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Businesses that get their customers talking about them naturally nail three things:
They’re, like, really good at what they do.
They take exceptional care of their customers.
And they likely have a Flavor Bomb.
They may not call it a Flavor Bomb, but there’s something they do that elicits a shock and awe response. It’s unexpected, wonderful and, when it happens, they have to talk about it.
WHY IT MATTERS:
The best marketing you can ask for is a customer who not only talks about your business but tells a story around it. It’s the ultimate social proof and if you want to raise your prices or get more customers to buy your higher-priced service, you gotta give your customers something to talk about.
WHAT’S NEXT:
How and Why A Flavor Bomb Gets Customers Talking
The Six Criteria Of A Flavor Bomb
The Five Flavor Bomb Profiles
The Umami Elements: Deepen The Flavor Of Your Flavor Bomb
How To Whip Up Your Own Flavor Bomb
Flavor Bomb Success - Now What?
How and Why A Flavor Bomb Gets Customers Talking
In short: A Flavor Bomb is something that gives your customers a story to tell.
Think back to the last time you shared about a business (in a positive way) totally unprompted.
It wasn’t just because they delivered a good product or service.
It wasn’t just because the experience was smooth.
There was something that happened that made you stop and go, “Wait - did that just happen?” It made you feel something.
That’s why you shared it.
That moment is a Flavor Bomb.
The Six Criteria Of A Flavor Bomb
Just like a loaded baked potato ain’t a loaded baked potato without a heart-stopping amount of delicious cheese and bacon, a Flavor Bomb isn’t a Flavor Bomb without a few key ingredients.
It’s Inclusive
Flavor Bombs are accessible to all customers. They’re not just for your VIPs, new customers, or customers who have been with you for a minimum amount of time.
The mantra here is, "Every customer, every time."
It’s Repeatable
This is the “every time” part of the “every customer, every time” mantra.
Whatever your Flavor Bomb is, it’s something that all customers have an opportunity to experience. It’s built into the way you operate your business, not used when it’s convenient.
If you can do it today but not in three weeks or 3 months from now, then it’s not a Flavor Bomb.
It’s Reasonable
Simply put, your Flavor Bomb shouldn’t raise a customer’s suspicions.
No customer is going to trust a business that organizes all of their digital files for them as a surprise when they just want them to give their computer a tune-up.
It’s Remarkable
On the other side of the coin, the Flavor Bomb should be remarkable enough to pleasantly surprise someone.
It’s remarkably simple.
It’s remarkably kind.
It’s remarkably helpful.
The perfect Flavor Bombs finds the balance between being reasonable and remarkable.
It’s Relevant
Your Flavor Bomb should be related to your service, your story, your customers, or your local area.
Teaching your customers a new dance move after every cooking lesson doesn’t make a whole lot of sense just because you wanted to be a dancer when you grew up.
It’s How You Operate, Not A Service Feature
As soon as you try to sell your Flavor Bomb, it’s no longer a Flavor Bomb - it’s a feature.
It’s not that you don’t talk about it or even promote it. You should do those things. But it shouldn’t show up as a feature.
Let your Flavor Bomb be the chocolate-dipped, sprinkle-covered cherry on top of your delicious service sundae.
The Five Flavor Bomb Profiles
Just like a dish’s overall flavor profile may be sweet, your Flavor Bomb has a flavor profile that will fall into one of five categories.
Make An Impact With An Empathy Flavor Bomb
The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.
Some services aren’t known for being abundant in empathy. Or are even totally devoid of any of it.
The hard truth is - empathy can be costly. In time and other resources.
So when extraordinary empathy happens in a service where very little is expected, it can spark an equally extraordinary story worth sharing.
Empathy Flavor Bomb Example: The Board and Train Dog Trainer
It’s tough for a dog owner to let someone take their dog for a few weeks for training. They miss them and are a little anxious about how they’re being treated.
To help ease those feelings, the dog trainer gives the pet parents a stuffed animal that looks like their dog, with a little collar with their dog’s name on it, and a note that tells them how much fun they’re going to have and they can’t wait to play when they get back.
Shake Things Up With An Attitude Flavor Bomb
If you’re familiar with the Dungeons and Dragons alignment, an attitude Flavor Bomb brings the Chaotic Good energy.
This particular flavor laughs at words like “professionalism”, “tradition”, and “conventional”.
They aren’t afraid to be different and do it loud and proud.
This Flavor Bomb’s goal: Get customers to say something akin to, “That’s a whole ass vibe and I’m here for it.”
Attitude Flavor Bomb Example: The Life Skills Tutor for Adults
This tutor helps the “I need an adultier adult - oh shit, I AM the adult” people. They help with life skills like budgeting and basic home repairs that their parents may not have taught them.
The topics aren’t the most exciting, so this tutor they bring full-on Big Dad Energy to every session.
His uniform is khaki shorts, white New Balance shoes, and a tucked-in polo shirt with a belt. Unless it’s Friday - then it’s a Hawaiian shirt.
