Direct Mail Marketing: How Wilson Zehr Turns Follow-Up into Predictable Revenue | Ep. 182

Wilson Zehr: 00:00:00

Part of my ritual, I come down and I clean out my email box. And when I'm doing that, if you've got 400 emails, I'm not looking for stuff to read, I'm looking for stuff to delete.

Intro: 00:00:11

But I am the world's biggest super fan.

Wilson Zehr: 00:00:13

You're like a super fan.

Intro: 00:00:15

Welcome to the Business Superfans Podcast. We will discuss how establishing business superfans from customers, employees and business partners can elevate your success exponentially.

Learn why these advocates are a key factor to achieving excellence in the world of commerce. This is the Business Super Fans Podcast with your host, Freddy D. Freddy.

Freddy D: 00:00:50

Hey, super fans. Freddy D here. Welcome to Business Super Fans Advantage, where today's guest is going to drop some serious insights to give you the the edge.

In this episode 182, we're joined by Wilson Zaire, an accomplished entrepreneur, academic and thought leader in marketing, innovation, business strategy.

With more than 25 years of experience in the technology and telecommunications industry, Wilson has been at the helm of six large scale tech startups and has successfully raised over 60 million in venture capital.

He holds a PhD in technology and management and currently serves as an assistant professor at Eastern Oregon University where he teaches marketing, entrepreneurship and business strategy. Beyond the classroom.

Freddy D: 00:01:41

Wilson is dedicated community leader, founding the.

Freddy D: 00:01:44

University'S entrepreneurship club to empower and inspire future innovators.

Get ready for a fascinating conversation packed with insight, experience and actionable advice from somebody who's lived at the intersection of business and innovation.

Freddy D: 00:02:02

Welcome Wilson to Business Superfan Advantage podcast. Great conversation that we had before we started recording, so let's continue that conversation here. Welcome to the show, Wilson.

Wilson Zehr: 00:02:13

Thank you Freddie. Good morning. Glad to be here. Thanks for the opportunity. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:02:17

So you're from Oregon, I'm from Arizona and as we talked beforehand, my sister lives down by Eugene, so we have some things in common. And you and I have been both in the tech space way back when it all began. So yeah, excited to continue the conversation here and welcome again.

Wilson Zehr: 00:02:34

Well, thank you. Appreciate it.

Yeah, Eugene's been more in the news recently because the Oregon Ducks have been having a great season in the Big Ten now and I don't know where they're at this week. 35 something.

Freddy D: 00:02:46

tarted and come up with since: 2003

So what's, what's the backstory of how did that all come about?

Wilson Zehr: 00:03:03

Oh, you know, you know. Undergraduate degree in finance with a minor in computer science. Started my career working as a software engineer.

Spent the first five or six years working on compilers, military applications for language called ada. So it was used by the military, military contractors. At some point went back and decided I wanted to work in marketing.

Got my MBA and went to work at a software provider managing strategic relationships. Spent years doing that and as the Internet emerged, really got more involved in the startup environment.

So I did a. I worked on a company called Sequent Computers, just spin off from Intel. Went on to do a company called Efusion, which was jointly funded by Microsoft France Telecom, AT&T.

We did voice over IP applications and gateways and then really did Zermail. Started Zermail and there's been multiple incarnations of Xeromail.

It's kind of a funny story that I'm not sure we have time for, but the basic idea of both Fusion and Ceremil and a number of other applications we're working on is this idea of convergence.

So we have the emergence of the Internet, which is content rich, immediate communication, connectivity, and then looking at legacy systems, systems that we depend on in different ways that are not connected and how do we pull those things together to make a more connected and more powerful ecosystem.

In fusion, we were really blending the Internet with the public telephone network and tools like Skype still use some of the technologies we created back in that time frame in Zermail where we. Hybrid mail. We created the concept of hybrid mail working with the U.S. postal Service.

The idea that we can go from digital to physical, which would gives us additional capabilities but also allows us to speed delivery and it's better for the environment. So there's a lot of good reasons why we might want to do that.

And you know, we just kept, we spent a lot of time listening to what customers want and trying to move the ball forward in a way that's beneficial for all of our stakeholders. And so that's really what the journey's all been about.

We started with the idea and listened to a lot of customers and continue to this day doing things that add benefits that our customers feel are important. Sure.

