1. Includes roll-outs to every “A” list in our universe – the lists we know we can mail at break-even or better 
2. Add significant test panels of every “B” list that our history indicates will perform at break-even or better – but not as well as our “A” lists 
3. Add as many test panels as possible of “B” lists that we expect to produce a slight loss – and “C” lists (previously untested lists projected to produce a 50% ROI) until our mail plan projects a total return on investment of 100%.

Result: For every dollar we mail, we get one dollar back – and a new customer.

Over the next three years, we quadrupled the number of paying customers on our file – and because we broke even on our average new customer promotion, each one of them cost us $0.

At the end of 36 months, those customers were handing us more than $80 million in sales and tens of millions in net profit each year.

When you want to grow really, REALLY fast 

At Blanchard & Company, I set out to lose money on every new customer I generated.

Crazy, right? Yeah: Crazy like a fox!

First, I did my homework. I studied our active customer file. I determined that each new customer made an average of five purchases per year  that the average purchase was $1,500  and that the net profit on each of those purchases was about $500.

Furthermore, I discovered that the average new customer made one additional purchase in his first 60 days with us, producing a $500 profit. And I figured out that if I could spend just $200 of that to “buy” new customers, I could bring in two or three times more new customers each year.

I didn’t tell the owner that I was planning to “lose money” on each new customer. I told him, “I just want an extra 60 days to break even on each new customer. I just want to change the bookkeeping entry a bit – add the profit from second purchases in customers’ first 60 days to the revenues generated by my new customer acquisition mailings.”

I showed him how our Prime Directive had been to mail our new customer acquisition promotions to as many prospects as possible while breaking even. But the problem was, some of the biggest prospect files out there just wouldn’t come in at 100% of cost no matter what we did.

I showed him how that meant we were leaving thousands of new customers – and millions of dollars in future profits – on the table. And I demonstrated how, if we could just mail down to, say, 85% to 90% of cost, we could add millions more names per year to our mail plans and tens of thousands of new, paying customers to our house file.

So I suggested the client consider “cooking the books” a little bit. Instead of insisting that his new customer acquisition mailings break even ($1 in for every $1 they cost), I suggested that when we find huge files that we can’t get to break even, we allocate part or all of that first 60 days income to the new customer promotion.

It worked like gangbusters. The company, which had been running a distant third in its industry, rocketed to #1 within a year.

In fact, this strategy has worked so well for me over the years, I’m doing the same thing for a new client right now!

Consider these numbers:

Right now, my client’s new customer acquisition mailings cost him $560/M (list rental, postage, printing and lettershop): $56,000 to mail 100,000 pieces.

At break-even, that 100,000-piece mailing generates 1,000 new customers and $56,000 (gross revenue minus product cost). He gets one dollar back for every dollar he mailed. At an ROI of 90%, he loses 10% of his mailing investment, or $5,600.

We know that 8% of his new customers make a second purchase netting a profit of about $100 in their first two months on board. So those 1,000 new customers will make 80 purchases, netting my client an $8,000 profit in their first 60 days with him.

Now, I’ve found a few huge mailing lists that we’ve never been able to mail at break-even. There are millions of potential customers on those files, but when we test them, we only get 90% of our money back.

So, if a simple bookkeeping entry – allocating a portion of each new customer’s first 60 days of profits – would open these otherwise impenetrable lists to us – why not do it?

Even at .8% response, he’ll pick up 8,000 new customers for every million pieces mailed. So he has to wait 60 days to begin making money with them. So what?

We know that in the ten months after those first 60 days, his average customer will make four additional purchases netting $100 each. For every 8,000 new customers, that’s $3.2 million in additional profit this year.

Furthermore, we know that the average new customer will continue making five purchases per year for seven years. That means these 8,000 new customers will hand us $28 million in net profit in their lifetimes.

And we’re not going to mail these marginal lists just once – we’re going to mail them over and over again – generating thousands of new customers each time our control projects a 90% ROI on them. For every one million names we mail three times a year, we add 24,000 new customers – and $84 million in future profits!

Seems silly to let a bookkeeping entry stand between you and that kind of money – right?

Time to start optimizing lifetime value 

Now that we’ve got my client doing bigger new customer promotions, more often, it’s time to kick things up another notch – by bumping the number of times each customer orders, and how much he spends with us each time.

Until now, my client did what many direct response marketers do: He simply mailed a couple of promotions to his entire customer file each month. I call that “vertical” marketing. No matter who you are, no matter what kind of product you’ve purchased in the past, you get the same offers as everyone else on his file.

Not a terrible approach, but we can do better by combining vertical and horizontal marketing techniques.

