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Book Review: Zombie Loyalists by Peter Shankman

Zombies1
Companies often churn through customers. Terrible and scary, but true.

Through bad customer service (along with lousy product, weak branding, and a host of other challenges), the good customers leave, and new ones have to be harvested. In fact, one of the most important metrics you’ll often hear a publicly traded company cite is their customer acquisition rate, and I suppose that’s because customer acquisition equals growth. However, where’s the “Customers hightailing it out of there” metric? Shouldn’t we pay some attention to that?

Upon reading Peter Shankman‘s latest book, “Zombie Loyalists,” I came to the following forehead-smacking, “DUHHH!” conclusion: Why not just hold on to your good customers, and turn them into your unholy marketing army of the night?

OK, that last part was all Peter. Truthfully, I don’t like zombies movies at all, nor the idea of zombies. But they are a fitting allegory of what Peter would like to see companies embrace: their best customers!

Peter introduces two stats that lay it out perfectly: 80% of companies think they provide superior customer service, and 8% of customers agree. WHAAAAAAA? That is abjectly horrible. To cop some corporate jargon, we’re nowhere close to being in “alignment” here! (note: if you’re reading his book and saying to yourself, “This is just common sense; Peter is telling me nothing new, so it’s 1-star review time …” I say bollocks. Look at the above stat. Even if you think you know this stuff, you’re not doing it. So you need to hear it again.)

Why have we forgotten that positive word of mouth rules? Over the past 5-7 years, the gullible have been swayed by the supposedly unlimited power of social media, as if those who wield it are sorcerers. Meanwhile, real human workers are treating real human customers like crap. Peter introduces many examples of this, which helps the message steep a bit for the reader.

Peter correctly points out that most customer service sucks, which means you don’t even have to try that hard to provide some simple delight to your fans. It’s a sad state of affairs when we say, “This works so great because of how bad things have gotten.” Not a knock on Peter, at all. It’s a knock on the current state of human customer service, most of which really does suck. To wit, have a heartbeat and a smile and you’re like in the top 10 percentile of customer service. You can lament this, or just take advantage of it.

Peter’s idea is to “infect” your customers by “biting” them with great customer service, which includes taking great care of them and providing them with unexpected delight. Peter again provides wonderful real-world examples, and implores the reader to work hard at this. The goal is to empower those zombies so that they can infect others.

A quick aside: No, these methods don’t always work. You’ll work hard to delight customers, and some will still write nasty things about you online, or worse, never patronize your business again. Look, if you have a decision maker citing this fact as the reason for not conducting your affairs in this way, that person is a shortsighted moron. I have noticed the art of unfair arguing usually involves lobbing such worthless invective – pointing out the examples where it didn’t work. Like, after a terrible school shooting, they’ll poll the community while emotions are running high, and 7% of people will still want free guns handed out with drivers licenses. Or those old toothpaste ads – 4 out of 5 dentists prefer Crest – who was that silly 5th dentist!? You get the idea. You can’t please everyone! But, if you can create an army of rabid fans, you’re going to be pleasing a whole bunch of people! That’s what you want to make happen.

Peter did it to me. He infected me. He was the first – THE FIRST – person to endorse my book, and he did so enthusiastically. I was so excited! Now, I don’t care if the Dalai Lama endorses my book – Peter’s name is not coming off the top of my book. Oh, what was that Peter? You want me to run through a brick wall for you? No problem. ON IT!

GREATEST TAKEAWAY – most customer service is bad. Your threshold for success isn’t that high! Try! (and I will tack on the fact that these are human beings we’re dealing with here. Reason enough to try! Please!)

In my opinion, Zombie Loyalists is better than Nice Companies Finish First (which happened to be an inspiration to me as I was writing my own book). With Zombie Loyalists, Peter does two things well: 1. He gets you in the right mindset to start building your loyal zombie army of followers (mindset is so critical, and too often overlooked), and 2. He give you many examples of how to do it. So the book is both inspirational and tactical. And Peter’s personality comes through, which keeps it very readable.

Thank you, Peter, for writing this. Two undead thumbs up!

Order Zombie Loyalists here! (not an affiliate link. Just order the book ’cause it’s awesome)

Link Roundup on Rizzo Tees – What I’m Reading 4/21/10

Playing the part of Internet DJ, here’s a sampling of what I’ve been reading the past few days.

1.) 50 minutes of Peter Shankman – how can you go wrong?  Peter talks about self-promotion, and it just so happens that his Help a Reporter service allows us to easily do just that.  If you’re not using HARO, start today!  I have used it several times with great success.  Every single opportunity doesn’t result in a “hit,” but you will respond to enough chances that you’ll start getting press attention.

