IceRocket's secret weapon
Fortunately, in my little corner of the world, I don't have to worry about being fodder for slashdot. This of course means that I can reveal secrets without somebody tossing this on slashdot and driving my costs up.
Enter one Blake Rhodes, CEO (and I assume Founder) of IceRocket. Blake is clearly a Renaissance man. A man longing for the days of yesterday when men tipped their hats to the ladies and there was real silverware in coach.
A few posts ago, I mentioned IceRocket in a posting of mine. I said some nice things, nothing too gushing, a slight tweak, and generally ok.
Within a day, I got a nice piece of mail from Blake simply saying thank you for the mention and encouraging me to write with suggestions for improvements.
Nice, I thought.
For a split second, I also thought, yeah, I'm somebody, oh yeah, that boy knows to be suckin up to Mr. Influence. I sobered up quickly and realized two fairly simple things.
First, it takes all of a nano-second to set up a vanity search. So all mentions of IceRocket and/or Blake Rhodes are going, non-stop to Blake.
Second, there is no way Blake did research on me, my blog, my dog or anything to determine if I was worthy of his email.
I then did a quick search on a bunch of blogs mentioning IceRocket and emailed a bunch of those folks to see if they got a thank you note from Blake. Sure enough, most had.
And even better, most people really really liked getting that mail.
The secret weapon of Ice Rocket? Two words: Thank You.
Technology makes being nice, talking to customers and starting dialogs easy. It takes smart people like Blake Rhodes to exploit it for positive outcomes.
I'm rooting for IceRocket and I suspect there are lots of people right along side of me in no small part due to two words: Thank You.
Worth thinking about for your company.
The other day, I hinted of problems with IceRocket, he immediately sent me an email to find out what I didn't like and how he could fix it. Not the first time either. He's definately got passion for what he does.
Posted by: Randy Charles Morin | July 28, 2005 at 00:21
Thank you for the mention!
-Team Onfolio
;)
Posted by: Joe Cheng | July 28, 2005 at 01:10
yeah, i got one of those as well. nice p.r. still waiting to hear back about a couple questions i had.
Posted by: mark evans | July 28, 2005 at 07:38
Thanks guys for all the positive feedback. We read every blog written about us and I try to reply to them all as well.
Feel free to email me anytime or if you prefer speaking about something over the phone, just drop me an email and I'll reply with my cell phone #.
Joe, if you dont mind resending those questions you had, I would appreciate it. I can't seem to find them and I want to make sure you get the answers you were looking for.
Blake
IceRocket.com
Posted by: Blake | July 28, 2005 at 17:36
I received a similar, very quick response from Blake Rhodes as well, it wasn't a form note - it related specifically to my post. In fact, he responded to specifics in the post. I appreciated that.
A simple "thank-you" would have been more than I received from any search engine for any commentary, articles, or blog posts in 5 years!
It's nice to see to many other people enjoying similar experiences. It says a lot for Blake, and for IceRocket.
Posted by: Richard Zwicky | July 29, 2005 at 15:16
Thanks Blake, but it's Mark Evans who had the questions--I wrote the comment above that (thanks from team onfolio).
Posted by: Joe Cheng | July 30, 2005 at 01:10
Sorry Joe. Mark Evans and I have been trading emails, Mark seems like a great guy and I look forward to communicating with all of you more in the future.
Blake Rhodes
rhodes at icerocket.com
Posted by: Blake | July 30, 2005 at 19:57
I agree wholeheartedly about Blake. Stand up dude. Knows how to handle praise and criticism of his efforts.
Posted by: peter caputa | August 21, 2005 at 11:54