It was that pleasant enough moment at the start of a conference call when people sat in their offices across this big country (or this small world) compare their respective weather (pretty cold in Texas, polar in Chicago) while waiting for the last few to join.
Out of the blue Bob (his name isn’t actually Bob) started telling me he’d been trying the herbal tea I’d mentioned when we’d met at a recent kick-off meeting for a research project we’re now working on. This was in Cleveland (it wasn’t in Cleveland).
The tea in question comes loose in simple brown bags from a 32 acre organic farm in Rockport, Maine. The woman who puts it together knows how to make a blend that quietly settles you down for the night without making you groggy the next morning. I find it to be good enough stuff that I order it directly from the farm and even remember to take a little with me when I go on business trips. Hot water, a little honey, gentle sleep.
It was kind of Bob to mention how as he’d found the tea to be useful. No surprise, it’s excellent, but maybe not such a typical water-cooler topic in the halls of American higher management. Anyway, he thanked me again for the link, and there was that slight silence between friendly strangers which is far harder to leave unfilled on the telephone than it is in person. Just as I was about to move the conversation along, two other voices on the line both piped up to say, well, don’t sleep as much as I might these days and if you don’t mind that’s a link I’d like to see too.
OK. Fair enough. What conclusions can be drawn? Well, one: Very few people in corporate America are getting anything like enough sleep. And two: Word of mouth when it’s overheard, unsolicited and compelling, is a powerful, powerful thing.
I know; we know this. Personal service. Excellent products. Keep the customer satisfied. Use testimonials. Let your clients do the taking (and the selling). But, like many truisms (of concept, as well as word), most of the time we nod our heads while consigning the notion to that amorphous cloud of our best intentions. Can get to be a big cloud that.
The truth is there is nothing on your sales and marketing priority list that is as vital and valuable (today, right away, now) as a customer, out of earshot and beyond the metrics of modern marketing, talking about how much they love what you make or do.
We need to keep telling ourselves this. Every day. If we can keep that idea in our minds when considering any facet of our efforts or operation we might just find we end up sleeping a little better at night.
In the meantime, here’s that link:
http://www.avenabotanicals.com/dream-time-tea.html
If you’d like to talk about tea or anything else we might be able to help you with, just drop me a line.
All the best,
David