Category Archives: Business & Marketing

How To Win/Lose a Customer for Life

August 6, 2010 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

I’ve had some trouble getting auto service lately. Let’s compare experiences and see who you’d rather go with:

My last visit to Tires Plus:
I sat in the waiting room for three hours while they changed my oil, didn’t bother to rotate my tires because they were so worn out (apparently from not being rotated often enough) and tried to sell me on $1,200 worth of repairs. When I finally asked if my car was done, they were surprised. The car had been done for a while. They called my house and when my wife told them I was sitting in their waiting room, they disagreed with her and said I stepped out. They never checked the waiting room, where I had been sitting for three hours.

Apparently they forgot about me and gave up. While paying the bill the sales guy made a big show of walking around the counter to shake my hand. I’ve never wanted to punch somebody so badly.

Today’s visit to Pace’s Service Center:
When I left Tires Plus I vowed never to go back. I asked around and decided on the little family-owned service shop that will still pump your gas for you: Pace’s Service Center in West St. Paul. I checked out their website and a friend vouched for them.

I went in this morning and sat in one of their three chairs in the “waiting room.” They had no wifi. No TV. No coffee. But they did have a steady stream of customers who seemed to know them by name. A couple people dropped cars off with vague problems and concerns they wanted checked out before they headed out of town. No problem. The guy who drove my car into the service bay was the owner. It was like stepping into a local garage from 50 years ago, complete with an old school “City Gide” map on the wall.

An hour later my car was ready and I was impressed. I shook hands with Jim, the service manager, after we chatted about a shared interest in web design.

“We want to earn one customer at a time,” Jim said, and I assured him that he had one more.

Then I walked out to my car. It seemed clean inside. Too clean. I looked back and the leafy bits from the “tree” Lexi insisted on taking into the car were gone. The window seemed extra clear and the mirrors were real shiny. I got out of the car and went back in.

“Did you guys vacuum my car?” I asked. Jim nodded. Vacuuming the interior and washing the windows is standard practice.

“You guys rock,” I said, shaking his hand one more time.

You can take a guess where I’ll be taking my car from now on.

Business & Marketing, Just for Fun

Will Your Children Be Eaten By Bears?

June 7, 2010 Kevin D. Hendricks 2 Comments

That’s a question we’ve all been pondering.

I came across this ad on the MPR site today (specifically the Newscut blog) and I couldn’t help but click. I mean, c’mon. All that’s missing is a cartoon bear ready to snack on those yummy kids.

Sadly the site the ad linked to wasn’t as compelling. It was for the Gunflint Trail Association’s canoe trips. A similarly styled graphic on the site linked to a PDF with details on upcoming workshops for family canoe trips.

Sadly, no immediate answer to the pressing question of whether or not my children will be eaten by bears.

Props for some engaging advertising. But the lack of follow through is kind of lame. If you’re going to take an edgy approach like this, you have to go all out.

Books, Business & Marketing

Self-Publishing Ain’t Easy

April 7, 2010 Kevin D. Hendricks 2 Comments

Yesterday I announced my new book, Addition by Adoption, and started the promotional juggernaut to get the word out about it. I’m self-publishing it, so I’m on my own. And I’ve learned you can’t just sit back and wait for your book to sell. I need all the help I can get.

So I have all these plans and ideas to spread the word. It all went into motion yesterday (well, actually Monday with my e-mail newsletter). Today I individually e-mailed more than 130 people trying to line up reviews, interviews, blog posts, Twitter/Facebook mentions—basically anything people are willing to do (if you didn’t get an e-mail and think you should, hit me up—I could always use more promo help). I’ll be contacting a lot more people in the days and weeks ahead (that’s fair warning to anyone who has ever known me). I also sent out nearly 20 digital review copies of the book today. Last week I stayed up until midnight trying to plan all this out.

It’s all a bit overwhelming. And kind of scary.

I’ve been planning this book for almost a year now. Now as I’m sending out copies and getting ready to make this happen we’ll see if it’s any good. We’ll find out if I’ve been wasting my time or if I actually have something interesting on my hands.

Because books aren’t easy. If I can sell a mere 100 copies I’ll be in the top 21% of books sold.

