I was reading an article in Entrepreneur magazine today about doing small things to connect with your customers in meaningful ways. Goal: promote deeper contact and loyalty.
My mind was instantly captured with ideas: sending a hand written thank you note to one of the HR managers who works with me – and who today sent me some pretty useful info for a local ESL book publisher. But not just a thank you note….what about a nice hot cup of Starbucks to start the day?
And then I got to thinking about all the students who have been taking classes with us for the last year. How could I connect with them? (Brain is still moving on that.)
Then I came across this great post over at Seth’s blog. Reacting. Responding and Initiating.
We tend to reserve the third bucket, initiate, for quiet times, good times, down times or desperate times. We wait until the inbox is empty or the new product lines are due (at which point the initiative is more of a response). It’s possible to spend an entire day blogging and twittering and facebooking and never initiate a thing, just respond to what’s coming in. It’s possible to spend an entire day at P&G (actually it’s possible to spend an entire career) doing nothing but responding…
Take a look at your Sent folder. Is it filled with subject lines that start with RE: ? Consider your job at the University–do you actively recruit people who don’t even apply for professorships? What about your blog–does it start conversations or just continue them?
What did your brand or organization initiate today?
What did you initiate?
Initiate. What have I initiated recently in my company…and in my classroom with my students?
