Dry cleaning as a service is a commodity. One dry cleaner is usually the same as any other. You take your clothes in and pick them up cleaned, pressed and wrapped in plastic a week later.

In my town you can find numerous dry cleaning businesses. Some are family owned, a couple of others are corporate chains.

Since I’m pretty busy running a small business and being a mom, I try to keep things efficient. I plan out my errands and group like-minded tasks together. So it makes sense to pick a dry cleaner in my town — saves gas, saves time.

Except I don’t use a dry cleaner located just minutes from my home. No, I do business with Rick, whose dry cleaning business is located 20 minutes away in Massachusetts.

This is because Rick has made taking care of his customers’ clothes a high art. And, as Seth Godin describes in his book, Linchpin, he’s made himself indispensable, to me and hundreds of people like me. In short, he’s a wonderful example of a Linchpin.

Don’t let appearances deceive you

The first thing you must know, when you walk into Rick’s establishment, is that it is *filled* with clothes and similar items. (That’s how busy he is.) You walk in the door and you get maybe 24 inches of space between the door and the counter.

You can’t even see the back of his establishment. Too many clothes in the way.

The counter is usually piled high with clothes people have dropped off.

You also see dozens of police uniforms hanging from hooks — all pressed to exact military standards.

But even better, you see money hanging from metal clips. I’m not joking. If Rick finds cash in your pockets, he’ll hang it on a clip with your clothing tag so that it can dry out. Then he returns it to you when you pick up your clothes.

One of his customers took a picture of the money, framed it and titled it, “Laundering money.” (ha!) Rick hung it above the counter.

Rick remembers people’s name and asks them when they want to pick up their clothes (as opposed to telling you when they’ll be ready). He also tells you when he’s going to be closed or going on vacation.

What I love best about him is that he’s *smart.* Last year I provided a proposal to a company that sells items to dry cleaners like Rick and started hitting him up for insider information. In just a few conversations I learned more about the dry cleaning industry and its challenges than I would have reading trade journals.

Rick knew to the penny how much his attached laundromat cost him in terms of upkeep and water usage, what it would cost to convert over to energy efficient machines, and why he still used machines that accepted quarters rather than those new credit card type machines (which I hate).

What Rick does is magical

It’s not the fact that he has clothes ready when promised or that he doesn’t lose articles of clothing. Any dry cleaner can do that.

• Rick doesn’t have to return people’s money. If you’re like me, you have no memory of the money you leave in your pockets.
• He doesn’t have to ask people when it’s convenient to have their clothes ready. We’ve all been trained to have service people tell us what’s convenient for them.
• Heck, he doesn’t even have to remember people’s names. How many service people do you do business with that have no clue what your name is?

No, he doesn’t have to do any of this. But he does. And in the process, he’s turned his commodity business into an art, which is why I drive 20 minutes out of my way to do business with him.

Do you have an example of any business that’s indispensable to you? Is it because of one specific person and how he/she treats you? If so, please share it.

Over the weekend, my automatic garage door sprung a spring — meaning I had to pull the red emergency cord to get it to close.

Because I’m a handy-with-tools kind of woman, I could see how to fix it, but given that the pulley / cable combination had broken too, figured it better to call in the pros. (Plus, my garage door, which is solid wood, is *heavy.* As buff as I am, I couldn’t lift it to the open position.)

Going online, I searched for “garage door repair Plaistow” and was presented with the Google map pack.

Read the one review for Cass Shumsky Overhead Garage Door Corporation. The customer was very happy with her garage door repair. Bingo. Called the company on Sunday afternoon and received a call back from Cass Shumsky himself Monday morning.

I told Mr. Shumsky I had found his site through Google and he said, “They say now the yellow pages no longer work, so I’ve been working hard to make sure I show up in Google.”

Even better, to get people to leave a comment on his Website, he entices them with a $5 gas card — an enticement I read about on his Twitter feed. How cool is that? (I left my own comment.)

The entire experience of dealing with Mr. Shumsky was wonderful. Eric, his repair person, showed up at my house at 12:15 and because I had a call scheduled for 1:00, he had my door working again by 12:50. I was very impressed.

Small companies like Shumsky’s call me regularly because business has dropped off and they’re scrambling. I explain about why they need to be online, but I get resistance.

