Church of the Customer Blog
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September 12, 2007
Go around the room
Today, our feed odometer rolled over to 100,000 subscribers. Crikey! We are flabbergasted to have reached such a number.
Thank you, thank you.
As any blog proprietor will tell you, the inherent anonymity of blog subscriptions presents a fundamental challenge to understanding the makeup of one's readership.
You know about us, but we don't know much about you. It's almost like a bad date, because one of us just keeps talking and talking without asking any questions like, hmmm, your name for starters.
So enough about us already. Tell us about you. In the comments section of this post, introduce yourself and tell us:
- Who are you?
- What do you do?
- Where are you based?
- What led you to this blog?
In the process of answering those questions, feel free to link to your blog, your company, your product or your dog, if you'd like. Give yourself a shout-out.
And dinner's on us.
Update: The Feedburner odometer goes up, the Feedburner odometer goes down, sometimes by significant margins. According to our friends at Feedburner, big downward swings in numbers, like what we saw a day after our 100k, are usually due to technical problems with blog bundlers reporting their subscriber numbers to Feedburner, which aggregates the results into the odometer.
Other blogs that reference Go around the room:
Live in the DC area, a passionate technophile marketer (www.linkedin.com/in/jer979) with a few blogs for work [channel marketer at Microsoft]- http://blogs.msdn.com/maamktg and personal (www.jer979.com) as well as appreciating companies that make it easy for customers to talk about them (http://blog.megaphonemarketing.biz)
I don't remember which blogger I read who pointed me to you (I've been reading for a while...and had a post about me on the Church blog [see 'Fiber is in the Details'], but it was definitely a blogger reference.
Keep up the good work guys (and thanks again for the book from last week's contest!)
oh..and congratulations on the 100k mark!
I'm a 31 year old loan officer (now) with an entrepreneurial mind. I intend to be a Loan Officer about 36 more months, God willing, and then I will get in front of the curve.
I'm into you guys, and Al Reis. I've enjoyed a lot of what you've said, and I've decided to position my self as a mortgage lender TO Realtors...
...that can close in 9 calendar days 100% of the time.
I'm a product development chemist, an mba student (online at ASU), and a mixed media artist.
I believe your blog was bundled with others in some sort of small business package when I first started using Google's feed reader. But I kept reading it, while some of the others I unsubscribed from, because you consistantly come up with comments that make me think, and therefore learn, on at least one, and often many, of my layers of interest.
MBA Blog - http://mba.pumpkin12pm.com
Art blog - http://www.artbybethrobinson.com/journal
I'm 31 years old, half czech / half swedish, M.Sc. in business administration living in Sweden and Denmark and working with marketing on the Internet. I'm extremely interested in customer satisfaction, word of mouth, buzz, viral, and.. ..well, marketing on the Internet in general.
I blog myself, and I've been following your blog for a long time as well as read both books. Thank you for all the inspiration and insights!
I also subscribed to your feed via Google reader - I bring it down into my small business section and have found many of the articles interesting. And they have helped me take a second look at parts of my business. www.demiccs.com we primarily sell products on eBay all sorts of home decor and giftware we are working to expand out into many other channels.
Thanks
Michael DeMicco
www.demiccs.com
Hi, my name is Bob and I'm based in Memphis, TN. To pay the rent, I work for a large non-profit, but the things that really get me going are e-marketing, web design, social media and the such. I currently blog about these items at www.onehalfamazing.com.
Its more than likely that I found this blog through a number of the other blogs that I read on a daily basis revolving around some of the same subjects.
If anyone is in or around Memphis and would like to get together to discuss any and everything marketing, feel free to contact me through my website.
Hi Y'All!
My name is Saul Colt and I write a blog called "The Smartest Man in the World" over at www.saulcolt.blogspot.com
Saul!
Hi,
I'm a sales and marketing consultant from Kentucky and I subscribed a long time ago, after following a link on another blog.
My blog gets a tad over 2k visitors per day, so I only need to multiply my readership by 50 to catch you !
Thanks for asking us.
