Good Relationships Should Impact Your Bottom-line

05/10/2007

Girlfriend, life as a consultant is a roller coaster ride. I'm buried under a research project that is consuming every waking second. And of course deadline driven. The assignment explores what is important to customers in a price sensitive niche market. Can you guess what that might be? Relationships win out over pricing. As one man told me -

Good relationships save me more money in the long run than a few bucks savings on  product costs. His reason .. good relationships = good service = $ savings.

While I go into report writing mode here are two must read interviews from BBFs Rajesh from @Blogworks in India and Geoff Livingston from The Buzz Bin in Virginia that demonstrate how social media can help build relationships .. no matter where your clients may reside.

Rajesh @ Blogworks - discusses the impact of user generated content and social networking communities. Rajesh's moderation brings out insights into what is occuring in India. He is joined by Alok Mittal, Canaan Partners early stage venture fund, Amit Ranjan, Slideshare and Prena Gupta, Yaari.com a social networking site for Indian youths

Geoff The Buzz Bin - Interviews Brian Lusk from Southwest Airlines. Southwest is celebrating its one year blog birthday. Happy blog birthday Southwest! Brian explains that their blog is used for customer service, group/laboratory and a way to build relationships.

The conversation on this multiple author blog (I really like multiple author blogs) goes beyond the happenings at the airline. It's real "people talking with people." Great example was the post about a colonoscopies that saved a reader's life. That alone has to be worth the efforts of putting into play the funny website called a "blog."

A big lesson learned that Brian shared - "While a blog is an excellent tool to hightlight and reflect your culture, it isn't the device to change your culture."

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Comments

Thanks Toby :). Do leave a comment on the post please - your insights add tremendous value.

So I would request the readers of this blog.

Cheers.

Rajesh

Posted by: Rajesh on May 10, 2007 10:37:17 AM

Toby:

Thanks for the great write-up. It's great corresponding with you.

GL

Posted by: Geoff Livingston on May 10, 2007 11:08:50 AM

Toby:

Thank you for sharing the links and information. I recently spoke to G. Lamar (marketing in Philadelphia) for Southwest and voted for their corporate blog at the Blogger's Choice Awards. Last night I missed an event (traffic accident that paralized a whole highway) with Gary Kelly.

Posted by: Valeria Maltoni on May 10, 2007 3:14:02 PM

Thanks for the article links, I'll check them out after I look over your site.
I'm very interested in social bookmarking and how it can help out websites.
I just found your site doing a google search for marketing blog.. Nice job on that :)
will be learching around :p

Posted by: Brandon on May 13, 2007 1:27:03 AM

"While a blog is an excellent tool to hightlight and reflect your culture, it isn't the device to change your culture."

But can it be "a" device to change our culture?

Posted by: Lewis Green on May 14, 2007 11:12:22 AM

As they say: all other things being eqaul, we would rather do business with someone we like.

There's nothing more important in marketing than building relationships. Blogs--because of their back and forth nature--can be a great tool to do that... if done properly.

Posted by: Vail Valley Marketing on May 17, 2007 7:36:27 PM

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