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every month"
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Today's
Thoughts...
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle
"Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Truth is what stands the test of experience." - Albert Einstein
"Believe in the best, think your best,
study your best, have a goal for the best, never be satisfied with less
than your best, try your best, and in the long run things will turn out
for the best."
- Henry Ford
"Character is made by
what you stand for; reputation by what you fall for."
- Anonymous
"Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day affairs of life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance, and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal." - Theodore Roosevelt
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"eBuilder
Solutions" ...
Bury The Bull - Tell The Truth
- Make Money!
"eBuilder Solutions"
Bulletins Ezine
July
13, 2006
Issue
Value the
Relationship – And The Money Will Follow
Saturday morning. Long weekend. Getting ready to go to the cottage. Bags packed. Windows closed. One final task...
Send email to subscribers.
Seems harmless enough. Performed the routine hundreds of times. No big deal, right?
Wrong!
My first inkling of something amiss came when I checked my emails Sunday morning at my parents house. Lots of sales from my promotional email sent on Saturday, but also a few emails saying they could not download the product files they just purchased.
Oh, oh...
So I fired off a support email to the person responsible for the download files. They'll figure it out, so...
...off I went back to the cottage, blue skies, blue waters, fishing, barbecuing and sharing good times with family and friends.
A great weekend, or so I thought.
When I returned to my office on Monday morning, I planned on a light schedule – it was, after all, a holiday Monday here in Canada.
Then I started checking sales and reading emails.
Something is wrong here, really wrong.
More sales, but also many more frantic emails about not being able to download files. And, amongst all those emails – a reply from my support person:
"Those files got corrupt...We are still updating them now. We will upload the new product in a few days."
Boink! A slap to the head!
What to do – what to do?
Here are the six steps I followed, in order of sequence:
1) I didn't read anymore emails, I didn't go to the bathroom, I didn't look in the fridge to see what groceries I needed for the upcoming week, no siree...I signed into my PayPal account and refunded – manually – every single person who sent me money for my Saturday promotion – every single dime;
2) I sent a personal email to all who purchased an explanation of what happened, along with my apologies. I offered them a free report – a valuable report, not just some lame, dumb-ass thing – to compensate them for their troubles;
3) I sent out a broadcast message to those subscribers who received my initial Saturday email, informing them of the problem – and, therefore, not to buy until further notice;
4) Removed my traffic exchange splash page out of rotation;
5) Cancelled all other advertising campaigns associated with this product; and,
6) Wrote to the company offering the promotional package asking for an explanation. I suggested a few hints for improvement...
Talk about being embarrassed!
Why do I tell you this story?
Well, I don't tell it to suggest these steps represent exactly what you should do in a similar situation. And I'm not here to brag or anything like that.
Rather, despite my embarrassment, this became a great learning moment. Here me out...
As a seller, this situation represents the first such occurrence for me. But as a buyer, is has occurred a few times in the past. The last time, the seller of a book I wanted to buy took over four days to respond to my support emails.
When he finally responded – no apology, no mention of a refund, just a "holier-than-thou" attitude, like "don't you know how to download files?" So...
...in those brief seconds I took determining my course of action, it became clear to me – Don't Be Like That Guy!
Folks, it's about relationships.
It's about being honest.
It's about being responsible.
It's NOT about who's to blame.
And, it's NOT about the money. (Think about it - I stood to make $10.00 for every sale. What's more important - $10.00 or all my sweat-equity built up over many months spent to establish a good relationship with my subscriber/customer? The choice is obvious - the relationship is a thousands times more important than a measly $10.00!)
These Bulletins focus on what's right about the Internet and its awesome potential. I encourage us to learn from my mistakes, my learning moments – in fact, make them your own – and let's, together, establish trust, openness, and honesty as relationship-building benchmarks for us to follow in all we do in our online (and off-line) ventures.
Be the best!
Darrell Dean
P.S. Visit the Blog for up-to-the-minute details on:
1) Current updates to your "Members Only" Resource Library.
2) Recent postings of new articles.
P.P.S. Do you like the format and content of these Bulletins? Let me know what you think. Send me an email or make a posting on the Blog.
Legal Information
Darrell Dean
766 John Counter Blvd.
Suite 901
Kingston, ON K7K 6P1
Canada
(613) 484-0499
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Copyright 2004-2006, Darrell Dean,
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