We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jamie Shibley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jamie, appreciate you joining us today. Taking care of customers isn’t just good business – it is often one of the main reasons folks went into business in the first place. So, we’d love to get a conversation going around how to best help clients feel appreciated – maybe you can share something you’ve done or seen someone do that’s been really effective at helping a customer feel valued?

One of our clients, Susan, wanted to show gratitude towards her clients and strategic partners by providing them with a thoughtful holiday appreciation gift. This gesture not only had to reflect her sincere appreciation, but also capture the uniqueness of her research agency’s brand, which incorporates a fun, casual, irreverent approach personality to make clients feel more comfortable with what can often be considered very intimidating work. She wanted to create a unique experience that would be memorable for her recipients and one that would show she’s thinking of them and that she cares.
However, managing a fast-growing business meant that she had limited time to dedicate to this project, posing a significant challenge. Susan was looking for help to manifest her vision in a way that she knew she could completely delegate and still trust the results to be delivered on time, within budget and within the desired expectations for quality.

The Solution:
Starting in September, the teams began to collaborate. Previous gifts and ideas were reviewed, along with the key words that were important to Susan and her team when they thought about their overall message for the year in review. Susan is an extremely caring person and that comes through in all of her relationships. She wanted to show her understanding of what so many of us were going through in 2022. Business owners were still operating under a lot of stress and uncertainty in the market and covid was a lot. Susan wanted to provide a bit of levity while validating what so many were feeling. And our team was able to find something quite unique and on-point!
The end experience was the gift of a Dammit Doll – Something relatively unheard of. This wild looking, voodoo type doll came complete with a poem that laid out the use case of slamming your Dammit Doll to take out your frustration. To round out this package, Susan created messaging that actually listed all the commonly felt pain points and then commiserated with the recipient on the solution.
“The economy.
The elections.
The winter surge.
Having to do MATH.
Don’t yell at your spouse, your colleagues, your accountant, your clients or your TV. This doll can take everything you can dish out.
While we hope you get some restorative time this winter, when things get rough, we’ve got your back. (Especially with the math.)
Have a happy and healthy holiday season,
Susan and Team”

The Results:
The results of this mailing were an unprecedented 63 points of engagement – that’s a rate of 80%.. To this day her clients still show their dolls in meetings and joke with others. It is a common point of conversation in the communities her clients are part of. Everyone felt seen and heard. It has created long term bonds for Susan and her clients.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

If we’re meeting for the first time, thanks for connecting. The Expressory is a Strategic Engagement Agency that helps you build the relationships that grow your business. We work with small to medium sized agency owners, financial service providers and attorneys who value long term relationships.

I’m in this business because I can see that the more digitized and virtual our work becomes, the less people are relating to one another. This inability to connect on a personal level limits our business success and perpetuates a sense disconnection in society. At The Expressory, we believe that businesses benefit from being part of the solution.

Our purpose is to inspire organizations to invest in cultivating meaningful and lasting relationships that boost business success and contribute to societal wellbeing.

We develop and execute the strategies to deliver personalized experiences that quickly move your leads from know to like, turn your existing customers into raving fans and create a culture that is so magnetic that attracts opportunities.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I left corporate world, I did so to start a consumer facing business in an industry that I thought I could revive. I wanted to combine my years of ecommerce and IT experience to develop a tool to keep people personally connected when it came to acknowledging and celebrating special occasions. The greeting card industry was on the decline and it seemed because so many of us are too busy to have what we need to acknowledge people at the time we need it. So, my husband and I spent months developing the software and launched my first brand. I did all the right things to start to market this greeting card service. I showcased at various events and traveled to different networking events to create awareness. I even hired a business coach. But after about 6 months of marketing, it was looking rough. That’s when my first business coach asked me what was happening when I was out talking with consumers. I told her that there is a lot of interest from business leaders. They repeatedly told me they loved the product but kept asking if I could do it for them. I told her they just weren’t getting it. That’s when she stopped and asked, “Who’s not getting it?”.
That’s when the light went on!
That was my market. And that’s when the biggest pivot had to happen in order to have a chance of making it. After a year of trying to market that brand, we completely shifted to the brand we’re known as today and scrapped the technology. In order for this to work, I had to listen to the market. And the market wanted me to do it for them! The Expressory was born as a gifting agency that has continued to evolve to the complete strategic solution it is today, as a Strategic Engagement Agency.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

We practice what we preach at The Expressory. I know all about being so busy running a business that you think that the nice personal touches are just that – Nice to have. When I first introduced The Expressory and started serving our clients to fulfill their personal touchpoints, I remember our first holiday season approached quickly. I love holiday and expressing gratitude so I wanted to retain that as part of who we are to our own clients. However, that first year of holiday was very busy for us and I needed to do everything I could to keep increasing sales. So I set aside my own holiday cards. I didn’t send them for the first time and it crushed me. And then I realized something. I cannot do that. Here I was hustling to send out all the holiday appreciation for these clients that were hiring us to do so. They knew it was important enough to make happen that they outsourced it – And yet here I was, putting it aside. So I vowed from then on to follow our own strategies.
Data tells us that the average businesses consistently loss a 10-20% of their existing clients each year because they do nothing to connect with them. Throughout the year, business leaders, like me, are so busy running the business that they forgot to personally connect with the customers they already have. And that’s when the customers start to feel like they are no longer valued.

When we work with our clients, we suggest that you should have a personal touchpoint with your clients, outside of your work product, at least 2 times per year. You should be finding a way to show up with something helpful, something that acknowledges what’s important in their world, or something that shows you care. Just because. That’s how you create the kind of emotional loyalty businesses need to win today.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.TheExpressory.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theexpressory/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-shibley-76a3402/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theexpressory

Image Credits

Varitay Studios (headshot)
eWomennetwork (speaking image)
Phones (gifts and signage)