When I was a kid, every so often we’d go fishing with Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill would line up five or six cousins on the bank of the lake with cane poles and a coffee can full of worms. Then, he would settle back in his lawn chair with a great big smelly cigar. As soon as he saw the tip of a cane pole start to dip, he would begin a quiet chant: "You're gonna miss it.... you're gonna miss it...."
Of course, we didn't WANT to miss the fish! Even if it was just a tiny sunfish, the more he claimed we'd miss it, the more fiercely we tried to catch it! We'd do anything -- including wading knee-deep into the water to get...that...fish.
I just got off the phone with a customer, who mentioned that in a month or so he's going to his first trade show. He and his staff are printing new business cards and will have plenty of brochures on hand for the people who walk through the show. In this case, the gathering draws people from all over the world. He has absolutely no store front or foot traffic, so he depends on his website and email to communicate with customers. This is a rare opportunity to meet face to face with the people who buy his products.
Trade shows are incredibly labor-intensive – not only the printing, packing and preparation, but the drive, the set-up, the hours of talking, educating, selling and listening. But, so worth it! Especially if it’s your particular audience. So, while he’s at the show, he’ll take advantage of all his hard work and think of various ways he can connect not only AT the show, but into the future. So, before we got off the phone, this customer had plans to collect business cards and/or email addresses from visitors to his booth.
During the past few months, one of our retail customers has been doing a very simple, very inexpensive thing: he has email sign-up sheets on the counters of his stores. He’s collected dozens of email addresses… from people who genuinely WANT to receive emails about his specials. The effort: a few pieces of notebook paper attached to a clipboard. The result: yet another avenue of communication.
Whether it’s in person, by email, or in print, there are tons of opportunities to reach your customers (and those who wish they were your customers). We all have tons of opportunities to connect with customers. Maybe we all just need an Uncle Bill sitting behind us whispering, “You’re gonna miss it. . . “