Horizontal marketing treats each group of customers on your house file in ways that ensure optimum response and maximum order size. Horizontal marketing asks 

• “What kind of product has this customer demonstrated a desire for before?” and then offers him an add-on that addresses the same desire or concern.
• And, “Where is the customer in his life cycle with us?” – and then sends him promotions that are compatible.
• And, “What’s going on in my customer’s personal life?” – and then sends him promotions that are compatible.

So in addition to vertical promotions sent to the entire file – my client’s customers receive horizontal promotions:

• A 60-day campaign for a President’s Circle promotion designed to make a quick second sale to our new customers in their first two months with us 
• Upgrade mailings to buyers whose selection of products has demonstrated a particular desire or concern, offering a new add-on product that addresses that same issue 
• Personalized “renewal,” “re-order” and “we-want-you-back” promotions at the appropriate times 
• Special discounted offers on the customer’s birthday, anniversary and other special times of the year.

Plus, for our vertical marketing, the entire file also gets two major mailings each month: One focusing on one of our hottest products, and another kind-of catalog mailing that invites customers to try anything in our product line at preferred prices.

Will this kind of comprehensive strategy – along with harder-hitting sales copy – give us the 30% bump in response, average sales, profits and customer lifetime value we’re looking for? There’s not a doubt in my mind.

The final step

Once you’re generating thousands more new customers and thousands more dollars in profits from sales to those customers, it’s time to turn an eye to minimizing costs.

I put this step last for several reasons. For one, each of my clients has an accountant or CFO – someone whose job it is to monitor spending and overhead. For another, most marketing people are constantly looking for ways to get it done faster and cheaper. And for yet another, cutting costs can only get you so far.

As we’ve seen, a sharp marketing strategy and expert execution can quadruple profits. Cutting costs may save you 5% here or 10% there. Nevertheless, every penny you save on unnecessary expenses goes straight to the bottom line. And over time, those pennies add up to real impressive dollars.

Most of my clients offer premiums – free gifts – to attract new customers. And most of those premiums tend to be special reports, which are included in the “Welcome Kit” new subscribers or first-time buyers receive.

A few years ago, for example, one client’s Welcome Kit cost him $15 to deliver. Today, he delivers most of them online – and the $15 per new subscriber he saved is pure profit.

Adding a web-based marketing initiative can cut cost per sale by an order of magnitude. Mailing a sales promotion to your house file can cost anywhere from $400 to $800 per thousand pieces mailed, for example. Sending the same promotion via e-mail costs next to nothing.

You could blast the promotion to your customers every day for a week or even a month – with a slightly different headline and opening copy each time – and actually generate greater sales volume at a fraction of the cost.

Sometimes spending more saves you a bundle. For high-ticket products, for example, I’ve found that personalized sales letters mailed to customers via First-Class Mail often generate a lower cost per sale than mailing a non-personalized promo via the cheaper Third -Class bulk mail.

When I’ve tested this, the personal touch and the perceived urgency of personalized letters mailed First-Class usually boosted response tremendously, thereby lowering our cost per sale.

With self-mailers especially, slightly altering format – like adjusting your trim size one-eighth or one-quarter inch, for example – can save a bundle on your printing bills. And although it’s not always possible to do, ganging jobs – combining several similar printing projects into one large job – can shave big bucks too.

I strongly endorse programs in which employees are rewarded for suggesting ways the company can save money.

Worth thinking about 

What could you do right now – today – to 

1. Increase the number of new customer acquisition promotions you field each year?
2. Ramp up the size of each of those promotions?
3. Increase the number of prospects who say, “YES!” to each of those promotions?
4. Boost – even incrementally – the number of additional times each customer orders per year?
5. Pump up the size of each of those orders?
6. Cut marketing and fulfillment costs without adversely affecting the number of new customers you generate or sales volume to existing customers?

How could focusing on these five key numbers help you, your employees and your marketing people triple YOUR revenues and profits?

How could you tie employee compensation (raises, bonuses, stock options, etc.) to how well key employees meet your goals in improving each one?

Answer these questions and you’ll be well on your way to at least tripling your sales and profits.

Two, real life case histories that prove
only savvy marketers are fit
to run growth-oriented companies

It’s so predictable, you can set your watch by it …

Armed with only a skeleton staff, meager resources and big dreams, an eager young entrepreneur slaves 60, 80, and often 100 hours every week for years to grow his business.

He does everything right: He develops or acquires top-notch products. Watches overhead like a hawk. Reinvests every penny of profit. Becomes a student of great marketing and sales copy strategies – and a past master at implementing winning campaigns.

