553 How to say "thanks" to your clients

0:00:12 - Marvin Bee
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show where we try to help you as an IT service provider managed service provider, solo tech, artistic boutique whatever you do in IT services, we try to help you do it better, smarter and faster. This is our regular Wednesday live show and I have a guest that we'll be talking to about how to say thanks to your clients properly. Lori Sites from ZenRabbit is here. Lori, how are you?

0:00:48 - Lori Saitz
Oh, I muted myself during your show.

0:00:50 - Marvin Bee
Not ready.

0:00:52 - Lori Saitz
I'm doing well.

0:00:54 - Marvin Bee
All right, this should be good. I think I had a lot of people make comments before the show about how they say thank you to their clients, so it'll be interesting to see what you can tell us on. I don't know what we're all doing wrong or whatever, and I'd like to say thank you for those of you that are watching live. Quick shout out to Mr. Eric Anthony in the chat IT boutique for the win. Yes, it is. It is my favorite form, at least right now. Let's see here. Let's get a little bit of news out of the way. So just a couple of hours ago, I had a story pop up that said top VPN services can be tricked into leaking traffic outside your network. Now a lot of people have been asking should we be using VPNs on our networks? And, of course, for us as IT service providers, when it comes to remote access, we always say yes or something similar, like a true grid. But a lot of end users have been asking about their home. Well, this isn't about that. This is about two vulnerabilities found in a popular business VPN solution that could allow hackers to divert traffic outside a VPN tunnel, among other things, and this is two vulnerabilities found affecting Cisco routers and I won't mention these CVE numbers because they're annoying. I'll have the link in the show notes, but they basically are collectively titled Tunnel Crack and they affect the Cisco secure client, any connect VPN and basically they leak VPN traffic by abusing router tables. And I'll let you read the rest there. So just some breaking news for you on the IT business podcast Pay attention to those VPNs and by all means do not allow your RDP to run naked. Let's see.

In other news I did get a press release from Pax 8.

They are continually doing and shaking things up in the industry. The latest is that they have promoted Craig Donovan to chief experience officer, and he has been with Pax 8 for a while, but this apparently let's see this is a new position, let's see. Donovan has been recognized for his pivotal role in fostering a strategic partner central centered approach, notably the design of professional services automation integration for Pax 8 cloud marketplace and he helped develop the company's professional services program. And, lastly, his vision led to the successful launch of Pax 8 Academy, which I know a lot of you love and use inside of Pax 8. And yes, this is a newly created position that will align with evolving needs of the business. In the role, Donovan will lead the company's new experience team that will focus on enhancing experience with partners, vendors and customers, and he will continue to report to our favorite Pax 8 person not named Rob Ray Hedy, Mr. Nick Hedy, chief commerce officer. So that is the news that is happening there. Got that out of the way. How are you good so far?

0:04:32 - Lori Saitz
I am good.

0:04:34 - Marvin Bee
I should probably go ahead and do a formal introduction of you for people that are not regulars of the show. I go outside of the box a lot of times and bring in speakers of which you are one of those, somebody that I don't want to say outside of the box completely.

0:04:56 - Lori Saitz
I'm outside of the industry.

0:04:59 - Marvin Bee
I should probably give a little warning. I should have had it at the beginning, saying that there might be some cursing on this show. We usually don't have cursing because we don't allow for craziness to happen, at least not since 2019.

0:05:16 - Lori Saitz
I can control myself.

0:05:19 - Marvin Bee
But Lori is a fellow podcaster and she has a podcast that I have started listening to over the last couple of months. That is a pretty good podcast, by the way. I shall say that it is called fine is a four letter word and basically the premise is fuck being fine.

0:05:39 - Lori Saitz
Now you started it.

0:05:41 - Marvin Bee
I want to lay it out there because that, essentially, is probably the quickest synopsis of that show, right, yeah absolutely Well, Lori, I guess we'll have to figure this out, because there is an echo being heard going off air when you speak Well, the joys of life.

0:06:07 - Lori Saitz
This is very annoying.

0:06:08 - Marvin Bee
John, let me know if it's really, really bad. Nobody else has. I don't know if it's just because you're on the Facebook. People on the LinkedIn have not said a word and don't know about the YouTube.

0:06:23 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, I don't. I mean, I can hear it myself. So, oh man, I don't know.

0:06:30 - Marvin Bee
We'll figure something out. Maybe it won't come through in the recording.

0:06:34 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, we'll see. I can always leave and come back.

0:06:38 - Marvin Bee
You want to do that.

0:06:40 - Lori Saitz
If you're open to it.

0:06:41 - Marvin Bee
Go ahead and do that.

0:06:43 - Lori Saitz
And.

0:06:43 - Marvin Bee
I'll move on to something else.

Yeah, BRB. While she does that, let me go ahead and get one Florida man story out of the way so that you guys don't ask about it later. It was listed on my Facebook page and I believe, Mr. John Reed, this was aimed at your side of the state Florida man accused of attacking nurse, stripping and flooding an emergency room and I have to open up the link here because I was not prepared to do this ahead of time. And, Mr. Eric Anthony, thank you for letting me know that it's on LinkedIn as well. But this story, let me go to the full article here.

A man in Southwest Florida has been charged with flooding a hospital's emergency room after attacking a nurse, stripping off his clothes. The 53-year-old became agitated while waiting in the waiting room of what is it? North Collier Hospital in Naples, Florida, on Saturday, according to a report from the Collier County Sheriff's Office, he barged into the emergency room, pushed a patient and then pushed a nurse in the head. After the hospital staff got him into a room in an effort to keep him from disturbing other patients, he took off his clothes, pulled out a high-pressure water pipe from the wall and he was subdued using a taser by deputies. Of course, he threatened them. He was taken into custody and is facing a single charge of aggravated battery and four charges of criminal mischief. So that is it All. Right, Lori is back. Let's bring her in.

0:08:39 - Lori Saitz
Lori talk a little bit and see how we're doing. Lori, it's not better.

0:08:43 - Marvin Bee
Lori, it's not better.

0:08:48 - Lori Saitz
We can continue.

0:08:51 - Marvin Bee
I'm good, so we'll see how long our listeners can hold on, and I'll try to clean it up in editing, which I normally don't do, so I don't know how that's going to work, so we'll see how it goes. That just means I have to do most of the talking. You'll have to give short answers.