Freddy D: 00:05:32

I mean, you know, I think that people overlook the power of direct mail because it's really, it cuts through the noise. And you know, when I was in the software space decades ago, when I got in early in the mid-80s, I got into sales and I was very fortunate.

I went through some very, very high end sales training and my success was because of utilizing mail. Since the Technology was new. Computer aided design, Computer aided Manufacturing, CAD CAM was a completely new industry.

I would use direct mail to mail to the president of the tool and die shop, the vice president, the managers, et cetera. And we would do a lunch and learn strategy.

uy the directory and sic code: 3544

And we would send the mail, inviting them to a lunch and learn about how the technology's trained, changing the engineering and manufacturing space. And I would leverage the, the gals in the executive suites to contact the guys at the companies and inviting them to lunch.

So they all took the phone call and we would come in and we would, you know, not how wonderful our technology was, but really how this was impacting, you know, the business from a productivity and ROI and all those kind of things. And once they left, we would always send a follow up letter thanking them for, you know, taking the time out of their busy day to join us.

But most importantly I would get invited in to say, hey, come in and take a look at our facility and tell us how this might impact our business. It was like inviting the fox into the hen house. But the bottom line was it was all because of direct mail.

And so I just really want to iterate that because you know, people do a lot of email today but if you want to cut through the noise, direct mail is still the best.

Wilson Zehr: 00:07:40

Yeah, it does have a very important place in the marketing ecosystem, that's for sure. But I'd love to touch on two points from your comments.

One is the follow up letter that you're talking about and old school enterprise sales, we've done that forever. People still do it today.

You know, being able to have a sales call, talk with somebody and then do a handwritten card, just say hey, it was great, thank you for making the time to meet with me. Great to learn more about you. Looking forward to talking in the future. It's a game changer for us.

Freddy D: 00:08:12

Yeah, I mean I won more sales.

Wilson is when I would go to, let's say mold shop and we'd have everybody in, you know, you got the shop guys from the shop floor would come in because there to be out there using the software, you know, manufacturing software and stuff like that, we would do a whole presentation. I'd made sure I got everybody's name.

And when we left and got back to the office, I had a Mac back in the early 80s or mid late 80s and I had a software, I wrote my own CRM and then I used the platform and I had all the templates emailed and everything else for printing, I should say, not email. And I would mail everybody. You know, thank you, Wilson, for taking the time to be part of our meeting. You know, we really appreciate your feedback.

And, and more importantly, I'd subliminally say, you know, can't wait to start working with you guys and implementing this technology. So I already went into the sale, was done in my choice of verbiage, and we would win the deals and I would ask, why did you guys pick us?

And they would basically says, well, we felt after the sale we would get the best support. And the reasoning was, you know, Dave that's on the shop floor, never gets recognized for anything.

And all of a sudden he gets a letter in the mail saying, thank you for your time. He feels like a rock star. And so all of a sudden it's a feel good.

Everybody's feeling good because they all got that thank you for your time in a meeting and we look forward to working with you and all that stuff. And I'd get the W all the time.

Wilson Zehr: 00:09:52

No, it makes sense. I mean, sometimes sales gets a bad rap, but sales is about solving problems, right? Solving problems.

If it's done correctly, it adds value to the customer. But there's a big component of it that's also relationship based. And just that simple act says you're.

Freddy D: 00:10:11

Important and that's the game changer. And that's how you create super fans. Because I created superfans out of all those guys because all of a sudden.

Freddy D: 00:10:20

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Wilson Zehr: 00:11:48

This is interesting. And this dovetails into a product we just launched that's called Speedy.

And basically it was designed for this type of application where you basically have a desktop icon and you could drop a Word Doc or PDF on it, or just click it and open it up and type a note and you have the content of your letter. It says, where do you want to send it? You put an address, push a button and out it goes. It turns into a letter.

So you can do that same kind of follow letter to an individual in about 60 seconds from your desktop. You don't have to find paper, an envelope or stamp or any of that stuff. And the tracking is included.

It sends, tracks it as it's being delivered and sends you an email to confirm when it gets there. So you could pick up the phone and call if I just wanted to follow up, make sure things are going well. Did you get my letter? What did you think?

Did you know? But that tool is available today. Download from our website. It's free. First two letters are free.

So I would invite everybody to check it out or give it a try.

Freddy D: 00:12:48

Yeah, because this really cuts, you know, it cuts through the noise. And you know, when I was working a couple of years ago, I was working in a completely different industry.

