Al Cleinman's Blog

Beware The Non-WoW!

Business is built by word of mouth ("wom") and the objective of every business is to create "ambassadors."  Ambassadors are those folks who run around the countryside (literally or in cyberspace) telling stories about the good (or bad) services that they receive.  I'm sure you know a few and you know how valuable they are.  In today's wired world, with the likes of Facebook and Yelp, a positive or negative can be put before literally millions in nano-seconds.

For twenty years or better, I have been telling my clients that what patients/customers desire is to be WOWed. It is really only through a WOW that you create an ambassador. Thus, no WOW...no ambassador. 

Now, the tricky part is to understand what will WOW your customer; and to avoid what I call the "non-WOW."  Here are a couple of examples.

A few years ago, I received a holiday gift from a business owner who was pushing for my referrals.  This was a very personal situation, in that I had been referring business to this firm for a number of years and then, for reasons secondary to this article but of a personal nature, my referrals stopped.  The business owner recognized that he was no longer receiving my referrals and put on a full-court press to get back in my good graces.  He reached out to me and we had a chat or two about the reasons behind my shift in thinking.  He sent me a note.  And come the holidays, he sent me a gift of chocolate.  A big, big box of fancy smancy chocolates.  Now, on the surface, perhaps I should have been grateful.  But, for me, the gift represented the very disconnect that had caused my change of heart to begin with.  You see, I'm diabetic.  And giving me chocolate (in this case) only exacerbated the fact that this owner didn't take the time to learn about me and why I was no longer making referrals.  Normally, such a gift would have been well-received and I would have gladly shared my largess with my team.  The sender would have received a "thank you" and all would be good.  But in this particular case, the gift actually represented the very disconnect that had arisen between us...and it turned into a Non-WOW.

Yesterday, I checked into the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City in preparation for today's Business of Eyecare Forum.  Our curriculum is all about WOW, so this subject is top-of-mind for me.  As our firm spends tens of thousands of dollars for each of these events, I often receive a nice amenity in my room; fruit and cheese; a bottle of wine, etc.  In this particular case, the catering manager left her business card next to the gift.  The gift consisted of two bottles of evian and a box of Carr's Water Crackers.  Not to be ungrateful, but for the life of me I cannot understand why a catering manager would deliver bread and water as an amenity.  And if you've ever had a Carr's Water Cracker, you know how dry they are.  You'd think the catering manager would want me to experience some of the wonderful offerings that her department puts forth; perhaps examples of what they would serve to our guests today. 

Simply stated, what might have been thought of as a WOW turned out to be a Non-WOW.  They'd have been better off with nothing.

My message is simple.  Think!  A WOW is an unexpected surprise.  Make sure it's well thought out and truly connects with the recipient.  In both of these cases, a bit of research would have made a big difference.

 

A Perverse Look at Thanksgiving Wishes

 

 

 

It’s that time of year again.  The time when the calendar tells us that we should take a moment to think about all those things, situations, forces and relationships for which we are thankful.   I thought I’d share a few from my long list:

 



 

·        I’m thankful that I have people on my team who challenge me;

·        I’m thankful that I have clients who are demanding of me;

·        I’m thankful for competitors that want what I have;

·        I’m thankful that I grew up in a household lacking abundance;

·        I’m thankful to be experiencing the aches and pains of middle age;

·        I’m thankful that I have been hurt by others;

·        I’m thankful that I’ve been broke…more than once;

·        I’m thankful that I have had products, services and businesses fail;

·        I’m thankful that I have children who no longer “need” me;

·        I’m thankful that I don’t have all the money that I want;

·        I’m thankful that I have made more than my share of mistakes in life;

·        I’m thankful that there’s more that I don’t know;

·        I’m thankful that every day I’m reminded of my imperfection.

 

This might seem a perverse list of things for which to be thankful.  But when I reflect on my life and that which is before me, I am most thankful to have been handed (and created) many challenges.  I often say that we learn little from success; that its life’s failures that make us who we are.  I’ve had my share of “learning experiences.”  I look forward to many more.

 

As you sit down with family and friends on this Thanksgiving Day, I ask that you consider not just all the grand things that you have experienced, acquired and accomplished; but also all those challenges along the way that have helped you become the person that you are. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Al Cleinman

 

 

Pack your bags, Jack...and don't come back!

RADFORD, VA – It’s often said that law enforcement officers divorce at a higher rate than couples working in any other profession.

Not so, says Radford University Professor Emeritus Mike Aamodt and recent RU graduate Shawn McCoy in a soon-to-be published study.

“A Comparison of Law Enforcement Divorce Rates with Those of Other Occupations” is set to be published in the spring issue of Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology.

McCoy, who was one of Aamodt’s undergraduate students, is the lead author of the study that has determined that police officers do not have a higher level of divorce than those in other professions.

“There is a common belief that divorce is higher among police officers in spite of the fact that there is no empirical research supporting such a belief,” said Aamodt, a retired RU psychology professor. “To compare the divorce rate of law enforcement personnel with the rates for other occupations, we analyzed data from the 2000 U.S. Census. The results of the analysis indicate that the divorce rate for law enforcement personnel is lower than that of the general population, even after controlling for demographic and other job-related variables.”

McCoy and Aamodt’s study has received much attention in the international media over the past month. However, many of those media reports have credited Aamodt with creating a formula to predict divorce. “That is not what the study is about,” Aamodt said. “Although the differences in occupational rates of divorce are fascinating, we conducted the study as part of a series of studies investigating the many myths involving law enforcement personnel.”

