Million Dollar Idea! Send Brownies
Over the past 6 months I have run into this really nice guy by the name of Scott Skinger.
First he was in the poker tournament. Here he is seated between Dan Perry, the guy who won, and some other bald guy wearing sun glasses. He blogs on mountany stuff and also has a site that does computer stuff video training.
Then I ran into him again at the Elite Retreat.
Scott is the one with the red arrow pointing toward his head.
By the way, that was one heck of a dinner with one heck of a group of people. The amount of brilliance at the table that night was amazing.
So anyways, Scott is this really nice guy who I keep bumping into. There are many people like this we all meet. Great guy, but I can’t remember exactly what he does. You remember he is polite, considerate, warm, which are all the basics, but it is not enough to really seal the deal in business.
So what does it take?
It takes Brownies!!
Yesterday I am at my chiropractic office. Usually my chiropractic office and my Internet businesses do not intersect very often. But I am standing at work, right after treating a patient, and one of my staff walks over and goes “Who is Scott Skinger”?? I think for a moment, Scott? Scott? Oh yeh! They nice guy from the poker tournament and the Elite Retreat.
I ask her why?
She says, he sent you brownies!
My ears perk up, and curiosity sets in.
Sitting in front of me is a box of brownies. They had a nice personal note with them thanking me for having dinner with him, and how nice it was to meet me and my wife.
There is no sales pitch in the note. No asking for anything. In fact I had to Google Scott to even see what his sites were.
So my wife and I have eaten two of the brownies, and the rest are in the freezer to be consumed slowly over time.
Scott got my attention. I already knew and liked him, but now with the brownies I will never forget him for the rest of my life.
As a result of Scott being a great guy and getting my attention he got this article written about him.
So what is the lesson in this. Do something nice. Send someone some fricken brownies for gosh sake, knit them a hat, especially someone with a blog, and see what happens? Just ask yourself, unless you are Jeremy, who gets more free crap than anyone else in the universe , how often does someone send you a nice thank you?
You can’t pay for links or you will get busted by Google right? But no one can ever stop you from being nice. All of the cool links I have ever gotten were simply by doing nice stuff for people. I have had cartoons drawn of people, had a poker tournament, brought burritos and chiropractic to firefighters etc. etc. Just do nice stuff for people with websites, and see what happens!
I’m young, but I still like the old fashion way of doing business. Meeting people face to face and actually talking to potential clients.
I typically hand them my business card, talk to them for a few minutes, then after a few days I follow up with a thank you card.
But I have to say, I never went beyond that and gave meaningful / thoughful gifts beyond a pen or tradeshow keychains.
ReplySometimes a cheap gift with some thought behind it goes a lot longer than an expensive generic one.
ReplyI have to say, I really like it when potential clients/vendors and customers do something personal like that. We usually do not get to meet business partners face to face and that sort of thing really helps establish a more “real world” relationship. That and I love food and would have a hard time saying no to anyone who freely gave baked sweets.
ReplyI love brownies. I think its a great though on his part and its very nice of you to write about him.
I think personal touch always wins. I think I should stop buying people round of drinks and focus on sending them more personal stuff :).
ReplyMmmm brownies. I have never had the pleasure of giving or receiving brownies before, but it sure does sound nice. @CouponNerds: a round of drinks beats brownies for me! Haha. Better yet, a round of drinks AND brownies. Yeah.
Reply[…] post full of juicy links this week to a bloke they met briefly at a couple of events, because he sent them a box of chocolate brownies. Just goes to show that the personal touch and a well-thought out gesture can work wonders. So, […]