I was running a interpreting and translation company and we did cold marketing through direct mail. And what we did was we personalized it so every individual, it was personalized to them.

It wasn't just, you know, dear so and so it was, you know, dear Wilson, dear Susie, dear Mike, dear Michelle. And it really highlighted a problem that that industry or that group that we were targeting.

So I was selling into the state of Arizona, selling to hospitals and et cetera.

Freddy D: 00:13:30

And so it'd be, this is the.

Freddy D: 00:13:31

Problems that you're dealing with. Here's how we can help you with language communications for non English proficient individuals. And it was a nice colorful flyer.

We put it through the mail old school, through the postal service. And we got calls on it because it was one, it landed on her desk. So they're going to open it. It's personalized and that's how you change the game.

And the other thing that people don't realize is that you can't spam email. That's banned. You get in trouble for spamming Email, but you can spam the mailbox. Think about that. Who makes money on spammed mailboxes?

Wilson Zehr: 00:14:15

Yes. Those guys. The tricky thing about mail, though. I mean, you have a good point.

The tricky thing about mail, though, is that unlike email, which can be, you know, large volume, is basically free. Sure. I have to buy a postage stamp for a letter. So I really. If I want an roi, I have to make sure I'm targeting the right person.

So we would say for success in mail. And mail's broader than direct mail. Right. I mean, there's a lot of mail applications, but if we're thinking about just direct mail, direct response.

Freddy D: 00:14:48

Right.

Wilson Zehr: 00:14:49

Where we're trying to sell something, the formula is 70, 20, 10. So 70% list, 20% offer, and 10% creative, which is.

So we know if we're talking to the right person and we send them the right offer, good things usually happen. And the rest of that is colors and pictures and formats, which is interesting because most agencies focus on the creative. 10%.

I had this program we did back in the day.

We were talking about old platform vendors, and I remember did this program with Digital Equipment Corporation where they were selling workstations, color workstations, in the era of CAD Cam, and everybody had black and white stuff on their desktop.

Freddy D: 00:15:38

I remember those days.

Wilson Zehr: 00:15:39

And we did a promotion for an upgrade to a color workstation. And people were saying, well, that's crazy. Engineers don't care. Engineers are just dealing with lines. You know, they just want black and white.

And we got a 30% response rate on those campaigns. It turns out every engineer wanted a color workstation.

Freddy D: 00:15:57

Sure. Yeah. I remember those days because I used to do, like I said, before we started recording, I used to be doing drafting, and then I got in a cad.

And yes, it was all black and white in the beginning or green.

And then eventually color came out and it was like, ooh, wow, you know, And I can put colors to this thing and I can start visualizing, you know, what it looks like it's becoming real.

Wilson Zehr: 00:16:18

Right. It wasn't just black and white. It was monochrome. Right?

Freddy D: 00:16:22

Right.

Wilson Zehr: 00:16:23

No, we talked to exactly the right audience. We made exactly the right offer and response. 30% response rate is amazing. We almost never see that kind of validation of the formula.

That highlights one of the benefits.

One of the questions I get, sometimes people say, in the digital world, we've got things like email, we've got things like SEO or search engine marketing. Mail still relevant. Why do people do that?

Freddy D: 00:16:48

It's huge.

Wilson Zehr: 00:16:49

I encourage people to think of it More like a toolbox, you know, if you're in marketing. And what we have to do is we're trying to understand the customer, how to reach the customer and help them along their journey. Right.

Their journey to solve these problems that they have. And we may use digital tools, we may use other kinds of tools along the way.

It just depends on where the customer's at and what's going to help them be successful. So the thing about direct mail, you mentioned email. It's great in terms of price point and it can be immediate. Deliverability is an issue.

Something like 30% of even legitimate emails never get delivered. And people don't treat it the same way. I don't know about you, but I get four or five hundred emails a day.

Morning, as part of my ritual, I come down and I clean out my email box. And when I'm doing that, if you've got 400 emails, I'm not looking for stuff to read, I'm looking for stuff to delete.

Freddy D: 00:17:43

Yep. Yeah. And I want to go back to what you talked about there. Wilson was sending the thank you card.

Because sometimes it's not always about sales, it's about building a relationship. And, you know, one of the things I tell people is that, you know, birthdays is a great way to recognize somebody. A birthday card to that individual.

You want to talk about creating a super fan of that person, because that might be the only birthday card that they got sent to their office. I can guarantee you it's going to be sitting on their desk or their credenza and people are going to say, oh, wow, who sent you the card?

