Two simple words, yet what an impact. You might have seen the commercials a few years ago where two women (one being overweight) meet in a grocery store. The smaller lady asks the overweight woman about her pregnancy. She tells the smaller lady she’s not pregnant and starts to get mad. The smaller lady, thinking quickly, says “Thank you.” The overweight lady says “You’re welcome” and forgets she was mad. Then they hug.

Everyone loves to hear those two words. We want to feel appreciated. How are you and your organization doing when it comes to thanking your customers?

The first “Thank you” starts at the point of purchase. Have you trained everyone who interacts with customers to say “Thank you”? Recently after ordering a book from Amazon, I got an email confirmation of my order, but no “Thank you.” I love Amazon, but a “Thank you” would have made the experience even better.

The second “Thank you” is the follow up. A few days after the sale, send your customer a postcard, letter, email or something thanking them again. You can also include a survey and/or discount coupon for their next visit.

For example, the dealership that services my car always calls to thank me and ask me about my visit.  They even offer a discount off the next visit.

Thank you for being so supportive of my blog and speaking. Your ideas, comments, praise and critiques all help make me better. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I recently returned from a mission trip to Sudan. What an incredible experience! There are so many great stories to share. One day we visited a small market near our village. Many of the vendors had straw mats displaying fruits, vegetables or eggs. The more upscale retailers had erected crude wooden booths with tin roofs, each having enough room for maybe 2 to 3 people.

One of the things that struck me was the “sameness.” No one stood out in the market. Each mat looked almost identical to the next. All the booths had the same product mix. No color, no signs, no sales pitch…nothing to draw potential customers into their store. I didn’t know where to spend my money.

No one stood out from the crowd. As Seth Godin says “No purple cows.”

Does this describe your business? You are more or less is just like the business down the street – a good company that offers good service. Your potential customers are not sure who should get their dollars.

If a young woman is looking for a good dentist, why should she choose your practice over the other dentists near her home?  Be different and stand out from the crowd!

Show your customers and prospects you’re not the same as everyone else.

No, you don’t need a measuring tape or two #2 pencils to mark either a, b, c or none of the above. That’s old school. These things could only tell us the size of our brain and to some degree how well it worked. I think we all agree our brains have a lot more to tell us.

Now, there are companies like NeuroFocus that measure what’s going on with your brain. When you watch a commercial, they can tell you what aspects of the ad caught your attention, the point in the ad that you became emotionally engaged, and what aspects of the ad you retained in long term memory.

Wow! What marketer wouldn’t want to know the attention value, emotional engagement and memory retention of their ads? This might actually eliminate half of the Super Bowl ads.

And this information from our brain can be just as valuable for fundraisers. Wouldn’t it be great to know what it is about your direct mail letter or website that got your donor’s attention, engaged them emotionally and stayed in their memory?

Let’s keep measuring – even “Abby Normal” brains like mine.

Much has been made of the Susan G. Komen/KFC Buckets for the Cure campaign. And I’m quite sure the “powers that be” at Komen regret the once bright idea to partner with one of the nation’s largest sellers of fried food.

Nancy Schwartz in her blog, Getting Attention, did a wonderful job of analyzing the mistakes Komen made and the lessons any nonprofit or for-profit organization can learn from this situation. However, I disagree with Nancy’s praise of Breast Cancer Action, another organization fighting breast cancer, and their “What the Cluck?” campaign protesting Komen/KFC.

My guess is that Komen has learned a very valuable lesson and will not be partnering with KFC or any other fast food restaurants in the future. What bothers me is a nonprofit that is competing for the same fundraising dollars attacking another organization with a long history of great work. I’m not saying we can’t criticize, but the mistake Komen made was a marketing one, not a research/medical mistake. Komen is working as hard today as ever to cure breast cancer.

While many might think “What the Cluck?” is cute, I personally find it a little in bad taste. And how much good did BCA accomplish by encouraging people to write letters criticizing the Komen/KFC partnership? I think the folks at Komen already know they made a mistake, and those 3,000 people could have instead been encouraged to actually do something that might help cure breast cancer.

The lesson for all of us: Just because something tastes good, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.