“As long as you don’t lie, or make promises you can’t keep, and as long as you handle customer service with An eye to making the customer happy, you’re going to do fine.”
Pretty simple and straight forward, isn’t it? Yes, it may have been crafted in a complex sentence. But it practically sums up the secret of success in this incomparable business model which is capable of making you a millionaire within a very short time if you do it right.
And a complex sentence it may be. But the idea behind it is not. There are just three critical components embedded in it. Just three. Do them and you’d be smiling to your bank on most days of the month.
Let’s examine the three components individually and explore how you may apply them in your business to achieve maximum success in minimum time: 1. Don’t tell lies. 2. Don’t make promises that you can’t keep. 3. Focus on making your customers happy.
1. Don’t lie.
In Info Marketing/Internet business, what this means is that don’t call a black pot white. It’s either white or black. There are no shades of other colour between the two.
State clearly what an info product will do for the buyer. Describe it graphically, including the terms of money back, in case you’re offering it along with the product. Then make sure that you deliver on the promise.
2. Don’t make promises that you can’t keep.
Will you deliver the product by courier or will deliver it by hand? That is an example of a promise. When a prospect reads that promise and he’s motivated to pay you for the product, don’t turn round and tell him you couldn’t deliver the product because there is a river on the way to his house and you couldn’t swim across it.
That is not the customer’s problem. Instead of questioning the wisdom of the customer for living at the other side of the river, you should either buy a boat at your own expense to deliver on your promise or do the most sensible thing: refund his money. End of story.
3. Focus on making your customers happy
Customers are the life blood of any business. If a business has them, it will prosper. If it doesn’t, it will die sooner or later. Internet/information marketing businesses are not exempted.
So, anything and everything you can do to make your customers happy is highly recommended. Did you promise them one bonus item? Give them two instead of the one promised. You can be sure that they will not reject it.
Instead they will fall in love wih you for over-delivering on your promise.
When I run any of my Internet/Information marketing training programmes, I spend considerable time on this topic. I do my best to impress it on my students that there are no secrets to success in this business than observing these simple rules.
I even go as far as using examples from our own business model to explain these things so that it’s not a case of do what I say and not do what I do. For example, here is a classical example of how we handle these cases.
And this example is still very fresh. Last week, I received an email from one of our customers asking for a refund on a service he paid for in 2003. This is how he put it:
—— Original Message ——
From: GERALD OMOREGIE
To: sooj@sadcnigeria.org
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 3:55 PM
Subject: RE-NIGERIA INTERNET AFFILIATE MASTERS CLUB
Good day, Sir: I’m Gerald Omoregie, one of your old students. I’ve benefited so much from your SuccessDigest Extra! I featured some years ago in the SuccessDigest proper.
I paid N10,000 in 2003 [8/2/2003] for the club through Zenith Bank transfer of 6/1/03. On receiving my transfer of N10,000, a receipt bearing Obazu Company Limited was issued on 8/2/2003.
The receipt number is 010736. I have not been around all these years. So I now finally got the receipt. Please I want a refund of my money. Sir, if you want a scan of the receipt, I’ll be happy to do just that. GOD bless. Omoregie Gerald.
And this was my reply:
From: Dr. Sunny OBAZU-OJEAGBASE <sooj@sadcnigeria.org>
Subject: Re: RE-NIGERIA INTERNET AFFILIATE MASTERS CLUB
To: “GERALD OMOREGIE” <gomoregie@yahoo.com>
Date: Friday, August 27, 2010, 11:20 AM
Dear Gerald, greetings!
It’s nice to know that you have not been around all this while and that you would like to get a refund on a service that you paid for in 2003 — some SEVEN years ago.
I do know that at SADC we offer money back guarantee. But I’m not aware that we have provided a FIVE-year money back guarantee or, for that matter, a SEVEN-year MBG for any of the products or services that we have made available to our community in our 15-year existence.
But just in case we did, kindly provide along with your purchase receipt the term of sales which stated the money back guarantee for the particular offer that you have our receipt.
Once you have that, then of course, we shall honour the terms for the offer. Remain blessed! –– Dr. Sunny Obazu-Ojeagbase
I want you to notice the following:
[1] I did not ignore his email or call him names in my email. Instead, I politely stated our terms. Also, I did not outrightly close the case. I said he was free to present the terms of the offer to validate his request.
If he’s able to produce the terms of the offer where it says he could get a refund any time down the road without expiration date, then we shall hand him the refund without questions asked.
If you have the edition of the SuccessDigest magazine of those years in your library [copies of which I have in my office], you will see all the details of the offer and how it was tidily wound up.
And this is GERALD OMOREGIE’s response:
——- Original Message ——
From: GERALD OMOREGIE
To: Dr. Sunny OBAZU-OJEAGBASE
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 10:47 AM
Subject: Re: RE-NIGERIA INTERNET AFFILIATE MASTERS CLUB
Sir: It’s not about 7 years MBG. I had the gut to write based on the sincerity of both parties involved [Gerald and Dr. Ojeagbase].
Sir, if you think it will not be right for you to pay me for a service paid for but [NOT] rendered, no problems. The Internet Affiliate Masters Club did not materialise after all.
I’ve attended many seminars with you and I’m already doing what I know best with some of them. For example Mail Order and Consultancy. GOD bless. –– Gerald Omoregie.
This is the point of this article: Internet/information marketing business is one of the best business models that I have ever seen and been involved in. But the way some folks are going about it is giving this beautiful business a bad name.
How very sad!