0:09:10 - Lori Saitz
Okay, we can do that.

0:09:12 - Marvin Bee
That doesn't really work though, does it? Yeah, Well. So, as I was saying earlier, we met because you're a fellow podcaster. You have this fine as a four letter word. Basically it's about you know. We have gone for very long periods of time in this world with people just being allowed to say, hey, yeah, I'm fine, Everything's fine, yeah, it's good when it really isn't. So describe to us how your podcast helps us get past that.

0:09:45 - Lori Saitz
I think people reach a point in life where they're like I can't stand just living in fine, Things have to be, there has to be something else, there has to be something more. And so that's when they just say fuck being fine.

0:10:06 - Marvin Bee
Now I'm assuming you started this podcast. Well I know because we've talked about it before, but for our listeners the reason that you started the podcast was why.

0:10:16 - Lori Saitz
Two reasons. One was to help people feel like they're not alone, like they're not the only one who feels this way, and second, to help them realize that there's nothing wrong with them, like this is normal. It's your soul crying out for growth. Okay, and you've done now 103 episodes and yeah, well, 100 episodes, and then now we're running summer sessions, so they're repeats of past episodes.

0:10:50 - Marvin Bee
All right and I think it's a good show. Now, basically, it's really aimed at the personal spirit, spirit right, and it's basically keeping us fine. But you do a lot of coaching that ends up in the business circles, which is why I've asked you to be on the show here tonight.

0:11:09 - Lori Saitz
Right, I have 30 plus years of marketing background and I love doing strategy with people and helping people figure out like get clarity. I asked the questions. They have the answers inside of them. I just asked questions to help them clarify and get it out.

0:11:30 - Marvin Bee
Yeah, so this is going to be a first. I have more people complaining about the echo, so it must be bad. I'll be honest, I don't hear it. But let's do this. Do you have something else you can change? Maybe take out the headphones or something? Yeah, let's see and see if you've your, because you've got the mic there, and let's see if your head buds are also recording there. Are those the? Are those the Apple earbuds?

0:12:04 - Lori Saitz
No.

0:12:05 - Marvin Bee
Hang on, let's see.

0:12:09 - Lori Saitz
I don't think that's the. You know it's still echoing, so I don't think it's the headphones. Let me see what happens if.

0:12:16 - Marvin Bee
I, I was thinking about the double microphones, if there's, if there's microphones in those headsets.

0:12:22 - Lori Saitz
No, these don't actually have it.

0:12:25 - Marvin Bee
Okay.

0:12:26 - Lori Saitz
And now I just changed the mic.

0:12:28 - Marvin Bee
To your webcam.

0:12:33 - Lori Saitz
And it's still echoing.

0:12:36 - Marvin Bee
Can you disable them in your sound properties in the bottom right by the taskbar yes, what, let's see, am I disabling? So, if you see, not my D-tag person.

0:12:54 - Lori Saitz
I don't know what to do.

0:12:56 - Marvin Bee
And here are my horrible skills of dealing with a residential client. So if you were to right click in your speaker bar in the bottom left there, bottom right, right click it and go to sounds and then you'll see under recording you'll have all your microphone sources there. And if you could just disable everything except the microphone, and no mystery, I'd no longer use Splashtop, you know they. So the story about Splashtop is they told me they were going to give me six months to try out their platform. I was going to promote them on the show and then the Mr. Windsor left and they ripped the six month trial. So I ripped them from the show. So that's, that's what happened there, and I don't have my take control set up here on this computer. Did you find everything there, Lori? And disable stuff under? When you right click on get sounds, you have playback recording and then you right click and disable everything.

0:14:08 - Lori Saitz
I got output input. Output input More sound settings. I know this is so annoying for everyone who's listening.

0:14:22 - Marvin Bee
Yeah, it'll be fun. And what'll be great is, if I don't edit this, people are going to be tuning in and going what. I guess I could set up a team viewer and connect and we can do that. That would be riveting.

0:14:40 - Lori Saitz
Yes.

0:14:45 - Marvin Bee
Don't you have a team viewer set up on here? I do not as a. Can you still hear yourself? Yes, Of course. Let's see here, Let me do. And whatever the noise is, that little humping hissing is getting louder.

0:15:22 - Lori Saitz
I will say this is a first.

0:15:27 - Marvin Bee
Of course we were fine the other day.

0:15:32 - Lori Saitz
We were.

0:15:36 - Marvin Bee
All right, so there's nothing else you can disable.

0:15:48 - Lori Saitz
I don't see anything else to disable Mono. Do you know?

0:15:58 - Marvin Bee
Does that help? Nope, that's going to be you. So if you go in and into your settings, what do you have set for your microphone in there?

0:16:11 - Lori Saitz
I changed it back to the USB, okay.

0:16:15 - Marvin Bee
And your speaker.

0:16:17 - Lori Saitz
It's on the. Let me try something else, but I don't think it's the speakers, Okay. I disabled everything Nope, it's still not. These headphones do not have speaker in them.

0:16:34 - Marvin Bee
What do you mean? A microphone?

0:16:37 - Lori Saitz
Yes, right.

0:16:40 - Marvin Bee
So, whatever you switch to, it sounds like you do have two mics active, so there should be a way for you to disable one of them, whichever one you're not using. So if it's your webcam, can you disable that?

0:16:56 - Lori Saitz
There can only be one. Do you hear me, do you hear an echo now?

0:17:01 - Marvin Bee
I don't hear the echo. Do you hear the echo?

0:17:04 - Lori Saitz
No.

0:17:05 - Marvin Bee
Listeners in the chat. If you're still there, Giles, john Anthony, Paul, do we hear an echo?

0:17:15 - Lori Saitz
They left because it was too annoying and I wouldn't blame them. All right, I think I don't hear it anymore.

0:17:28 - Marvin Bee
You don't think you hear it anymore.

0:17:30 - Lori Saitz
I do not.

0:17:33 - Marvin Bee
All right, we're getting reports. No echo.

0:17:35 - Lori Saitz
All right All right so don't know what that was about. I plugged the headphones into the computer directly and out of the microphone.

0:17:46 - Marvin Bee
That may have been it.