Here’s why being online — with just a simple Website that’s not even optimized — worked for Mr. Shumsky:

1. Because he has a Website and has claimed his Google Places listing, his business appears in the Google map pack.

2. He encourages people to leave testimonials, ensuring future business.

3. Simple site shows what he does — fix and install garage doors.

4. Phone number is on every single page making it easy to call.

But there’s more to it than that. Mr. Shumsky succeeded with me because he treated me with courtesy and respect (I can’t tell you how many male tradespeople have treated me like I’m an idiot), he had his repairman out when he said he would, and the repair was done quickly and cost-effectively.

Yes, the Internet has changed all the rules with regard to marketing. But some of the rules haven’t changed — as seen in my experience with Mr. Shumsky. As he said to me on the phone, “My name is on my business. That means I stand behind my word.”

Thank you, Mr. Shumsky, for reinforcing this “traditional” way of doing business, and thank you for fixing my garage door. It works better than it did before it broke. And, you’ll definitely get my order when I’m ready to order a new garage door.

A few months ago, while deep in the planning stages for my son’s bar mitzvah, I added up the costs of a typical bar mitzvah party, looked at the number for a long time and then said to my son, “Dude. I could take you to California for a week and give you a better time.”

His response, “Can we tour Google?”

“Uuuuhh, sure.”

The first thing I did, after hearing my son’s request, was to find out if Google even offered tours. In fact, they do! However, according to the Google page I read (which of course I can’t find now), the only way in is through a Google employee as employees are allowed to host two guests per month.

Pulling some strings, I snagged a tour . . . and off we went to California for eight days. Woot!

Touring the Google Campus

For those of you who haven’t seen the Google campus, it is . . . amazing. I hadn’t been to Mountain View since I left California in 1999 and was astounded to see building after building that make up the campus.

According to our tour guide Karen Wickre, Senior Manager, Global Communications and Public Affairs, Google employs over 8,000 people in Mountain View alone — which is one reason why the company has dozens of cafes / cafeterias / smoothie and frozen yogurt bars through out the buildings.

To have thousands of people descend on the local area during the noon rush hour would cause instant gridlock.

In fact, according to Karen, due to having access to so much food, new Googlers often gain 15 pounds, referred to as the “Google 15″!

“We also lose lots of man hours when people leave campus,” said Karen. “People have to get into their cars, drive somewhere, eat, and then come back. By providing on-campus cafeterias, people can eat here with other Googlers and save time.”

In the hour that Karen generously gave us, we visited three or four buildings, a couple of the cafeterias, one of the gyms, the post office, and one small work area that wasn’t off limits to the public.

We also saw the beach volleyball area, the outdoor eating areas, the Corporate Store (in beta) and the funky bicycles that Googlers use to get from building to building.

Even more astounding, however, was the bus depot. To reduce pollution and traffic, Google buses its employees to various points around the Bay Area, including San Jose and San Francisco. We’re not talking vans — we’re talking full-sized coaches equipped with wifi!

I came to the Google campus with a slight chip on my shoulder. Google is a big company, it has made some questionable moves (re: the initial roll-out of Google Buzz), and it sometimes feels like Google is trying to take over the world.

But I came away with a new-found respect. I was simply blown-away at how the company treats its employees, its respect for the environment, and its visionary thinking.

We could all use a little Google dust in our businesses.

In addition to visiting Google, my son and I made stops at the Apple campus and the Intel Museum.

Unlike Google, Apple doesn’t offer tours, so we settled for walking up and down Infinite Loop and buying a t-shirt from the Company Store (which is open to the public).

The Intel Museum, on the other hand, was way cool. Free and open to the public, the Museum features a well-laid out historical timeline of the founding of Intel and the development of the silicon chip. I learned about Intel’s “Copy Exactly” strategy and how it manufactures wafers.

The museum even includes a history of Intel’s marketing and advertising — including its audio logo.

The lesson I learned from Intel? Don’t be afraid to be different and keep things simple. Intel’s founder, Bob Noyce, for example, wrote Intel’s business plan on one sheet of paper.

Because I focus on B2B Web marketing, I sometimes forget that everything a company does is marketing — from the way it answers the phone (or doesn’t answer the phone) to how it treats people who obviously aren’t customers.

