Red Sox player David Ortiz, for you non-baseball fans) hit a homerun into the right field bullpen on one of Beantowns's flat-panel screens, Donnie returned with a STACK of FIFTY and ONE HUNDRED dollar gift certificates....for me....no charge. I was speechless. Donnie said, "I'm a marketing guy. If just one or two of those folks come to Beantown and become regular customers it's a great deal for me!" Wow....over the top! Little did Donnie know that he would ALSO become FAMOUS by appearing on the Neat Stuff U. blog! FYI: We smuggled the SECRET Neat Stuff-Cam into the pre-opening party of Donnie's NEW Beantown Tavern location by the Western Associates/Neat Stuff office at the Fountains. See the results.

Local Story #2 ~ "I go the extra mile to help you achieve your goals," says the website of local realtor, Ann Cabaniss, http://www.workwithwhoworks.com/. When her firm-Carolinas Realty and Investing Group-helped our own David Murray purchase a home recently, she put her money where her mouth was. Not only did she pay for an upgrade on David's home warranty but when she heard David mention his desire to get someone to pressure wash part of his new home, Ann made the arrangements...and paid the bill. If that doesn't define "going the extra mile" then Ann's recent delivery of a watermelon for David from her family farm in Pageland should do it.

Back to Ken Blanchard and Raving Fans....are people talking about your business, my business? Are they loyal? Are they raving? Are they spreading the news? Have we given them a reason to?