EPISODE 99 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: GENEROSITY AS A BUSINESS STRATEGY

Sonya:

What is the one small thing that when done well can set your business apart from your competition? It's not great value or amazing service, although these things matter, too. It's generosity. I'm not talking about massive giveaways or slashing your price down to the bare bones either. I'm talking about making generosity part of your culture and part of the way you operate on a day to day level. And the best bit, most of the things I'll be talking about won't cost you much and some, nothing at all.

Welcome to the Boom Your Biz Podcast. A podcast for the movers, the shakers and even bigger action takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre-Reid. And each week, I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive. I'm on a mission to educate and empower and inspire business owners and myself along the way.

Generosity. The word means different things to different people. For me and others who lived through the Oprah years, the word conjures up memories of Oprah's massive Christmas giveaway episode that made the phrase, "You get a car and you get a car." Part of pop culture legend and made Oprah an icon. The giveaway was unexpected, it was over the top and it was certainly generous. If you're a small business, though, it's highly unlikely that you're in a position to be giving away vehicles. I'm not here to tell you that something you should aspire to. I'm talking about the small acts of generosity that solidify you and your team as the good people you are, that don't cost you much in terms of time or money.

Before starting Kiss Marketing, one of my jobs was as an executive assistant sales and event marketing all around a type of role. Working for Australia's leading trainer of real estate agents. It was here that I was first exposed to the idea of generosity as a business strategy. Perhaps even more importantly, giving the practice enough to respect that it was built into the business, the systems and processes. It was expected that you remembered client's birthdays, their favorite footy team, their kids' names, and any other small snippets of personal information that they dropped into conversations. This is an example of the type of generosity that doesn't cost you anything, other than a quick glance at the weekend's sporting results so that you can celebrate or commiserate and make that client feel a little bit special. Or to even flick them a link to an online article you think that they'd be interested in.

It's about being generous with your attention in a world where so many businesses just want your money. And don't get me wrong, the extra attention to detail certainly helped us to retain those clients and secure referrals. But it was more about building those connections and going that one small step extra that our competitors didn't. I'm not sure if you guys have read the book, How To Win Friends and Influence People. But basically the first chapter talks about how everyone walks around with a sign on their head saying, "Make me feel important." So by remembering these small things about your clients, it makes them feel important.

Conversely, as we've grown and worked with clients from a vast range of industries, I've been surprised to see how many companies don't want to give anything away. To the point where they won't even offer a free training or work with external contractors, for fear of their IP being stolen. I get it. You work hard to create a product or service, and it can be disheartening to see someone else doing what you thought was an original idea. However, I'm a big believer in the notion that there is no such thing as an original thought. In fact, history show has shown that two people in completely different countries can invent the same thing at around the same time with no prior knowledge of the other person or their work.

This concept is called multiple discovery or simultaneous invention. It explains why before the dawn of the internet or even motorized transport, we saw books being written on the same topic by authors on opposite side of the globe. Even why calculus was discovered by two different scientists at the same time. What does this have to do with business and with being generous, though? Well, quite a bit.

When you grip so tightly to your secret idea or product, you're not giving it room to expand. When you're focused so intently on nobody's stealing it, you're wasting energy that could be spent creating new, better products or getting feedback on your product that could make it better. By keeping things under wraps or behind a pay wall, you're also denying potential customers the opportunity to experience what it is like to work with you before they make the commitment to buy. Which in turn increases the likelihood that they won't buy from you at all.

A case in point from our own agency. We had a client who ran a training organization, offering workshops and continuing education events. Their marketing consisted of a learning page with a promotional image and a blow about the event. Any further promotions, such as newsletters and social media was to use that information, that image and maybe if we were lucky, a video of one of the presenters talking about how they were presenting at the event and rattling off information. I really felt for the internal team who enlisted us to promote these events because they really were working with very little. And the worst part, the company filmed every conference and event and had a ton of footage that could have been shared at sneak peaks or free trainings to entice people to attend these workshops. But they wouldn't release it to the marketing team.

They begged. We requested the footage and explained why it was valuable to be generous and give a little, to get a lot back. In the end, the powers that be at the company wouldn't budge. Because they didn't want just one person from a company to sign up for the free training, then broadcast it in a room with 20 people in it. See that doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't you want 20 people seeing your content being impressed with it and telling their network about it? By gripping so tightly to their IP and by deciding that they couldn't control who saw the content, then nobody would see the content. This company missed out on a golden opportunity to be generous and their signups for events suffered as a result.

So, that's the two sides to the generosity coin as I see it. You can be generous with your time and attention for free. You can utilize the resources you already have on hand to add value before a sale. And you can send a small thank you gift, birthday cake, or even give a client a shout out on your social media for free. All generous acts, all cost little to nothing. Or you can try and gate keep your content and resources, you can hide everything behind a paywall so that customers have to buy it if they want to receive any value. And you can do nothing at all after the sale, because it doesn't fit the budget. I think I know which side I'd rather be on.

As I've mentioned on the podcast before that at Kiss and Linchpin, we have a spreadsheet with the birthdays of our team and our main contractors. As well as little notes and what people like, their interests and even their coffee order. So they've worked extra hard on a project or it's their birthday, we can get them a personal gift they'll appreciate. Similarly, my team know when their clients have a birthday or a big win, they have permission to organize a gift, even if it's last minute. For example, last month we discovered it was a client's birthday, but their client manager lives in Melbourne. The client lives in Aubrey and the Aubrey team were all either on site for a photo shoot or out of town. Thank goodness for Menu Log and The Cheesecake Shop because we're able to order a cake and have it delivered within an hour or so.

If you're a service based business, think about what matters to your clients. Birthdays, winning a regional business award, launching a new product, hitting a big business goal. Things you can do to be generous include sending a gift, giving them a shout out on your social media and even purchasing that new product to get the ball rolling. Small acts, big impact. If you're selling digital products, think about what matters to your clients. The main one, knowing that they're not going to be wasting their money if they buy. Things you can do to be generous include giving them a sneak peak of your digital product and sending them a post-purchase bonus training or resource they weren't expecting. You can also offer past clients a discount on any new products you release.

The easiest sale is the sale you make to someone who has already purchased from you, after all. And product based businesses, you know that your clients and customers will be thrilled with samples and testers. Or cute little freebies with their order. Anyone who's ordered from Adore Beauty knows that you look forward to that single serve mini Tim Tam you get in your order, almost as much as you look forward to receiving your beauty products.

So there you have it, generosity as a daily action, generosity as part of your processes and generosity as a business strategy. Why not give it a go and see if it works for your business? I'd love to hear how you plan to be more generous in your business. Join the conversation over at the Boom Your Biz Facebook Group. Just search, Boom Your Biz, and hit request to join. If you have found this episode helpful, and you are enjoying the podcast, I would really love if you could extend a little generosity our way and leave us a five star review. This helps more people discover the podcast and helps me to know what we're providing in terms of content is useful for you.