My name is Chris Reeder. I am a Software Developer full time for ACS Technologies. I live in Florence, SC and actively involved at South Florence Baptist Church. I have two blogs:
100,000 dedicated readers! Major newspapers would kill for that kind of loyalty. Congratulations. I've been reading for a long while now, and I'm always getting pointers from you guys. Your ideas about the customer equation are fabulous.Cheers!
About me: I'm the managing partner of a 13-person organizational communication firm that's based in Philadelphia. We help HR communicate with employees. The company is called iFractal: http://www.ifractal.com
I also blog about HR issues at KnowHR Blog: http://www.knowhr.com/blog
Cheers! And continued success.
Chuck Warnock, pastor of Chatham Baptist Church in Chatham, VA. Your "church of the customer" name drew me in, but I'm interested in why people respond to certain brands, companies, and products. Churches face challenges similar to corporations -- how do we get heard, and what do people need? I blog about culture and community engagement at http://amicusdei.com, in addition to my "Confessions of a Small-church Pastor" blog at http://chuckwarnockblog.wordpress.com. Keep up the good work!
My name is Kevin Behringer. I'm from Whitewater, WI...about an hour from Milwaukee. I am finding my way through the marketing world and trying to find where I best fit. My passion is for new marketing and social media because of the results I have seen from it primarily in my personal life.
My blog is at www.flyovermarketing.com where I (not as often as I should) take on marketing thoughts/issues from the view of a 29 year old in the midwest.
Hi,
I'm one of your anonymous subscribers :-). I'm a semi-enthusiastic artist who keeps meaning to sell her creations instead of giving them away. I blog about things that occur to me at Tempyra.com. I subscribed to this blog via a google blog search not long after my boyfriend started his own business making computer games (www.theirongaia.com) and I became interested in how small businesses work. I particularly liked your "Friendraising before fundraising" post!
My name is Craig Johnson. Have a small branding & design house in East Atlanta called Matchstic. We have a lot of fun and have recently learned a ton from you guys on how to create customer evangelists of our own.
Congratulations on 100k! Wow!
My name is Scott Ganyo and I lay claim to the titles of actor, entrepreneur, and computer expert. Currently I hail from the Indianapolis area, but I'm looking at moving "up market" in the entertainment arena, so Los Angeles may be in the cards.
I have a personal website (http://scott.ganyo.com) and blog (http://scott.ganyo.com/index.php) that is read by probably nearly 0.1% of the number of folks in your subscriber base!
I don't remember how I got here, but I'm interested in personal and small business branding - so this is an interesting place to be! Thanks!
I won your book in a contest sponsored by inbubblewrap.com. It's one of the few marketing and business books that I read over and over. I always seem to get something new out of it each time I read it.
Your ideas and advice are invaluable for me as the Creative Director for small web design and development studio in Kansas City, MO.
Keep up the good work!
Greetings! I'm Michael Grant, based just outside Austin.
I run a translating agency and am in the process of creating an export agency.
I also write three blogs: BluDanuBlog at blog.bdanube.com, for "official" company communication; EuroBubba at eurobubba.com, a more personal blog with the mission of promoting international collaboration among entrepreneurial businesses; and GlobaLocal at globalocal.blogspot.com, for anything that enters my poor distracted mind.
I don't remember what originally brought me here, but I've been enjoying reading this blog for several months now.
I am Brian Reich; Director of New Media at Cone Inc (www.coneinc.com) a brand and cause marketing strategy and communications agency in boston.
I read the book, loved it, struck up a conversation with Jackie, and actually was fortunate enough to interview her for a book I wrote (entitled Media Rules! - http://www.amazon.com/Media-Rules-Mastering-Technology-Audience/dp/0470108886/ref=sr_1_1/105-1375704-1922808?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189453725&sr=8-1) which will be published later this Fall.
My Name is Colm Flynn. I run a debating website which can be found at http://worlddebating.blogspot.com/ and I'm based in Ireland. I came across your site through an article in another blog. I'm afraid it's been so long I don't recall which one. Congrats on reaching 100K readers. I'm only at 51 so quite some way to go :-)
My name is Jon Burg, I'm on the Emerging Channels/New Media/Digital Innovations team at Digitas, a leading global digital media and marketing shop.