He comes fully stocked with dad jokes guaranteed to make you roll your eyes as you laugh, a personal nickname, and handwritten notes like, “I’m proud of you, kiddo!”
Deliver Practical Magic With A Usefulness Flavor Bomb
Where the Empathy Flavor Bomb is all about the feels, the Usefulness Flavor Bomb is all about making customer’s lives easier.
This one is a little funny because - duh, your service is meant to be useful.
A Usefulness Flavor Bomb takes usefulness to another dimension. You’re there to deliver a service, but add in something remarkably useful that a customer didn’t expect and you’ll blow their minds.
Usefulness Flavor Bomb Example: A Resume Writer
Having a great resume gets your foot in the door, but interview skills will be what gets someone hired.
The resume writer knows that a client’s judgment of their service is ultimately determined by whether they land a job or not. To help give them an edge, the resume writer creates resources to help with the interview itself. Including an interview-ready toolkit and a community where people from various industries can help give insight into the interview process.
Build A Longer Table With A Generosity Flavor Bomb
By its very nature, selling and buying a service is transactional.
A Generosity Flavor Bomb creates a non-transactional moment that transforms the relationship your customer has with you.
A single generous moment can make people feel seen and valued. And to be honest, who couldn’t use a little more of that?
I’ve always loved the quote, “When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.”
Think of the “When you have more than you need” part beyond physical resources like money and material things. It can also include things like time, skill sets, knowledge, and energy.
A Generosity Flavor Bomb is the act of building a longer table - giving simply because you can.
Generosity Flavor Bomb Example: A House Cleaner
A cleaner has a set routine when cleaning and it may not include cleaning everything in the house.
The house cleaner plays rock, paper, scissors with a client at the start of every cleaning session - if the client wins, they get to pick an extra thing to have cleaned that’s not normally included.
Outrun Expectations With A Speed Flavor Bomb
It’s no secret that customers have an intense need for speed.
Just being fast at the service you do or responding to customers isn’t a Flavor Bomb.
But if your industry is known to take forever, or there’s an aspect of your service that is taking up time for your customers, then you might benefit from a Speed Flavor Bomb.
Speed Flavor Bomb Example: A Pet Groomer
A big source of friction for pet owners in getting their pets groomed is actually getting their pets to the groomer. Between work, family, and the groomer’s available hours, it can feel really difficult to get it done.
To solve this, a pet groomer picks up and drops off your pet. This reduces the friction for the customer and gets the job done way faster than if the customer had to figure out the perfect time.
The Umami Elements: Deepen The Flavor Of Your Flavor Bomb
If you want a dish with a really rich, deep flavor to it, you add an umami element. It’s an addition that makes the overall dish just sort of settle in and sit in your soul. It’s distinct, memorable, craveable, and shareable. All the “ables”.
To create a Flavor Bomb that enriches the customer experience and makes it irresistible to share, add these umami elements.
It Tells A (Simple) Story
Make it easy for customers to talk about your Flavor Bomb by making it part of a story and giving it meaning.
A few guidelines for this:
Making it simple comes back to the “every customer, every time” mantra. If there are caveats, it’s no longer simple.
Give your Flavor Bomb a mission. Why did you choose this Flavor Bomb?
Try this framework: I (what the Flavor Bomb is) because (reason why you chose it).
Example: I bring Big Dad Energy to every session because learning life skills is easier (and more fun) when you’re laughing instead of stressing.
It Aligns With Who You Are
Excitement and authenticity are contagious. If the Flavor Bomb that you choose is in alignment with who you are and the core values of your business, it simply works better.
You’re more excited about it, it fits into your operations smoothly, and you engage with it more fully.
Now, not all Flavor Bombs that you test out will work just because they align with you, but a Flavor Bomb that doesn’t align with you is guaranteed to fail.
How To Whip Up Your Own Flavor Bomb
This all sounds well and good, but how do you actually do it?
It takes a bit of research and testing to find the right one.
Phase 1: Research
To get to where you want to go, you need to know where you are. So you’ll play detective to gather some information to help identify potential Flavor Bombs.
Internal Research:
This is information about your business up until this point. You can look for answers to questions like:
What do customers mention about your service already? This could be in reviews, social media posts, emails to you, etc.
How do you compare to your competition? What makes you different?
Why does a customer choose you over a competitor and vice versa?
What sort of requests do you get from customers?
Who are your ravings fans and what are they saying?
Industry Research:
This information can give you a bit of insight into how customers perceive your industry as a whole and where it’s going. Try answering questions like:
What are common customer sentiments about my type of service?
What sort of market predictions can you find?
Customer Interviews:
There’s a chasm of difference between what a customer says they want versus what they really want.
If you ask, they’ll try to predict how they’ll behave but will most often be wrong. If you ask them about their motivations for a past purchase, they’ll rationalize their decision and bypass the true reason for their purchase.
The insights you're looking for often involve the emotional gooeyness that everyone likes to skip around.
To get to the center of what customers really want, you’ll have to dig into their story and finesse out an answer.
