The Pedestal Group

People are always saying you should follow your passion.  It sounds great, but can be difficult for people to do.  However, when you get to talk to someone who has succeeded, you really get what they are talking about.

For instance, I got to spend a couple hours with Patti Boyert over at Boyert’s Garden Center.  I just have to say – WOW.  I am not a gardener, much to my mother’s chagrin. It isn’t that I can’t grow things, I just don’t know because I don’t want to. I don’t care about it!  So talking to Patti, who loves it, is fascinating for me  because she truly does. And she knows EVERYTHING.

We were walking through the greenhouses talking about plants.  On the scale of subjects, plants for me ranks just slightly above football. But there I was, diligently taking notes. Until she started explaining how to select plants for your yard.  She suggested I get down closer to plant level and look across the greenhouse to see what jumped out at me.  What a cool idea! I saw things I didn’t see just looking around and suddenly wanted to know what they were and where they would work in my yard. She talked about how to take care of the plants and why she doesn’t carry certain varieties. Interestingly enough, she doesn’t carry one type of daisy-looking flower that my husband bought elsewhere last year because they get “heat stressed” and die. Sure enough last year they made it to June and then died. I was disgusted that we had plants for no reason and here it wasn’t me, it was the plant!  If I had talked to Patti, I would have known what to buy instead and had plants all season.

Another thing she recommended was bringing in pictures of your yard. Then she and her staff will make recommendations on what to get within your budget. So I don’t have to figure it out?  Because look -when I say I don’t do this, I’m not kidding. When it says “shade”, I’m the one asking my husband does that mean under the deck or could it handle it if there is a little sun?  Turns out, talking to Patti, it means it can handle morning sun but not the hot afternoon kind. And it doesn’t matter any way because I can show her my yard and she’ll tell me what will work where. No guessing, no worrying, nothing!

She then showed me an area where she had planters all lined up full of plants. She said people bring their planters from the previous year back in and she fills them. Drop them off in March, pick them up in May and you are out the door with a beautiful pot or hanging basket! So that means other people don’t have this weird collection of pots and planters underneath their decks! Genius.

This all comes back to passion because Patti was able and willing to talk about plants and growing them for as long as I was willing to listen.  She had ideas and ways to get someone not interested at all excited about the day when the rain stops and I can plant some things.  And, she gave me a list of what I need and the supplies so I don’t have to worry I’m missing something or don’t know what to do. And she never made me feel stupid when I had to ask what “dead heading” means since to me that’s something to do with a band. It was important to her to share her love of what she does with me and made me get excited too. Now that’s following a dream.  Thank you to Patti and Boyert’s for all the information and I’ll be back soon!

I don’t generally admit this in public, but I am a computer gamer.  Yes – ultimate geek, I know. But that’s okay. There are many interesting things about the game, but this week I attended our Chamber meeting and the speaker was talking about motivation.  I started to think about things and the motivations to do things in game.  Now normally with a game you have the motivation to “win”, to accomplish tasks, and to do things with your friends.  When I first started playing this game, characters had the option to buy or find pets – strange little creatures that would hang out with you and really served no purpose other than be there.  One of my friends and I loved the pets and collected as many as we could store.  My husband did too. Come to find out, so did a lot of other people.

Now, Blizzard, the makers of the game, noticed this too.  Many players liked the pets and collected bunches of them.  So they put in more pets, tasks where the rewards were pets, and give you more pets if you reach certain numbers of pets.  This upgrade came with a bunch of other stuff as well but they recognized something that happened organically and built on it.  Now, you often see people in towns with the rare, unusual or the holiday pets.  It is just fun.  From Blizzard’s perspective, it also gives a person a reason to keep playing – they need to get that next pet or the next level or whatever.  It is one more way to keep the player interested and engaged in a way he or she likes.  We don’t have to do these things – they are in no way mandatory – but come with a prize we want.

Okay, so how does that relate to business? First and foremost, notice what your customers are doing.  If you sell a product, how do they use the product?  Is there anything about it you should know like does everything have a spare in the office or home or do they buy it as needed?  If you sell a service, is there a pattern to use or can you graph it to see if there is a cycle, etc?  Or, do some people always go with the addons or do they just stick to the basic service?  Now, how can you capitalize on the answers?  What can you offer that is building on those real life situations but add more value and keep the customer coming back? It is all in how you motivate people to do things.

Chris Brogan talked about a clothing brand his son wears that have tags that are stickers. And they are cool stickers too.  For anyone with young children, a sticker is a great extra on anything, especially something as boring as clothing.  That child will always go for the clothes that come with stickers over the ones that don’t. And if the sticker gets put on a lunchbox, backpack or other item seen by other children, it is now a marketing tool.

So what can you do? What extras can you add?  How can you help people feel motivated to stay with your product or service?   Frankly, adults like stickers too!

The first time I saw a marketing technique like the one used on me today, I was both disgusted and impressed.  This afternoon in the mail I received a marketing piece with a post it attached saying some person thought I would be interested in the information and signed it with their initials.  The first time this happened to me, I really worked at determining who the “J” was on the post it to make sure I didn’t blow off something that was important to someone I cared about.  Unfortunately for the person who sent it, I checked with my “J” friends first rather than just calling them.  So I was disgusted because it is a lie. If I call this person, they don’t know me and it was a ploy to get me to call.  I’ve known some recruiters who do this in the form of leaving a voice mail “regarding a highly confidential matter” and then it is because they think you will know someone good for a position.  It got the desired result, but now the rest of the call is to prove the recruiter isn’t a slime bucket.

But I was impressed  because it was genius.  If we had even the most tenuous relationship, when I called if the person could say we met somewhere or talked at some point and they truly thought I’d be interested, I’m hooked.  To tell someone they made enough of an impression on you that you remembered them when something came up is a huge ego boost and would definitely get my attention.

So do this the way it was intended.  Go to a networking event and meet people.  Jot down on the back of their business card something they said or something they are interested in.  When you follow up after the event, don’t just send a “great to have met you” email- instead, include in it something that is based on what they discussed; something they would truly be interested in.  If you don’t have it electronically, send it hard copy.  But be sure to put your name on it and have the note say something to reference your conversation so they have a context.  At the end of the day your messages will get noticed and people will think of you as someone who really pays attention.  Meanwhile, I’m not returning this call.  But I’m still impressed.