I blog over at http://jburg.typepad.com/future and I'm based in NY.
I first came to your site via a recommendation from Greg Verdino - another New Media blogger.
Congrats on reaching this huge milestone. As a lifelong tech and marketing enthusiast, I've been enjoying your perspectives for quite some time. Keep up the great work!
I'm a new entrepreneur based out of Chicago, who just started a t-shirt business FireSnake Designs - http://www.firesnakedesigns.com/. I found your site when scouring the web for entrepreneurial blogs and on ways to better please the customer. Congratulations on the success of your blog.
[Raises hand] “I’ll go next. Congratulations Ben and Jackie on hitting100K. That is an awesome milestone!
[Who are you?] “My name is Doug Fleener.”
[What do you do?] “I'm also a speaker and consultant. We work almost exclusively with retailers to help them improve their customer experience to create sales and loyal customer advocates.”
[Where are you based?] “I am outside Boston in Lexington, MA. We're known for that shot heard around the world? Or at least in England”
[What led you to this blog?] “I don’t remember how I came across your blog but the great name hooked me right away. I find your message and books about citizen marketers absolutely right on. This is why we’re so focused on getting retailers to deliver more memorable experiences. Reminds me of the Bonnie Raitt, Let’s Give Them Something To Talk About.”
[Our Blog] “Retail Contrarian at http://www.retailcontrarian.com”
[Our Company] Dynamic Experiences Group at http://www.dynamicexperiencesgroup.com”
[Free Dinner] “We’ll buy YOU dinner to celebrate 100K. Again, congratulations!”
I'm a serial entrepreneur / blogger. I have a blog about my experiences in starting up a new business. I try different marketing tactics and experiments and log my findings on the blog - http://mybizexperiment.blogspot.com/
I'm an Internet Marketing specialist and business analyst for a web marketing and design firm called ISL (www.isl.ca) based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I've been a subscriber since the launch of Citizen Marketers, which I just finished reading yesterday. Great read! Thanks for the insights. I read about the book on Seth Godin's blog. ...And congrats on the 100K milestone!
I write about mass customization, crowdsourcing and digital manufacturing over at http://www.madeforone.com/articles/ . I don't recall where I found COTC, but it's essential reading for me.
Congrats on reaching 100k.
I'm a mortgage broker in the Kansas City metro area, an MBA student and I just started a blog (yesterday) but don't have anything really interesting on it yet...WIP.
I also help my brother market his new company,(www.made2grill.com, better than Johnsonville!!) although he doesn't often take my advice.
I see I'm not the only one, but I was put in contact with the church via bulk subscription through Google Reader and have read every post since.
Keep up the good work, Ben & Jackie. I really appreciate your posts.
Hi Ben
My name is Linda. I've been in marketing for 20 years and web development for 10. I'm at http://www.lindacaroll.com and http://www.websitejuju.com.
I can't remember where I found you, but probably at Seth's Blog.
You realize I'm going to spend an hour "meeting" your other readers now, right? :)
My name's David and I'm president of an award-winning graphic design firm. The company is based in St. Petersburg, Florida and also have an office in Bermuda. You can view our website at
http://www.cosmic-studio.com
I'm also a writer and public speaker.
I found this blog as part of a general search on Yahoo! I enjoy learning about all aspects of marketing as it helps drive our work beyond just making pretty pictures.
Thank you for your insights and congratulations on your 100K mark.
My name is Matt McKee. I am a pastor to students and children in Cincinnati, OH. I love marketing, loyal customers, and finding ways to spread word of mouth. There are so many ways that your work translates to the local church and many pastors don't get that. I blog at http://www.3cords.org/blogs/remixchildrensministry/default.aspx and you were one of the first blogs in my Google Reader because I too work with the Church of the Customer. So preach on preacher. The congregation is listening and growing.
Hey to all 100k of you.
I'm a Graphic Designer/Marketing Strategist at Hester Designs.
