"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy
HEADLINES:
Growth Summit Update -- Fred Reichheld, author of the best selling book "The Ultimate Question", will keynote the Growth Summit in Las Vegas. His Net Promoter Score (NPS) is changing the way companies think about customer satisfaction.
Outstanding Website Design -- check out Caroline Caskey's Identigene website, the leaders in DNA testing. What catches your eye FIRST is the bold brand promise backed with a guarantee of "3 Days or Free." They state clearly their "only ones" position in the marketplace. The contact info and hours is top left, making it easy for the customer to contact them. The "What's wrong with a $99 test" is going right at their competitors. And their "Get SECURE answers to your questions, ONLINE" box in the lower right shows a clear understanding of the customers sensitivities while providing clear answers to the top four common questions. Best use of web real estate I've seen on a site.
Identigene's "Test" Site -- it's obvious a great deal of research and thought has gone into their site, so I asked Caroline how she did this. The key is that they have a private labeled site which they use to play around with pricing and other changes to see what impact those changes make. Noted Caroline "Identigene's site converts far more clients than the private label site, even when the test site offers much lower pricing. It's been interesting to see what works." LESSON -- be your own competitor. Set up a competitive site with an unrelated URL and see what you can learn by tweaking layout, offerings, etc.
10 Website Domain Name Strategies -- speaking of websites, Eric Shannon, President of LatPro, Inc, the leading job board for Hispanic and bilingual professionals, has written a very concise 10 commandments for getting the right domain names (and getting plenty of them) -- the key is creating a moat around your existing domain name by getting names that are slightly misspelled and making sure you have domain names that mirror your brand promise and product/service names. Notes Eric "this is the kind of knowledge that can make a 20 fold difference in your outcome. I learned it the hard way: LATE!" Here's a link to his 10 commandments
5 Million Contacts and Email Addresses -- this might be old news for many of you, but Steven Krane, President of Therasage pointed me to www.jigsaw.com, an online database of over 5 million contacts complete with email addresses. I've looked up several of you and surprised to find many of you in this "world's largest rolodex." Founded by Jim Fowler, a veteran sales executive, in a previous life he was owner and operator of Lookout Pass, a ski resort in Idaho, and served in the US Navy as a Diving and Salvage Officer!
Best and Worst Customer Service Stories Needed -- for a FORTUNE Small Business cover story on customer service, Justin Martin plans to include a sidebar on "Service Highlights and Lowlights." This will feature CEOs describing their best and worst service experiences from a consumer perspective. You can discuss notable experiences, good or bad, with an airline, restaurant, bank, you name it. There's no need to identify the company that furnished the experience, though you can if you like. March 21 deadline email [email protected]
Best Place to Work in Dallas-Forth Worth 2007 -- congratulations to Tony Hartl and Planet Tan for this latest recognition. With 10 locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, they count among their spokes persons the infamous Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. And Tony runs a very Rockefeller Habits-disciplined organization, while having a loads of outrageous fun -- the two can co-exist!!