Leading Results

So at a recent conference I was talking about creating content for your business that educates, and I was stressing the importance, for small business, of making sure that some of that educational content was about you – the people in your company, the executives, the personalities that make you who you are.  And how it is so important today to NOT have your website be faceless – that this “personal, personnel” information should be up there front and center.

When I looked down at the front row, there was a gentleman, one of the business owners, in the front row holding his head in his hands.  So I stopped and commented to him – “Am I distressing you that much?”  He just looked up and me and said “What you are telling me is that I am doing everything wrong”  He went on to say that he had tried very hard to depersonalize the company – to make it look bigger, to not be about a few key people.

We continued our conversation afterwards, and the point I made to him is that as a consumer and as a business owner, I get to deal with faceless companies all the time.  The utilities, the telcos, the insurance company (not the agent), they are all anonymous companies I have to work with because there are no local, personal ones.  But when I get to have a choice, I want to pick a vendor that I can have a personal relationship with – a connection to.  And a lot of businesses and consumers I talk with feel the same way.

Since your company website is often the first point of interaction with a prospective customers, you’ve got to personalize.  Yes, tell them about all the great things you do for your customers and let you customers tell great stories about you.  But you also should take that opportunity to tell who you are.  For many companies, the “About Us” or Bio’s page is the 2^nd or 3^rd most clicked on page (have you checked your web stats lately?).  Is what you have on that page telling your story in a compelling and interesting way – or does it just reinforce the facelessness, the sameness, of all your competitors?

Yes, putting yourself out there – your name, your contact info – will increase your spam level and it will increase the cold calls from sales people who see it as invitation to call you by name, but putting yourself out there also makes you a real company and a real person, not just a collection of words and services.

If you have a story to tell about results you have seen when going from faceless to face in front, I’d love to hear it – leave me a comment or thought.

I was recently presenting to a group on ways to do marketing with little money, and I choose to drive the conversation in three area – social media, nurture marketing and referral marketing.

Now I have my tried-and-true nurture marketing techniques that I have talked about and demonstrated, but I wanted to bring something new to the table.  And what came to mind, was an old technique, made new through all the great search technology available to us today.

I grew up with a father who was salesman.  He was a stockbroker – now retired – and a pretty successful one.  And his success was not because of his prowess in picking stocks, but in his ability to keep his clients in the forefront of his mind – keeping what was important them, as something that was important to him.

While I don’t think he called his client recruitment process the building of “know, like and trust”, that is exactly what he did with his FYI marketing.  Here’s what he did:

After meeting with a prospective client, my Dad had an understanding of what was important to them, both personally and professionally.  And he took action on that.

I would frequently see him come home with stacks of newspaper clippings, or copied articles, or watch him rip the Sunday paper apart to get more articles.  And on each of these, he’d write  FYI – Bob, and then put a sticker on the article with his contact and company info.  It would go into an envelope and off to his prospect or customer.  (As I got older, I was also a frequent recipient of these).

Now what he was doing is pretty evident – he let his prospects and customers know he was thinking of them.  He was putting content he had seen into context for his customers.   And with tools like Google Alerts and Twitter Search you can easily do the same today – faster, easier and with less postage.

Think about that really important customer you have and want to keep.  Or that prospect you really want to get working with you that just won’t return your call.  Set up an alert or search on what is important to that customer or on the prospect’s industry.

Once a week or a couple times a month, filter through those alerts for the one or two articles/blog posts/comments that are relevant and well thought out and send them on to your target electronically with a quick FYI.  No explanation needed.  No hand-crafted marketing slick required. Just a quick note to let that customer or prospect know you were thinking of them.  Make it random in the timing and frequency, but consistent in approach over a long period of time.  One day, the phone will ring with a call saying “I appreciate you sending that article to me it helped me do X.  Lets talk about how we can work together”.

Yes, an email is not as “romantic” as a hand written note, but the value of the information – that you have been thinking of them – is what really counts.  So give it a try and see what the results are or if you do this already, drop me an FYI note and let me know how it works for you.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit with my client, WannaHavaCookie at their first retail location, which is located in the Limelight Marketplace in New York City.