So here we go.

On the plus side, it’s amazing hearing back from people who are ready and willing to help. I’m so grateful for that. Some folks have just said ‘tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’ One person said not to send them a copy, they’d buy their own plus a few more to give away to their friends. Wow.

That kind of response makes it a little less scary.

Business & Marketing, Company News

Business Cards for People with Multiple Hats

November 9, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks 2 Comments

I mentioned earlier today that I ordered new business cards. Several folks asked to see them, so here they are.

The front covers the basic Monkey Outta Nowhere info and the red monkey will actually be applied by hand with a rubber stamp. The back will cover three major side projects I’m involved with, the church communications blog Church Marketing Sucks, the public art site Start Seeing Art and this here personal blog.

After the UnSummit I complained about the difficulty of handing out separate cards for my various endeavors. Somebody suggested I go with a combined card and my designer friend Michael Buckingham of Holy Cow Creative came up with the idea of putting the side projects on the back of my Monkey Outta Nowhere card. It’s an ideal solution since Monkey Outta Nowhere is tied to all three and is really the over-arching brand. It allows me to focus on my main company while still mentioning the assorted side projects. It also means no more juggling multiple cards.

Michael updated my old card and worked within my limitations (don’t touch the logo, don’t touch the monkey) to come up with this new take. It’s very much in the same vein as my old card (same logo, same monkey, same colors), but it’s a major boost in quality. I know how important designers are and how much they can bring to the table, but it’s cool to see it firsthand. I ordered the cards from Uprinting.com today and I’m excited to get them in my hands and see if they’re as cool in reality as they are on screen (that step is always a little scary).

Major thanks goes to Michael Buckingham for the design (I should also give a tip of the hat to Matthew Taylor who gave me advice on the original design five years ago and helped me solidify the logo and the monkey), Jeffrey Martin for the Start Seeing Art logo (we’ll be rolling that out to the Start Seeing Art site soon) and Gabe Taviano for mentioning Uprinting.com as a good (and cheap) source for business card printing.

Unlike Taviano, I managed to order my new cards just in time to miss the only major out of town conference I’ve attended in five years. Oops. On the plus side, they’ll arrive in plenty of time for Christmas.

And the best part? No more using a sharpie to cross out the three-year-old mailing address.

Business & Marketing, Society

We Like Easy Causes

October 30, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks 1 Comment

At Cultivate earlier this week Clint Runge of Archrival marketing made a statement about the ease of causes. He was talking about generational marketing and the differences between Generation X and Generation Y. While general principles and trends may be true, I hate when marketers try to split people into clearly defined groups based on when we were born. Babies aren’t born into neat categories like that.

But that’s besides the point.

He said that the most important cause for today’s generation is the environment. Easily the number one cause they rally behind. Why? He said because it’s easy. Few will argue about the importance of protecting our planet. It requires little research and little knowledge. You can do simple things to be more eco-friendly and you’ve done your part. Compare that to health care. There’s a cause that’s not simple. It requires loads of research, you’ll face lots of opposition and argument, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a simple way to get involved like recycling paper or turning off a light.

“Social cause used to mean marching and burning bras,” Runge said. “Today it means wearing a bracelet or a T-shirt. Putting a sticker on your laptop. It’s too easy.”

Continue reading We Like Easy Causes →

Business & Marketing, Twin Cities

Putting Dora’s Mexican Restaurant Online

July 1, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

Deciding what to make for dinner is always a little tough in my house because when I look out my kitchen window I can see Dora’s Mexican Restaurant (formerly Los Cabos; new name, same folks). So tempting. It’s the first time in my life I can remember being a regular somewhere (OK, growing up the waitress at Pizza Hut knew us, but that was my parents, not me personally).

Since we’re in there all the time (they’ll often start cooking Lexi’s quesadilla when we walk in) we know the owner, Dora, and I’ve talked with her a bit over the past nine months or so as the economy has tanked. Like many small businesses, especially in the hospitality sector, business has been hurting. I know a little bit about online marketing and social networking, and I thought maybe I could help.

