Words of Wisdom from TheCamel

The Advantage of the Lost Art of Loyalty

Shane Hodge • Jan 09, 2019

Today I am going to discuss a subject near and dear to my heart, and possibly one of the best bits of business building advice I can pass on to all the budding zillionaires who await my blog with joy and excitement every single month (well my kids read it, lol) Yes, a subject that takes me way back in the day to my childhood, where that Jedi master of life (my father) taught so many great things. You see, my dad was so much from the great school, that “old school” where champions were made, and I was lucky to have witnessed so much of that old school and in this new school I get to use what I had witnessed and pass it on. Ah, a tear is forming in my eye and the keyboard is wet as we speak.

One of the major things I learnt from Yoda, I mean my father? Loyalty.

Not just loyalty to family and friends but commercial loyalty. In the 87 years my dad walked the earth, he drove the same brand of car, went to the same doctor, same pharmacy, same bank, used the same mechanic, I think he even used the same brand of tyres. My father was not a minority tribe back in the day. Loyalty was a pretty common ingredient in the culture of life elixir. There was no internet, Google, e-commerce, social media, so you couldn’t just jump from search to search looking for a deal. You had to actually go and visit people, so the relationship became a critical part of a business transaction not just the bottom line.

But loyalty was a two-way street.

Not only were consumers like my dad looking for a relationship, so were the business of the day. Knowing you by your first name, even your kids’ names, your likes and dislikes, what team you supported, they would know as much as they could so the relationship became super solid and hard for a competitor to break. But more so it made the consumer have a guilt feeling if the thought of leaving crossed their mind.

Now, you’re most likely saying at this stage, “Well, hasn’t CRM just replaced face to face customer knowledge, isn’t it all just the same it’s just automated now, we contact our customers what more do you want!”

Well, yep you would be right. CRM and automation have made sure we bombard our customers with emails, texts, social media posts on all the wonderful new things we have for sale to help them overload those bits of plastic they keep in their wallets.

So, what is the major difference between words of wisdom from blokes like my dad – old school customer relationships compared to the automated world of customer contact of today?

If I had to zero it down to one major difference, I can sum it up in this one great statement.

“People don’t care what you know, until they know how much you care.”

Back in the day, personal CRM had feelings compared to the state-of-the-art automated CRM of today.

You would walk past a shop and get a wave. When you walked into a business, the first few moments were spent talking about YOU, how was life, how are the family, what about that football team you support and how they are doing this year. Heck even the doctor asked about life before he whipped out the blood test order form.

The art of loyalty was driven by another soon-to-be extinct culture and that is “sincerity”. The big question? Can loyalty and sincerity be saved? The bigger question is, can they be profitable?

You bet your MasterCard they can. And I guarantee you an awesome business builder awaits you, as the statistics show that since Adam was a boy and had no interest in women with apples, it costs a lot less to keep a current customer than it does to find a new one. Loyalty will keep your current customers. And a lack of sincerity, will lose them.

So, what’s the plan? Start getting into loyalty mode.

It doesn’t have to be a full-on platform or package from the start. You can begin small. Get a newsletter going, start a database of all customers, send them birthday wishes, just start showing you care about them, not just when you want to sell them something.

I can promise you that even with a small level of showing care? They will be thinking of you first when they are in need of a product or service.

Big Hugs from TheCamel.Co®

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Hello It's "Artificial" Intelligence

