Leading Results

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.

Empowerment is a oft-used word these days.  While at a Women’s Referral Network meeting, listening to Lynn Doyle speak about empowerment, I began thinking about how to better empower our clients and help them empower their clients.  Empowering is about giving someone official authority or the freedom to do something – to give them more control over their own life or situation

In your course of the day, do you help your clients and your co-workers to obtain information that makes their job easier?  Do you pass on the cool ideas you read or hear?  Do you retweet that great idea or thoughtful blog post?

If you are the boss, do your employees have the power to make decisions in the name of customer service and satisfaction?  Have you empowered them to help your company be more successful?

Have you made it easy for your customers to talk about what makes your business different from the rest of the pack? Do they know you are dependable/high quality/ high value on a consistent basis? Do your customers know that you are looking to grow and that their help would be appreciated?  If so, then you have empowered them to refer you.

Giving smart people  – your employees, your customers, your co-workers – the freedom to do what’s on a regular basis and people will begin to talk, perhaps even rave about your business.  Customer Delight can be the difference between struggling in a down economy and growing, doing your part to turn the economy around.

Let me know what kinds of things you are doing to empower your customers, employees and co-workers!

image courtesy of google images

Time for a quick revisit to a post I wrote just about 2 years ago titled “The Star Wars Cantina” . The message then is the same message now – and worth repeating.  If you are going to exhibit at a trade show, you have 5 seconds or less of a passer-by’s attention to say what you do, the market you serve and get them to pause long enough to start a conversation.

You’ve got to stand out – not with contests, drawings or give-aways – but with crystal clear messaging.  (or do both if your budget allows, but always the messaging).  I’ll give you my example.  If I had a booth at a show that was going to attract my target customer – small businesses -  my headline banner would read ” We help small businesses stop wasting money on marketing”  Then under it, my company name, then in smaller font, a tag line that would read “Marketing that gets Results”.  My headline says who my ideal client is and the problem I solve.  They can read it quickly and decide if that is something they are interested in.  It invokes a question – “how do you do that?”, and that question is how you gather prospects at a show.

So if a tradeshow is in your plans, take a long hard look at your messaging.  Tradeshows are hugely expensive for small businesses (the floor space is usually only about 20% of the total cost).   Make your booth work for you.

You know the situation.  You get introduced to another business person by a mutual acquaintance who thinks you two can work together and find some “synergy” between your businesses.  So you arrange an introductory call (referrals can come from the most unlikely places).

You look at their website. They look at yours and you chat on the phone.  And you know what, your mutual friend was right – there are some benefits or complimentary skills/products/services that you each bring to the table.  And then you get to that point in the conversion.  That point where you both agree – but what to do next.  Yes, you can leave it at “I’ll keep you in mind as I am going about my business”, but that is such a limp-wristed handshake.

Here are a some next step suggestions to tighten up that grip.

• Guest write for each other’s blog or newsletter
• Offer to send a letter of introduction to your clients if they’ll do the same for you
• Cross link to each other’s web site (we all need more back links)
• Have them invite their customers and prospects to your next seminar/ webinar/ whitepaper offer and do the same in return
• Give them a special offer they can pass on to their customers. For example, Special Offer Just for Jack’s Customers – 10% off because you know Jack and if you like Jack, we know you’ll like us too.
• Each of you agree to talk about the 3 to 5 clients you really want to get, but have never been able to sell to – see if there is any overlap between your wants and their haves.  If not, then see which ones you both might want to mutually pursue
• And of course – be sure to connect on LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else social.

Do any of these strike a chord?  Any other suggestions you would share a great, low risk way to get an alliance off the ground?  Let me hear from you.

One of my clients told me a great social media story today that I had to relate.  There are so many people asking about the ROI (time and money) on social marketing – and I continue to take the position that it is very hard to really measure.  This story has a clear ROI contribution, but the only reason you (and my client) are hearing about it is because the prospect took the time to relate it to them.