I'm also the face behind a blog which some of you might know (but definitely not all 100,000 of you), The Marketing Fresh Peel - http://www.freshpeel.com
I read so many blogs right now that I can't recall where I found any of them.
Hi,
My name is Jake Cook and I teach a tech marketing course at Montana State University here in Bozeman, Montana. I also own a small start-up called Sweet Onion Creations that builds architecture models using a 3D printer.-http://www.sweetonioncreations.com
I found the blog through MarketingProfs.com and used many of the postings in lectures with my class and explaining technology adoption.
Keep up the great work!
I'm Seth Miller and I work as a Digital Marketing Manager for TBS/TNT/TCM. I live and work in Atlanta, GA and my job is to increase of and users/viewers for three websites:
http://tbs.com/
http://tnt.tv/
http://tcm.com/
I think I originally came to this blog from a link from Seth Godin's blog but I could be mistaken. Whatever it was, I really enjoy the discussions about empowering fans, which is so huge a part of what we try and do as a cable network(s).
I'm also a voracious blogger with a personal blog, http://mostlymuppet.com/, a group blog I run, http://bloggingharrypotter.com/ and I'm the captain of another, http://atlanta.metblogs.com/
I use Bloglines to track your every move. I blog away at http://www.cleverthink.com
I design teapots, computer cases, and other objects for mass production. My name's Joey Roth, and your blog is one of my favorites.
Hello Everybody! I really like this blog!
I'm Paul Curello, founder of glowshot.com. We do Photo Restoration and Photo Retouching online:
Best,
Paul.
That's funny, cause I just subscribed to this blog and I have no idea who you are or what I subscribed to. Just saw an article that gave it thumbs-up so I signed up. Well, hopefully we'll both break ice today. Congrats on your 100K! That's incredible!
Dinner's on you? Chuey's here I come!!
* Who are you? I am Spike. Spike I am.
* What do you do? I am the Firestarter for Brains on Fire, THE identity company that build WOMM tools and techniques into the DNA of companies, products and services.. I play on the strategy side of the biz, but my main gig is that of new biz.
* Where are you based? Greenvegas (that's Greenville), South Cakalackie
* What led you to this blog? Fate, baby. Fate.
LOL@Spike.
I'm Lindsey from Canada, more specifically Winnipeg, Manitoba. I'm a marketing/PR person for Smartpark Research and Technology Park (www.smartpark.ca). I found out about your blog from another blog a short time ago and have been getting great little tips from it. Keep up the good work!
I'm Travis Seitler (25), part of a small team that publishes Disney comic books in the U.S. We're currently based near Baltimore, MD, but are relocating to York, PA in a few weeks.
I'm a bit of an "armchair marketer," and so many people recommend posts here so often that I had to just subscribe to your feed. Congratulations on meeting such a milestone! =D
Hi, my name is Darren. Enough with formalities, let's get straight to the heart of this thing?
1. I'm a guy
2. I live in Vancouver, Canada
3. I'm a consumer
4. I'm passionate about good service
5. I hate mosquitoes
But enough about me, here's where I really get into what makes me tick:
http://www.timinganddelivery.com
What is that? Well, it's my blog that's dedicated to customer service experiences, good or bad?
Why do I have have a blog that's related to customer service? Do I every stop asking questions? Here's your answer:
In Tipping Point terminology, I’m somewhere inbetween a Salesman and a Maven. That said, when I’m treated well, it gets noticed. If I think highly of somewhere I’ve been or the way I’ve been treated, others will know. Enter www.timinganddelivery.com
Enjoy...would love to hear you...
darren
I'm Lindy Dreyer from Washington, DC. I help associations communicate with their members, their industry and the world through great marketing. Thanks, Jackie, for attending the Bloggercon at the ASAE Annual Meeting and giving me my first glimpse of the chicken mcnuggets guys.
I'm a regular visitor/reader of your blog. It has certainly become the place for the latest worthy things. I have a local search company, http://www.inyellow.com/. One of my goals is to eventually see it reviewed/posted on techcrunch.com.
I'm a photographer.
I do portrait photography - ranging from dark/alternative to high fashion and beauty.
I live in Los Angeles.
