The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself

by John Jantsch

Portfolio (2010)

As I continue to read business books to help me come up with recession battling ideas for Lemuria, Referral Engine gave me plenty to think about. With the broadening of our blog and Facebook work, we are discovering new ways for our customers to have more fun in a more convenient, engaging and frequent way.

We are all overwhelmed with the stimulation of modern life. For our readers, we want to help you filter and make sense of what’s happening in the book world. We are interested in providing authentic content that educates and enhances how you choose to spend your reading time. Our customer’s relationship is determined by how much value we can offer in terms of trust and engaging content. Any business can give coupons and discounts. Through customer service, we try to demonstrate our uniqueness. We want to meet your expectations, caring more about our results than you do. Few businesses, especially small unique stores provide consistently oustanding service, but it’s the effort that’s authentic and makes the difference.

For 35 years Lemuria has cared about Jackson’s reading community. We’re not a gimmick, a formula brand or an out-of-town chain store not interested in making personal connections. Customers recognize false publicity and gimmicks when they see them. With the addition of our expanded effort on the web, we emphasize a total customer experience.

We want to make it easy for you to participate with Lemuria, helping us to define ourselves even more closely with Jackson. If you are inspired with our efforts, let your friends and family know.

Referral Engine sends a strong message that building social currency building comes from a place of giving.

Ken Murphy and Scott Barretta will be signing and talking about Mississippi: State of Blues tonight–Thursday, November 11th. The entire event will take place at our Dot Com Building. The signing will start at 4:00. Live music with Ben Wiley Payton will start around 4:00 with dollar drinks until 5:30 when Scott and Ken give a talk about their book.

Later on, head over to Underground 119 for the Book Opening Party from 6:30 to 8:00. Ken and Scott will be signing books; Books will be for sale on site.

Jesse Robinson will start playing at 8:00. There is no cover.

More info at Underground 119 or call the bookstore 601.366.7619.

Check out our blogs on Mississippi State of Blues.

View the photographs on the official State of Blues website.

Elisabeth’s adventure with snails begins when a friend brings her one nestled in a pot of wild violets and sets it on her bedside table. Elisabeth had always been an active person, one who enjoyed the outdoors around her country home in Maine. While on a trip to the Alps, she comes down with a mysterious viral illness that leaves her bed ridden for many years. At times, it was impossible for her to even read in bed.

Hold up before you think this sounds like a depressing book. It’s not at all. Elisabeth’s illness is just the reason why she has all this time to observe the snail and later its friend and over time a very many baby snails, too.

In a style reminiscent of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea, Elisabeth details the fascinating world of snails as Lindbergh showed us the beauty of shells as she reflected on her place in the world.

In the opening of her book, Elisabeth cites a quote from Edward O. Wilson, which sums up the spirit of her book:

“The natural world is the refuge of the spirit . . . richer even than human imagination.”

The natural did become the only thing that Elisabeth could keep pace with–the pace of a snail–and soon she was able to learn many things about snails through reading in addition to what she learned through observation. One fact that I cannot forget is that snails have over 2,600 teeth and can regenerate them as they dull. I should add that I did not act on the impulse to go out and get a terrarium in hopes of finding my own snail in the nearby woods. This idea is still in the back of my mind, however.

I read this 178-page book over the course of an afternoon. Through her stories embedded with many facts about snail life, the reader escapes into a world we would otherwise never know as we go through life at our often hectic pace.

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The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, August 2010

Much of a blues experience is determined by the scene for performing and listening: outside festivals with the state of the art sound systems or venues with music coming from store fronts, sidewalks or alleys. The venue itself often determines what kind of experience is shared by the performer and the listener reflecting with the interactions of the music. I love the juke joint experience. For me musical highs come within these small vibrating dens of joy.

Red’s, run by Red, is my favorite juke which I try to go to every time I make a trip to Clarksdale. Big Jack Johnson is a regular here. One night at Red’s, Jack’s electric blues was joined with a thunderstorm moving through the Delta.

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Thunder boomed as rain soaked through the plastic ceiling, while Jack kept playing, dodging the rain while everybody else got soaked, too. The pool table became a pond and the slick floor was wild with dancing. Lightning flashed as Big Jack’s blues kept coming on the banks of the Sunflower river.

My juke favorite was a very special evening out in the woods. With pals, we journeyed to our beloved Willie King’s Sunday night gig at Betty’s place. Outside Macon, down dirt roads we landed on Betty’s parking ground. Finding our loving pal, Willie James King’s fine longtime drummer, we were immediately accepted as a part of King’s gang. Betty’s is a converted Jim Walter-like-home bar. Everything is at a slant and bathrooms go to the ground. This memorable experience was like no other, partying hard with a down-home bunch. After Willie’s funeral, we went to Betty’s to share cold beer in his honor, my last trip.

Blues joints are so cool that now they are being used to market neat product brands. Cathead vodka chose Betonia’s Blue Front Cafe with its leader Jimmy Duck Holmes to stage photographic scenes for their web presence.

Please relay your favorite juke joint and your stories.

I need new fun places to go.

Thursday night is Blues Night at Lemuria with Scott Barretta and Ken Murphy signing Mississippi: State of Blues. Catch the live music at our Dot Com building starting at 4:00 with a book signing and a talk to follow from Scott and Ken.

Later on, join us at Underground 119 for a book opening party with blues man Jesse Robinson. Click here for more details.

jjj

Just wanted to take a moment to highlight a book we got in recently. I’ve mentioned Thomas Sowell’s books here before. His last few books each tackled a particular topic (Intellectuals, or The Housing Boom and Bust), but this new title, Dismantling America and Other Controversial Essays, is a collection of shorter pieces. Sowell is brilliant at exploring and explaining a topic in great depth, but he’s equally good at condensing material down to essay or editorial length.

Every time that I’ve recommended a Thomas Sowell book here on the blog, I’ve worried that perhaps I’m cutting my audience in half before I’ve even started. But I’ll take that risk — and I think Sowell’s books have value even for those who disagree with him. Consider this last election: however you choose to interpret the results, you at least have to acknowledge that voters shifted away from Democratic candidates. Maybe it’s a referendum on Obama. Maybe it’s a growing dissatisfaction with big-government interference. Or maybe it’s simply frustration with the lingering economic stagnation and unemployment. But whatever the actual specific reasons may be, the voters as a group certainly made a different decision than they did in 2008. Sowell has written about all of these issues — Obama’s performance, government power and structure, macroeconomics, and more.

I believe Sowell’s voice is among the most clear, direct, and reasonable within the American political right wing. Read him whether you agree or disagree with him.