Google gets five stars for its corporate tour — it’s the best one I’ve had. And the fact that Karen, a senior level employee, took time out of her incredibly busy day to show two tourists around campus says something.

How many companies would do this? I’m thinking not many.

And Apple? Steve, honey, you could easily build a pretty cool Apple museum or visitors center for the Apple faithful. Having one would go far in generating a little more good will. I love your products and I totally admire you, but you could do more to give people a peek behind the curtain.

My lucky duck son got an iPhone 4 for his birthday and the day it arrived, a friend of our family eagerly asked if he could “FaceTime” us. (See Apple’s YouTube channel for some pretty cool video.)

After participating in the call, all I can say is “Coooool.” Real time video calling — an activity we’ve seen in futuristic movies and George Jetson cartoons — is here.

It took only a few seconds for me to grasp the marketing implications, and what I predict is that FaceTime or applications like it will totally and irrevocably change marketing.

Right now I regularly receive calls from really dumb telemarketers who work for clueless companies. These people call me pitching products and services . . . yet they have no idea who I am (something social media is supposed to solve).

I even had one telemarketer from a major company ask me, “So what exactly do you do anyway?” after pitching some kind of business product at me.

A simple two-second Internet search would have given her links to my Website, my blog, my Google, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, and some of the articles I’ve written.

Once marketers start using video calls to reach prospects, however, things will start getting nasty.

Granted, relatively few people have an iPhone 4. However, given the rate of technological advances, video calls will be commonplace in a few years. FaceTime will migrate from iPhones to iPads and other smart mobile devices.

Say I’m reading the Wall Street Journal on my iPad over breakfast and in comes a FaceTime call from a telemarketer trying to sell me something and like most telemarketers, he has no clue who I am.

Can you imagine the amount of ill-will this company will have created with one simple call? Forget negative Tweets — let’s talk about posting actual dumb FaceTime marketing calls on YouTube, Facebook, and blogs.

As marketers, myself included, we talk about how social media will help us get to know our customers / prospects — even as they get to know us.

Although you the marketer have “joined the conversation” and work hard to not use social media to push you-focused content, lots of other companies / marketers / consultants use social media as another one-to-many broadcast medium.

Just witness the number of self-serving DMs you receive when you follow people, the self-promotional spam posts on LinkedIn Groups, and the companies that use blogs and social media to push press releases and other corporate dreck.

FaceTime and apps like it will change this scenario.

FaceTime, I predict, will force companies and organizations to really think about how they market to people and what they want to accomplish — or face extreme opposition and blowback.

This is already happening with social media as evidenced when the moderator of the Nestle Facebook page talked smack with its Fans — an event that became fodder for major online media pundents. (See Michelle Tripp’s excellent write-up about how this went down.)

What do you think? Will marketers abuse FaceTime the way they’ve abused social media, direct mail, and the telephone? Or will it force them to change their ways?

Intuit and all of its Websites, including Quickbooks Online and Quicken, went down Tuesday night at approximately 7:00 PM Pacific time.

The sites were still down as of yesterday afternoon 3:00 PM Eastern.

When I logged on to QB Online early Wednesday morning and saw the message about the site being down, I didn’t think much of it. I know software-as-service companies do routine maintenance or encounter minor glitches.

However, when I logged on later that afternoon and saw that it was still down, my heart gave a thump.

So I did what has now become my habit for breaking news: I checked Twitter. Running a search for “Quickbooks Online down,” I quickly learned that all Intuit sites were down.

I also learned that Intuit hadn’t given any explanation for this outage that was obviously impacting a lot of businesses.

qbguy @diannahuff Intuit really has their hands full with a massive service outage since late yesterday. So far, very poor response and updates.

If we as marketers and corporate communicators have learned anything since the rise of social media and the mistakes of BP, Toyota, etc. it’s that when a crisis occurs, you have to communicate immediately. Period.

You have to tell your customers what’s going on, why it happened, and what you’re doing to resolve it.

I was able to log on to Quickbooks Online this morning where I found this message:

Update June 16 2010 at 8:00pm PST:

We’re beginning to restore all affected Intuit websites and services. Customers already have access to some sites and we’re continuing to work toward full restoration.