And all of a sudden, you know, it just changes the whole dynamics. And so I want to really iterate.

That is, that's another way to create superfans is recognizing people in their life events and using some old school technology, basically sending something through the mail, a card, handwritten note. Those are the ways that you separate yourself. And that's how you create superfans out of those customers or those potential customers.

Wilson Zehr: 00:18:50

I think when we talk about digital versus physical, there are certain things that direct mail does, to your point, that are unique to the medium. One is that with direct mail, I can reach every household and business in America.

Six days a week, businesses, five days, because most people aren't open on weekends. But Right. You know, I have a channel to reach people and it's proactive communication. When somebody's using online.

A lot of times we have to wait for them to recognize they have a need and for them to come Find us. But with mail, I can reach out and say, hey, look, we're here and here's a solution to your problem. Or as you're saying, happy birthday.

So it's proactive. Thirdly, we talk about precise audience targeting. You mentioned the SIK C code for CAD cam. But I can target those people very directly.

The demographics online are getting better, but they're still very limited. You know, that kind of precision targeting is harder to find. And we talked earlier about the importance of talking to the right person.

And then finally, it's just built into the American psyche. You know, I see you have a mailbox on yourself. I mean, most Americans understand what the mail is and what the function is.

It's funny because the postal service talks about the mail moment.

You know, the American family has this time in the evening when they look at the mail and the sun comes out and the clouds part and there's music and people go through their mail. And I think they probably romanticize it just a bit.

But the fact is that most people, it is part of their ritual, you know, where they go to the mailbox, they get the mail, they look through it, they see if there's anything relevant there, and they can take action on it or not, or they can put it aside, take action on it later. It's just built into the American psyche. As opposed to imagine the last time you got a telesales call during dinner. You know, how did that go?

Freddy D: 00:20:46

So, yeah, totally, totally valid points there because you can, you can, you have a chance.

Postcard is a great way because you've got at least, you know, 15 seconds of they'll read it and view it, and then they might discard it, but you accomplished what you wanted. You got a visual and then you repeat. And one of the things I always talk about is you can't just do one and done. You get a repeat.

And repeat postcard is a clever way of being able to market and get your name in front of somebody and your offer in front of somebody.

Freddy D: 00:21:20

It may take the fifth or sixth.

Freddy D: 00:21:23

Time they see it go, you know what? I need to reach out to these guys because I've got this problem all of a sudden.

Now you've seen repeated a couple times and repetition sticks into the mind and that in turn, you crack the code, right?

Wilson Zehr: 00:21:41

Well, you're building brand. Building brand awareness, right?

And I mean, if you can touch people a couple of times like that and you decide to pick up the phone and call, all of a sudden it's not a cold call anymore. It's a warm call. Right.

I've got a relationship and I'm just, I'm just following up to check in A whole different deal than just calling somebody out of the blue.

Freddy D: 00:22:03

Yeah.

Wilson, can you share a story of somebody, business that was utilizing your service and how it impacted their business and the approach that they did and the outcome that they got?

Wilson Zehr: 00:22:17

There are lots of stories. I mean, I was, I was just reminded the other day of a customer that we used to have from Georgia, from the Atlanta area.

They work with a company called Home Savings of America. And he posted, we did a post on LinkedIn and he said, one of the best companies I ever worked with. And it reminded me of Home Savings of America.

And they started out with this idea that they were going to help consumers refinance loans at very favorable rates. And they started out with direct mail and identifying people.

One of the interesting things is that if you're a bank, we can actually pull data that includes things like credit scores. So we can pull data that exactly match underwriting criteria. So they worked with their underwriters, said, what kind of loans do we want to do?

What are those people look like? You know, so say FICO. 640, no bankruptcies in the last two years, no 30 day leaves in the last 12 months.

You know, just program those filters and pull people who match that so that I know I can, with reasonable certainty I can underwrite a loan with those people.

And then going out with a message and saying, we know you have a mortgage in this area at this rate and here's what we can do for you, we can lower your rate, here's what your new payment will look like, Give us a call, we'll send you. And they grew that into one of the fastest growing mortgage organizations in the United States over a period of 12, 18 months.

Really just using the mail to identify needs these special needs people had and be able to fulfill them, solve a problem for them that they didn't even know they had in most cases.

Freddy D: 00:23:56

Right.

