‘Within 20 Minutes, I Referred 5 People’: Best Business Sense Story of the Year

By Carl Gerhardt

For my last PI Blog of 2013, I couldn’t help but share a recent experience of our franchise member in Des Moines, IA. Owner Pat Rhoades and staff really hit it out of the park when a prospect searching online for business cards encountered their Allegra center. Here was a guy who had an immediate need and a typical request for most printers—but found the “solution” was anything but standard.

The prospect in this story consults with ophthalmologists and wrote about his business card experience in his blog. Everything that happened is enough to provide almost any printer, or any business for that matter, lessons in how to succeed in today’s competitive environment. This experience takes “Business Sense & Sensibility” to a whole new level.

Following is his blog post. Read, enjoy and Happy New Year!

3 New Patient Referral Lessons From A Print Shop

December 14, 2013

I had a rare experience last week. I was in a local print shop in my hometown of Des Moines, IA, just for looking business cards and experienced a truly “WOW” customer service moment.

As I’ve mentioned in my 80/20 guide, these moments are unfortunately rare. But when they do happen patients can’t help but to tell others. (Hence, as I’m telling you now.)

Below I describe the process and I’ll tie it back to how you can implement this experience into your practice to create “WOW” moments that generate even more new patient referrals.

Step 1. The (Google) Search Is On

I was looking for a new business card that was truly sharp. Raised ink, upgraded thick paper, etc. Something impressive. So I first went to Google and searched “print shop Des Moines,” and also “business cards Des Moines.”

I found tons of results and ended up calling five shops.

Out of those five, three didn’t answer and I left a voicemail.
One said they’d e-mail me a proposal.
And one answered, took my information and asked me detailed questions about what I was looking for. The sales rep called me back within the hour. The latter is the one I’m writing my experience about, called Allegra.

“WOW” Lesson: Be sure you’re found on the first page of Google in your local market for your top keywords. Example: if you’re looking for new LASIK patients, you ideally want to rank for the keywords, “LASIK + Your City.” Preferably it’s best to be in the top three of page one. Without this, I may have never found Allegra and had this incredible experience.

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Carl Gerhardt Author's page Carl Gerhardt is the chairman of Alliance Franchise Brands LLC, the parent company of Allegra Network LLC and Sign & Graphics Operations LCC, and a world leader in marketing, visual and graphics communications, linking more than 600 locations in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom. The company’s Marketing & Print Division, headquartered in Plymouth, MI, is comprised of Allegra, American Speedy Printing, Insty-Prints, Speedy Printing and Zippy Print brands of marketing, printing, mailing and Web services providers. Its Sign & Graphics Division, headquartered in Columbia, MD, is comprised of Image360, Signs By Tomorrow and Signs Now brands of sign and graphics communications providers.

Carl and his wife, Judy, owned and operated their own successful Allegra franchise for nearly 20 years before selling the $2.3 million operation in 2003. He is a PrintImage International/NAQP Honorary Lifetime Member and was inducted into NAPL’s prestigious Soderstrom Society in 2010 in recognition of his contribution to the industry.