I just signed up for the blog - I'm looking at going freelance in photography and starting my own business, and am researching all that I can about small business. I found this blog as part of a group put together by Google.
My name is Shawn Pearson and I work as the Web Marketing Manager for EBSCO Reception Room Subscription Services based out of Birmingham, AL.
Found your blog through your both your books. Which are excellent by the way! I link to your posts in my email newsletters and corporate blog at http://www.ebscoincentives.com/blog every once in a while.
Hi and congratulations with the 100K's. I'm an Icelandic self-employed graphic designer living in Reykjavik, Iceland. I may have stumbled on your blog from Seth Godin's but I can't remember.
Your blog is one of the few I subscribe to along with the likes of Seth Godin's, Guy Kawasaki's, Speak Up, A list apart and Information Aesthetics.
My own blog is at hringbrot.is, in the olde language of Icelandic.
I'm always looking for insights into marketing — and you do provide well :)
Greetings!
I am an entrepreneur from California. Your blog is one of about dozen that repeatedly escapes the axe when I attempt to reduce my subscription load... you are in good company with the likes of:
* Buddist thought of the day
* Duct tape marketing
* Spanish word of the day
* Dilbert
* Small business trends
* Lifehack.org
* The entrepreneurial mind
* ...etc...
Best,
--Brian
* Who are you?
Banker, social lending founder, and blogger http://thebankwatch.com
* What do you do?
CMO & Product at CommmunityLend
* Where are you based?
Canada
* What led you to this blog?
Your customer focus
Cool idea. I'm Ben Martin, CAE, Director of Communications & New Media with the Virginia Association of REALTORS in Richmond. I saw Jackie speak probably 5 years ago before y'all got famous and have been a watcher/subscriber ever since. And, y'all linked to me once so now you've got the golden handcuffs on me.
I'm a marketing professional from Minnesota.
Don't know how I found your blog, but I loved Citizen Marketers and Creating Customer Evangelists.
I'm working to get my org to create customer evangelists through blogs and continue to read about new successes and methods on your blog and a few others.
I subscribe to Church of the Customer on Bloglines which says you have 17,000 subscribers (by way of my particular feed). Amazing! 100,000 subscribers is even more amazing!
Keep up the great blog.
Hello,
My name is Carlos Saldivia..I'm a filmmaker residing in Williamsport, PA..If you guys ever visit here, I'm buying the dinner..The Great Seth Godin pointed me to your blog..You can get a tone for my work here:
http://www.YouTube.com/hockeynuts21
Many thanks,
Carlos
Hi.I'm Brandon Murphy and I currently live in Tampa and lead account planning at an agency named 22Squared.
My philosophy on branding and marketing lead me to this blog. I can't remember the exact way I came to first read the blog, but I'm a student of helping brands befriend consumers. Your blog has great content and is very philosophically aligned with that.
My blog is cword.org. The message is that consumers are people and that marketers should try to befriend them instead of persuade, prod or pester them.
Congrats on the mark. You're more than worth the feed.
* Who are you?
* What do you do?
* Where are you based?
* What led you to this blog?
Hi guys - my company provides sales and marketing services to corporates and I am a consultant based in Wellington, New Zealand. My blog is The Sizzle at www.ezidocs.com. I found you through Forbes. Great content and congrats on the audience!
Who am I?
I am a part of a new venture called snapAct with 3 other individuals; our goal is create new, simple, and focused digital photography software that meets 3 main needs: acquiring photos from cameras, organizing, tagging and creating albums with those photos, and then doing 'stuff' with those photos.
'Stuff' expands out to a variety of things, but the largest we'll be focusing on is photo sharing. Along with the photo management software, we intend to release a new, simple and fun community website that works closely with the management software.
Please feel free to stop by the snapACT blog website, where we will explain our vision of better digital photography tools.
Why am I here?
I subscribe to a variety of newsfeeds from Google News, direct RSS subscriptions, etc. through Google Reader. This blog interests me as the content is relevant to what we at snapACT will working towards.
Where are we based?
We are based out of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Hi Ben and Jackie. Congrats on the 100k.
