How do you treat long-time customers when the economy is this challenging?  Are you tightening the rules to manage costs or are you more liberal in your policies?

I went to a business that I had purchased from for many years but not over the last year.  They greeted me warmly as if I had just talked with them yesterday, with no hint of criticism or complaint in their voice.

Later that day, I went to another business that I also frequent often.  They know me well enough to recommend new products they think I’d like.  And they know I’ve referred other customers to them. I was 90 minutes late in returning an item I had rented and they wanted to charge me another full day.  It’s their policy and it’s posted.  When I asked for leniency, the owner’s reply was, “It’s our policy and you need to pay.”

The next day I received a rather large bill.  I had made a mistake in understanding the rules so the bill was correct if unwelcome.  When I asked the Accounts Payable person for some flexibility, I was flatly turned down.  When I asked to speak to the owner, I was told that he refused to discuss these issues with anyone.  “Even customers who’ve purchased from him for 20 years?” I asked.  The answer was, “Yes.”

The economy is going to get better.  I will spend more money.  I will continue to make referrals to my vendors.  Which vendor mentioned above will continue getting my business and my referrals?

Jump start the economy.

No we’re not talking about recently passed stimulus bill. Or even a bailout.  We’re talking about something more tactile, more visceral– more like an A+B=C.

John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing, and Inquisix have joined forces (with some other amazing sponsors) to promote Make a Referral Week, this March 9-13th.  The goal is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses.

This is a good thing.  For you. For the economy.

So take the pledge.

It’s tough times. Everywhere you turn negative economic indicators are released, reports on recessionary fears, and opinons on the impact of the economic stimulus package crowd the news.  Overwhelming problems and few solutions.

It is time for small businesses to take matters into their own hands.  Positive changes in small business can have a positive impact on the economy. Hey, it’s no biggie surprise to the rest of us that small businesses basically drive the economy.

As a class, small business:

• represent over 99.7% of employers;
• employ over half of all private sector employees;
• generate between 60%-80% of new jobs in the last decade; and
• produce more than 50% of non-farm private gross domestic product, or a GDP of roughly $6 trillion.

As John Jantsch sees it, “Make a Referral Week is an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small busienss economy one referred business at a time.  The goal is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the impact of a simple action that could blossom into millions of dollars of new business. Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy and merits the positive attention saved for corporate bailout stories.”

It’s Inquisix’s hope is that this one week further highlights the power of the referral. Referral prospects are less price sensitive, and, as Joanne Black, author of “No More Cold Calling,” points out “[a] referral is pre-sold on you … and [you] get a new client over 70 percent of the time.” We believe that by highlighting the high ROI benefits of referral networking, more businesses will permanently adopt this as a new strategic marketing tool, which will translate into healthier bottom lines. Good for them. Good for you. Good for the U.S. economy.

So be among the 1000+ small businesses to get new business the week of March 9- March 13, 2009. Take the pledge. Give a referral. Get a referral.  There will be an exciting schedule of programs to tune into featuring Ivan Misner (founder of BNI, author of Masters of Networking,) Bob Burg (Author of Endless Referrals, The Go-Giver,) Bill Cates (author of Get More Referrals Now,) Guy Kawasaki (author of Reality Check,) Scott Allen (author of The Virtual Handshake) and Susan Solovic Wilson (of SBTV.com) to name  few.

And for the social media savvy, follow the action on twitter and connect to tweeps partaking in Make a Referral Week (Add the hashtag”#MARW09″ to the end of your tweets!)

Happy Connecting!

I was just reading Mark Cuban’s blog and he has some sage-like advice.  He’s made a ton of money, dedicated to speaking his mind and ticking people off. Plus he’s smart. So I take note.

His latest piece on the economy resonated me like tin drum.  He gives a broad list of scary facts about the U.S. economy (and I won’t go into it but just say, you should read it)– the end result is… with respect to the economy, no one knows squat.  No one knows where it’s going: up, down, sideways.  And these are the experts, the pundits, the people in charge.  With mounting stress, your average U.S. citizen that holds a job, pays into a 401K, saves for their kids college and holds a mortgage is like a deer in the headlights.  We are at an economic psycho-social paralytic standstill.  What do we do?

