We tasked our sales team to use our CRM to generate a list of all of our competitors' customers and rank them based on who would be the best fit for us.
We called the baker we used to make birthday cakes for our employees and asked them to make 2000 chocolate chip cookies.
We purchased 400 red gift boxes and ribon to tie them up.
We had 400 greeting cards printed with the inscription "it would be sweet to have you as our customer".
We generated 400 letters to each of the main contacts at our competitors. I dont remember the exact words but it was to the effect " I am sure by now you have heard the news that Allmove has been purchased by Iron Mountain, this will undoubtedly mean some changes for your service and pricing and we would love to have you as our customer if things don't work out." My wife wrote the letter; it was more elegant than that.
We assembled the cookies in the gift box with the card and the letter on the weekend.
On Monday we pulled all our drivers assistants, sales people and two people from records management off their normal tasks. We used our routing software to create the most efficient routes to deliver 400 boxes across the city and gave each of those people delivery lists.
At 3pm on Monday I got the nasty call from my competitor.
By Wednesday morning, all the boxes had been delivered.
On Thursday, my competitors' customers all got a registered letter announcing the sale and how good it was going to be for their business.
On Friday Morning, our phones blew up!!!