0:17:47 - Lori Saitz
But I.

0:17:49 - Marvin Bee
All right, well, there you go.

0:17:52 - Lori Saitz
And I usually set up, but here we are All right.

0:17:54 - Marvin Bee
And that's how you do tech support.

0:17:58 - Lori Saitz
Try a bunch of stuff, see what works.

0:18:02 - Marvin Bee
And see that ticket were resolved in less than five minutes. Please call us again or don't. All right, so we were talking about your podcast and talking about Right.

0:18:17 - Lori Saitz
The whole purpose of the whole podcast is to help people understand that they're not alone and there's nothing wrong with them.

0:18:26 - Marvin Bee
And I see you're not alone. There's nothing wrong with you and everybody stayed. I think everybody's still here. You sound better.

0:18:36 - Lori Saitz
Thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk about this, this whole topic.

0:18:41 - Marvin Bee
Okay.

0:18:42 - Lori Saitz
It's really important.

0:18:44 - Marvin Bee
So let's go back to well, let's do this, let's, let's center ourselves.

0:18:51 - Lori Saitz
Yes and be thankful and be thankful that we are.

0:18:55 - Marvin Bee
we are here. We died. Life can go on and let's talk about so I mentioned the podcast your company ZenRabbit. Let's tell the listeners all about how ZenRabbit got started and that'll get us back on path.

0:19:13 - Lori Saitz
Okay, yeah, ZenRabbit has actually been around for a very long time and is in its third or depends how you count iteration. But when it started, when I started the company, it was ZenRabbit baking company and I was making and marketing a product called the Gratitude Cookie. It was based on a family recipe, kind of a cross between a butter and a sugar cookie, and it was positioned to be a gift item, like something that companies could give to their clients or people who sent them referrals as a way to say thank you.

0:19:45 - Marvin Bee
Now was this something that was along the lines of what was that lady's name? Mrs. Something's Cookie? It was a big old cookie you could buy and it was like the size of a cake.

0:19:56 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, no, it wasn't like that. Okay, they were three and a half three inch round cookies, very plain looking but amazingly delicious, and the packaging was customized with, like your logo and your message to a client.

0:20:15 - Marvin Bee
And then it was wrapped.

0:20:16 - Lori Saitz
It was like a Chinese takeout box the really cool ones. And then it was wrapped with ribbon that would be in your corporate colors.

0:20:24 - Marvin Bee
Okay, so what was it that got you that idea to do that as a way to say thank you for businesses?

0:20:33 - Lori Saitz
Well, you know, I had, I wasn't working and I was looking for something to do. I was looking either to get a job or start a business.

0:20:39 - Marvin Bee
And you were a baker obviously For fun.

0:20:45 - Lori Saitz
Okay, I mean because, because all right. So every time I would make these cookies at the holidays or anytime, people would say, oh my gosh, these are so good, you should sell them. It's like every food entrepreneur's story.

0:20:57 - Marvin Bee
Right.

0:20:58 - Lori Saitz
And it was never my goal to be the next Mrs. Fields and I don't think that's who you're talking about but it was that it wasn't my goal to just be like somebody who sells cookies on, you know, on a platter or whatever, at a and start a cookie store. Because I have this background in marketing, I thought, well, what else can I do with this? How can I differentiate myself in a crowded marketplace? And that's when I came up with the idea of making it something you know, something for businesses to use as a marketing tool.

0:21:27 - Marvin Bee
Really, All right, and obviously, since this is the third iteration of ZenRabbit, how long did you do that?

0:21:41 - Lori Saitz
First iteration. I ran that business for 11 years, completely into the ground. No, I'm kidding, I ran it for 11 years. I couldn't quite scale it the way I would have liked to and I ended up shutting it down because it was just frustrating and because I kept saying, well, if I just do this one thing, everything will change, and if I just do this one other thing, everything will change. And it didn't, and it finally just became like the. It wasn't worth it to keep it going.

Okay, now I was incurring a lot of debt and it just okay this is about the time that you usually stop for everybody else.

0:22:19 - Marvin Bee
So I'm going to ask you, in terms of scale, what is it that you wanted it to do? What was that ceiling that you hit? Was it just that? Was it you doing it all by yourself? You couldn't hire staff? Or you did hire staff and ran into some other issues. What was it?

0:22:37 - Lori Saitz
It was a combination of things. So I did outsource the baking. I had what I call the baking partner, but it was a commercial bakery that was making the cookies for me. I had leased equipment to help automate the whole thing. That was in their facility, but it was a very labor intensive. These cookies were very labor intensive to make, even with the automation, and so that was one thing. Secondly, was shipping a food product that does it no preservatives. They would stay good for a few months. But still, shipping a food product, there's a lot involved, a lot of logistics and dealing with FedEx and USPS, which were my primary shippers. Things would be lost. They couldn't tell me where they were. People would say they hadn't been delivered, even though they had. Somebody in their office had signed for it, but then they can't find it.

0:23:34 - Marvin Bee
All kinds of things like this People probably ate them and didn't tell anybody.

0:23:39 - Lori Saitz
Right, exactly, and not being able to. And I had an issue with somebody who was doing the packaging for me that she turned out to be not trustworthy and packages weren't getting delivered. So the reason they weren't getting delivered to the end user was because they never got delivered to FedEx even though she told me she had and she had tracking numbers for them, but they didn't track anywhere because she didn't actually ship them. All of these things contributed to.

0:24:11 - Marvin Bee
Was she double dipping? Did you find out if she was printing labels and then taking them home and selling them on the side?

0:24:19 - Lori Saitz
I've never really figured out what exactly happened.

0:24:22 - Marvin Bee
How to track that down.

0:24:24 - Lori Saitz
Yeah.

0:24:25 - Marvin Bee
All right.

0:24:26 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, so yeah, that combination of things and so yeah, it made it difficult to go out and get more clients confidently to know that their orders would be delivered or that they would be fulfilled the way they were supposed to.

0:24:43 - Marvin Bee
All right. So I didn't intend for our conversation to go this way, but it sounds like you hit something in the beginning with being able to find a way to thank clients. Businesses were probably loving the fact that cookies at that time were probably a new idea. It wasn't just send them pizza or drop off donuts and send them fruit baskets or stuff like that. So tonight we're talking about ways to properly thank your clients. It sounds like you just abandoned that concept when the idea of helping businesses show gratitude. Maybe there would have been a way to find another product to do that or something else. Was that a consideration?