The Lightlight has had an interesting history.  First it was a church – The Holy Communion Episcopal Church – then in 1983 it was reinvented as a nightclub, which was somewhat ironic.  Now it has re-opened as a high-end mall.  (thanks to the bowery boys for the detailed history)

The space is amazing, even for New York City. White-gloved doormen open the doorways.  Gleaming floors and glass. And an eclectic array of high-end shops – from $700 silk pajamas to the $3.50 whoppie pies from the cookie shop.

And through it all, the stained-glass windows remain, casting a very poignant light on the consumer as they donate at the alter of the cash register.

There are great products out there that work exactly as the designer, developer or manufacturer intended them to. But what happens when the customer that is using them isn’t using them with that use case in mind.

I’ll give you 3 quick examples from 3 companies that I am a customer of and otherwise, think do a really great job. The first is from Constant Contact.

We have a lot of people who visit our site and sign up for different things – web seminars, download offers, courses etc. But Constant Contact only gives us one way to get names into our mailing list database. Their form, their code. We can change the registration information and text, but there is one web page the sits between when someone clicks the link they gave me and the page we have changed, and there is no way to change that page. So while someone may want to pre-register for course, they still have to see a page that says “thanks for registering for our mailing list”. Constant Contact’s use case for mailing list sign up works perfectly – it just isn’t what we want – and as a result, we have to hack around and find a better way to solve a problem (which I did – you can see it here: )

The second is Apple. iPhoto is an incredible application. What you get for no money (its part of the operating system install) is a fantastic way to organize all those digital images (pictures and more) that you have been accumulating on your hard drive. What it doesn’t do is synchronize photo libraries between machines (and we know Apple knows how to write sync software ala iPod+iTunes). To do that, I need to spend $20 to buy a utility from a third party or create code that is way beyond my basic skills. Apple figured people would keep their library on one machine. I use two – and I need them in sync.

Last is a new service we just started using – BatchBook – for online CRM for the business. Great application; really powerful, yet simple. They take the concept of tags to a new level and are super flexible about how you search for information. But you can’t search for a record with a blank value? So when we want to look for a customer record that has a missing email address, we have to export all my contacts and search there. Now, I think, they thought, that no one would put contacts into a system with missing info. But really, those of us in the real world don’t always get it all in one place at the same time.

Now, I know Constant Contact and BatchBook will take aggressive actions to add new features. And software can’t do everything the first time out. So what’s my point? Try really, really hard when you are designing a new product or even a new service, to think of the 10 or 15 ways that people will use it. Put it through the dumb user test. Let people who weren’t even remotely involved in the design or thought process for it, try it out. You’ll learn your limitations and likely see some ways to market or promote your product that you never thought of to start with.

Okay, so if you read this blog with any regularity, you know I am an Apple fan. Now I am a raving fan. Here’s the story. I ordered an iPod for my son’s 11th birthday. Now, this was part of the Apple promotion where you buy a new Mac and get an iPod for free. My wife needed a new Mac for school, so I figured I’d kill the two birds with one stone.

So I ordered the Mac and iPod. Both were promised for delivery on June 18th. The Mac showed up on the 17th – exceeding expectation. But the iPod showed as still being in Hong Kong at FedEx. Now, I didn’t really care when the Mac got to me. It was the iPod that was date sensitive since my son’s birthday is the 20th of June.

Well the iPod was still in Hong Kong at the end of the day on the 18th, so I figured I was going to have to cut out a picture of one and give that to him and let him know it would be a day or two late. Not really what you want to do, but what else could I do.  After all, we are talking about an iPod that was free, as was the shipping.

It turns out I didn’t have to do anything. This morning I had an email from Apple that said they had noticed that my shipment had been delayed and that they had upgraded it for Saturday delivery. Wow. Okay. But where was the iPod now? When I checked the order status, it showed that overnight it had moved from Hong Kong to Anchorage and on to Newark. Now NJ is still a ways away from Boston, but I figured we’d see what would happen. Sure enough, sometime late this afternoon or early evening, the Fedex truck came by and dropped off the iPod. That is SERIOUS customer service.