2.) Can the Care Bears really teach us about being a successful entrepreneur?  Entrepreneurship is about hard work, good product, good timing, and confidence. I have low points in my own entrepreneurial life… times when I wonder if its all going to work… times of true stomach-churning self-doubt.  If you can’t handle watching the 5+ minutes of Care Bears, just know that you have to believe in yourself in order to make your own luck, and eventually succeed.

3.) The difference between salad and garbage is….. timing!  Sonia Simone at Copyblogger reminds us that direct marketing can completely flop if not truly targeted.  Additionally, becoming an expert in a very specific niche can turn into successful inbound marketing, which I’m finding is a much superior way to market my product than outbound marketing.

4.) Chris Brogan implores you to stop adding him to your email newsletter.  Bottom line – spamming people is bad. I am certain that I have, at one time or another, marketed myself in a way that could be construed as spammy.  Maybe it’s one extra tweet about one of my products, or a Facebook wall post about my bacon t-shirts on a bacon fan page.  Brogan talks about the rash of email newsletters he receives that he’s relatively certain he didn’t subscribe to.  Marketers of Earth: you are just pissing people off with this!  Maybe there’s an argument that for every 10 people you piss off, you’re reaching 1 person with your MLM message…. volume = $$$.  It’s the v1agra spam email mantra – carpet bomb the Internet with your wares and sales will come.  It’s a sucky life to live – don’t market your product in this way!

Link Roundup on Rizzo Tees – What I’m Reading 3/30/10

Playing the part of Internet DJ, here’s a sampling of what I’ve been reading the past few days.

1.) Remember, in small business, it’s advisable to sweat the details.  Don’t obsess over them and never get anything big done – but don’t overlook the details.  Like, for instance, if you’re an Internet company, renew your domain name!  LOL @ Foursquare.

2.) Mark Hayward helps you define your small business social media goals in one of his latest posts.  Most important here: make a simple plan, and then stick to it.  Consistency is so key!

3.)  I like to think I live a life of decency… showing respect for others, no matter if I report to them, or if they report to me. No matter if they’re some high-powered donor, or the person making my hamburger.  Pleases, thank yous, may I’s… the very lessons I’m trying to teach my daughters.  Peter Shankman discusses South By Southwest (SXSW) in one of his latest blog posts. At the event, it seems someone may have yelled at a volunteer.  Some think Peter was the offending douchebag, when it turns out he was not.  The meat of the post is much more than a who-done-it – it’s about showing respect for others (like never yelling at a volunteer).  Peter argues for having a truer sense of self, i.e., we are not curing cancer or feeding the hungry.  Get real, and get over yourself.  (warning, just a bit of foul language in the post.)

Link Roundup on Rizzo Tees – What I’m Reading 3/23/10

Playing the part of Internet DJ, here’s a sampling of what I’ve been reading the past few days.

1.) Peter Shankman’s post “Never Confuse Being A Nice Guy For Weakness” – there’s a lot of backstory, in my opinion, on why he may have penned this article.  In the days preceding this post, Peter’s NYC attorneys fired off a cease & desist letter to a new competitor, as chronicled here.  As the recipient of two cease & desist letters, I frowned upon the heavy-handed nature of the request (he wants ownership of the guy’s URL?).  I even left a comment on his blog (#62) that admitted that, as much as I love HARO and like Peter’s efforts therein, this litigious baloney couldn’t help but change the way I feel about Peter as a person.  Without going into too much detail, Peter contacted me and asked me to reserve judgment until all of the facts came out.  I told him that was fair.  I have since learned from another source that this new competitor may have used Peter’s image in some of its advertising.  I have no confirmation of that – I did not see it myself – but if this is the case, obviously the C&D makes a little more sense.

2.) Ari Herzog’s post “How Flash Mobs Invoke Togetherness” is a short article with four awesome videos showcasing some awesome flashmobbery.

3.) Check out this article outlining the pros and cons of scheduling tweets.  I understand the cons here, as I’m a huge believer in being interactive and responsive on Twitter. But for me, the pros outweigh the cons.

4.) Starting a business while you have a day job is a blast!  Take it from me!  Actually, while it’s financially much more viable than quitting your day job, it’s incredibly more tedious and fraught with peril.  This post at A Smart Bear outlines in great detail the steps you might take to protect yourself as you explore your “hobby” outside of company time.