When it comes to sales copy, he never pulls a punch. He goes for the jugular – as far as the law and his ethics will allow – demonstrating the value his products bring to customers’ lives with edgy, can’t-put-‘em-down promotions:

• Sales copy that grabs prospects by the eyeballs 
• That ruthlessly differentiates his company, lifting it head and shoulders above the competition 
• That positions the owner and/or spokespeople as honest advocates for customers and against those who use and abuse them 
• And that super-glues customers to the company in ways that have them spending more and more with him, each passing month.

Armed with these edgy, un-ignorable, in-your-face promotions, the owner’s dreams of success soon become reality.

Suddenly, tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of new, paying customers are flocking to the company. Products fly off the shelves faster than pickaxes and rotgut in an Old West gold rush. Millions of dollars cascade into the company’s coffers every week.

And that’s when “it” happens 

The owner, eager to continue or even accelerate his company’s growth rate – and at the same time cut his own workweek down to a more reasonable size – begins recruiting what he mistakenly believes is a “better class” of top executives.

Maybe it’s a new President to lighten his workload  or perhaps a Chief Financial Officer to keep an eagle eye on expenses and manage the company’s rapidly growing cash reserves 

But typically, there’s a problem: Typically, these hired guns don’t know one goldarn thing about the company – let alone about its business: Direct Marketing. And typically, they won’t lift a finger to learn.

After all: They’re here to be teachers – not students!

They’re the experts. They’re the ones who read all the right business books. They’re the ones with fancy-schmancy degrees and six-figure salaries.

Their job isn’t to learn – it’s to teach the poor, dumb business owner and his poor, dumb staff how to do it right!

And so, these private sector bureaucrats go to work 

• People who have never risked their own money or chunks of their lives to build a successful business of their own are suddenly in control of an entrepreneurial enterprise still in its growth phase …
• Neophytes who have never created a successful direct response promotion in their lives are lording it over veteran marketers who previously thrashed the competition with industry-beating promotions …
• And worst of all, these talentless functionaries who are genetically bred and scholastically brainwashed to focus on reducing risk rather than nurturing and accelerating growth  and on cutting costs instead of investing in the future  begin running the show.

Now, I’ll give you three guesses at what happens next – and I seriously doubt you’ll need all three 

Bingo: Revenue growth slows, then stops. New customers become as rare as hen’s teeth and old customers stampede for the exits. As profits dwindle to zero – and then to less than zero – the company’s hard-won cash reserves quickly evaporate.

Finally, after the company’s best employees have either been laid off or have quit in disgust – the self-important gas bags who precipitated the crisis  and who still don’t have a clue as to why the company self-destructed (but waste no time pointing their fingers at everyone who helped grow the business just fine before the bureaucrats showed up) – are unceremoniously fired.

And suddenly, the business owner finds himself right back at Square One:

Armed with only a skeleton staff and meager resources, the older but hopefully wiser entrepreneur sadly licks his wounds and goes back to work – 60, 80, even 100 hours a week – in a desperate attempt to return his company to its former glory …

This cycle is repeated hundreds, perhaps thousands of times in America every day: The bell-shaped curve that rises from modest growth  to explosive growth  and then to the plateau and plunge into near-oblivion that inevitably follows “The Experts” arrival on the scene.

How do I know? Well, for one thing, I’ve seen it happen more than once among my own clients. And for another, I deal with companies who are making the very same mistake every day – both in my professional and personal life.

And since like me, you’re a business builder – whether building our own businesses, or as a marketing pro or copywriter building both your own and your clients’ businesses – I figured today would be a good day to be reminded of one of the dumbest things smart business owners like us do: Subjugate marketers to these drooling morons.

NOTE: These stories are true. However, in our first case history, the names have been changed to protect the innocent – namely, ME – from getting drawn into a public pissing contest with the guilty.

Case History #1:
“Big, Gay Al”
and His Office of Business Prevention

OK – so his name wasn’t really Al. And the fact is, I have no idea what sexual team he plays for – nor do I care in the slightest.

But dammit, he just reminds me so much of South Park’s “Big, Gay Al,” I couldn’t resist.

Anyways, when “Al” assumed a top position with one of my clients, he immediately began filling the owner’s head with horror stories about how, out of literally hundreds of direct competitors, two (including his former employer) had been slammed by one of the U.S. government’s regulatory agencies.

• Nevermind that those two errant companies comprised less than one-half of one percent of our industry 
• Nevermind that they had blatantly lied in their promotions, openly thumbed their noses at regulators and/or shamelessly ripped off their customers …
• Nevermind that our products were above reproach and that every fact and figure in our promotions was scrupulously substantiated 

  Al filled my client’s head with images of the public humiliation and financial ruin that would surely follow if and when the regulators attacked.

