Bill Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin’ Donuts, had a very basic philosophy about marketing. When he was young and beginning to peddle watermelons in front of his dad’s grocery store, he would ask himself, “If I were in their position, why would I buy this product I have to sell?” Then he would create one-line phrases like, “Bring a watermelon home! Surprise your family!” It worked! He then began an industrial luncheon service in 1946 to factory workers in an innovative way. He designed and built mobile “canteen” trucks (very common today) and brought the food to them. You know how successful this has been! Today, Dunkin’ Donuts has 9,000 shops around the world and $5.5 billion in annual sales. That’s a lot of doughnuts! Bill’s philosophy was built around what his father told him. He said, “Reputation, not money, is the most important thing. When you die, the only thing you are going to die with is the reputation you created as a person when you lived. Integrity means when you say you’ll do something, you do it. It will be done the way you said it would be done at the time you said it would be done.” Being a business partner and son-in-law of Bill Miller for almost four decades, I recall these same ideals coming from his lips and being the foundation of Miller’s. These words should be framed and on the wall of every business.
You have told us that marketing support is a very important “value added” service due to today’s competition. Our marketing coordinator, Julie Brown’s primary role is to help you market to your clients. After all, if you are growing your business, so are we. Hopefully, you have noticed that we are doing this more aggressively than ever. With all that said, this article is to remind all of us to never forget about the basics and what brings clients to us. Standing by what we say is never out of fashion. It will build stronger, faster and longer relationships than any marketing tool. Marketing “gurus” agree that the best advertising is word-of-mouth. Standing by what we say will bring us referral accounts like nothing else.