Sales & Marketing

American Express and Mandarin Oriental get it!

Mush Work, Business , , , , , , ,

mandarin-bdayMost hotels are very particular about getting their guests’ date of birth upon check in. Whenever I am asked to fill in mine, I ask, “Are you planning to send me a birthday card?” I usually get a sheepish smile in response.

Out of the hundreds of hotels that have collected my DOB during the last ten years of my traveling – including some of the biggest chains and brands – only Mandarin Oriental in Macau sends me a birthday card every year. And it comes with a special offer of a deluxe room for two at almost half the price for any two nights during my birthday month! That’s WOW!

amex-bdayThis year, I also got a birthday card from American Express. And this included six discount coupons on meals at some of the best restaurants in Hong Kong! Another WOW!

If you are in any kind of business or sales, remember that one of the easiest ways of enhancing the relationship with your customer, or with anyone in your life for that matter, is remembering their birthday. And then following up with a gift or a personalized card or a phone call or even an SMS – anything but a link to one of those electronic greeting cards!

I know you can’t help thinking what to do on Mush’s birthday 🙂 Forward a link to my blog to somebody who could benefit from the information and inspiration. Also, any feedback, good or bad, on my blog through comments on Why I Write? page would mean a lot to me.

Tribes by Seth Godin

Mush Motivation, Productivity , , , ,

tribesOne of the best books I’ve read on leadership, change and innovation. Here’s an excerpt:

“Every tribe is different. Every leader is different. The very nature of leadership is that you are not doing what’s been done before. If you were, you’d be following, not leading. All I can hope for is that you’ll make a choice. Every leader I’ve ever met has made the choice, and they’ve been glad they did.

“You can choose to lead, or not. You can choose to have faith, or not. You can choose to contribute to the tribe, or not. Are there thousands of reasons why you, of all people, aren’t the right one to lead? Why you don’t have the resources or the authority or the genes or the momentum to lead? Probably. So what? You still get to make the choice. Once you choose to lead, you’ll be under huge pressure to reconsider your choice, to compromise, to give up. Of course, you will. That’s the world’s job: to get you to be quiet and follow. The status quo is the status quo for a reason.”