Our preliminary investigation indicates the outage occurred during a routine maintenance procedure Tuesday night. An accidental power failure during that procedure affected both our primary and backup systems, taking a number of Intuit websites and services offline. While power was quickly restored, we’re working diligently to validate our systems and bring them back into full operation.

We apologize for disruptions we’ve caused and understand the importance of our services to our customers. We will continue working nonstop until all affected websites and services are fully restored.

If I had seen this message on the Quickbooks home page — versus the one they had yesterday about the site being down — I would have felt relief. I also wouldn’t have gone to Twitter to see what in the hell was going on or posted my own frustrated Tweets.

Intuit may “understand the importance of its services,” but I’m not quite sure the company understands the gist of how its outage impacted people — companies couldn’t run payroll or process credit cards. For some, that was quite painful.

Plus, the outage created a real sense of fear. I know that I debated for a long time about using Quickbooks Online. It was scary to put, what is essentially the core of my business, in the cloud.

Intuit’s outage and lack of communication about it only added to my fear.

Think about how people would have responded if Intuit had communicated truthfully and authentically with all of us. I really don’t mind when companies make mistakes or run into technological glitches. God knows I have enough of my own.

But when you’re holding access to people’s financial data, you need to do more than simply post a “Our site is down and we’re working on it” message.

I’m no crisis communications consultant by any stretch of the imagination, but if I had been in charge, here’s what I would have done:

>> Had a plan in place for just this type of crisis.

>> Posted an honest message on the home screens of all affected sites in order to ease people’s fears.

>> Posted regular updates to the original message to let people know what was going on and when service was expected to be restored.

>> Responded to people on Twitter and other social media sites.

I’m sure this is an overly simplified plan, but it would have gone far in helping all of us know what was happening.

Plus, it would have improved my trust and confidence in using Intuit and its financial software-as-service option.

What do you think?

A few weeks ago my client and I were bouncing ideas back and forth on how to get her message out and as you do when you brainstorm, I said, rather off the cuff, “Why not start a TV show a la HubSpot?”

She thought this a great idea and after a few emails, we were suddenly the invited guests of Karen Rubin and Rebecca Corliss of HubSpot, who showed us the ropes with regard to how HubSpot publishes its weekly TV show.

While my client and I learned quite a bit, what struck me was how *generous* Karen and Rebecca were with their information, ideas and encouragement. These are two very busy women yet they sat down with us before and after the show to explain how everything worked — and even gave us ideas on how to promote my client’s new video idea.

A few days later I attended Silverpop’s B2B Marketing University — an event they hold in various locations across the US.

While listening to the presenters talk about marketing automation and content, it dawned on me that while marketing has definitely changed, how we treat people has not.

I realized that while all this new technology is a marketer’s dream, it’s the “old-fashioned” courtesy and good manners that help cement the new and repeat business.

What do I mean by old-fashioned courtesy and good manners?

1. Be generous — Share your expertise with others. Like Silverpop, you can hold free events. If you have a lower budget, you can invite your customers and fans to free Webinars. If you’re a one-person company, offer to answer people’s questions via your blog or a free teleclass.

2. Send hand-written notes — My son had his bar mitzvah recently and the best part of the whole thing was getting the response cards back in the mail. I don’t know about you, but my mailbox is empty these days and getting reply cards back from people and seeing their personal notes made me feel closer to them.

Invest in note cards and send hand-written notes to people. Tell them you saw them mentioned in an article (you can even send the article), that you enjoyed meeting them at a networking function, or just say hi and that you were thinking of them. Your recipients will appreciate your gesture — and will remember you.

3. Don’t talk about yourself (or your products) — When you meet with people face-to-face, ask them questions. What books are they reading? What projects are they working on? How are the kids and the pets? Going on vacation? Taken any good trips lately?

By asking lots of questions, you’ll build relationships with people and these people will in turn either hire you or refer you to others.

4. Introduce people to other people — As soon as I sat down at my table at the B2B Marketing University event, Mac McIntosh introduced me to others at the table — making me feel instantly welcome.

5. Be helpful — Just this morning someone emailed me to ask if I knew one of the people I was following on Twitter. I did not know the person, and instead sent along the name of someone I did know who offered the same service. It took me a bit to find her contact info, but I was happy to do it.

6. Answer your telephone — I know the phone is a distraction and I know all the productivity gurus tell you not to answer your phone except at certain times.