The solution, said Al, was to hire a full-time employee – a compliance officer – to gut our sales copy, kill response, obliterate our stellar growth and push the company to the brink of bankruptcy.

Wait – that’s not quite right. What Al actually said when I screamed bloody murder was, “Don’t be silly. You’re just over-reacting. It’ll be fine. These changes won’t affect response one iota.”

So, Al established what quickly became known (behind his back, of course) as “The Office of Business Prevention.”

And from that moment on, all sales copy was subjected to excruciating scrutiny and all kinds of gross indignities …

• Our products were instantly neutered: Unlike our competitors’ products which actually did wonderful things and promised real benefits, The Office of Business Prevention made sure we never claimed our products would really do anything specific for our prospects.

  Instead, our products could only “aim” to do things or “strive” to do things or “shoot for” a particular benefit.

  And of course, every vague, unspecific benefit that slipped through was hedged six ways from sundown: Every “will” was changed to “could”  “should”  “may”  or “might.”

  Deprived of any real benefits to sell, we became a company whose only product was a pocketful of good intentions.

• Any implication of a benefit claim that somehow slipped through was quickly DISclaimed: Just in case The Office of Business Prevention somehow accidentally allowed the copy to imply a benefit, they made sure that every promotion prominently presented an ominous reminder of the catastrophic worst-case scenario that would follow if the product failed.

  And of course, the return on investment our promotions produced promptly plummeted more than 30 percent.

Predictably, the company stopped growing and started shrinking. Cash reserves began evaporating faster than water in the Sahara sun. Good employees quit in disgust. And the company that had once been the fastest-growing in its industry began slouching towards bankruptcy.

Now, all this would have been bad enough if these changes had been necessary.

If Al could have pointed to one, single competitor who had been nailed by a regulator because he said “will” instead of “could”  or because he failed to follow every promised benefit with a vivid and disturbing word-picture of the worst-case scenario.

But he couldn’t. Nobody could – and for one, simple reason: There wasn’t – and still isn’t – a single precedent where this kind of thing had happened in the entire 100-plus-year history of my client’s industry.

“Big, Gay Al” was no marketer. He couldn’t point to a single success in his career that came close to approaching the sales and growth miracles we had been producing before he showed up.

Worse, by putting his Office of Business Prevention in a position above the marketing pros who had built the company, he changed the businesses’ entire focus: From an obsession with ethical growth to an obsession for risk avoidance at all costs.

And so, after the dust settled, and armed with only a skeleton staff and meager resources, the older but hopefully wiser entrepreneur had no choice but to lick his wounds and go back to work – 60, 80, even 100 hours a week – in a desperate attempt to return his company to its former glory …

THE MORAL(S) OF THE STORY:

Lesson #1: If rapid growth is your objective, never, EVER put anyone but a super-savvy marketer at the helm of any entrepreneurial company.

Oh – and talk is cheap. Make sure it’s a marketer who actually has decades of spectacularly successful same- or similar-industry promotions under his or her belt.

Instead of appointing a marketing imbecile – or worse: A marketing imbecile like Al who is also a hopeless bureaucrat – you’d be better off to just quit the business while the quitting’s good. Take your money off the table and enjoy life.

And if you’re a marketing consultant or copywriter and you’re approached by a company with a marketing imbecile like Al running things, do yourself a favor: Be “too busy” to accept the assignment.

Lesson #2: Play the odds. In a vain attempt to avoid the possibility of a regulatory nightmare that had befallen only one-half of one percent of our competitors – and only the most blatantly dishonest .5% – Al doomed our already-highly ethical company to the 100% certainty of a sales disaster.

He did it by putting marketing under the thumb of a compliance officer (a very nice person whom I personally like and respect very much). And this nice person was given a very clear-cut but impossible-to-fulfill mandate: “Your job is to make absolutely sure this company is never, EVER questioned by a regulator or sued by a customer.”

And so, the Office of Business Prevention kicked itself into high gear, applying far more restrictive standards to our marketing than any – and I do mean ANY direct competitor – did to theirs. Far more restrictive, even, than the U.S. Federal Trade Commission had ever applied to any of our competitors.

And unsurprisingly, the result was a huge competitive disadvantage, plummeting response rates, dwindling cash reserves, massive layoffs and all the rest.

I say there’s a better way to go.

Now, I am definitely no lawyer, but I am a pretty darned good at business-building – and here’s how I see it 

The compliance officer’s mandate is impossible to fulfill. There is simply no way to make any company impervious to regulatory or legal hassles.