Occupations with high divorce rates included dancers, bartenders, massage therapists and telemarketers, whereas occupations with low divorce rates included optometrists, agricultural engineers, clergy and podiatrists, Aamodt said.

I can attest to this phenomena through our valuation work.  While we've worked on a number of divorces for clients over the years, and indeed currently have several divorce valuations on our docket, divorce among optometrists is clearly not as prevalent as that of mainstream America.  I wonder why? 

 

Back to the Future - Goodbye to Money

I think you'll find this short article from TIME Magazine from May 12, 1961 to be fascinating.  Enjoy the read.

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What computers can already do makes any prophecy of future potentialities difficult: it is hard to top the fantastic. But Dr. Simon Ramo, executive vice president of the booming electronics firm of Thompson Ramo Wooldridge (TIME cover, April 29, 1957), last week took a bold peek into the future. At a U.C.L.A. lecture, Si Ramo painted a picture of the coming "age of intellectronics":

LAWYERS: "Two or three decades from now, every attorney might have an electronic connection to a huge national central repository of all the laws and commentaries upon them that he needs." Instead of searching through law libraries for precedents, says Ramo, a lawyer will consult the intellectronics system by means of a typewriter-like gadget in his office which, within seconds, will produce "any information that is available on his particular question."

DOCTORS: Doctors of the future, according to Ramo, will feed their patients' case histories into a medical intellectronics system that will correlate the information with that amassed from thousands of previous cases and then supply "the statistical probabilities of the relative effectiveness of various treatments."

BANKS: The routine chores required to keep money transactions straight, Ramo argues, are "as unsuitable for the human intellect as pulling huge stones to build the Pyramids was for human muscles. Some day, currency and coins will be only for the rural areas. If you buy a necktie or a house, your thumb before an electronic scanner will identify you, and the network will debit your account and credit the seller."

At what risk all this? Well, admits Ramo: "Occasionally, a transistor burning out in Kansas City may accidentally wipe out the fortune of someone in Philadelphia."

Our Government at Work???

I was contemplating our country's current financial situation and our government's attempt to figure out a solution.  It reminded me of some poetry that I wrote a decade ago.  Perhaps you'll see the connection and humor...perhaps not.   

 

The Economics of Firewood

It started with three deadwood trees,

to pros I had to turn;

Twelve hundred bucks for them to fell,

for me to split and burn.

For two days straight they toiled high

to bring those limbs to earth.

A stack of wood ten yards wide

some three feet in girth.

So now to split and stack in cords

I had my work cut out.

But what great fun and heathy too,

and cheap firewood no doubt.

For weeks on end we puffed and groaned

and six cord split we cut.

Fifty hours of my short time

worth another thousand bucks.

So hire some kids to speed things up

and rent a machine I did.

Another eight cord for us to burn;

to Brits a hundred quid.

Tired and worn, determined though

to make this effort pay.

Hired a pro, his splitter too,

to finish the job in a day.

“Forget the ax and mall”, said he

on his splitter he relied;

State of the art, the best, no doubt,

“two hundred”, he replied.

More wood then we could ever burn

resulted from our strength.

Our stacks will be a side lawn fence

one hundred feet in length.

Load and stack, the wheelbarrow broke,

to move this wood, no luck.

A truck we'll need, that's the trick

just two more thousand bucks.

So now out back, we had a fence

of cordwood it was made.

For fires we had a life's supply,

but think of what we'd paid.

Then came the day, not winter yet

the house we said to sell.

But not the wood, it cost too much!

...and the buyer wouldn't yell.

Now closing day came up too fast,

act quick, it would behoove

to take some wood to mother's house;

so fast she worked to move.

With three trucks and strapping men

of the wood she took a hold.

“Just leave a bit for me”, I said.

“Don't worry”,  I was told.

The big day came, move fast they did

not a single piece of  pine;

not one cord, not a single one,

was left for any fire of mine.

So there I was, no wood to burn,

a call I made to Jack.

“Thirty bucks the cord”, he laughed,

“delivered, split and stacked.” 

Now keep in mind the cost of this

cordwood that was like gold;

so far I've got five thousand bucks...

a cord... to stay the cold.

  

Alan H. Cleinman

©1998

You Get What You Pay For

So I'm in the Big Apple (that's New York City to those west of the Hudson River) last week and got the bright idea that I'd attend the Knicks season opener.  I'd never been to a professional basketball game and didn't have a ticket, so my only chance was the scalpers.  After inquiring to three different somewhat seedy looking dudes I learned that the going rate was $150.  Ouch!  I wasn't prepared for that big an investment.  So, as I'm standing in the lobby area of Madison Square Garden, with litterally thousands of people streaming in from every point of the compass, I spot a couple who seem to be selling a ticket.  "Have a ticket for sale?" I asked.  "Yes, we have an extra ticket," was the warm response.  "How much?" I inquired.  "$30...we just want to get rid of it." Wow, I thought to myself...my lucky day!  I quickly grabbed the ticket and exchanged my money.  The couple disappeared into the crowd. 

I looked down at the ticket to figure out my seat location. "Cirque du Soliel" jumped out in bold type.  Seems that their were two events at Madison Square Garden last Wednesday...and in my own excitement over finding a cheap ticket I failed to even consider whether I bought the right one.

So, the moral of the story:

- If it's too good to be true...it probably is.

- You get what you pay for.

PS:  I did end up springing $100 for a ticket and enjoyed watching the Knicks beat Miami.  The way I rationalized this one was that I was still $20 ahead...and life is all about rationalization. 

Enjoy life, it's the only one you can count on.

Al Cleinman