0:25:33 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, I actually did have other products in my stable of things that I would help people send Okay, so I had money trees and bamboo arrangements I had. I started expanding out into a whole bunch of other ideas and then that kind of took me away from the main focus. Keeping the main thing, the main thing.

0:25:55 - Marvin Bee
Okay.

0:25:56 - Lori Saitz
So, yeah, I don't know if that was helpful or not to have that expansion, but I had journals and I had some referral partners like people, and so when I closed down the business, I sent a lot of my clients to other people who had products that I really liked, like caramel's or barbecue sauce.

0:26:22 - Marvin Bee
Interesting. Yeah, so as we go into tonight's show, does that give you like goose bumps and stuff, thinking about those days and how to pivot now and tell us hey, here's how you should thank your clients properly.

0:26:42 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, well, I mean, I look back and I think, well, if I had done some things differently, like everybody, if I knew what, then what I know now it would have been totally different. And that's okay. I learned a lot. I was also talking a lot. I was doing a lot of speaking on the how to use gratitude as a differentiating factor in your business, and that piece is something I still talk about and that's what we can talk about that tonight too. But I mean it is a differentiating factor because so many businesses don't say thank you to their clients.

0:27:23 - Marvin Bee
Well, let's start there, because I started a series I think I started a series on treating customers right and it's something that our industry, we get so focused on the processes and how to do things more efficiently and how to not allow the customer to, you know, scope creep. You know adding things on to a job description and things of that nature. And you know we've made the joke earlier the guys were talking about the boutique style. You know I consider myself a boutique service provider.

I'm not like a lot of the others where I'm not trying to get as many clients as possible and scale. I give my customers some pretty, you know, solid, personal attention and that has gone well for me where a lot of my clients have stayed 15, 20 years. And you know, when I refer them, when I refer them, when I present things to them to do recommendations and stuff, most of the time they don't question, they're like we trust you, we appreciate the way that you've taken care of us. But what has always been a struggle for me is for me to is finding unique ways to thank them for their loyalty. And I've done things. You know where.

I've, you know, given customized mugs and you know I've done the pizza parties and I'll try to find something, you know, that's unique to the client to do, but I don't have a big budget set aside like some of the larger companies may, and it's something I know that needs to be done and I haven't like put down the reasons why it should be done outside of knowing that you know thanking them is going to keep them loyal. It's just going to show them that you know it's not just a transaction and stuff. So can you give us a little bit more of an idea of why it's a good idea to not just thank them but to thank them in a very engaging and proper and sincere way?

0:29:41 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, two reasons. One is it's good manners like did your mom teach you how to write thank you notes after the holidays or your birthday? Yes, mind good, Good manners to say thank you.

And to not assume that they know you appreciate their business, because I've had this conversation many times with people who were like, well, of course they know I appreciate them, they're, they're, I do what they pay me to do, and okay, but let's take it a step beyond that and let them know, like, if you never said you know, if you never, if you were in a relationship with somebody and you never said how much you appreciate them, or if you know you love them, or like whatever, that relationship is going to go south pretty quickly because they feel taken advantage of, even though you know you might be doing what you said you were going to do, so okay, so good manners. Secondly though, the law of reciprocity. Are you familiar with this law?

0:30:41 - Marvin Bee
Yes, I am.

0:30:42 - Lori Saitz
Okay. So because of the law of reciprocity, they will stay with you longer because you have done something kind and nice for them.

0:30:53 - Marvin Bee
I agree.

0:30:55 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, so. So I was just thinking about an incident. I had a client who, who was he had a newsletter. People would subscribe to his newsletter and the average lifetime value I can't remember now anymore, but it was something like two years, and then people would drop off, so he would send them a thank you at about five months before their normal drop off time and send them a box of cookies to say, hey, thanks for being a loyal subscriber. And he increased his like the lifetime value of a client by another six months by doing that.

0:31:35 - Marvin Bee
So that's something good. So a newsletter, I guess, is something that's easily trackable in our business and our industry. I guess if we lose clients at the time of a contract renewal or after a major project, that's trackable for us. But there's a lot of times we don't get, you know, a sense of being able to track that. So how, how can we track those things if we don't have a measurement?

0:32:03 - Lori Saitz
Well, how would you? I mean, don't you have every? Is everybody not on a contract?

0:32:09 - Marvin Bee
Well, my people are Okay. But some, but, but here's the thing some people may break a contract, which that happens a lot in our industry, where customers will just leave and they will risk you coming after them for the balance of the contract, if that's something that's written.

0:32:27 - Lori Saitz
Yeah.

0:32:28 - Marvin Bee
Or most of the time, the IT provider is like you know what, it's not worth it. Yeah, this customer is a thousand bucks a month. It's going to cost me five grand to go. You know it's so. I think what happens in our industry is that's a risk we take. But in terms of what I was, I guess, trying to ask is what are ways that we can keep tabs on our customers before that happens?

0:32:54 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, Well, one way is to ask them if they're you know how's it going. Are you happy with the service, and what can I do differently or what can I improve? What would you like to see that you're not seeing from us?

0:33:09 - Marvin Bee
Okay.

0:33:11 - Lori Saitz
And, you know, getting a good handle on what's the pulse of the client. If you feel like there in, another way to do things is to regularly say thank you to them, but again, determining how often and how much to spend because you referenced that earlier it depends on the lifetime value of a client. So somebody who has a higher lifetime value, you might want to spend a little bit more on them, and somebody who isn't that valuable and wouldn't matter all that much if they walked away. I mean, you know there are A-list clients, there are B-list clients and there are C-list clients, right? Yeah, so the A-list clients, you want to do everything you can to make sure that they're happy and they're staying. The B-list clients you want to keep them and do whatever you know, but maybe they get something less elaborate as a thank you. And the C-list clients you should be pruning them. They're not worth keeping Like they're probably more hassle than they're worth. So there's no harm in letting them go so you can make room for more A and B-list clients, right?

