Feedback from clients is the best gift a vendor can get.

This is especially true when it is straight up with no ulterior motive. We recently got amazing feedback from a client who chose us for a lot of great reasons. When asking for feedback, I always ask how we can do better. Ah. That’s where it gets interesting. Their feedback was essentially, that they liked us and they chose us because we approachable, knowledgeable, different, casual, informal. Moving forward, the feedback was that we should be more formal and a bit less casual. Hmmm.

Our clients and our competition acknowledge that we are market leaders but at what point should we suit up, lawyer up, and basically act like our competitors? How would we be different then?

I donated all of my suits to the Hope Program before we left NY, so I’m kind of screwed there. Although I do like our lawyers a lot, I’m not sure we need them at our meetings. I think we are in the process “buttoning up” in our own way, but we’ll still stick to our core values (and wardrobe) and keep winning new business.

Had a great conversation with my friend Hugh Park Jedwill, CEO of Mobile Anthem – we were discussing mobile marketing and social marketing in healthcare/pharma and he shared this story with me that really got me thinking:

Three blind men are put into a room with an elephant and are asked to identify the object in the room. The first man touches the trunk and says “oh, it’s a snake” – the second man touches an ear and says “oh, it’s a leaf” – the third man touches a trunk and says, “no, it’s a tree”. The moral: everyone “sees” what is closest to them and in many cases it is “what they know.”

Few folks in pharma are looking at social media and mobile media from a holistic standpoint – they are focusing on what they know or feel comfortable with, thereby missing the big picture.

I’m not claiming to be able to identify the elephant at this point, but I can sure tell you that from a healthcare professional perspective, the sum of mobile and social media are far bigger than the parts.

I’ve been blogging, tweeting, pinging (updates all my business social media outlets at once) for a while now. Most of the time when I am sending something “out there” I think about the message and the relevance and then I blast away. Somehow, not really thinking much of the potential thousands of recipients as individuals with opinions and (gulp) feelings.

So, last Friday I really cut down my list of folks I was following on Twitter – some were just not my cup of tea. When I was a newbie, I followed everyone and frankly, some are a helluva lot more interesting to ME than others. That being said, I was blasted by an individual for “announcing” my list culling. My initial reaction was “boo hoo, whatever.” Then I started thinking how interesting it was that in all the noise that this person is exposed to, one cyber-diss (of the 22,000 people following them) upset them. Why would you expect that 100% of 22,000 would love every tweet you send out?

So, I gave it thought and here is my conclusion: if my blogs, tweets, pings, updates, etc. don’t interest you, cool. Dump me. I have a message I am trying to get out to my professional audience – I won’t be awesome or even relevant 100% of the time, but you have a choice to make in who you spend time with (even virtually).

I got a real education in customer service from a teeny little breakfast joint in Mystic, CT called “Kitchen Little“. I had read about it on Yelp when I was planning our family trip to Mystic. It’s a tiny restaurant, right on the water – great menu, very original, smiley service people – the place is packed with tourists AND locals (that says a lot!).

Flo Klewin is the owner and Johanna is her marketing guru. These women could rest on their laurels – after all, business is great. But they don’t. I put a review up on Yelp, following our visit – Johanna responded to my review, thanking me for our business and asking us to return so they could “try harder”. Wow. So we went back the next day. Johanna was out front, greeting guests and deftly dealing with hordes of hungry people. I introduced myself, she knew who I was and thanked me again. We had an even better breakfast and Johanna brought over free breakfast coupons for our children for future breakfasts. I was so impressed by these people – it made me think about our customer service – what can we do to “try harder?” It was the topic at staff meeting today, and it is a priority here.

I bought a mug for my morning coffee, so I start every day thinking about great customer service and how we’ll deliver it today and every day.

…or coffee either. This is the point where someone in pharma rings up someone on the hill and says “really? We can’t give out a cup ‘o joe to some poor tired doctor??” It’s 10 cents people – and no one believes a free cup of coffee, even a latte is going to make anyone bust out a prescription pad and go nuts writing inappropriate drugs.