You can tell the truth, do your dead-level best to ensure you sales copy doesn’t mislead or give prospects or customers the wrong impression and do your best to follow all the other applicable laws and regulations 

  But there are gray areas and loopholes in those regulations and laws big enough to fly the space shuttle through – and 99.99% of all businesses LIVE in those gray areas.

And that means any regulator or customer can cost you a king’s ransom in legal fees any time they damn well feel like it.

A thoroughly honest compliance officer charged with the impossible responsibility to ensure zero legal hassles would immediately tell his or her boss, “There is only one way to make absolutely sure you are never questioned by a regulator or sued by a customer: Never promote, sell or ship anything.”

“Just quit. Go out of business, and I personally guarantee you won’t be bothered about anything you do from now on (DISCLAIMER: This guarantee does not apply to past promotions or previously sold products.)”

Not ready to hang it up? Well, if your top priority is to stay in business – and if you’re more afraid of the legal risks than the risk of total business failure – your next step would be to do what Al and his Office of Business Prevention did:

Impose greater restrictions on marketing copy than the law requires. You probably won’t go broke right away – and when you do, at least you’ll have a fighting chance of going to the poorhouse with a clean legal and regulatory record.

Still not good enough for you? Then there’s only one solution: Change the compliance officer’s job description.

Instead of “Responsible for ensuring the company avoids all legal hassles,” give the legal beagles a share of responsibility in the company’s continued success: change it to 

“Help the marketing department ensure the company’s continued growth while complying with directly relevant regulations, laws and ethical standards.”

In short, tell the ambulance-chasers, “Figure out ways for marketing to say what it must to grow this company without getting us in hot water.”

A special word to marketing consultants and copywriters: If a client’s lawyers have the final word on your copy, raise your fees. I’d recommend a flat fee of, say $300,000 for a direct mail package, ‘cause you sure as heck won’t be earning any royalties!

Better yet, be “too busy” to accept assignments from clients who won’t allow you to work “with” the compliance people – instead of “for” them.

POSTSCRIPT: After nearly destroying my client’s company, Al was righteously and unceremoniously canned.

  But the Web is a magic place where even abject failures like Al can reinvent themselves as instant gurus.

All you need is a website – and Al’s got a nice one. It offers – get this – “GROWTH SOLUTIONS” for businesses!

Well, he’s got me there. Truth in advertising: Al certainly “solved” our growth – by ENDING it!

Can’t help but notice, Al, you forgot to include any disclaimers on your website. There’s not a breath of how you nearly bankrupted my client’s company. No weasel words in your promises of spectacular growth for your clients.

I mean – didn’t you run this website through COMPLIANCE?

Priceless.

So fair warning: If you ever come across a business-building website  notice a spokesperson who bears a striking resemblance to “Big, Gay Al”  and if you click the “Presentation” button and hear a big, booming voice saying something like, “HELLO! I’m Big Gay Al – WELCOME to ”

  do yourself a huge favor: Just have a good laugh and move on.

Case History #2:
“Bob”, “Skip” and “John” – and FortuneCity.Com’s
Customer DISservice Department

About two weeks ago, I jumped on the web to see what you all were saying on our blog.

It wasn’t there.

Alarmed, I pointed my browser at The Profit Center™ website.

It was gone, too!

“WENDYYYY! Someone wiped our website right off of the Internet!”

“F-F-FUDGECAKES!” remarks The Redhead, “I’ll call FortuneCity’s customer service number and see what’s up”.

So, she dials the 800 number and gets a recorded message telling her to dial a bunch of other numbers in order to connect with the proper person. She does, and is promptly exiled to on-hold music hell.

After an eternity or two, a perfectly nice guy with a thick accent – we’re guessing Indian or Pakistani – and a tenuous (at best) grasp of the English language appears on the line.

“My name is Bob. How may I be of service to you?”

“Well, ‘Bob,’” says The Redhead (wondering how many Indian and Pakistani babies are being named “BOB” these days), “my website seems to have disappeared from the Internet. I’m calling to find out why, and what we can do to get it back up right away.”

“One moment, please” says “Bob.” And before she can reply, Wendy’s once again impatiently tapping her toes to truly horrendous Muzak.

After what seems like a millennium, “Bob” is back with an announcement: “Your website should be back up in a few hours.”

Tremendously relieved, The Redhead thanked him very much and hung up. And for the next few hours or so, we both repeatedly checked. No luck: The website was still down.