* My name is Robin Hamilton; a customer reference geek based in the UK but working across EMEA and APJ
* I have the dream job of creating ideas to move customer reference programmes forward with the inEvidence team
* I found your blog after reading 'creating customer evangelists' (great book btw)
Desperate to get some thoughts out of our heads and 'out there' a colleague and I have created the blog http://www.referencegeeks.com
Thanks for the link :o)
Robin
Congratulations on the 100k!
* I am Sue.
* I'm an online retailer, blogger, web designer, trying-to-be author. Also eBay citizen marketer at http://www.tamebay.com
* I live in Brittany in France.
* When I signed up for Google Reader, it had a list of small business-related blogs I could subscribe to. I discovered you guys and Seth Godin on the same day: one amazing day.
*I am Krishna
*I am a software developer from Bangalore
*I am in the process of starting a software training center
*I found your blog through Google Reader
I learned so much from your articles. Thanks for the wonderful articles for small business.
* Who are you?
Michael B. Rubin, Author of Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck and Founder of Total Candor, a financial planning education company.
* What do you do?
Teach people how to take care of themselves, financially. Sometimes we're better described by what we don't do: sell products. Our education is completely unbiased (both in reality and perception).
* Where are you based?
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
* What led you to this blog?
Guy Kawasaki
Who are you? Mark Goren
What do you do? Coach agencies and clients to show then that there's a more cost-effective way to reach people – like talking to them on their level.
Where are you based? Beautiful Montreal
What led you to this blog? WOM from other bloggers. Big fan of your books and this blog.
Congrats on 10K – keep up the good work!
100,000! Congratulations.
I'm Eric Napier. My hobby is here: http://www.quotationcollection.com.
I don't know how I arrived here; probably some other blog.
Who are you? Nick Bush
What do you do? I'm an independent consultant applying business innovation to help companies improve their ability to deliver superior service to their customers.
I have just set up my blog "The Superior Service Field Guide" at http://www.openchord.co.uk/blog to collect stories, ideas and opinions on superior service delivery. As part of this I'm linking to the people with the best ideas on customer-centricity.
Where are you based? London, England.
What led you to this blog? Recommendation from a former colleague. I'm afraid I've only just signed up but at least this means you're one more beyond 100,000 - for which many congratulations.
Congratulations on 100K!
I am Joyce Gomes and I am based in Brazil.
I work for Forrester Research as a business development manager.
The first time I got here was recently, when Josh Bernoff mentined it in his blog. Since that, I am really enjoying reading everything you publish! :)
Congratulations on the reaching 100k!
* I am Pete Wolek.
* I am the publisher and director of operations for the Master Coaches Survey. We produce the Master Coaches Poll-Top 25 during the college football season. Our first poll for this season will issued on Sunday evening. Our website includes commentary and analysis from our panel of Legendary College Football Coaches and can be found at http://www.mcspoll.com
* I live in Georgia.
* I found your website through a friend on Facebook.
Hiya! I'm Tracey R and I'm a librarian in Clearwater, Florida. (www.myclearwater.com/cpl) I have no idea where I got the link for the blog/rss feed, but I do appreciate the ideas & the posts.
Great idea, I spend hours a month staring at my Analytics wondering who is out there reading my blog. It does sometimes feel as though I am talking to myself...and I have .000002% of the subscribers you have!
I am a Marketing and Communications Manager, and I blog at www.MEGOagain.com
I am in Toronto, Canada.
Jackie attended a Mass to Grass Conference in T.O in the Spring which I attended. I was lucky enough to receive a book at the event, read it and loved it. So now I follow the blog!
1) Heather Hamilton
2)Staffing Manager at Microsoft but my team probably doesn't do what you think. We work the front end of the staffing process like a marketer works the front end of the sales process (or lifecycle....a clumsy descritpion, but you know what I mean). We are all about evangelism and prospecting, not interview days and offers.