Seriously, posting guards at ASCO to ensure the poor bastards from Vermont and Minnesota got nada is lunacy (and if it was me, I would have swiped my pal’s ID from Ohio). Creating change by idiotic fear-mongering is not good for anyone. Pfizer doesn’t look good, the federal gov’t looks miserly and the jonesin’ doctors are bitter – how is this a winning scenario? I am certain the good folks who penned up the guidelines did not have this in mind. And that Pfizer is posting the doctors’ names who GOT a cup of coffee on their web site? C’mon.

It is hard enough to be a doctor (hey, I passed on 2 opportunities to go to med school), but no coffee?  That’s just cruel.

Read the article here: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0719832620100607

The 1st quarter of the year was so full of drama – I tell my children all the time to “save the drama for your mama” – but wait, that doesn’t work, that’s me (I digress…)

Pitches, RFPs, etc. etc. – felt like we were dancing all the time – but hey, if you aren’t asked to the dance…so we danced.

And I ranted – a lot. I was tired, my team was tired – we just wanted to see some signatures!

Scroll forward to June 1st – signatures have been acquired, my friends – the peanut is moving forward! So, I am going to stop ranting (it usually means I need a vacation – which I certainly DO!) I’m turning the page, moving forward and focusing positively.

Too much great stuff happening not to have a big smile on my face!

My father used to tell me about incivility in marriage – when you stop being nice to each other that is when your marriage goes downhill. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a lot of incivility creeping into business, and I certainly think the “marriage” between clients and vendors has been going downhill.

Since when do you not offer a vendor a glass of water or a bite of anything in a meeting that lasts over 2 hours – really? Does that seem nice? Recently, I was shown the vending machine to get myself a soda – not that I mind coughing up $1.30, but these are clients that are making billions of dollars.

When clients come to our headquarters, they are offered snacks, drinks – things to make guests feel welcome and comfortable – it’s what your mother taught you to do, for cryin’ out loud. And we are not making billions here – perhaps if we skimped on civility, we could – but it just don’t seem worth it…or nice. Ask your mom.

It is a LOT harder to land a project these days. Once you have gone through the RFI, the RFP, the on-site pitch, the “deep dives” into the nether worlds of your offering – then the audits, the discussions, the follow up teleconferences, the endless questions – all done with a bright cheery smile and a “it’s no problem!” attitude.

But where does that end? When is it OK to say “no” – “enough” and “decide already” without being viewed as impatient? I guess what bothers me is that the client probably already knows if they want to work with you, they just have to jump through hoops themselves to get there.

There has to be a better way to do evaluative periods with vendors that don’t drive us all crazy, waste time and money. We want to give the client what they need to make a well-informed decision, but they need to be respectful of our time as well.

Can’t we all just figure this one out? Thoughts?

Main Entry: un·der·dog
Pronunciation: \ˈən-dər-ˌdȯg\
Function: noun
Date: 1859
1 : a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest

There are a LOT of great advantages to being the underdog – everyone cheers for you, you really have nothing to lose, because if you actually win, people are delighted. But what is the underdog KEEPS winning? At what point do they become the UN-Underdog? And who do people cheer for then? That’s right – the new guy.

I kind of dig being the underdog, because the love you get is amazing – but I see the future and we’ll have to just deal with the fact that we ain’t that anymore. And we’ll just have to get used to the idea of being the winners…guess it is a burden we’ll have to bear.

I always heard about how life (if you are indeed lucky) will offer up a few “brass rings” and if you are smart enough and in the right place at the right time, the brass ring will be yours. In business, it seems, that you don’t get a whole lot of shots at the brass ring – it only gets offered every once in a while (you might get a few iron rings!).

To get the brass ring, not only do conditions have to be just right, something else is needed- you have to be right there and ready at the time the brass ring appears. The brass ring is a special reward for perfect conditions. The person lucky enough to grab the brass ring will receive a free ride on the pharma-go-round – and capture more clients than they know what to do with and live happily ever after.

Lately I’ve gotten calls, emails, and information that tells me that conditions are just right to finally grab the brass ring. And keep it.