Hi, it's story time again. Then action, then the back story.

The fairy-tale (warning: conceals powerful truths)

Once up a time there was a web design company run by wizards who could make incredible web sites for almost no money. Every one told them how wonderful they were. And their own website was the best advertisement for their work.

Every day they waited for the phone to ring. And waited. And waited some more. Sometimes, desperate, they would cold call prospects. Well, you know how much fun that is. And how well it works.

One day one of the wizards got fed up waiting and calling. They decided to use some gentle and even old fashioned techniques to help the word spread. Like sending a thank you note, hand written on the finest quality card, to each of their customers. By snail mail! Then following up with a request for what they could do better.

Because of that they got back glowing handwritten testimonials to publish on their website. Which they asked the senders to duplicate on their Facebook and G+ pages.

Because of that prospects started to come to them! Realizing how much easier it is to sell to people who call you, they worked out lots of other ways to get people to call.

Until finally they grew and grew until the founder could get back to what he always dreamed of doing. (Go on, what do you dream of?)

Action

As a website designer, I would call your business ‘lumpy’. You probably have relatively few, but big, clients, and fewer new ones. So take the time to get some really high class cards from https://www.moo.com/us/  (not an affiliate link) and hand write a thank you to each new client. The moment you get them.  

The back story

If you read the last email, you’ll know that in The Lean Startup, Eric Reis doesn’t include Word of Mouth as an engine of growth.

He doesn’t explain why. I think its because it is not easily measurable or controllable. But it’s certainly great to have. The point of this email is that sometimes old fashioned is effective.

In the first company I founded, we started of with just 1-3 clients a week. So I decided I would thank each one personally. With a high quality card, because our aim was to attract high quality clients.

I sent every card the same day, first class to arrive the next. I also chose interesting-looking (you can get great looking stamps in the UK) stamps. The whole thing screamed “you’re important” to our newly found customers. So they came back. And back.

At the same time, I wrote out a card that asked “What could I do better?” and attached another first class stamp to it. This card I mailed a week later. Also first class. I got very few suggestions about what to do better. I did get a whole set of amazing testimonials. All hand written, each with different handwriting and voices, and obviously not made up. These of course got scanned and put on my website.

With each “what could I do better card” I sent smaller cards, each with 3 testimonials, and of course a call to action. This was to make it easy for customers to pass on to friends. To make it easy to say why we were great, and how to get hold of us.

Of course I tracked all the sources of new customers (you can get virtual phone number very cheaply).

There’s an important psychological principle at work here. I got plenty of referrals, Better yet, because customers publicly recommended me, they convinced themselves too that I was good to do business with. So they come back time and time again.

If I‘m boring you, unsubscribe. Else with your permission, in the next email I’ll ask you a personal question!

Yours, Matt.