My client was holding a breakfast seminar last week.  They had tweeted about it. Emailed invitations and called folks.  They also chose to advertise it on to a defined profile on Facebook. Well it seems that one of the people who had registered, misfiled the email confirmation and that prospect could not remember where it was or who was sponsoring it.  They had pretty much given up hope on attending when, while they were on Facebook being social, the advertisement for the seminar popped up.

They were able to click on it, get back to the registration page and then get the pertinent details they needed to attend the breakfast.  It turns out the subject of the talk and the product that it was designed to promote were of strong interest to them, and they now are an active prospect.

With no social media site to participate and target advertising on, the prospect would have missed the talk and my client would have missed the opportunity.  Something to think about over your morning coffee.

As I sat at my boys’ (ages 10 & 11) baseball games this weekend, I was drawn to the parallels between little league and small business marketing.  Now 99.99% of little league players are not going to play in the majors.  And that stat is just about right if you consider the Fortune 1000 as the big league in business and how many small businesses ever grow to make it there.  But that doesn’t mean there isn’t great talent and unique ability on the little league teams or in most small businesses.

So with that as a preamble, here eight of my weekend observations of little league and the lessons that I can relate to the small businesses that I work with.

# 1 – The pitchers aren’t very good, but neither are the batters

Let’s be honest here – there are as many balls bounced in front of home plate as make the strike zone.  But the kids swing at the bounce balls as well as the strikes and many of the balls.  The same can be said about most small business marketing promotions.  They fall short of the strike zone or miss the mark completely, but because there are a lot of potential customers, the businesses generally get on base (make a sale) often enough to stay in business.

#2 The grass is worn out in the outfield’s ideal positions

When you look at the outfield in these little league fields, there is a bare spot where the kids are taught to stand to play the position correctly.  It gives them an anchor, but inhibits their ability to learn how to position themselves for left or right handed batters or for kids that they know hit hard.  The lesson here for small businesses is to not be so anchored to one way of marketing or doing business that you don’t adjust to what is up next.  Have you figured out how to use social media to your advantage?  Is your website anything but an electronic brochure?  Move away from the bare spot where everyone else is standing and find some lush grass.

#3 The uniforms don’t fit correctly

Kids are hard to size.  Some had pants on that were way too big and just looked baggy and droopy.  One had a uniform shirt that hung to his knees.  They all were dressed similar, so that you could tell they are all on the same team – but you knew that team was temporary.  So the question for a small business is how do you look?  Are your colors consistent from letterhead to business cards to invoices? Do your business cards look alike?  Does your signature line in email have some uniformity?  All those little details matter – probably more than they should – when you are small.  If they don’t match, your business looks temporary.  If you’ve been around for a while, or plan to be, make the uniform, well, uniform.

#4  Batting helmets make all the kids look alike

When the kids get on base, the only way to tell them apart is by the number on the back of the shirt.  The full-face batting helmets really obscure their face.  In your business, is the only way to tell you apart from your competition by a number (price) ?  If so, there will always be someone willing to go out of business faster than you.  You’ve got to identify your remarkable difference in a way that matters to your customer and that can be easily understood.

#5 Games get called on account of darkness

Mother nature intervenes and the game is over before 7 innings are completed.  Sometimes it’s because of bad pitching in one inning. Sometimes because of bad fielding and lots of errors.  But it doesn’t matter. The game is over. How many opportunities have you missed to get an ideal customer because you were spending time with one that stole all your energy and enthusiasm?  How many sales calls did your sales team make on people that are never going to buy because they a) didn’t want to cold call or b) there was no marketing to support them in finding more ideal prospects.  Time is both your enemy and one of the only assets you can truly manage. Define your ideal customer and then spend your time with them and finding more like them.