So long story short, Dora’s became a Monkey Outta Nowhere client. Today we launched EatAtDoras.com, as well as an accompanying Twitter feed (@EatAtDoras) and a Facebook page. It’s all extremely basic and low budget. We’re talking shoestrings here people. The plan is to post daily lunch and dinner specials to Twitter, which will also push to the web site and Facebook, as well as coupons, special offers and fun updates (I hear rumors about a salsa bar). The site still has additions and tweaks coming (Espanol, a menu, etc.), but the plan is the epitome of fast and simple. When I mentioned the site on Twitter today someone even asked if the CSS file wasn’t loading properly. CSS?! Ha! We don’t need no stinkin’ CSS. (I actually coded the site by hand, something I haven’t done in a decade. True story.)

Continue reading Putting Dora’s Mexican Restaurant Online →

Business & Marketing

The Reason Why People Think Marketing is Evil

May 19, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks 6 Comments

I saw two commercials lately that were so over-the-top awful I couldn’t help but blog about them several days later (if I manage to come back to something days later to blog about, it must have dug into my brain). They’re not awful in a traditional poorly done sense, they’re awful in a oozing with horrid worldviews way.

Scotts Good Neighbor
The first commercial is for Scotts Turf Builder with Weed Control. I see it pretty much every time I watch NASCAR or hockey, which apparently means its targeted at sports-minded men, so let the stereotypes roll on. The commercial shows a young man talking about his inability to keep his lawn looking nice and how much he wants to please his neighbors with a green, weed-free lawn. He talks about the shame of having the worst lawn on the block and sending dandelion seeds throughout the neighborhood. Scotts comes to the rescue and the guy can hold his head high. His wife talks about how now the neighbors smile at them because their yard is so nice.

Now granted I’m pretty anti-lawn care. I’m the first to admit that I like dandelions and I don’t care how my yard looks. But is a weed-free yard really make a good neighbor? Last time I checked being a good neighbor was about helping each other out and not being the jackass on the block. It’s loaning a cup of sugar or shoveling a driveway or dog-sitting. You don’t need a perfect lawn to get your neighbors to smile at you. Try being nice.

Continue reading The Reason Why People Think Marketing is Evil →

Business & Marketing, Internet

Nothing is a Secret

February 28, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

There are no secrets in the Internet age. Everything you’ve ever done can come to the glaring light of day.

That can either be a blessing or a curse.

Marketing guru Seth Godin describes a friend who googled the applicants for a housekeeping job, and those Google results made nixing applicants easy. Pictures of binge-drinking, your police shoplifting record or a blog post about how you’ll quit this menial job as soon as you can aren’t encouraging to potential employers.

Of course not showing up in Google at all (unless you’re cursed with a common name) can be just as worrisome.

And if you’re an employer, imagine the potential harm in not Googling. That quick search could reveal that your perspective rock star employee was fired from their last job for indescretions, a detail they carefully evaded in the interview. Oops.

Godin sums up the solution:

“Everything you do now ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.”

Business & Marketing

Networking Works: Sitting Around in PJs & Applying Online Doesn’t

February 26, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

CNN has a great story of a guy who found a job through his church. Michel Butler was an unemployed husband and father of 3. His industry tanked and he had to find a new job. He joined a career workshop at a local church, brushed up on his skills and then plugged back into his network of college friends and former employers. He eventually ended up with two job offers and took a six-figure marketing position.

It rarely works that well for everybody, but networking is how you find a job. The money quote is in bold below:

[Butler] was also smart to dig into his networks, said Ford Myers author of the upcoming book, Get the Job You Want, Even When No One’s Hiring.

“The wrong thing to do is sit at home in your pajamas and apply to jobs online,” he said, “it’s isolating and depressing.”

Reconnecting with college friends, former coworkers and even other unemployed workers in the community can pay off big time. “That’s called networking and that’s the single most important activity anyone can do when they are in transition,” Myers said.

For Butler, those connections led to not one, but two job offers.

I love hearing these kinds of stories. The job market sucks right now, and it’s hard, but this is how you find a job. And this is exactly the kind of thing the church needs to be doing right now.

A work-at-home dad wrestles with faith, social justice & story.