The 3 Rs

Last night I was invited to a small and intimate speaking engagement (about 17 others atteneded) for a very cool opportunity to listen to a pretty interesting gentlemen named Jeremy Epstein. His brief bio follows. . .

Over the course of an almost 6 year career at Microsoft, Jeremy implemented numerous scalable community building and revenue generating programs. His efforts were frequently recognized as US-wide best practices, and he authored one of Microsoft's most successful marketing blogs with over 110,000 views per month. Since leaving Microsoft and "hanging out the shingle," he has signed contracts with multiple clients including Johnson & Johnson and NYT best-selling author, Dan Pink (A Whole New Mind and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko). A passionate technologist, Jeremy prides himself as early adopter with email (1991), a personal home page (1992), and blogging (2000). His career highlights include a start-up with his brother, SilentFrog, and award-winning interactive marketing in Tokyo.

Dan Pink being one of his clients (not to mention one of my favorite authors) I knew I would take up my friend Michelle's invitation to attend. Fortunately/Unfortunately I got there a little late and because of that, for a portion of the night I was the punch line for some of his jokes ... which was cool with me (a little limelight from jokes never hurt anyone). What was even cooler, though, was finding out that his network of close colleagues included Seth Godin and Hugh MacLeod. . .'nuff said.

So the basis of his presentation revolved around 2 ideas. One from Seth Godin - being Remarkable (the 1st R) and the second from one of the concepts of Made to Stick - being memorable or Remembered (the 2nd R).  He took three very easy accessible tools to ANYONE - Your business card, your voicemail, and your automatic out of office reply message (for those of you who use those) and talked about how these very simple tools can boost your clientele, revenues and profits for your company. Goooood stuff!

His premise was this (very similar to my earlier post on the devil is in the details): It's not always the grand ideas, the big marketing strategies or unique product lines that always generate business for you. Its the small and  mundane things that are JUST as valuable. For example. . .

. . .look at your business card.  If you were to give it to someone would they say its pretty cool, remarkable or memorable? Is it distinguishing you/your business from the hundreds of other business cards they have?  Will your card be one they will remember?

Your voicemail?  Does it stand out?  Does it say I am different and I have a unique offering?  Or does it just say "I can't take your call right now, please leave a message and I will call you back".  Standard. Regular. Not differentiating you from the pack.

The same for your auto reply out of office message.  Is it standard or can it say something slightly different to grab that attention and make someone say "whoaa, that's pretty cool"!

Ladies and Gentlemen the object of the game is to standout. Be different.  Give people a reason to want to call you back, seek out your services, and the sweeetest gift - refer you to a friend! Small things like this is how it all starts. 

So my advice is figure out a way to be a Remarkable Rebel (the 3rd R - see previous post) who will be Remembered and I guarantee it will pay off handsomely!