Ignore this advice.

I don’t know about you, but the majority of my communication is via email, so answering the phone when it does ring isn’t a hardship. When you answer the phone, say “Good morning,” or “Good afternoon” and then state your full name. Smile when you talk and add some enthusiasm to your voice.

7. Talk to customers — When I went to pick up food for a party from the caterers a while ago, I had to wait a little while while they finished assembling the platters.

The owner of the establishment came out, looked at the order in progress, and then walked right on by me — even though I was the only person sitting there! “Wow!” I thought. “How rude!” A simple hello would have been nice.

If you’re the CEO or owner of a company and see people sitting in your lobby, stop and introduce yourself. Or, do what Grasshopper’s CEO does — have dinner with your customers. People will love for you it.

What “old-fashioned” marketing tips do you have? Please share them.

I repeatedly hear horror stories from small business owners of how they hired someone to oversee / manage their Website or social media profiles, and then find out after the person flakes out that they don’t have access to their accounts.

This is because the vendor opened accounts using their own name rather than the business owner’s name. Or, the vendor didn’t send the business owner the login and password information and then skipped town.

Here’s how to easily prevent this from happening to you:

1. Open accounts or set up social media profiles yourself and then send the login information to your vendor.

2. If you agree to let your vendor open accounts for you, stipulate in the contract that accounts must be opened using your name / business name and that all login information must be sent to you within eight hours of the accounts being opened.

Being in control of your own Web hosting, WordPress login, social media profiles, and other account information ensures that you own and control your content / marketing assets. If something terrible should happen, you’re not left scrambling for login information — something that happens more frequently than most people realize.

Do you have a horror story of how someone you know — or perhaps you — lost access to your Website or social media accounts? Post it here!

I became a student of how to effectively network at business functions when I met my good friend Mac McIntosh in 2001.

Mac, I discovered, was the consummate face-to-face networker and was a joy to watch. When I bumped into him at local marketing events, he would be quick to introduce me to influential people in the room.

Instead of handing out a business card, Mac always had something of value — a copy of his newsletter, his little calendar card you can tuck into your wallet, etc.

Most important, he always amazed me with the details he remembered about people.

I remember thinking, “Man, I want to be like him!”

So I read lots of books, such as Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty and Endless Referrals.

I repurposed my online newsletter articles to make them look like pages from a magazine and would hand those out versus my business card. I even took my online newsletter and made it a print publication for a couple of years — and would hand that out, too. (It also made a great direct mail piece.)

I got to know people and tried hard to connect faces with names. (That’s my one failing. I don’t remember people’s names but I always seem to remember their details.)

I made myself useful and volunteered for committees.

It worked. I went from not knowing a single soul when I moved to the east coast in 1998 to having the extensive network I enjoy today.

You can find lots of information about social media and the new marketing rules, but here is the one simple truth:

The same good manners you used when you networked face-to-face still hold true when you network online.

• Be polite and charming.
• Have a firm handshake.
• Look people in the eye.
• Be generous and introduce people to others.
• Become known as someone who refers people to others — it will come back to you in spades.
• Don’t interrupt the conversation in order to talk about yourself.
• Ask lots of questions.
• Be helpful by directing people to information / resources.
• Dress appropriately.
• Know your alcohol limits — i.e. don’t embarrass yourself.
• Hand write your thank-you notes — people will remember this thoughtful detail.
• Don’t air your dirty laundry or speak ill of others.

A good rule of thumb for being an effective online networker is this: if you wouldn’t do it, say it, or wear it at an offline business function– or if your mother wouldn’t approve — then don’t do it online.

Do you have tips for successfully networking online? Post them here.

(Hat tip to Chris Koch @Ckhoster who inspired this post with his post about Facebook’s privacy disasters.

Had to take my car in for its service this morning and while paying, chatted up the service rep by telling him why I like their waiting room: It’s clean, you get free coffee and it has WiFi.

The rep said, “Oh, is the WiFi working today? We get slammed by people when the router is down — people really want it.”

My marketing antennae picked up . . . “How do you know that?” I asked.

“Surveys. We get bonuses based on 100 percent customer satisfaction rates and when our WiFi is down, people give us less than a 100 percent rating. I’m personally losing thousands of dollars in bonuses!”

