Best Website; Ultimate Question; Good Profits; Australian Growth Summit Next Week

My Latest Favorite Company Website — several of you thought my last choice wasn't so great, so let me suggest another website — listed below, but first…

The Ultimate Question 2.0 Online Seminar — the Net Promoter Score (NPS) has become the global standard for measuring customer advocacy and satisfaction. Apple, GE, P&G and countless other major companies, in addition to many of the leading growth firms like Rackspace and Coastal Contacts, use Fred Reichheld's simple question and NPS formula to effectively manage their businesses. Fred, who keynoted our Growth Summit a few years ago, has significantly updated his book (lots more mid-market company examples – many Gazelles clients) and produced an online seminar for our Growth Institute just released today — always a full money back guarantee if you don't find it useful.

BOWA Scores a 97 — an average company achieves a raw NPS score of 15; great companies in the mid-60s; and the elite, like Apple, who have customers rabid about their products, exceed 80. Topping the charts is DC-based BOWA, a Gazelles200 construction and remodeling firm that has won every award a company can achieve in their industry, including Remodeler of the Year for the entire US. They routinely receive back one-third of their surveys (vs. the typical 3% if it's a longer standard customer satisfaction survey) and have historically achieved a NPS of 93 and most recently they are averaging a 97 in 2012. Congrats to Josh Baker and Larry Weinberg, co-founders of BOWA. What is your score?

Good Profits vs. Bad Profits — one of several other powerful ideas of Reichheld is the notion of good profits vs. bad profits. Are some of your policies profitable but damaging to customer relationships? In an environment where customers have access to instant feedback from other customers, short term gains at the expense of customer loyalty and advocacy might harm the business long term. Southwest Airlines, shunning change fees, is one example of a leading firm opting for good profits over bad.

Details in Calculating NPS — with new navigation capabilities, Fred's 1 hour online presentation presents the details in how to gather the data, calculate your NPS, how to respond to the results, discusses good vs. bad profits, and highlights several case studies of mid-market growth firms implementing this important metric. Watch on your own (I often listen while doing email) or highlight parts of the presentation during a monthly management meeting. One online seminar per month will "keep you great" and out-learning the competition.

Fred Reichheld in Australia — FYI, Fred will be joining Jim Collins and Jack Daly as faculty in Sydney next Tuesday and Wednesday for our annual Growth Summit. Fred will keynote Tuesday and then lead a detailed workshop on Wednesday.

Best Company Website — back to BOWA, check out their new website, especially the simple, direct messaging guiding people through the remodeling process – and check out their video and blog highlights on the homepage. Working with Bob Bloom, former CEO of global ad agency Publicis and author of The Inside Advantage (who was the early ad guy behind Southwest, BMW, Perrier, etc), Josh, Larry, and their team worked hard to highlight their "inside advantage" over the competition.

Why the Changes — Notes Weinberg, "Although the old design was aesthetically pleasing and solicited numerous compliments, it did not speak to our inside advantage. It did not demonstrate what we did that was different and better than our competitors. Anyone visiting our site would see beautiful pictures and read incredible testimonials that would lead them to believe that we are a very good builder. But being a good builder is only a small part of our value proposition and not enough of a differentiator between us and everybody else. For BOWA, we add an incredible amount of value by being the single point of accountability throughout the whole process. Hence the front page of our website demonstrates to potential clients how we are "Your Guide through Every Step of the Remodeling Experience." And you can easily click through the various steps, proposed as questions, starting with "What is my first step?" to "What happens after the project?"

Bob Bloom — BTW, you access the insights of a million dollar marketing genius for a fraction of the price now that Bob is retired and consulting almost as a hobby! Here's his email address [email protected]. Clients rave about his work – I know, because they send me emails!