0:34:27 - Marvin Bee
So I was trying to bring up. You saw me on the screen over here. One of the things that happened was that they were not paying over here. One of the things that happened before the shows. We had some people comment on what they do to say thank you to clients, and one of the persons, one of the people, mentioned that they actually will do the equivalent of one month's contract or renewal or whatever, as what they budget for. You know how they show appreciation to their client. For some that's a pretty hefty percentage. You're giving away an entire month's revenue to say thank you. Does that sound like a good ratio?

0:35:06 - Lori Saitz
It's really up to each individual business owner. How much is that client? Again, how much is that client worth to you? Has that client been with you for 10 years or do you anticipate that they'll be with you for long term? Then maybe it's worth spending that much. But honestly, it is not about how much you're spending. It's about the fact that you're saying thank you at all.

And for somebody who's just starting out, let's say, and doesn't have a budget to spend a lot on gifts, send a handwritten thank you note. I don't care how bad your handwriting is like, get somebody who has good handwriting to write it for you or something. But the point is that it does not have to be expensive. You can make a really big impression by doing anything. Maybe send a book like hey, I found this was an interest, a business book. I read this book. I thought it was really great. You might appreciate it as well. Something. It doesn't have to be expensive or extravagant, and in fact you might not want it to be too extravagant, because then the client feels like wow, if you have all the money to spend on a gift like this, maybe I'm paying you too much.

0:36:22 - Marvin Bee
So that's the other side of it, especially for those of us that are just considered the IT guy to come back and give them something. So now I've done and I'll ask you what some of your most thoughtful, memorable out of the box thinking gifts have been. So for some of my clients, I've invited them out for a round of golf and paid for them, Especially if it was a tournament, then they felt special. I'm like, hey, I need somebody to help me in this tournament. And if it's a tournament where it's a nice course, that they're like oh, I don't get to play here, how do you get to play here? Something like that, that's been something that I've done for clients.

Now what? I'll tell you where I'm at here before you go, because I had a client just recently at the end of last year Pay for me and the wife to go on a cruise with them. That is not something I can reciprocate for that client. They don't provide me with that much to be able to do something like that, but that was interesting that they did that for us. So right.

0:37:38 - Lori Saitz
So the client took you as the provider on because you have some personal relationships with them. Did you have some personal relationship with them?

0:37:46 - Marvin Bee
Well, I mean they've been a client for a while. I mean they've been a client. I think when I looked theirs up they were 17 years and now they have, probably in the last, I'd say, 18 months, their spend with us has doubled. They've had to do some cybersecurity stuff and even though we've been pressing them on it, this is coming from their clients saying, hey, if you want to keep doing business with us, you need to show us that you're doing it. So it's not like they are like, hey, we're thinking about this. It's no, we need to do this, Can you do it? And we're like, yeah, we can.

0:38:25 - Lori Saitz
Right, yeah, that makes sense, I mean, but it is unusual that a client would invite a vendor. I mean, I think it's unusual. Maybe it's not in your industry, but usually it's the other way around.

0:38:38 - Marvin Bee
Yeah, we'll see if any listeners or anybody in the chat has had their client give them something like now. This was I'm going to say it's a three day cruise. It wasn't like a weeklong cruise. This was from Fort Lauderdale.

0:38:53 - Lori Saitz
we went from Miami to the Bahamas and back, so not huge, but still and then that's nice, that you get to spend time like personal time, getting to know the client on a different level yeah, which also builds. I mean, this is all about building relationships. That's what it comes down to. It's not so much about giving gifts and making people feel like they're indebted to you. That's not what we're doing here. It all comes back to building stronger relationships.

0:39:24 - Marvin Bee
All right, so saying thank you, and so you know, I had here, you know what are things that we can do that are different than the usual suggestions. You know the handwritten notes, the coffee mugs, the tea, you know those things were, in my opinion, that stuff that everybody does, everybody tries to do a, you know a holiday, you know, hey, I'll buy your office lunch. You know for Christmas or something like that, what are some other things we can do.

0:39:52 - Lori Saitz
I think we all have enough mugs in our cabinets. So no more mugs. All right, no more mugs. And not sending stuff at the holidays, because everybody sends stuff At the holidays and nobody remembers who sent what. So you don't stand out.

So this is again it's about building relationships and it's about being memorable. So can you send stuff at other times of the year, and I know a lot of people in all kinds of industries have heard the message of don't send the stuff at the December holidays. So they backed it up and now they send it Thanksgiving. Now everybody's sending it Thanksgiving. But what if you sent in February for Valentine's Day and just said we love having you as a client? Or you sent in May is National Barbecue Month and you sent a gift that was like you know, barbecue sauce and grill mitts or something I don't know. I'm just like, but again, it's going to be a lot more memorable because nobody else is sending stuff in May. Or let me see, let me see, I just was pulling up what is happening in August. Like, august is kind of a slow month, right, but there's a back to school month.

Right, there's a website that I always used called Brownie locks oh, like Goldie locks, but www.brownielocks.com and it's got all kinds of crazy holidays and like months, yeah. So August, for example, yes, is back to school month, it's um golf month, so there we go, there you go, if you know your client, like, is into golf, you could do something golf related.

Yeah, I love your idea of taking people for experiences, because that's just um, it's just nice, you know, get out of the office and it helps you also then again build the relationship with them by spending time with them, cause, again, people don't need more stuff necessarily, which is why I always liked things that could be consumed.

0:42:00 - Marvin Bee
Right.

0:42:02 - Lori Saitz
And, yeah, not collecting dust, oh, it's national crayon collection month, national dog month, Um. And then there are also weeks. So, uh, national button week. That was last week. Uh, let's see what's this week. Um, oh, is that?

0:42:20 - Marvin Bee
oh yeah, it's got the weekly. I was going through all these.

0:42:23 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, you got to scroll down and you get to the week.

0:42:25 - Marvin Bee
Yeah, and I got to this.

0:42:27 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, Apparently it's fiddler's week. I don't know what that means. Stop on red week. Is that not like every day down here? I know right.

0:42:39 - Marvin Bee
Oh my goodness, national exercise with your child week.

0:42:44 - Lori Saitz
Okay, yeah, I mean there's all kinds of crazy things, and then you get into the daily holidays and um and today is today is book lovers day. Book lovers day. All right, See, this is why you could send somebody a book and say hey, I really enjoyed this book. I thought you would too.

