1588: Little Things Make All the Difference AND Shining Example: Rayko by Derek Sivers

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily. Little Things Make All the Difference by Derek Sivers of Sivers, that's S-I-V-E dot R-S. If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they'll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business model stuff. Here are some things that made a huge difference on the CD Baby website. Because we shipped FedEx at 5pm each day, customers would often call and ask,

[00:00:28] What time is it there? Do I still have time to get it sent today? So I added two little lines of programming code that counted how many hours and minutes remained until 5pm, and then showed the result by the shipping options. You have 5 hours, 18 minutes until our next FedEx shipment. Customers loved this! We answered our phone within two rings, always, 7am to 10pm, seven days a week. Phones were everywhere, so even if the customer service rep was busy, someone in the warehouse could pick up.

[00:00:56] All anyone had to do was say, CD Baby! Customers loved this! Someone actually picking up the phone at a company is so rare that musicians would often tell me later at conferences that it was the main reason they decided to go with CD Baby. They could always talk to a real person immediately. All employees knew that as long as we weren't completely swamped, they should take a minute and get to know the caller a bit. Ask about her music. Ask how it's going.

[00:01:22] Yes, it would lead to 20-minute conversations sometimes, but those people became lifelong fans. Every outgoing email has a FROM name, right? Well, why not use that to make people smile too? With one line of code, I made it so that every outgoing email customized the FROM field to be CD Baby Loves and then the first name. So if the customer's name was Susan, every email she got from us would say it was FROM CD Baby Loves Susan. And customers loved this too.

[00:01:52] Sometimes, after we had done the 45 minutes of work to add a new album to the store, the musician would change his mind and ask us to do it over again with a different album cover or different audio clips. I wanted to say yes, but let him know that this was really hard to do. So I made a policy that made us both smile. We'll do anything for a pizza. If you needed a big special favor, we'd give you the number of our local pizza delivery place. If you bought us a pizza, we'd do any favor you wanted.

[00:02:18] When we would tell people about this on the phone, they'd often laugh, not believing we were serious. But we'd get a pizza every few weeks. I'd often hear from musicians later that this was the moment they fell in love with us. At the end of each order, the last page of the website would ask, where did you hear of this artist? We'll pass them any message you write here. Customers would often take the time to write things like, heard your song on WBEZ radio last night, searched Yahoo, found it here. I'd love to have you play at our school.

[00:02:46] The musicians absolutely loved getting this information and it always led to the customer and the musician getting in touch directly. This is something that big stores like Amazon would never do. Also at the end of each order, there was a box that would ask any special requests. One time someone said, I'd love some cinnamon gum. Since one of the guys in the warehouse was going to the store anyway, he picked up some cinnamon gum and included it in the package. One time someone said, if you could include a small rubber squid, I would appreciate it.

[00:03:15] If this is unobtainable, a real squid would do. Just by chance, a customer from Korea had sent us a packaged fillet of squid. So the shipping guys included it in the box with the other customers' CDs. You can see the customer tell the story himself by checking out a video on YouTube called CD Baby and a Shrink Wrapped Surprise. Even if you want to be big someday, remember that you never need to act like a big boring company. Over 10 years, it seemed like every time someone raved about how much he loved CD Baby,

[00:03:45] it was because of one of these little fun human touches. Shining Example, Reiko by Derek Sivers of Sivers. That's S-I-V-E dot R-S. I attended a huge music conference with hundreds of musicians, but I only remember one. Here's why. She was going up to every single person and introducing herself, getting into great conversations,

[00:04:14] finding out what everyone does, and taking notes. Every time someone handed her a business card, she grabbed her pen and wrote down notes about that person on the back to help her remember. She probably befriended hundreds of people in that one conference, including me. Then, on my very first day back from the conference, she called me in New York to sign up to CD Baby. Maybe she called 20 people that day, but she knows how to make you feel like you're the most important one. Her name is Reiko. I asked her how she does all this.

[00:04:43] Whenever she has a show on the road, she goes in the day before to do a bunch of meet-and-greet interviews, in-store appearances, and whatever other connecting opportunities she can. After every show, she goes into the crowd to sell CDs and sign up hundreds of people to her mailing list. She answers every fan letter with a handwritten letter. She immediately sends a thank-you card to every business contact she meets. And all the while, she's constantly practicing and writing and recording new music.

[00:05:10] I've heard this same skill is behind the success stories of many top pop stars and politicians. Meeting everyone, remembering everyone's name, developing relationships, following up, and constantly keeping in touch. Treating everyone as special. Who knows if this is just part of her personality or if it's a trait she developed because her career is that important to her. But if you care about your music and you really want to become successful at it,

[00:05:36] you're going to have to meet thousands of people and plug away with tireless drive. And still somehow balance this with making the best music you can and constantly improving your musical skills. If you make this a daily habit, it won't seem hard. You just listened to the posts titled, Little Things Make All The Difference and Shining Example, RACO, both by Derek Sivers of Sivers.

[00:06:05] That's S-I-V-E dot R-S. And thank you to Derek for today's posts. And I'm going to keep this ending nice and short for you today. I appreciate you for being a subscriber to the show and hope you have a great rest of your day. And of course, I'll see you right back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.