I remember many years ago, when I was just starting out my marketing studies, how strongly I felt about the Customer Relationships module of my curriculum. And I must admit that's one thing England's got that you will struggle to find in many other places - and I will miss that here in Spain.

Anyway, the module preached that for a company to be truly successful, it needs to eat, breathe, sleep and so on - marketing. To this day (8 or 9 years down the line) I still strongly believe that should be the case, because if you miss one little person even, it can lose you good, loyal customers.

Never has this been more true than when it came to my interaction with the branch manager of a Car Rentals company in St. Javier airport…

The short background story:
We're renting a car until we receive the new car we purchased. We're renting from the car rental company, and have been doing so for the past 4 weeks (and once on a trip in April). We're happy with their prices, and the cars they offer so we've stuck with them. We're obviously repeat customers, that are happy with their deal. I.e. in terms of customers we're the ideal that they should be striving for.

When we first rented the car a few weeks ago, we noticed a small stone mark in the front windscreen, which we presumed that was marked on the known faults of the car release docs - it's not like you could have missed seeing it… (lesson one - don't presume things that matter to you).

Anyway, this initial mark turned into a crack over the 4 weeks of driving the car, at which stage we rang the office to ask if we can exchange the vehicle as it is now dangerous to drive. We were told by the polite person in the office that there's no problem and we must just go up in the morning and pickup another car. Ah, we thought, what wonderful people - we're so glad we chose them…

Next morning we pitch up at their main offices stating what I just told you above, only to be met by a judgmental smirk on the face of their employee. At which stage he proceeded to explain that he will have to charge us for the screen, the excess of the insurance and the time the car will be off the road for repairs.

Now, I will not go into heated details of the interaction that happened for the next half hour. FYI - I didn't get abusive and did not spurt blood and fire at the guy on the other end… I went on to try and clarify why we will incur the charges since the damage was initially there, whoever handed us the vehicle the first time around obviously didn't clean it or inspect for faults, as the vehicle was dirty and the little picture where existing damaged spots were to be marked were empty…

When we called him up on that he proceeded to try and excuse himself by saying it was our responsibility to mark the faults on the car before renting it - which is total b**l. He couldn't show us where in their T & Cs it stated that the insurance doesn't cover glass damage, neither could he show us where in the T & Cs it says we have to pay excess for the insurance.

I could see that by that time the guy was just trying to stick to his original statement and even though he had no legal leg to stand on would not back down with his unreasonable demands. At this stage I'd had enough, and asked to speak to the manager… (thinking that I will change car rental companies) "I am the manager of this office." he said…

Whohaaa! Incredible!

Picture this:

Here we are with a feasible case, which would realistically cost you less than 50 Euro to fix. We are a customer that has returned to use our services 5 times in the last 6 months, paying good money for the 'pleasure'. We are obviously wanting to continue this relationship, and have already driven half our to get to you (as our local branch couldn't help us). AND there are 4 other car rental companies' offices right next to ours…

For 50 Euro cost - will you be willing to tell us to bugger off?

That's a "no brainer" right?

Well, for someone like that manager it's obviously more about pride. WRONG!

What he should have done, and what his colleague, who happened to walk in the office during our debate, did.

Good customer service = loyal customers = common sense

The colleague found out what the case was and at the first opportunity he had to speak to us, apologised, swapped our vehicle for a higher spec vehicle, and as a courtesy gave it to us with a full tank of diesel. Then he took us to the new vehicle, checked it over with us present and handed us the keys with a big smile on his face.

Now that's who the car hire company should have had as its manager. Someone who intuitively or through training could see the value of repeat customers, in the presence of so much competition.

So ask yourself this - is your marketing strategy in every molecule of your business? Does everyone understand the values you hold and the customers you're aiming to attract and keep?

Rich Shrefren says that each business should have THE NUMBER imprinted into every employee's brain. It will help individuals make decisions on the fly. Every decision that's made needs to impact THE NUMBER in a positive way.

Yes, in true Anita style, I nearly missed the well anticipated Romans & Cartagenians fiesta… UUUhhh! What I hear you gasp… Yes, after I posted last time, we got all ready and dressed up, and just before stepping out to get to the car, rain pored down like there's no tomorrow. So we turned around and settled for a night of poker instead.

So, not one to be discouraged easily, I decided that next Saturday, Andre and I will attempt to attend the closing march instead.

Saturday came and for some reason I had 12am in my mind as the time we had to be in town for the start of the march. Long story short, it turned out that it was starting at 7pm… Now - even though it was already 9:30pm, we thought - there's no way we're not going to see it, grabbed our purses (man bag for Andre) and ran for it.