0:43:07 - Marvin Bee
International co-working day.

0:43:09 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, s'mores day is tomorrow. Get ready.

0:43:16 - Marvin Bee
Oh my Uh. So we had uh, Diana Giles, uh wrote. I sent heart shaped toffee to some clients last February instead of doing something for everyone at Christmas.

0:43:29 - Lori Saitz
I love that. See, that's exactly what I'm talking about Get creative and be memorable All right.

0:43:36 - Marvin Bee         
So brownielocks.com a great uh website there. I'm going to obviously have that in the link and it's just how it sounds Brownie, like the thing you do with the thing you eat. Yes, and lots brownielocks.com. So interesting, All right. Uh, moon phases. Okay, I'm not going to go there.

0:44:00 - Lori Saitz
And now you're gone down a rabbit hole.

0:44:02 - Marvin Bee
Yeah.

0:44:04 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, and you, I mean you can plan ahead, you can, you know, come up with a ton of creative, creative ideas that I was going to back up and say too Um, I love the experiences, I love food products, but being aware of, again, like everybody has their, their, um, their requirements. So, like when we were talking about gratitude cookies, they were not gluten free. And I would get asked that all the time, well, well, do you have gluten free? Do you have a sugar free version? I don't. So if your person is gluten needs to be gluten free or sugar free, then that's not going to be the best gift for them.

0:44:36 - Marvin Bee
But so that was always a thing when, when I did do the pizza parties, you know calling ahead to get somebody to tell you. You know if you're doing it for an office, office of 10 or 20, you know finding out what is it that the people in that office like, do you have to have X number that are vegetarian only? Um, how many just cheese? You know that sort of thing. So it could be tough to try to find out some of these things if you're trying to get personalized in your giving.

0:45:05 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, exactly, which is why, sometimes, you know, I go back to the plant thing. That's why I was doing bamboo arrangements and money trees, because nobody's allergic, nobody has sensitivities. That's a great gift that is suitable for a lot of different, a lot of different um situations. All right.

0:45:25 - Marvin Bee
So in talking to some of these business owners and stuff, have you compiled a list of some of the best things you've heard that have been given?

0:45:37 - Lori Saitz
No, I haven't compiled a list, but I do like I'll go back to the plants. I love the plants idea because plants sound so plain, though right. Why Money tree A money tree? Do you have a money tree?

0:45:51 - Marvin Bee
Okay, what are you doing? A little Miyagi thing with dollar bills hanging. Is that what you're talking about? No, no, no.

0:45:57 - Lori Saitz
There's actually a plant. Okay, what's?

0:45:59 - Marvin Bee
a money tree. It's called a money tree.

0:46:01 - Lori Saitz
And um, and it doesn't require a whole lot of sunlight, which is so if you're in an office, that doesn't necessarily get me. It doesn't need darkness, but, um, but they typically do well in a lot of different environments. Are you pulling up? What a money tree looks like yes. Yeah, um, and again it's. It's kind of a bamboo arrangement but it's got leaves and different kinds of leaves.

0:46:24 - Marvin Bee
Well, I need to see if it actually will survive down here in Florida. You know, we have, you know, triple, triple digit heat down here right now.

0:46:31 - Lori Saitz
Well, you, you don't keep it outside. It's not. It's not a tree, it's like a plant in a pot.

0:46:36 - Marvin Bee
It's not a giant tree Right out of the box. Money trees are one of the easiest house plants you can grow.

0:46:43 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, well, it says that and mine is over here struggling, but uh, anyway, no, so that's a great gift, um, things that can help people be creative. I do love the book idea because I'm really big on literacy and continuous learning, but I know that some people would rather listen to. You know an audio book, but again, you could give a subscription to Audible or something.

Um, what other gifts I had Caramels. There's a company that I have no association with, other than I had met the founder at one point. It's called good caramel. Like K A, like karma, k A R M A L. They do, and they do customize messages on the inside of their. They can do Okay.

That's a cool company, uh, I mean, yeah, brownies I love. I do still love food. But one of the things I will say to definitely to stay away from unless you really know the client well, and that is alcohol Like unless you know that they're like really into drinking a specific kind of wine and they would appreciate that you never know like who's recovery, who's in recovery, who's just you know doesn't drink. Like you don't want to be offensive or like for religious reasons, whatever they don't.

I think we're in an industry where we would know if our clients drink everybody in your industry drinks, I know that, but yeah, as a I don't you probably can't see it.

0:48:22 - Marvin Bee
There's a bourbon bottle up there. There's another one over there, I know.

0:48:28 - Lori Saitz
I have. Like I told you, I have friends who have, who work in your industry, so I know you need the alcohol. But no, I'm kidding, Uh, no, I just think that it's wise to stay away from things that could be offensive.

0:48:42 - Marvin Bee
Right. So I wrote down something here and I didn't get a chance to talk with you beforehand, but this thing called appreciation marketing, yes, um, and all I wrote was the value of doing something nice. But it seems to be. There is this new movement where you had mentioned doing things at different times of the year, but from what I gather now there's this concept that even as you're doing marketing, even in the prospecting stage, you are in the mindset of giving thanks to them every step of the way, from the time that they accept, you know, your bid to onboarding. You're giving them a thank you, something at that point, you know, at a six month mark, a year mark. So is that? Is that something you? I know you had mentioned that you know you should be thanking clients often, but is there, do you know of anything that is actually a scheduled? I don't like the fact that it's called marketing. I guess that's why I stuck it in there, cause I don't want to feel like it's a scheduled thing.

0:49:57 - Lori Saitz
I was using the term appreciation marketing back in like 2005. And it wasn't really a search term. People didn't use it. But that's what I was talking about. That's what you're doing. It is marketing because you are putting yourself in, you're reminding them that you exist and you're putting yourself in front of them as a way to say thank you, as a way to differentiate yourself. It is part of marketing. It should be part of your marketing strategy. So, whether you are I mean you should be all you always be marketing.

0:50:33 - Marvin Bee
Always be marketing.

0:50:38 - Lori Saitz
But marketing is again. It's about building that relationship. It's not necessarily like hey, here's something with my logo on it, here's something with my logo on it, remember me, remember me. But it is being in front of them so that they don't forget who you are. I think you have less of an issue around that than a lot of people, because people are going to call you when they need you.