By Shane Hodge • 02 Mar, 2023

Hello my fellow Jedi Knights. Wow, what a month it's been in the good old web world. Yes, part of it has been the normal whining and complaining by my fellow inmates (work-from-home people) on how tough things are. But, you also have the reversal from the “Optimist Prime” crowd. I don't know if they tell stories or they are actually doing well, or maybe, they know something the rest of us don't. But I find all the conversations fun and exciting and worth the price of admission. However, the number one topic this month? Drum roll please (but I think the theme from Star Wars would be better) as yes folks we are all talking about AI or Artificial Intelligence. Now, depending on which news you read or listen to, AI can be either what the world has been waiting for, or it can be a nightmare on Elm Street Part 55! I have written before in one of my should have been Pulitzer prize blogs, I think, about my Will Smith type love for AI. I loved Will (before the academy awards slap, silly Will) in the movie iRobot. He sums up my feelings so well in one scene. He is having a coffee with the CEO of US Robotics (USR), and offers a marketing suggestion for a TV ad. It went like this. Will Smith said, “So okay, you see a carpenter making a wonderful chair, and then you see a robot make a better chair twice as fast, and then at the bottom of the screen it reads, ‘USR shittin’ on the little guy’.” You see folks, Will had little love for robots. Yes, they had taken away all the mundane jobs for people, such as garbage collection, FedEx delivery, waiters, the list goes on. And those people fell for the pitch just like people did in real life, that robots will do the jobs we don't want to do, when the fact is? They take the jobs and that leaves no jobs. And for many? They have nothing to do. So in the total scheme of things? Call me old school, but I am a bit like Will Smith. I see robots as totally shittin’ on the little people and a serious problem in years to come unless we all get used to living in a welfare state. Ok, hold the bus, I am getting all serious and political and can feel people starting to leave their seats screaming, “That's not the sort of blog we are used to. Where's the humor, frivolity, sarcasm? Hello, get back in the groove or we will think this is written by AI”. Well, after slapping myself (sorry Will ), I am back in the groove, fellow little people. So, was all the news this month all about robots making a perfect unemployed world? NO, we are a few years away from that LOL. The noise was all about ChatGPT and a few others, and how they can write better content faster, do code, create facebook posts, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and overall it was the end of the world for freelancers and the little guy. But a massive opportunity for the bigger guys and some smaller ones who also have the greed gene. All of a sudden like quicker than you can “Slap” (sorry Will, last one promise), people I know well that could not put together a sentence, let alone spell without their kids checking it, were writing award winning social media posts. Their blogs which the last one they wrote were ready to go in a museum, all of a sudden they had Pulitzer prize winning wikipedia word count blogs all shiny and new. Yes, the drug had hit, people were hooked faster than Blue Magic that Denzel Washington's Character made in the movie American Gangster (Love ya Denzel, he calmed down Will). Like these people who averaged a post every birthday were all of a sudden asking Facebook for more room, I tell you. They were lighting up the world with this free of charge ChatGPT and thinking wow even their mothers will be impressed. Was the content good? Was it worth the read? Well, compared to this writer's literary genius, of course not. But, would it pass the test of the average punter out there? To be honest, it would. Like the scene in iRobot, good old ChatGPT could write better and faster than the average bear. But what did I notice? Well folks, I am glad you asked. What I noticed was what I titled this blog, all that fancy stuff was written by? “Artificial” Intelligence. What do I mean? It lacked emotion, humor, sarcasm, wit (the sort of stuff you read each month in this blog). It read well but it was cold and lifeless. It was? “Artificial” Do I think AI has a place? Doesn't matter what I think really, the dice has been thrown, the cement has been mixed, the water has boiled. Folks, AI is here, ready or not. I think no choice AI will be the go-to in basic content, social media posts, all the things the “little guy” (freelancers) make money from, so they will need to find a new game to play. BUT, for the special stuff, for the emotional, touchy feely stuff, the stuff that separates humans from them? I believe we (Humans) still have the edge. The people that write all that good stuff? We do for us, our readers, our viewers, and our audience. AI? Does it because it's told to! Love n hugs to you all, and AI or a robot? Can't do that.

Rising to New Heights

By Clarissa Mercado & Melody Allado • 02 Feb, 2023

Celebrating a Decade of Overcoming Challenges and Rising Up

We Are Here to Help

By Shane Hodge • 13 Jan, 2023

Here we go its 2023, New Year, out with Old in with the New, Clean Slate, Fresh Start ahhh the list of exciting motivation could go and on, I actually love the start of a New Year, to me it's just a whole new Mountain to Climb or a chance to have another go at the summit after slipping down the ice in the last few months of the year before LOL. At TheCamel.co every New Year we do the same thing, we set two themes, one theme is for the team and one is for the Company. We use that theme to set the stage of what we want to achieve for the year. We have had lots, always a statement we put on t-shirts and always a matching song which becomes like an anthem. Over the Years we have have had some awesome themes, “This is the Moment” “United We Stand Divided We Fall” “Nothing's gonna stop us now” “This is Me” I get so excited when we do our theme launch at our yearly get together party at the start of the year (TheCamel was born in January so good time to celebrate) Nothing beats a super introduction speech (humbly delivered by me) and then boom the theme song blasts in the background and will then spend the next year lifting, motivation, inspiring our team to go above and beyond in greatness, well that's the plan LOL. So, what's the plan for 2023? Glad you asked. My Goal for 2023 was to really “UP” the service and support game, my belief is the world is getting so deep into automation, Ai, a major “Differentiator” will be service and support. Everybody and his dog (I apologize if I offend any puppies who read my blog) are into faster, quicker, cheaper. I do not want to jump on that train. I want to make sure yes we do all that but move over Disneyland, “The Happiest place on Earth”, will be doing business with TheCamel. BUT? I need a song, and a theme. It was just before the Christmas break and that thought was running through my mind and all of a sudden out of the blue like a bolt of lighting I was hit by this song, “Help” Not the Beatles version (yes it was the original) but this version https://youtu.be/dv54giOSRKs sung by the awesome aussie talent John Farnham. When he belts out the line, “Help me if you can I’m feeling down, and I do appreciate you being round” wow the hairs on my arms stood up and then, “ And I do appreciate you being round” OMG I felt like the support angels had opened up in the heavens, trumpets were sound, rays of sunlight breaking through the clouds yes folks it was a spiritual uplifting moment which ended when he sang, “Won't you please, please help me” I felt a need to answer the call. I imagined poor suffering souls being on the end of a call with somebody form a strange land pretending to be from another country, I visioned frustrated consumers chatting with a BOT, trying to find the answer to how to stop a light from blinking and get the new TV working, OMG yes we are all trying to make things faster, leaner meaner but in the end? It boils down to the desperate pleas of? “Won't you please please please help me” Thank you Whispering Jack (John Fnarnhams nickname) At last, my theme for TheCamel team in 2023 was sent by the gods of support, at last I have a tune that can drive the team to greatness, but I need one more thing, I need a tagline to put on tshirts. The song is great, but it needs a simple phrase that ties it all up, that links the mammoth anthem of service, that the mere mention of that phrase will be a call to action for the team. So my beloved audience let me share what will be the phrase that will drive us at TheCamel to make sure that in 2023 you will not be begging, “please please please help me” We will say from the moment you call or text, drum roll please. “We are here to help” and that is what we will do. In 2023? TheCamel? Will Help you. The team theme? That's the next blog. Hugs to all.