So Wendy calls FortuneCity’s customer disservice number again, punches in all the extra numbers and spends the obligatory amount of time in on-hold Purgatory, yearning all the while for the assuring sound of a live, human voice – even “Bob’s”.

Finally – in just slightly less time than it took for the Earth to cool – a customer service rep answers: “Hello? My name is Skip." “How is it that I may help you today?"

“My website is still down,” says The Redhead. “I just talked to someone supposedly named ‘Bob’ about it and he said it should be ‘OK’ by now – but it’s not. It’s still down!”

“One moment, please,” says “Skip.” CLICK! More lousy music. I know that look: The Redhead, she’s getting ready to do a Vesuvius.

Skip eventually returns: “Looks like your website has been completely deleted from the server. One of your employees probably sabotaged the site. We’ll have you back up within 24 hours.”

Now, it’s Saturday night – 24 hours later – still no website.

Once again, Wendy dials FortuneCity’s customer disservice number. Once again, she clicks in all the other numbers. Once again, she endures that horrific music.

“Hello? This is John. How may I help you?”

“Look. My website disappeared from the Internet Friday night. First, you guys said it would take one hour to fix it. Then, you told me it would take another 24 hours. It’s still not up. What in the bloody HELL is going on?”

“One moment, please,” says “John.” There’s that maddening music again.

Finally, “John” returns: “We don’t know why your site is down. We don’t have access to that information. You probably didn’t pay your bill. They only do this when you don’t pay your bill. You’ll have to call accounting on Monday.”

The Redhead – who had paid for a full year’s web hosting just three months ago – has reached her limit. “AAARRRGGHH!” she replies, and slams the phone down so hard even folks in India who weren’t on the line probably heard it.

Long story short: After two, long, weekend days on pins and needles, Wendy calls FortuneCity’s New York office first thing Monday morning.

The good news is the folks she talks to this time are fluent in the only language Wendy knows: English.

The bad news? They’re just as clueless as to why our website is down as their customer disservice people were. They do promise, however, to call as soon as they get it sorted out.

The minutes turn into hours. Still no word from FortuneCity. Finally, in mid-afternoon – some 68 hours after our website first disappeared – I call and get a nice lady who promises to call me right back with answers.

She does: Our account is paid in full. Our website was NOT sabotaged externally. It was FortuneCity’s fault: An internal screw up.

What’s more, they really are fixing the problem now, and our site will be back on their server in an hour or so.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is it will take ANOTHER 48 to 72 hours for our site to replicate across the Web. It could be Thursday night before our subscribers can access it!

That’s the final straw for me. My faith in FortuneCity’s ability to do anything right has been unalterably shattered.

“Heck,” I figure – “Since we were going to be down anyway, why not just tell FortuneCity to ‘shove it’ and move our site to a better host?"

Certainly,” I posed, “there must be a web host that a) will refrain from obliterating our website, b) that offers customer service reps who actually know what’s going on, c) that has reps who can explain problems to us in English, and d) that has reps who actually have been given the tools fix it quickly.”

So we called GoDaddy.Com, established that their customer service speak our native tongue and have the resources to help us immediately in the event of a similar disaster – and signed a one-year contract that costs us ONE-THIRD of what we were paying FortuneCity.Com.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: FortuneCity.Com is a big company. On its website, it boasts that it has hosted more than 1.7 million sites since 1997.

But at some point, FortuneCity’s top executives evidently decided they’re so successful, they could afford to treat their customers like crap. And so they exported their customer service to people who barely speak their customers’ language, but who’ll work for slave wages on the other side of the globe.

And if that isn’t bad enough – unless “Bob,” “Skip” and “John” are bald-faced liars, FortuneCity even failed to give them the tools required to give customers straight answers when things go wrong over a weekend – let alone FIX THEM.

You can bet your bottom dollar that no marketing person – or anyone else charged with maximizing revenues or extending customer lifetime value – made that idiotic, insulting decision.

I’m betting that decision was made by a bean counter – probably a Chief Financial Officer – whose only responsibility is cutting costs.

Now, do you think that FortuneCity even cares that they lost us as a customer?

Heck no.

But then – how could they possibly know I’d tell thousands of business owners and entrepreneurs who read The Total Package™ every Monday how poorly FortuneCity treats its customers when things go wrong?

And how could their bean counters possibly calculate how much business they’ll lose as you guys avoid FortuneCity like the plague – and go with a web host like GoDaddy.Com that offers solid customer service AT ONE-THIRD THE PRICE?

So once again, the lesson is clear: If you’re a business owner, don’t make a move without your marketing people. Better yet, let them – not your bean counters and certainly not guys like “Big, Gay Al” – run the show.