0:51:03 - Marvin Bee
They know where to find you. Yeah, I mean we've got our logo on their freaking taskbar to help desk thing, which is why when I changed because in the beginning my mugs all had my logo on them so this last round of mugs that I've done, I actually got the company's logos. I did the last batch; I did the very last batch. I've done a couple of different iterations, but the last batch was their company logo with a little picture that they used, and then I took the partners of the firm and put their names on the mug so that each person got a personalized mug for their company from me. But it doesn't have my company name, Doesn't have a look of Marv anywhere.

0:51:54 - Lori Saitz
And I think that's where people go wrong is in handing out promotional items are not gifts. They're not showing gratitude necessarily. That is truly marketing. So handing people, giving people t-shirts with your logo or mugs with your logo, that is really marketing, but it's not a gift. Think about if somebody gave you this, a gift that was all about them Like gee, thanks. What am I going to do with this?

Like yeah, I'm not out wearing t-shirts. My gym was when they first opened. They were handing out t-shirts with their logo on it and a thing that said founding member I'm not going to wear it. When I buy a car, I make them take off everything that has the car dealerships logo or name on it, unless they want to pay me to market their business. And so promotional items are different than appreciation gifts. There you go.

0:53:07 - Marvin Bee
that's great I got it up there for everybody. I'm actually going to-.

0:53:10 - Lori Saitz
And you know what else is not a gift. There have been studies done on this gift cards.

0:53:17 - Marvin Bee
We're going to have an argument here Gift cards are not gifts.

0:53:20 - Lori Saitz
Yes.

0:53:21 - Marvin Bee
Okay, now, I don't do. I've never. Well, let me rephrase that. I give them out on the show, but they're like Amazon gift cards and stuff that people will use or whatever, but I don't give gift cards to clients. I don't even give them out as like. Well, let me read. Let me step back. The wife does, she goes out and I get gifts. I get a lot of gift cards because people don't know what to get me, so they'll give me gift cards and stuff, but I don't do that as part of my business or I don't do that as something where I don't go. Look for gift cards that you have people.

0:53:58 - Lori Saitz
Yeah.

0:53:58 - Marvin Bee
So now continue with your-.

0:54:00 - Lori Saitz
Put on you your thoughts, because you might as well just hand them some cash. Okay, it's easy and there's not a lot of unnecessarily thought behind it, especially when you're talking about clients and you're again trying to build a relationship. There's a book called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and its several years old, but he did a study in there and in it he talks about market norms versus social norms, and when we're talking about giving gifts and showing appreciation, that's a social norm. You wouldn't go to somebody's house for dinner and eat dinner there and stand up at the end of dinner and go hey, Uncle Marv, how much do I owe you for the meal? Like, that's weird. You would bring flowers or dessert or something as a gift because you're in a social situation. On the other hand, you wouldn't go to your landlord and say hey, instead of paying rent, can I give you some flowers?

Yeah yeah, that's a market norm, that's a financial transaction, and gift cards fall in there kind of as a financial transaction.

0:55:22 - Marvin Bee
All right, that's why I put that up there on the screen. If you're listening to the audio, we've got it going across the screen. Promotional items are not gifts.

0:55:32 - Lori Saitz
Right, and it could be argued that gift cards are not.

0:55:35 - Marvin Bee
Gift cards True gifts eat.

0:55:37 - Lori Saitz
Although I love them just as much as anybody else. But it also restricts people and like now you're giving them like oh, you have to go to Starbucks to redeem this or you have to go to Amazon. Now you're telling them what they have to do.

0:55:52 - Marvin Bee
Okay, but if you know somebody loves Starbucks and they go every morning, here's a $50 Starbucks card That'll last you what? Two visits. I don't know how. To Starbucks card. I don't like that.

0:56:07 - Lori Saitz
Right, no. Again it comes back to knowing your person. But if you don't know them all that well, a gift will be received better than money All right. Because the gift is in that social realm versus the financial transaction.

0:56:29 - Marvin Bee
All right.

0:56:30 - Lori Saitz
I get into it with people all the time.

0:56:33 - Marvin Bee
We were about ready to get into it here.

0:56:35 - Lori Saitz
There has your own vision for what that is, whether it's okay or not.

0:56:40 - Marvin Bee
All right, I do have some more stuff here, but I want to get a couple of things out of the way. We had to do some tech support stuff early, so I know that we may have some people that are going to bug out, so let me get a couple of things here. Are you willing to hang out and stay here?

0:56:53 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, I'm here.

0:56:54 - Marvin Bee
Okay, oh, I don't want to end the broadcast, Not yet. Let me get the stuff up here. We're going to do this and for those of you that are here, no, we are experiencing difficulty. Help that one. Let me do some thank you to the people that sponsor this show, and I first want to start with.

Our show is presented by Net Ally, a company that provides network testing and analysis solutions. They offer handheld networking tools that help technicians validate network connectivity in less than 10 seconds, as well as solutions for planning, deployment and ongoing network troubleshooting. If you saw the beginning of the show the CyberScope, their latest tool, oh, and I should have brought some stuff here I got today my official FedEx tracking. It is all on the way, so I will have that next week and we'll be doing a future show about that. So Net Ally, a company founded by engineers who are passionate about innovation and motivated to create the best test equipment possible. NetAlly.com and our live show the person who told us to do some tech support on here computers done right.

A full service IT provider offering managed IT services and consulting. In Venice, Florida, this week's home of Florida man. They provide proactive monitoring, network management, data backup and recovery, cybersecurity and website services. They support a wide range of hardware solutions. Whether you have existing hardware or need new equipment, computers done right can work with what you have and provide the necessary support. Find them at computersdoneright.com or email them at info at computersdoneright.com.

And our last sponsor, instant House Call, is a remote support software designed for small businesses. It allows customers to start a tech support session by downloading a small app or clicking an icon in their desktop, making it easy to connect remotely and securely. It's also got a lot of those other tools that you're so familiar with, including cross-platform compatibility with both PC and Mac, full UAC compatibility, unattended remote access, file sharing. They also have something you may not have in your other tools SMS notifications so that you can get alerts from customers when they are trying to reach you, and customizable branding. They offer a 15-day risk-free trial, no credit card needed. Find them over at instanthousecall.com. All right, and Lori, are you ready for Florida man?