Freddy D: 00:23:56

So basically they became a super fan of you guys because of the platform that you helped them provide and the tools and the information that you provided them to be able to put out that kind of a marketing campaign.

Wilson Zehr: 00:24:09

Well, exactly. And everybody they reached out to was somebody who could save money by refinancing their home and having cheaper payments.

So it was good for them, good for their family, good for Home Savings of America. It turned out to be a win for everybody involved.

The only way you could really do that was using mail as a delivery platform, because that's the way we could target them. That's the way we could pull the data that we needed to help them.

Freddy D: 00:24:37

Right.

And then you, you simplified the whole process because they could go into the platform, pick here's the mailing list, here's their material, and hit a button and you guys took care of the rest of it and that was it. So for them, it was not a complicated, comprehensive process is really a simplified process.

Wilson Zehr: 00:24:59

Exactly. Well, no, we're a technology company too, so we can do stuff on the back end like put unique codes on the direct mail piece.

Customer can scan the code or type in a link, goes to a response portal. They can put in their unique PIN number, pull up their record, say, yes, I'm interested, here's what my loan looks like.

That goes right into a loan officer, if you've chosen to automate the back end. So we can make all of that work. We talked about convergence before, this idea of the overlap between the digital world and these legacy systems.

But that's another example because we can take the data we have electronically, reach out to people physically and help solve problems, but as they respond, we can pull that back into the digital environment and help enable CRM systems and the agents or the loan officers on the back end as well, and the consumer. So we're able to streamline the entire process and make it make sense for the company and for the consumer.

Freddy D: 00:26:06

So really, you guys have the ability to create a customized solution for the individual based upon their objectives and the results that they're looking to get out of those objectives.

Wilson Zehr: 00:26:18

That's true, yeah. We have something for the banking industry built around this application for home savings called the Mortgage Marketing Portal.

And we use all of these principles to streamline the entire process for the benefit of the bank and the consumer.

I'm sure we don't have time to talk about all the intricacies of the platform, but we are a software company, so it's a scalable platform with a limited capacity. We're all PCI compliant, completely secure. We deal with a lot of customer data.

We send millions of letters a month for everything from mortgage brokers to real estate agents to loan collection to all kinds of different applications, not all direct mail.

One of the interesting questions that came up that we haven't talked about yet is people say, well, you know, in this digital age, is mail still relevant? You know, why is it still around?

And the interesting thing about mail is from the time, my time way back, you know, marketing, we talked about the software company And CAD cam and stuff. When I started marketing, we used direct mail too. And everything we did was ROI driven. Right.

We'd look at what we spent and what the numbers came in and we showed positive results. So we kept using it. And direct mail has always had its foundation in roi.

And so as long as people are still making money using it, they're going to continue to.

So we've seen some generally in mail, we've seen some fall off in transactional mails or, you know, their car payment or things like that as much in the mail as they used to. But we've seen the volume of direct mail kind of, you know, actually bounce back, increase and stabilize. Sure.

Because the numbers support it, use it, they, you know, are successful using it, you know, if the campaigns are done in the correct way. The Direct Marketing association still reports that on average, direct mail returns $12 for every dollar invested.

So as long as those type of ROI numbers hold true, people will continue to use the mail and be successful with it. Oh, yeah.

Freddy D: 00:28:31

I mean, I've, I've used it. You just made me remember an approach that I used in the late 80s. I was in the CAD cam space and I had somebody, a graphic artist, design a card.

And it was a trifold card that I had created, was sales manager for a company. And it was like an engineer on a drafting board, all frustrated and everything else and paper crumbled up in a garbage can.

I still have it someplace in one of my bins. And when you opened it up, you know, this was.

So basically it was a problem, you know, and then you opened it up and there's another engineer in front of a monitor, sitting back, got a drink in there, his coffee cup, and he's, you know, you don't see the stress on his face where the front of the COVID was.

And then it was just a bunch of bullet points of, you know, how the technology was evolving and, you know, if you wanted to know more, you know, contact us. And I got people to call us up because it was different. It was. There was humor to it. And that's another thing that I always tell people is.

And as you. Well, as, you know, both in marketing as, as well as in sales, humor is very important because it lightens everybody up.

And, you know, if you're really good at it and you make fun of yourself, because if you got self confidence and so you make fun of yourself. And I used to do that at the beginning of a sales presentation. So everybody just got relaxed, had a good laugh at my expense. But Then I own the room.