And once again, if you’re a marketing consultant or copywriter working for a company run by accountants, it’ll pay you handsomely to find a better class of client.

Hope this helps 

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™

Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.

Looking for more of Clayton’s articles? Check these out.

Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.

Want to share or reprint this article? Feel free. Just give us full attribution and a link to our Home Page when you do.

Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

Related posts

• The Multiple “O” Zone of Small Business Marketing
• Wandering Towards Direct Response Heaven
• How to Create a Killer Ad
• How to Navigate the Body Copy Minefield Without Getting Blown to Smithereens
• Breakthroughs in The Making Two innovations with the power to boost your response as much as twenty-five times over

---

12 Comments »

1. Comment by Ken — February 18, 2008 @ 3:34 pm

   I’ve read all of this before, Clayton. But I read it again, and it’s still great. Right on the money.

   I’ve been in the work place for about 30 years. Been copywriting for almost a year. It’s coming along, fine.

   I’ve witnessed almost everything you wrote about.

   Two things for any business owners who may read this…

   1. Do something with your ego. Tell your management minions to do something with their egos. Something like… park them away from the building.

   I’ve seen far too many dumbass decisions that were clearly moronic. And the IIC, Idiot In Charge, clung to them for dear life. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the decisions were not very bright.

   I’m quite used to seeing that, but it still never ceases to amaze me.

   At one place I used to work, we called this phenomena the “Stupid Decision Rule.” The SDR dictates that no stupid decision can ever be reversed. And I’ve never personally witnessed any stupid decision ever being reversed for something more intelligent.

   2. This is a great one. It’s breathtaking in it’s simplicity and power.

   Ready??

   Ask those who KNOW and DO THE ACTUAL WORK about things. They know what works best regarding many, many things. They know LOTS OF THINGS managers will NEVER know about their company.

   Do managers ever ask people who know the truth? Do they ever ask people who actually have a clue about the company processes and products?

   In my experience… sadly, NO.

   But I’ve certainly seen far too many clueless shirts and ties giving it a laughable go and basing decisions on inaccurate information.

   This isn’t just for business owners.

   If you’re in a position to partner with a business, or consult with a business, then perhaps you’ll remember this.

   Everything I’ve written is based on experience.

   There are a helluva lot more dumb businesses and ego-driven managers and business owners than I’ll ever know.

2. Comment by Mike — February 18, 2008 @ 4:08 pm

   Whew-!! What a romp. When do you come up for air?

   But I hear ya, I hear ya, I hear ya.

   Isn’t it funny how simple and effective ideas can be so difficult to actually apply and maintain?

   Something just doesn’t seem “right” about “right being wrong” or “wrong being right”, yet that type of thinking and operational response persists, with strangulating effect.

   For the Total Package wish list: How to take idiocy in stride with a smile on your face and a song in your heart

   We’re gonna need to know that too.

3. Comment by BRIAN DAVID DELANY — February 18, 2008 @ 4:48 pm

   CLAYTON
   I KNEW IT THE FIRST TIME I READ YOUR FIRST E-MAIL!
   YOU\’RE TRUE GENIUS!
   I DON\’T HAVE TO PATRONIZE BECAUSE YOU NOR I NEED THAT! IT IS WHAT IT IS AND THAT\’S ALL THAT IT IS!
   THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUAL GUIDANCE AND YOUR GIVING!
   I AM CERTAIN THAT SOON I WILL BE ABLE TO BE OF SERVICE AND VALUE TO YOU!
   THANK YOU AGAIN!
   SINCERELY, FOREVER IN G-D\’S SERVICE,
   BRIAN DAVID DELANY