My only complaint in the whole process – there is nowhere on Apple’s website that I could find where I could leave them an attaboy and comment for a job well done. What have you done like this to delight your customers? I have never really questions my decision to move my company completely to Mac. Now I never will. That level of service is just outstanding!

Five dollars is not much these days – I remember when that was my allowance for a week – now its my morning coffee.  But at Fiverr.com, its amazing to see what people will offer to do for $5.   Do you collect postcards?  You can get one send from almost anywhere in the world for $5.  You can get someone to comment on your blog.  You can get a 10 minute voice recording  – does your company need a new voice mail greeting?  (see my last blog entry on Carl Kasell recording a voice mail for a contest winner).  The offers are pretty creative.

But think about this. If you are running a small business and need a quick service, this is a great way to try someone out.  Did they exceed your expectations for $5?  Its a great low risk way to try something new.  And if you are a small business or a freelancer, what can you offer for $5 to let someone try you?  It might be a great way to build your mailing list, drive web traffic or let people trial your knowledge.

I only came across the site this morning and already my mind is racing with the possibilities for my business and for my clients.  What about you?  What great thing would you share for $5?

Creating lasting or memorable value for your customers, beyond your core product or service is a great way to build a referable business.  As long as your core business is solid, the value-add services or products are what get you talked about.

A great example of this struck me this weekend during the NPR show “Wait, wait, don’t tell me”.  This weekly show always has great contestant quizzes and the prize they give away is something that costs them almost nothing and requires no additional “sponsor mention”.  That prize is to have the professional announcer from the show – Carl Kasell – record a greating for the winner on their home voice mail or answering machine.

So think about the other talents you have around your company or in your partner network.  Maybe you have voice talent that could help out a client.  Or there is a great writer that would do a quick edit for client’s new brochure.  Thinking a little broader… If you are a dry cleaner – can you automatically sew the missing button back on?  If you are a CPA, can you partner with someone that would offer a tune up for your small business client’s PC?  If have a cleaning service, could you bring in someone to do a quick grounds clean up?  There are endless ideas.  What makes you remarkable?  Gotta story to share?  I’d love to hear it.

As I sat and watched the little league practice on Sunday morning, I was again drawn to the wisdom in the behavior of children and the lessons it holds for small businesses. This was the second practice for the tournament team my 10 year-old is playing on – so while the kids know each other from community and past teams, this only their second time together as a team.

After two hours of practice, the coaches had to go in for a meeting and the kids stayed out in the field. They weren’t given any instruction about what to do while the coaches were gone. They were just told to stay off the pitcher’s mound, since it had been raining and was muddy.

So for the first 10 minutes, they played catch in the outfield, but then their competitive instincts kicked in and a couple of kids appointed themselves as captains. Another told everyone to line up, and then they picked teams and started playing a game with 2 mini-teams, modified rules and a tennis ball instead of a baseball. I sat there just simply amazed that this group of twelve 10-year olds could get themselves that organized, that quickly.

Now you as a businessperson probably have met a number of people in your community either socially or through networking events at a chamber or Rotary or such. There are probably other businesses that you have been on same team with – a shared customer, an in-common zoning issue or something similar. What if your business and those other businesses could effectively organize a team as quickly as those kids did? Could you be more competitive against other companies? Could you help each other grow through referrals, joint marketing or partnered offerings? I bet with a little creativity and some trust thrown in, you could.

In the end, the kids weren’t trying to create a team with permanence. They were just trying to have fun when it was slow. If it’s slow for you, see if you can turn it around make your business and your partnering fun – and profitable – at the same time.

Have you had success with this before – please leave me a note and tell me your story.

I got to visit my dentist last week and has become my habit lately, I asked him how business has been.  His response was about what I expected – given how easy it had been to change my appointment – “it could be busier”.  So I asked him what had changed.  Dentistry – at least to me – didn’t seem to be something that was affected by the economy in any major way.