Initial questions might be things like:
How long had you been looking for (a service like yours)?
Have you hired a (service like yours) before?
When was the first time you thought about hiring (a service like yours)?
Here’s the trick: You can’t take customer answers at face value. Dig deeper.
Tell me more about that.
What else was going on for you during that time?
What was the “Dammit, I need this solved now !” moment? Paint a picture for me.
At the end of your research, sit down and create a bullet-point list of observations. Focus on clear, simple statements. For example, “Customers say booking a service is confusing.”
Phase 2: Ideation
Before you look at your observation list again and brain-dump all of your ideas, keep two things in mind:
Your Flavor Bomb’s job is not to be a marketing campaign but to generate marketing.
When you answer the questions below, answer them from your customer’s perspective.
Questions to ask from your customer’s perspective:
When I hire this service I’m (doing)…
When I hire this service I’m (feeling)…
What I don’t expect from this service is…
What’s going on in my life right now is…
The hardest thing for me when hiring this service is…
What I say I want is…
But what I really want is…
Answering these questions can help you come up with potential Flavor Bomb ideas and when you might introduce them in the customer’s journey.
Then it’s time for the elimination rounds.
Elimination Round 1: Do The Sniff Test
After you’ve gotten your ideas out, see if they pass the sniff test.
Do they meet the six criteria of a Flavor Bomb?
--> Is it inclusive?
--> Is it repeatable?
--> Is it reasonable?
--> Is it remarkable?
--> Is it relevant?
--> Is it something you can build into how you operate? (i.e. not a ‘surprise and delight’ tactic.)
If it isn’t all of these things, either nix it from the list or adjust it so it does.
This new list now goes through a sanity check.
Elimination Round 2: Sanity Check
Just how hard is it to pull off this Flavor Bomb idea?
You’ll want to chart each idea based on how hard it would be to do and how much of an impact you think it could have.
With impact, you’re going to take an educated guess. We can be pretty sure that performing singing and dancing the choreography to Wicked’s “What Is This Feeling?” after every service is going to have a pretty low impact.
When you test things out and revisit this, you’ll have a better idea on the impact. So just take your best guess.
High-impact and low-complexity items move on to the next round.
High impact and high complexity are maybe ideas. You can move them to the next round.
Low-impact/low-complexity and low-impact/high-complexity ideas are nixed from the list.
On to the next elimination round!
Elimination Round 3: Can You Add Umami Elements?
Take a look at your updated list of ideas and ask yourself -
Does this create a simple story to share?
Does this align with who I am and what my business’s core values are?
If the answer is no, scratch it from the list.
What you have left are your final ideas. Now the fun part begins - It’s time to pick one to test it out!
Phase 3: Test and Measure
In the long run, a good Flavor Bomb will be mentioned in 25% or more of conversations about your business. In the testing phase, 10% is a good sign that the Flavor Bomb could turn into something bigger.
And honestly, you’ll need to trust your gut a bit. When a Flavor Bomb is working, it just feels oh-so-right.
How To Test Your Flavor Bomb Idea:
How you test your Flavor Bomb will vary wildly depending on your service.
With that being said, here are a few things to think about as you go to test your idea:
Test it with a sub-group of your customers - don’t roll it out to everyone.
Test it with your best customers first. If the Flavor Bomb hits a sour note, they’re more forgiving.
Give your Flavor Bomb enough time to marinate. For simple Flavor Bombs, give it 2-4 weeks to test. For more complex Flavor Bombs, give it 4-8 weeks.
Some ideas may need to be tweaked and tested again. One small change can make an okay Flavor Bomb into a stick-to-your-ribs Flavor Bomb
Roll It Out & Put It To Work
Once you find a Flavor Bomb that’s trending well, you can roll it out to the rest of your customers.
Here’s the deal though - you can’t just drop a Flavor Bomb and call it a day.
But if Flavor Bombs aren’t marketing campaigns, how do you put it to work?
As natural conversation happens about your Flavor Bomb, collect them. Take screenshots, save links to videos, and anything else that you can.
You can share them to highlight happy customers in advertising, on your website, email, customer service responses, etc.
What Rots A Flavor Bomb
A surefire way to kill a Flavor Bomb’s potential success is if you’re not excited about it.
If you’re feeling lackluster about it, so will your customers.
Flavor Bomb Success - Now What?
Yay! You have a Flavor Bomb that is stirring conversations, bringing referrals, improving customer experiences and ultimately - giving you the confidence to raise your prices. Now what?
Well, two things:
Your Flavor Bomb may need tweaking over time or you may need to change it altogether.
It may lose its special quality thanks to competitors implementing their own version of it or simply because the needs of your customers have changed.
Continue to monitor the effectiveness of your Flavor Bomb and keep a short list of future Flavor Bombs you may want to test out.
You can look at adding another one. A great dish is rarely one flavor. 😉
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
If you want your customers to talk about your business, you have to give them something to talk about. Create a Flavor Bomb that gives your customers a story to share. This secret ingredient, when done right, can transform the way customers think about, and talk about, your business.