4. Comment by Sharon B. — February 18, 2008 @ 5:31 pm

   Hi Clayton–
   Boy, did you hit the nail on the head with this one!!
   I worked for one of those clueless businesses for a while– it was actually good there at the outset, and then the bean-counters took over and everything went straight to hell. This was the reason I finally left and started a business of my own.
   I was a manager at a local laundromat for ten years. Under my “regular” boss’ rule, I was allowed to run the place the way I saw fit and make any changes I felt were needed. In my first two years, I put in a play corner for the kids, added a “lending library” and a coupon exchange box (my area is 90% low income), added some plants, painted murals on the walls, and put in gardens outside. Most of this was done on my own time. But because of these few changes, the client base DOUBLED in two years, and we never spent a penny on advertising. We became known as the best laundromat in the Northwest Corner.
   Fast forward a few years, and enter the bean counters. (It was a hostile family takeover.) The first thing they did was take away all paid holidays, discontinue my 401(k), and forbid overtime of any sort. Next, they refused to allow us to dry laundry for clients as a favor to them, and they decided we had to charge for the privilige. They did not service the machines when they needed it; they let the coin machine run out of quarters on a regular basis (I called once to say I needed quarters and was told that no one could come because they were TOO BUSY EATING LUNCH.) and they didn’t give two you–know–whats about the customers. The final straw was when it came time for a raise–I was told that the job wasn’t worth paying that much because it really wasn’t a very hard job, and it didn’t take a lot of brains to do it. I gave my notice then and there and left to start my own business two weeks later.
   After I left, the gardens were taken out, the walls were painted over, the lending library was dismantled, and the plants were thrown away. The Best Laundromat in the Northwest Corner was now (and still is) just another laundromat. The prices have gone up three times; employees can’t make more than $8 per hour or work more than 20 hours a week; and the once-thriving client base has dwindled to almost nothing. When I run into the remaining clients even now (3 years later), they STILL ask me when I am coming back. I guess hope springs eternal.
   I am not relating this to bash the place (although I did find it difficult to see all my hard work so thoroughly trashed). I am describing what can happen if the clients are not the focus of the business. The technical term for what my old bosses did is called “Incremental Degradation”, which is making small, systematic cuts in quality and service while raising the price. This should be avoided at all costs if you want a business to thrive.
   I fully expect that business to go under in the very near future. At that point, if I am in good financial shape, I will buy it myself and show them how a good business should be run.–-I will say, though, that I got a very thorough education there in how NOT to run a business, and I do have to thank them for that. I am sure it has saved me a lot of mistakes.
   Clayton, as always, thank you for your wisdom. I appreciate the “venting space” too!

5. Comment by Glen Kohlenberg — February 18, 2008 @ 6:03 pm

   Clayton thanks for the lesson and 10 years off my learning curve.
   Put the REDHEAD on the back of that hog and cooler off a little bit.A little ride in the foothills will do you both some good.Thanks

6. Comment by The Redhead — February 18, 2008 @ 8:27 pm

   This Redhead never rides on the back…I ride my own Heritage Softail thank you very much…I can cool my own jets anytime

7. Comment by Georgi Gordon — February 18, 2008 @ 9:27 pm

   Awesome education on the marketing anatomy of direct mail numbers.

   Plus a scintillating expose of private sector bureaucrats - thanks to a most definitive description of these useless highly-credentialed peacock pricks.

8. Comment by Govindan — February 18, 2008 @ 11:42 pm

   Worth implementing with long range benefits.

9. Comment by nita — February 19, 2008 @ 12:42 am

   hi Clayton,
   This was awesome. I wish I had your insight and your reader friendly writing style.
   My husnabd always told me that mktg. was most imp.my so, a finance person was always sceptical.Both of them are going to benefit with your story.
   sincerely,
   nita

10. Comment by Kammy Thurman — February 19, 2008 @ 10:48 pm

    Oh, man. Reading about Big Gay Al brings back NIGHTMARES of my fights with compliance on every issue under the sun that remotely represented marketing, copy and even design when I directed marketing for a financial planner.

    Makes me want to scream all over again just thinking about it.

    The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the regulator, a writer wannabe started trying to edit copy, not for compliance, but for how she personally thought it should read.

    On one piece the broad wouldn’t pass it for compliance unless I changed three words in a sentence so they “sounded better!” I promptly told her where she could put her suggestion and her compliance and told my client we were using the copy as is.

    He got uptight because we weren’t bowing to every cotton pickin’ wish of the compliance Gods, but he agreed to let it go. We never had a bit of trouble with it from any agency.

    By the end of that stint I swore I would NEVER EVER work with financial planning or insurance again.

11. Comment by John Scola — February 20, 2008 @ 1:12 pm

    Hi Clayton,

    I have a question for you…

    You spoke about the lifetime value of new customers…

    How would you get the numbers for companies that either:

    1) Didn’t compile historical customer data or…

    2) Haven’t been around long enough to know these numbers?

12. Comment by John Scola — February 21, 2008 @ 8:56 am

    Hi Clayton,

    I really liked your use of pyramids to position the smart companies vs. dumb ones…

    In fact, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine on this very subject and these pyramids made excellent visual aids!

    Now I have another use for ‘em.

    The pyramids are also a perfect metaphor of our government.

    Layers and layers of bureaucracy. And lines and lines of regulations and taxes. Deliberately obscure and indescribable.

    All designed to make us citizens confused and helpless… and dependent on the government to solve all our problems… (sigh)

    If you have ideas how to legally “fire” our government – I’m all ears. So far, voting the bastards out ain’t workin’…

    John