He went on to explain to me that overall, his biggest issue, is that we as a population are healthier.  It used to be that one hygienist could keep one dentist busy.  Then it because One and a half to one, and now, he told me, it almost takes two hygienists to keep one dentist busy.  So essentially, in the 25 or 30 years his practice has been around, the caseload he has to carry, has had to double for him to keep business even. Challenging issue to have.

So I asked him my second favorite question – “what’s your unique difference?  Why should people come to you instead of one of those other firms that advertise constantly, send out the coupon promotions, etc, etc.”  His answer told me that he had at least thought about this.

He said that they were a family run practice as opposed to a corporate one – his patients saw the same staff each time, as long as they wanted to; they were paid on salary, as opposed to mostly commission as is common at the “newer” practices (this was news to me), so they were able to offer a recommendation of a variety of treatment options as opposed to the one that made them the most money.  And because there was no stress about generating revenue and commissions, he had very little staff turnover, contributing to the ability of patients to develop long relationships with someone they only see every six months.

So now they need to get this message out there.  I happen to like going to see a dentist and hygienist that want to see pictures of my kids. Who ask about what I am doing and actually remember it from visit to visit. I like  to have a relationship with my care providers in an increasingly impersonal world.  I know there are others like me out there. They just need to find them.  And they are taking some steps – ones that I was actually impressed with for a small practice in a small town.

They have moved their reminder system over to email – they asked me for my email address when I came in this time.  I got an email later that day asking me to rate the service and for my permission to post the comments on their web site.  And the system they are using for this went one step further – it asked me for a referral! Since I gave them a good rating, it asked me to think about someone else that would like to work with them and forward their information on.   Nice system – It thanked me for the business, it asked me to rate them and it asked for a referral.

What else should they being doing? Being part of every new homeowner info packet that goes out around them.  Network with realtors. Network with doctors. Create a talking logo that describes what they do in terms other than just dentistry. Talk at the schools. Create unique programs for local businesses that also put heavy emphasis on long term relationships. Promote their “unique” difference.  In short – marketing.

I know that if I needed twice as much business to say at the same level, I’d be trying new things every day.  What ideas do you have that you’d care to share?

So you’re a small business – 1 million, 5 million, 20 million a year in sales.  And you want to brand like the big guys.  You know, like having your logo be well known enough to stand for something. (Such as being able to use the Nike logo in a powerpoint presentation instead of writing the words “Just Do It”.)

Have you asked yourself why you want this?  Big companies build a brand because they often don’t have a face  (there are a few exceptions – Purdue jumps to mind).  The brand steps in and substitutes for a trusted person, a real person that can answer a real phone call.   Doug Rushkoff, in his great book “Life Inc.”, goes through a lengthy history of the development of brand and how corporations used it to replace the relationship with the local merchant – the person you could have a trusted relationship with.

But if you are a small business, you – the owner, the president, the sales VP – you are the trusted business.  Your unique difference. The quality of your product. The personalized nature of your service.  The way you bring value to your ideal customer.  That is your brand.

I would submit that we are all looking for a personal connection today.  While technology has helped us all do more, know more, understand more, it has also created a divide that keeps us from interacting with people that we get to know, like and trust. This is where small, personalized business have a killer advantage.

When I need help with a sticky household repair. When I need my lawn mower serviced.  I go to the local hardware store (yes we still have one).  I get to talk to an owner or someone there that can really help.  When I am buying a commodity – sand, lumber, etc – its off to Lowe’s I go.   So if my local hardware store were to really focus on what they do best – great advice, personal service – they could clearly separate themselves from the big box store.  Can the local store compete on price – absolutely not.  And they should not try.  They can however, profile their ideal customer and focus on servicing them better.  Getting to know what that shopper wants and can’t find elsewhere allows them to create clear separation and difference.

So don’t try to out-brand the big guys that have more money, time and people than you do.  Take your money and focus on out-servicing them.  Take the time to really understand your niche and the value that your customers really perceive, and then promote the heck out of that.  By doing so, your name, your company name, your reputation will become a brand unto itself with the customers that value you the most.