Lunch with Kasey Cronquist (Exec Director, California Cut Flowers Commission) and Lane DeVries (Pres/CEO, The Sun Valley Group)
The past couple of days, I’ve been in sunny Phoenix, at the Society of American Florists annual conference where I delivered the keynote address. This year’s gathering was particularly special in that it marks the organization’s 125th year-—pretty impressive.
I was equally impressed by the people who filled the room yesterday morning, then took time out of their busy schedules to visit with me in the halls and share stories of what’s most important to them these days. Lunch was particularly fascinating, spent with a group that included a northern California retailer, distributors, and two gentlemen involved in the California Cut Flowers Commission, from whom I learned just how closely intertwined we all are. [click here to continue…]
Those of us who live here in the Twin Cities are familiar with The Lion’s Tap, a family owned, decades old restaurant built on good old fashioned customer service. The history of the place is amazing…and the burgers are pretty darn good.
A few years ago, they came up with the catchy phrase “Who’s your patty?” As savvy marketers, they registered the slogan with the state of Minnesota, filed for federal trademark protection, then spent the past four years plastering the question everywhere. Their website. Servers’ t-shirts. In the restaurants. On their business cards. In their ads. And on about a zillion billboards all over the upper Midwest. It’s not unusual to run into a “Who’s your patty?” t-shirt in Fargo, North Dakota or Madison, Wisconsin.
So imagine how stunned they were to find the phrase on a McDonald’s billboard touting the Angus Burger in July, and in television and radio ads ever since. [click here to continue…]
If you’ve worked in retail for all of…oh..say twelve minutes, you know the customer is most certainly not always right. For those who’d like a chuckle over the insanity that others experience, here’s a little website sure to bring a smile. Enjoy!
(Thanks to Meredith Schwartz at G&D for reminding me about this one!)
We all know customer service must be provided at premium levels these days. It’s hard enough to get consumers through the door, but losing them because someone dropped the ball just isn’t an option (and never should have been). So heads up: that ball just might not be the one you expect. [click here to continue…]
For as excited as I was yesterday about The 3/50 Project appearing in the Wall Street Journal, today I’m feeling a bit deflated. Sadly, our website address was omitted from the piece, which I immediately contacted the editor about first thing in the morning. He assured me he was “working on it,” but nothing happened. No link.
And today, no article. At least not unless you’re a paid subscriber for the online edition.
Solution? Put a copy on our server, then link to it? Nope. At least not unless I pay a hefty fee (read: nearly $2,000+) for a link to their servers that expires in one year.
To those of you who saw the piece yesterday, then sent notes of congratulations, thank you! It was quite a 24 hour run.
To everyone else, I’m sorry…. This bums me out more than you can imagine.
To the young Ms. Hirschfield who claims “for most [people who send invitations] it’s about the beauty, not holding a piece of paper in your hand:”
An email does not beauty make.
‘Nuf said.
How cool is this? I’m happy to send you off into the weekend on a positive note with a site that celebrates positive attitude…. As the founder, Melissa Morris Ivone, explains it:
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Don’t you love it when people go out of their way to be nice? Like when someone waits to hold the door for you. Or when a stranger waves you into a line a traffic. Or even when a coworker shoots you a friendly smile along with a “have a nice day.” If everyone was a little bit nicer to the folks they encountered each day, perhaps the world would be a more pleasant place. Operation NICE was initiated to remind you that a little NICE goes a long way.
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Hear, hear, sister.
Both consumers and business owners crave an upbeat message. They feel good, and they’re contagious. Just try smiling when you answer the phone; it’s amazing how that crazy little trick works; puts a whole new spin on the words that come out of your mouth (and don’t think the caller doesn’t hear it…they usually respond in kind).
Check out the Operation Nice blog here. And congrats on the Times article last Sunday, Melissa. Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.
Since my guess is a few of you are wondering if the flu virus has impacted my travels, here’s a quick update (since I rather expect my link to the blog will be blocked after this post, now that I’ve accessed it):
As of my departure from Hong Kong yesterday morning, there was one reported case of H1N1 in the city-—a traveler from Mexico checked into a local hospital with the bug, making him China’s first confirmed case. His stay at the Metropark Hotel in Wanchai resulted in quarantine of dozens of people, from hotel staff to fellow passengers who sat near him on the plane. As a result, the lot of them is being held for 7-10 days, and the Hong Kong Government has raised the Influenza Pandemic Alert Level to the highest level-—Emergency. [click here to continue…]