Wilson Zehr: 00:30:05

Yeah. Now, Hammer is a very important approach, advertising and in sales, and it also helps with building relationships.

It breaks down barriers, builds a camaraderie that we can build on. And that's all designed to allow customers to lower their barriers, lower their guards, so that we can help them solve problems.

Now, because people are rightfully so, a lot of people have been taken advantage of. They worry about that they've got their guard up. And so part of our job is to help them understand they can trust us.

We've got their best interest at heart. We've got a solution that's going to make sense, and we're here to help.

Freddy D: 00:30:46

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:30:46

One of the approaches to continue with that was I would sit down, says, all right, you know, Wilson, let's sit down together and put together this plan of where you want to go and what's the implementation process, what's the training time is going to take place, and et cetera. And so what would happen is, emotionally, I would get you connected to the plan, because it wasn't my plan, it was your plan.

I was just helping you create it. And so you already bought into it. And so I've basically collapsed the sale from that perspective, because now it's your plan.

And if you got to go up to upper management, well, you put it together, you know, you don't need me to go present it. You can go present it, and because it's yours. And so that was one of the approaches I'm just piggybacking off of.

What you mentioned was, you know, that's how you build those relationships. Because now what I've done is I've.

Freddy D: 00:31:40

Also made you look great when you.

Freddy D: 00:31:45

Go up to executive management.

Wilson Zehr: 00:31:47

No, it's a great point. We did that at Sequent Computer Systems, too. Something similar to that where we doing Enterprise Architecture Audit, I think it was called.

Basically, we would have a team that would work with a customer. We would go in and we'd look at their entire IT infrastructure and say, here's what's working based on feedback from you and your company.

Here are the things that are weak, here are the emerging technologies. Here's how all that fits together. And we would work with them to build a plan.

And sometimes that plan wasn't just our stuff, it was other people's stuff.

Freddy D: 00:32:19

Right, right.

Wilson Zehr: 00:32:20

You know, and we gave them a set of binders they could put on the credenza, and they could use that to plan for the year. We had a copy of it, too. So we call them in. Q2 and say, I see on your plan you've got X, Y and Z. Does that still make sense?

Do you want to talk about where you're at and what we can do to help? But all of a sudden, we've got the best interest of the customer at heart. We're helping them solve problems, and we're doing it together as a team.

Freddy D: 00:32:46

That's how you create the right, and that's how you create those super fans. Because now you're a partner, you're not a salesperson anymore. You're a strategist helping them from a strategy.

And, you know, they know other people and you know they're going to say, oh, man, you need to talk to my buddy. You need to talk to my buddy Wilson.

He's got some good stuff that I think will work for what you guys are looking to do once you get that momentum going.

I mean, you just collapsed the whole sales process because now John's going to call you up and says, yeah, Freddy D. Over here said, I need to talk to you. And one of the fastest sale I've made, I've shared this many times was 30 minutes for a $60,000 sale.

And the 30 minutes wasn't doing the presentation, was putting together the order and a configuration of what computer that they wanted and all that kind of stuff and putting it together and then using their fax machine to fax it to corporate.

Wilson Zehr: 00:33:44

What you're saying reminded me about when I was at Infusion. I worked on a deal with gte, General Telephone Electric. I mean, I'm not sure if anybody remembers that name anymore.

I remember, but yeah, they were in Dallas, Texas, and, you know, the Internet was just emerging. They had to do a program called IPD2, where they're looking at a fiber optic network they're putting together and services that they would put on it.

They're a telephone company. They had no idea how to approach it.

But in business development, we engaged with them and we were able to help them build out that project and kind of reimagine what services and features it would have.

And many of those were not stuff that we offer, but it was stuff that we knew about because we worked in that space and we put together a plan, we did the spreadsheets, we did the ROI on it, and we actually put together the presentations that they used to present to the board. And we did that as partners. Ultimately, they did buy some equipment from us and some services we offer.

They bought a lot of stuff we didn't offer, but the program was successful. And everybody won.

Freddy D: 00:34:49

It was right.

Wilson Zehr: 00:34:50

And that's the kind of outcome we like to see.

Freddy D: 00:34:54

Sure. It's a win for everybody. And that's how you really create those long term relationships.

I'm still friends with some of the guys I've known 30, 40 years ago that were both customers or business partners because of the relationships we built.

Wilson Zehr: 00:35:10

Yeah, exactly. I still know some of the old GTE guys too. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:35:15

So as we kind of come to the end here, Wilson, you talked about the Speedy products. So let's talk about that real quick again one more time because I think that that's a beneficial one for everybody.