0:59:58 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, what was that? It sounds kind of like a lion.

1:00:01 - Marvin Bee
That was the Florida Gator.

1:00:03 - Lori Saitz
Oh, you know what? I should know that. But look, here we go.

1:00:09 - Marvin Bee
What is? I can't read it. I don't want to read it.

1:00:14 - Lori Saitz
Says Florida Gator I don't want to read it.

1:00:16 - Marvin Bee
They suck.

1:00:18 - Lori Saitz
They do suck, but I'm still a fan.

1:00:20 - Marvin Bee
That's a shame. Florida State LSU coming up September 3rd Kickoff game. You're rooting for Florida State right.

1:00:31 - Lori Saitz
No, okay.

1:00:31 - Marvin Bee
Let's move on Florida man or Random Question. And we know ahead of time that you did not prepare for Florida man, so you'll get to do a random question. What? Yes, okay, are you changing your mind? I?

1:00:45 - Lori Saitz
mean no, no, no. I did a thing on Florida man and what came up was Florida man arrested for trespassing at Virginia Daycare. So it was still Florida man.

1:00:55 - Marvin Bee
Just not in Florida. Just not in Florida. So go with a random question. All right, so let's pull up a question here. Actually, you know what I'm not even going to do a random question, I'm going to change, I'm going to. On your podcast, you have been doing this thing where you have been asking your guests what their hype song is. Yep that's my thing Now. I have not listened to all your shows. I have not heard you say what your hype song is.

1:01:30 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, you got to go back to episode 25 for that.

1:01:33 - Marvin Bee
Yeah, I go in reverse.

1:01:35 - Lori Saitz
Yeah, my, so. Is that the question?

1:01:38 - Marvin Bee
Yes, what's your hype song?

1:01:40 - Lori Saitz
My hype song is Carrie Underwood's Champion.

1:01:43 - Marvin Bee
Oh.

1:01:44 - Lori Saitz
In fact, I had it playing on repeat this morning because I definitely needed to be hyped Like I just needed to get in the right mindset for getting my day started.

1:01:54 - Marvin Bee
Okay, well, at least wasn't ready for this show.

1:01:58 - Lori Saitz
No, I was already hyped for that, but what was yours?

1:02:03 - Marvin Bee
So I'm going to give the answer that oh, who was it that? Was it Show 97 or eight? The guy who said he loves anything by Home Free, okay, so Home Free now I've got several. I'll just start by saying that I don't have just one, but the song that has been in my head for like the last month is Happy Now, by Home Free Okay, it's a relatively new song. I can't play it because I don't want to get yanked off of YouTube. But maybe we'll play it later, but Happy Now by Home Free.

1:02:39 - Lori Saitz
All right.

1:02:40 - Marvin Bee
All right, so you've answered the question. Now I will go ahead and read a Florida man's story. So I'm going to ask you to pick a number one or two, because those are the stories that I have and I'll read whichever number you provide.

1:02:54 - Lori Saitz
Number one.

1:02:55 - Marvin Bee
Number one yes, well, the story you did not pick. Suspected burglar breaks into Florida church, baptizes himself before stealing money and electronics. So the number one story Florida man steals keys from stroller at Epcot and takes a vehicle. So Florida man was arrested after he was accused of snatching a man's car keys from an unattended stroller at Epcot and then breaking into his car while at the theme park. Ahmed Snina, age 24, is charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle with a mask, which is a second degree felony according to Orange County Circuit Court records.

And this may not have been an isolated incident. Earlier this year there were thefts at Disney's Animal Kingdom and also again at Epcot that the sheriff's office is still investigating. So Sinina's arrest unfolded when authorities noticed something suspicious. On video surveillance he was seen taking a baby stroller parked in the France Pavilion, an area where the masses often ditched their strollers to go ride Remy's Ratatouille adventure. And then some of the items that he took from the stroller include keys to a gray key of Sportage. And then he was observed doing some other stuff, and it gets boring after that, but that was it.

1:04:33 - Lori Saitz
Here's my question about that yes. How did he find the car? I mean, the parking lot is enormous.

1:04:42 - Marvin Bee
Well, let's see. He was observed on surveillance video walking through the Epcot Center parking lot where he located the key, so I guess he was walking around clicking the button.

1:04:54 - Lori Saitz
You're okay just like we all do in the parking lot when we can't find our car. Yep, uh-huh.

1:05:00 - Marvin Bee
Wow. So he began to rummage through the vehicle. When he finished, he shut the engine and left the key on the driver's seat. Then he was observed walking back to steal the vehicle. I don't know, this is weird. But instead of going home, he went to Disney's Hollywood Studios and attempted to enter the park. That's where authorities caught him to arrest him.

1:05:26 - Lori Saitz
Wow, he's definitely not smart enough to be a criminal.

1:05:31 - Marvin Bee
So he's been ordered not to return to Disney World as part of the conditions of his pre-trial release.

1:05:35 - Lori Saitz
That's the only thing. Don't come back here.

1:05:40 - Marvin Bee
So there is your Florida man story. All right, folks, we are going to end off the official podcast here, so if you are listening by audio, I thank you for listening. Those of you that are still here with us live. We will continue on. Lori, thank you very much for hanging out.

1:05:56 - Lori Saitz
My pleasure. Thank you for having me

1:05:57 - Marvin Bee
All right and, folks, you'll be able to find all the information for Lori in the show notes, both in the pod catcher that you listened to, on the website. She filled out a guest intake form and so all of her information is there her ZenRabbit website, all that good stuff. So go check her out and especially check out her fine is a four letter word podcast, thank you, where there will be lots of cursing. That is going to do it, folks, for this episode of the IT Business Podcast. We'll be back soon with another great episode. Be sure to check out if you are not staying abreast. We just released another episode yesterday, an audio episode, number 552, where we talked about NaviStack how to visualize your vendor stack, all in one place, held, given to us by the channel program. So Kevin Lancaster and Matt Solomon were on the show. So go check that out at the website ITBusinessPodcast.com. We'll be back with more great content. We'll see you next week. Until then, Holla!