As a customer and a marketer, I found this little interchange fascinating. I just assumed that people would downgrade the facility based on cleanliness or whether or not one’s vehicle was properly repaired.

By surveying people, however, this dealership learned that WiFi is also an important benefit.

So it’s surprising to me that since management knows this, they don’t move heaven and earth to ensure the router works — all the time. (When I asked if they needed an IT referral, the guy said they had an IT guy, he just hadn’t gotten around to figuring out why the router wasn’t working.)

What can you learn from this interchange?

1. Survey your customers frequently to ensure your service and/or products are up to snuff.

2. If responses reveal a problem, fix it! Nothing is worse than asking customers how you can do something better and then ignoring suggestions.

3. Don’t purposely strive for less than 100% satisfaction ratings so that you don’t have to pay bonuses. Your employees will become jaded.

Does your dealer or repair person have a waiting room? What do you like or dislike about it?

One thing I’ve realized in the last year is that online networking does not replace face-to-face networking. In fact, offline and online networking actually go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Rather than try and explain how it works, I’ll show you how it does with three examples:

Jill Whalen, SEO goddess — I first learned of Jill back in 2001 or 2002. I found her Website, High Rankings, and subscribed to her newsletter. I would catch glimpses of her at Search Engine Strategies conferences but was always too shy to introduce myself.

When she started SEMNE, I joined, and when I opened a Twitter profile, she was one of the first people I followed. We exchanged emails here and there and then met for the first time last year. We’ve since gotten to know each other more — in fact, I even follow her daughter, Corie Whalen, on Twitter.

What all of this networking online and off has resulted in is 1) a rewarding relationship with someone who is smart, out-spoken, and a personal inspiration to me and 2) a paying gig as Jill introduced me to someone at a company (that I’ve been trying to get into for a while now) at her last SEMNE meeting. Wow! I was rather blown away by this, to be honest, as it all happened so effortlessly.

Lois Geller, Direct marketing expert — I have “known” Lois since I started my business in 1998, although she never knew me. I used to read her Target Marketing column every month. Smart, funny and insightful, Lois always presented information I could use immediately.

I don’t remember how I found out about it, but I knew Lois had published a book, SOLD! Direct Marketing for the Real Estate Pro, and when I needed someone to interview for an article about direct marketing and real estate, she was the person I called.

Of course, she graciously gave of her time and expertise, and I ended up with a meaty article that pleased my client.

As with Jill, once I learned Lois was on Twitter, I started following her, and since then, she and I have traded DMs back and forth — and she’s even sent me brownies simply because . . . she’s a fabulous person. I’m sure I’ll meet her face-to-face one day and really look forward to it.

Matthew Nelson, Web Designer — I met Matthew while giving a presentation at the VT-NH Marketing Group meeting a few months ago. He started following me on Twitter (and I him) and just the other day left a comment on this blog as “Matthew Nelson.” Because I know him by his Twitter name, “nhwebdesign,” I didn’t “connect the dots” until I clicked through to his site.

Even better, I learned via a Tweet by Lois this morning that she had given him a scholarship years ago. On top of that, Lois and Matthew have connected on Google Wave and have invited me to connect with them. Is that cool or what? Not only do I now have a new connection with Matthew, but he also knows Lois!

These are just three examples of how I use online and offline tactics to expand my networking base — and this post doesn’t even address how I’ve been able to uncover relationships between people . . . Debra Helwig who knows Ardath Albee who knows Brian Carroll, Jill Konrath and Laura Ramos . . . whom Ardath told about my Smart Women on Twitter post, which then prompted Laura to write about me on her blog.

And Debra “met” me through Michelle Golden’s blog, started following me on Twitter and then hired me to speak at her IGAF Worldwide conference.

Do you see how this works? It’s about building relationships and trust over time, not posting “hit and run” Tweets or posts on LinkedIn Groups that say, “Hire me! I’m for sale!”

It’s about getting to know people, being genuinely interested in them and when possible, giving back in the form of quoting them in articles, books, or blog posts.

It’s about sending cookies just because (which is something I actually do myself), hand-writing thank you notes, meeting for lunch even when you’re swamped, and remembering to ask about spouses, kids and pets.

And yes, it all does take time, but trust me, it comes back to you in spades.

Why? Because people do business with people they trust.