We all need to find our inner Hustler. We need to start doin’ the Hustle.

Before you click off, think about it.  The real definition of a “Hustler” is less 70’s Pimp, Disco and dirty magazines and more about attitude.  So where one might see visions of Starsky and Hutches’ friend (and Snoop Dogg Doppelgänger) Huggy Bear, I see the people, and more importantly, personalities that will not only survive life’s rotten episodes but thrive.  Classic examples? Rhett Butler AND Scarlett O’Hara, The Wright Brothers, The Greatest Generation (who survived Depression AND won WWII AND brought the atomic age…,) Oprah, Post-WWII Japan, Martin Luther King, Estée Lauder, Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela,Thomas Edison, James Bond,The Founding Fathers, MacGyver, Tina Turner, Madonna, and the list goes on and on…

The one thing all these people (real or fictional) had is that they refused to be hindered.  Their progress (professional, personal, economic, political) was not going to be halted by anything. Not the economy. Not politics.  Not tragedy.  They looked at the issue from the perspective of “there is success to be made and the path to it might be different than expected.”  So they got creative, they rewrote the rules,  they re-invented themselves/their company/their country, and they SOUGHT OUT NEW WAYS of doing things.  The new opportunity is always out there, you just have to seek it.

So how does this apply to you?  We are in tough and uncertain times, no arguments there.  It is time for you to tap your inner “Hustler” and “hustle” for new ways to do business.  Your business. New products and services that can affect your company’s bottom line by either saving you money or helping you make money faster or (even better) DO BOTH.  The old way of doing things is exactly what everyone else is doing, and that doesn’t make it right, it only means you’ll all be (sinking) in the same boat.  Seth Godin, in his new book Tribes (read it if you haven’t yet) subscribes that playing it safe isn’t exactly safe.  He believes the world is ever-changing and new rules apply.  The Hustler learns how to play them.  Or else get played.

And just because, under the you-know-you-thinking-about-it file:

With the rise of various social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, the promise of easy and immediate connections seems realized. I connect to you, you connect to them and since I can see that connection, I want to get connected to them, too. Bingo, I have a prospect! The problem is that it’s too easy and therefore not really that valuable for business networking.

The names of my contacts are not valuable – there a lots of places where someone else can find those names – JigSaw, LinkedIn, Hoovers, Spoke, the Yellow Pages, industry trade organizations to name a few. What’s valuable is my relationship to them. I’ve earned that relationship and it’s valuable.

Jay Deragon, in his The Relationship Economy blog, posted recently about whether Relationships are for $ale. He argues that, “You don’t sell relationships you build and earn them.” I’d suggest that you can’t buy relationships, either. Certainly not valuable ones.

Jay continues to say, “Sales techniques have changed over time to meet the ever increasing demands from informed customers. It has become imperative in today’s business environment to gain the trust of prospects and customers by first focusing on building relationships based on common affinities and objectives.”

And thus easy access to names can’t be the easy way to generate sales.

So if that’s not the easy way, then what is? As Jay points out, “People aren’t for sale (although many act as if they are) and neither are their relationships.” Valuable relationships are not put up on the web for all to see. Rather, they’re kept secure and hidden behind walls and only let out when there’s a very good reason.

What’s a good reason to let a valuable relationship be known? When you meet another sales rep you believe can add value to your customer. And by adding value to your customer, you’ve added value and trust to your relationship with that customer. You won’t sell that relationship because if your customer finds out, your trust is lost. But you have built a new relationship with that sales rep that translates to them introducing you to one of their customers. And then they gain value, too.

That’s what Inquisix is all about – we keep your RELATIONSHIP with contacts safe and hidden while introducing you to like-minded sales people who understand that relationships are earned, not sold or bought. Who agrees with me?

Happy Selling!