You'd be happy to know that we made it in time to see a good selection of legions and loved every minute of it!

And the reason I am telling you all this?

Very often people give up things they should really go for, thinking, "oh, I'll go next year", or "I can see that another time", or worse yet, "Agh, it's too late now anyway".

So I wanted to just get this message across to you:

Life's too short to leave opportunities on the table, thinking you can take them up another time. If something is important to you - go for it.

The worst that can happen is that you're too late… but then you lose nothing anyway. The best outcome however, will not only fill you with sense of achievement for taking the chance, but it will add happy memories, and knowledge to your persona!

The more you procrastinate the more you miss out on life. Even if it's just a mundane task you're putting off… think - if you do it, then you have free time to do something else - perhaps more enjoyable.

I am excited beyond excitement… We're going to our first local Fiesta tonight. It's a very big fiesta for the area we're in and it promises to be very entertaining… Especially if it doesn't rain :o)

It's the Cartaginians and Romans Fiesta in Cartagena. It's made up of many smaller events for adults and kids and it lasts 10 days altogether. Tonight is the opening night and procession. I am told (and have read) that there will be different re-enactments of real events in the locations in which they are thought to have happened.

Roman history is one of my favourite times in history - in terms of studying it - so naturally, seeing a bunch of people dressed up and acting it out is a trill. Can't wait…

Will post some pics later.

Yes, most of you will already know that Andre and I have been in sunny Spain for two weeks already. We are absolutely loving it here. It's not just about the views out of every window of the house, or the lovely weather and normal tempaeratures, but it's about the people's attitude to life.

It's like being on a permanent holiday… A feeling that you only get to experience if you are actually on one :o)

So in our new home, we've decided to invite a few friends now and again - people who's company we enjoy. On Saturday we went to meet two such friends (Barry & Lesley) at the San Javier airport.

Whilst waiting for them to pickup their rental car, we were exposed to that car company's piece of marketing collateral. Now, I spend my life looking at and analysing marketing practices, campaigns and materials, so this one automatically grabbed my attention. It was a perfect example of a company trying to be too smart for their own good with their value proposition. So I thought I'd use it as a warning for what NOT to do when coming up with your value proposition.

Just to support my case - below is the photo I took of the marketing board of the company in question:

Before I get hate mail from the company, I'd like to say that the advice I offer is purely as constructive critisism, and yes, I understand that this may just be another poor translation of otherwise brilliant marketing effort…

And for those of you who can't make out what the tag line of this company says:

It's kind of like saying - we smell like all the rest, but sooo differently! So what's so special about you….

Anyway, I'm not in the practice of pointing fingers - although the translators or the marketing department of this company should take a long hard look at themselves for wasting a prime piece of marketing real estate…

So, instead I'd like to serve you some quick handy tips on how to write a good tagline for your business.

• Think of what your business does.
• Do your research and discover what are your target audience's primary conserns and that will give you the most important benefits they need to hear from you to direct their interest towards your business.
• Now say in a clear way - exactly what your company does, but say it in a form of the most important benefit for your audience. So for e.g. if you sell dog leashes and you know the top two concerns of your ideal customer are safety and comfort for the owner's dog. Then your company tagline may be something like that:

  "DoggyLeash.com - safe and comfortable dog leashes for every pooch."

  You get the idea - I hope.

• Don't be tempted to be cutesy or clever with your tagline (value proposition) if there's even the slightest possibility that your target market may be confused, or may misunderstand exactly what it is that you do. Remember that especially online, people don't want to spend an hour looking for an explanation - they want to see it outright!
• So deliver your best shot - short, sweet, simple and to the point…

Well, I haven't blogged in such a long time that it feels almost unnatural to add an entry today, but this one is soooo BIG that I just couldn't hold it back another day.

It has only been a couple of days since John Reese and his team at Income.com made their first release, but the internet marketing sphere is already buzzing with excitement at the prospect of how big this thing can get. I'm extremely excited and personally will be responsible for shamelessly spreading the word - and also hoping people will choose to sign up from my link…

So what is it?

It's BlogRush.com - your blog syndication network… It's an awesome idea to get free traffic by displaying a block of links to other relevant blogs. The traffic can grow exponentially - the more traffic you get… the more traffic you get… It also sports an awesome 10 tier benefits model…

Oh, well, I won't try and tell you what it is - I'll let you watch the 5 minute video John Reese has on the site that explains in very simple terms exactly what BlogRush is.

Have a look - you'd be a fool not to at least listen to the video…

Here is the link for you to watch the video and signup for free >>

And to see what the widget you'd be displaying looks like, check out mine on the left hand nav bar :o)

Till later…
Ani