3) Technically, from Redmond, Washington which usually means the 15 step "commute" from my bed to my home office because sometimes trying to look pretty is too much work
4) Two things: We recruit marketing folks for Microsoft so we need to understand how you marketing people think. This blog helps me understand how the good ones do. Thing two; we are evangelists of our employment brand so part of our job is to build brand evangelists. So your blog helps us think about our work as marketers of our brand like "real" marketers would (despite the fact that we all come from the recruiting function).
I really enjoy your newsletter and your concepts. I first picked up Creating Customer Evangalists in the airport and I read the whole book on the plane. I have applied many of your concepts in my business, The Six O'Clock Scramble (www.thescramble.com ). I publish a subscription based email newsletter--each week I send subscribers (I have thousands!) healthy, family-friendly dinner recipes for the week and a grocery list. Soon we'll be introducing our new site, where customers can customize their menus and grocery lists. I don't do any advertising, and get most of my customers from word-of-mouth referrals. I established a "mavens" group after reading your book and that has been really helpful. Customer service is also extremely high priority for me.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Aviva Goldfarb, CEO
The Six O'Clock Scramble
P.S. I recommended your book to my "mompreneurs" group and we're discussing it at our october meeting.
I'm a consultant and writer in Nashville. I read because I agree with so many of your insights, and I learn new things. I was raised on the Tom Peters' way of thinking that expansion, quality, and focus on the customer were the way to go. A happy customer is a better salesman than anyone I could ever dream of hiring into my company. At the same time, a single bad personal experience with a vendor has led me to exclude companies from multi-million dollar contracts when it came time to make the purchase. Customers can make or break you, and you never know which one is going to be the one to do it. You must treat every single one as if they're the one to make you. Customer Evangelism is the way to go!
100,000 readers can’t be wrong. I write a restaurant blog on creating customer advocacy http://canihavethatwith.blogspot.com/, and am based in Chicago. Hope you are enjoying Austin.
Seth Godin pointed me to your blog in one of his posts. Your book on citizen marketers is excellent, Seth says so!
Congrats on achieving 100k,I'm Jared from New Zealand, operating my own market research company called Rock Research (http://www.rockresearch.co.nz)started my own blog - http://www.rockresearch.co.nz/blog and found Church of the Customer has provided guidance for my own blog. Thanks for the memories,
oops stuffed up my URL above, should be http://www.rockresearch.co.nz
Who are you? Andy Grant
What do you do? Product Marketing
Where are you based? Half Moon Bay, CA
What led you to this blog? The book Naked Conversations
I forgot to give myself a shout out!
www.2blokes.wordpress.com
Now, that you've got us...what can you do to help us meet each other in our respective geographies, to further build out the CofC connection?
Jeremy -- That's a great question. We have an idea we've been cooking up for awhile. More to come soon.
Ben, Jackie:
I'm a business developer and marketer for a consulting practice inside the global market research firm, Synovate. My practice specializes in customer loyalty research and customer experience management consulting. I started following you guys after reading Citizen Marketers as a part of the Marketing Profs book club. I'm based in the Chicago area.
I'm the lead author of our blog, Customer Experience Leadership, at www.synovate.com/loyalty/blog. I'd love for you guys to check it out and let me know what you think.
Brian
P.S. I'm happy you still have your Chicago roots featured by the pic at the top of your blog!
I am a publisher in Nashville TN and found your blog as a result of your first book. I happened to google your names and consequently found the blog.
I am Rebecca Caroe from UK. I consult on business growth for advertising and PR agencies. My interest is in B2B sales and marketing and I used to work for Peppers and Rogers, the 1to1 CRM people.
I write three blogs
On business growth www.caroe.typepad.com/rebecca_caroe
On my sport, rowing and sculling (crew to the USA) www.caroe.typepad.com/rebecca_caroe_rowing
and for a business selling rowing equipment
www.rowperfect.co.uk/news
I like to read about neat implementations of your ideas
I like little 'lightbulb' moments when your ideas develop and progress
then I can see whether I can put them into practice.
happy times!
cheers
Rebecca
I am Becky Carroll. I also used to work for Peppers and Rogers (and I have met Rebecca Caroe in the UK, your commenter above!).
I am the president and founder of Petra Consulting Group, a consulting company focused on helping organizations improve customer retention and advocacy through the customer experience.