Wilson Zehr: 00:35:25

Sure, yeah. Now if you go to www.zeramail.com, zermail is like airmail with a Z on the front. You can set up an account and you can send mail.

You can do one piece or a million pieces. I mean, it's really unlimited.

But what we did is we created an application called Speedy to do exactly what you're talking with with these follow up cards. Basically it's a desktop application.

You download it, there's an icon in your desktop when you have a letter you want to send, like you pull up a copy of Word and you type your thank you letter or PDF and you just drop it on this icon. It says, where would you like to send it? You put in the address, push the button, out it goes.

I mean, we process it, print it, fold it, insert it, mail it, and you get an email when it's been delivered.

And so it makes sending a letter as fast and easy as sending an email, although it's going to have a lot greater impact and it's not going to end up in a spam filter folder.

Freddy D: 00:36:25

Yeah, that's the game changer. And that's really why I wanted to have you reiterate that, because that's how you're going to cut through the noise.

Wilson Zehr: 00:36:32

People have been asking for a long time, especially people in business development and sales. It turned out that it was a little trickier to develop than we thought. But today it works on Mac, on PC, on Linux, across all the major platforms.

And as you say, we feel like it's a game changer.

Freddy D: 00:36:50

Yeah, it is, because it works. I mean, that's the bottom line. I've used direct mailing, say just a couple years ago I did that.

I mentioned earlier the mass mailing I did to multitude of people and we got results. So it works. Olson, it's been great having you on the show. How can people find you?

Wilson Zehr: 00:37:10

You know what, actually on our, we talked about our website www.sierramail.com we do have our toll free number posted right across the website. We love to talk to our customers. Unlike a lot of the bigger brands, they try to avoid customer contact.

-: 0066

And even if you don't want to talk about direct mail, you say, I've got a business, I've got this issue, you know, you want to talk about it, I'm happy to talk about it. And if I don't know the answer, I probably know somebody who does. Happy?

Freddy D: 00:37:49

Perfect. We'll make sure that's in the show. Notes thank you so much for your time. Great conversation. Would love to have you on the show down the road.

Wilson Zehr: 00:37:56

Would love that. Thank you again for the opportunity Freddie. Really appreciate it.

Freddy D: 00:38:00

Yeah, likewise.

Freddy D: 00:38:03

What an impactful conversation with Wilson Zayer. One of the biggest takeaways from this.

Freddy D: 00:38:08

Episode is a reminder that in a.

Freddy D: 00:38:10

World flooded with digital noise, real relationships still win.

Freddy D: 00:38:15

Whether it's a handwritten thank you note.

Freddy D: 00:38:17

A personalized follow up letter, or simply recognizing someone's contribution, Wilson showed us that cutting through the clutter isn't about doing.

Freddy D: 00:38:25

More, it's about doing what actually makes people feel seen.

Freddy D: 00:38:29

For service based business owners, this matters because trust, connection and follow through are what turn prospects into long term superfans. And once again it reinforces why relationship first strategy, not tactics alone is what truly drives growth.

If today's conversation brought you value, leave a quick 5 star review. It helps other service based business owners.

Freddy D: 00:38:55

Discover the show and build stronger, more profitable relationships too. And don't forget, join the Entrepreneur Prosperity Hub on School. It's free to join and get your.

Freddy D: 00:39:08

Free Service Provider Prosperity playbook at school.

Freddy D: 00:39:11

S K-O-O-L.com eprosperityhub Inside our tools Weekly.

Freddy D: 00:39:19

Growth plays and live virtual networking events that help you connect, collaborate and build a business that runs smoothly, predictably and profitably.

Freddy D: 00:39:29

Thanks for tuning in again today.

Freddy D: 00:39:31

I'm grateful you're part of the Business Superfans movement. Every listen and every action brings you closer to building your own superfans. Be sure to subscribe to the show.

We've got another great guest coming up focused on what really moves the needle.

Freddy D: 00:39:46

For service based entrepreneurs.

Freddy D: 00:39:48

I'll talk to you in the next episode. Remember, one action, one stakeholder, one super fan. Closer to lasting prosperity we hope you.

Intro: 00:39:58

Took away some useful knowledge from today's episode of the Business Super Fans Podcast. Join us on the next episode as we continue guiding you on your journey to achieve flourishing success in business.