What’s memorable about you? (part two)

A few days ago, I asked:

If you had a client/customer who took their business to a competitor for a year or two and then decided to come back…how would they complete this sentence… 

"Do you guys still….."

What do you do for/with your clients that is so memorable that even 2 years later, they’d hope it was still part of your company’s culture?

I know the kinds of things that went through your brain — we deliver on time, on budget.  We partner with our clients.  We are accessible. Etc. etc. etc.

And you’d think that those are the things that matter.  After all, they’re the big things. 

But they are also the expected things.  Our clients have every right to expect that we’ll deliver a quality product on budget and on time. 

What they don’t expect but grow to to love are the little extras.  Those gestures that say "we’re glad you’re with us.  Something special happens here." 

At McLellan Marketing Group, that extra something comes in the shape (and flavor) of M&M cookies.  Warm from the oven. Every meeting at our place. Every time.   To add a little branding lesson into the treat, we only use  M&Ms that match the colors in our logo.

Cookie_2 The scenario I painted above happened to us recently.  A client left and then decided to come back. As we set up our first re-meeting at the MMG headquarters — the client asked, "Do you still bake the cookies?"

She was pretty happy when I said yes.

CK talks about how the little things make a big difference.  Check it out!   

And — find a way to be memorable.

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11 comments on “What’s memorable about you? (part two)

  1. Adam Steen says:

    I can speak from experience when I say… those cookies were the most memorable part of my day…

    – Hemingway (circa 2007)

  2. Mario Vellandi says:

    A very unique aspect of personal branding that sticks because of well…sharing something good (yummy). Something I need to pick up

  3. Hemingway —

    Glad to hear it! Thanks for the feedback. Now here’s the interesting thing. If you hadn’t read this post, would you have expected the cookies to be there the next time you had a meeting at MMG?

    Drew

  4. Mario,

    Our clients love it. Such a simple, relatively inexpensive thing to do. I think every company should have their version of the warm cookies from the oven.

    Drew

  5. The cookies served at Doubletree Hotel have had the same effect on me…

    http://brandimpact.wordpress.com/2006/10/25/on-the-double/

    Those little touches are sometimes the only things that truly “stick”!

  6. Steve,

    Great post. Thanks for sharing the link.

    I think in some ways we have been over “have a nice day’d” to the point that we don’t even hear it anymore. But, its hard to ignore a gesture like a warm cookie. There’s something so disarming about it, we can’t seem to get jaded. Or maybe we just really like cookies?

    Drew

  7. Cookies and chocolates are favorites for everyone most of us like them irrespective of race, religion or country. Thanks for sharing nice information.

  8. We like this post this is something which is unique thanks for sharing a cool post about it, it seem to be a small thing for people but important one.

  9. It’s that time of year when many thoughts focus on gifts; finding the perfect one; finding “the” one someone has asked for as “the only thing I want this year;” just finding anything to get it over with.So, with all this energy being expended to shop for, pay for, wrap, and deliver all of these gifts, we sort of started wondering just what does it all mean to an individual.we shared all the playground equipmentto make both us happy. We conducted a very informal and limited survey and asked our friend Ellee about her gift memories because we’ve heard some of her stories about gifts from her husband who has pretty much been let off the hook for gift buying. Ellee says they’ve been married so long that if either of them want something for a special occasion like birthday, anniversary, Christmas, or just because they got up feeling healthy in the morning, they just go out

  10. It was this incredibly biazarre and possibly stupid question a teenage girl asked about sex. It had something to do with her having sex with her younger brother and she was asking what sex was and what would happen. Man, it’s hard to forget something as pathetic as that…

  11. Drug Detox says:

    Sunday dinners at Mothers house. Lots of family; boisterous, all talking at the same time. I never noticed, my husband pointed it out to me. Big platters of sliced tomatoes from the garden. Chicken and gravy. Fried potatos or potatoe salad. Hot coffee and iced tea any time of the year. Always food and fellowship. Always checkers or domino games goin. Card games. Good times. Laughter. Singing…In a safe loving home. The most perfectly happy times of my life.

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