I have a blast with my blog Customers Rock!
I am based in San Diego, CA.
I found you through Kathy Sierra many moons ago! I have since corresponded with Jackie a few times about customer service examples.
Keep up the great stuff, you two! 100K readers is awesome. You guys rock!!
Hey Bob Williams here in the great state of Utah, Ogden Utah to be exact. A bustling city 35 miles north of Salt Lake City. I'm employed by ATT business markets group in SLC and enjoy the interaction I have with my customers. I came to this blog through blogrovr just scoping out all the blogs on there and found this one to be interesting....sometimes. Have a great one folks.....
BW
I'm Ian. I work for a UK ISP (PlusNet) and I read this blog among 10 or so others (Using Google desktop). I think I found it when searching for something specific and hit an article that made me think. In my role it's good to have things that keep me focussed on our customers and act as a checkpoint against what we are doing. This is a small enough company for someone like me to have plenty of input into decisions and thinking about the things you guys think about is of great benefit to me and probably to our customers too.
Ian
Late to the party but still wanted to say hi :)
I'm the Director of Marketing Programs at a boutique B2B tech PR & Marketing firm in NYC.
Love the blog, love the book.
Keep up the great work --
Ben and Jackie (or Backie as the Enquirer is now calling you),
I have met you guys before on a couple of occasions. My name is Brian Critchfield and I was one of the original founders of BlueLine Marketing in Boise. I have recently left to start another firm called Navel Marketing and now working on a book called "Marketing from the Navel: Becoming a Word of Mouth Worthy Company". You can find us at www.navelmarketing.com.
I have been pilfering your stuff for years in my work with clients. I found you guys through WOMMA and have been a fan for years. Read both of your books and have been to your presentations. Keep up the good work!
P.S. I was the one who wrote the original post on podcasting vs. webinars that Jackie commented on. Thanks for the props.
NEED...MORE...PODCASTS!
Seriously, loved the podcasts you guys did. Any plans to resurrect?
Jon Silvers, my personal blog is http://blogbitesman.net, and I also write a lot for my company's blog http://blogs.atlassian.com. I was doing a search for something marketing or PR-related last night and got hooked.
My name is Chris Spagnuolo. I manage a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software development group based out of Fort Collins, Colorado. I am also an Agile and Scrum evangelist. I love your blog and read it regularly. I found it when I was trying to locate information about product evangelism. I currently write a blog about Agile practices for GIS and application development. You can check it out at http://www.chrisspagnuolo.com. Congrats on your 100K mark...very cool!
Congratulations, that 100k mark is very impressive. I really enjoy your blog, so I am am one of the 100k ;)
I work for an advertising agency in Hamburg, Germany, as a specialist for digital marketing. (also blog about it at http://www.web-jungle.com ) One of the things that fascinates me, is how the web has enabled easier word-of-mouth in the last few years, something that agencies increasingly need to respect in the future...
My name is J. Michael Storey and I am a Digital Marketing Consultant and Service Provider out of Orlando, FL. I stumbled across this blog when using Google in regards to Digital Marketing.
I've read a number of your site's posts today; I'm impressed by most of them. I really enjoyed the one regarding "Eat, Sleep, Pray". Keep up the great work!
Hi,
I've been a subscriber for quite some time -as you can see, it can take me a while to get to my blog reading!
I work in a customer intesive field, where most of my customers are also trying to reach their customers. So, my focus in coming to your blog was in finding customer related and innovation related information...your blog has so many great stories & really gets you thiking from the customer point of view.
Thanks!
I am an American living in Paris, working a L'Oreal. Am passionate about marketing and new technologies which led me to blogging and, in the course of my networking and blogging, came across your site. Content kept me coming back. Appreciate that you don't do teaser posts on bloglines. Keep at it.
I found this blog by researching customer service. I really enjoy your information. Here is my shout-out - check out this customer service company we use called Mindshare (www.mshare.net). The president of the company just put out a great book (www.deliverandmeasure.com) that has helped my company a lot. Thanks for all the great info - and congrats on the milestone!