#6 Fielding often takes more motion than required, but its okay because the runners are slow

I watched a ball hit to the pitcher. He knocked it down. Spun around looking for it, found it, fumbled picking it up and then threw it to first – and got the out. Small businesses, in their marketing execution are much like this – they take a number of extra steps and waste some time and money along the way, but in the end, doing marketing helps their business because the market is in their favor – its big and it is present.  Most people like doing business with real people.  Your prospects need to know you are there.  You have to market yourself. You don’t have to be smooth or perfect, but you do have to take action.

#7  There is no clock, only elapsed time

Unlike soccer, or football or hockey, baseball goes on (and on, and on) until the innings or the daylight runs out. The internet has eliminated the clock for many businesses – and this is especially true for their marketing.  Your website is open 24×7.  Is it doing what you need it to be?  Can you handle the international business you could be getting?  What about all the millions of mobile devices out there – can they read your site?  Business hours are somewhat irrelevant because we all can operate round the clock in providing valuable information and many times, products, whether is it 1 pm or 1 am.

#8 Scores are only kept by the coaches – the spectators don’t know the score

Although the kids always know whether they are winning or losing, those of us cheering from the side aren’t always sure.  How does it work in your business?  Does your team know the score and what you will consider to be a winning or losing year? When your marketing team doesn’t know how many customer you want to get this week/month/year, how do they know what to plan to do?  If your service tech doesn’t know the company’s ideal customer profile, how do they know a good referral or prospect when they come across it.  Transparency helps – a lot.

Sure, a small business doesn’t have the resources of a large company when it comes to marketing. But the one thing all my clients have in common with the little leaguers is passion – something that is desperately missing at most large companies.

Show your passion. Articulate your differences. Spend time with customers that value your talents. Take action. You may not want to be the .01% that moves to the majors, but I sure wouldn’t mind a major league salary in a minor league.

I often find content for my blog posts while dealing with my two teenage daughters. This week’s entry is about a lesson I have been teaching them since they were little; manners are essential wherever you are and whomever you deal with. I find that everywhere I go and wherever I am on the internet there is almost a complete lack of civility and basic etiquette. I am always reminding my girls that nothing they do or say is private anymore. Every picture they upload, comment on Facebook, Tweet on Twitter, text message and email they type is out there for the whole world to see.

As I tell them this, I am reminded that this is true for adults as well. We forget when we are on the web, all of our clients, potential and existing, along with employers and future employers are able to read all of the content we post, tweet or chat about. I am frequently appalled by the language I read in blogs and e-mails today. And it’s not just language; we just don’t seem to have common courtesy when we engage in the world of social media. I have read responses to blogs that are downright offensive and it isn’t always easy to offend me.

And basic manners seem to have been forgotten as well. I send people tips or ideas around a subject we have talked about. Or I take time out of my schedule to help someone accomplish their goal or objective and frequently, I never hear the word thanks. (and this of course holds true for my daughters as well)

So as a gentle reminder, here is a reminder of 8 out of the many of things our mothers taught us about being kind to others.

1. Don’t Shout ( Don’t use bold text to emphasis your stance. ) Choose the correct words to relate your meaning.
2. Don’t ramble and say something interesting – Give your reader value, not sales messages.
3. Tell the truth – Be authentic and clear in everything you write. Disclose where you got your information.
4. Don’t swear – Profanities and vulgar language only reflects badly on you and does not improve your point.
5. Don’t litter – Don’t spam people with unwanted email, messages or solicitations
6. Turn the other cheek – No matter how rude someone is to you, do not respond similarly. Don’t respond immediately. Take the time to understand where the person is coming from and address their opinion civilly. If they continue, ask them to take the discussion offline either on the phone or face to face.
7. Speak and spell correctly – Make sure that you use proper grammar and spelling. I know that it is tempting to use IM shorthand, but this assumes that the reader understands it and this just isn’t professional.
8. Say Please and especially, Thank you – The beautify thing about IM, email and twitter is they are quick for communication. It is easier than ever to jot a quick thank you note.

Always remember that you are looking to attract your ideal customer with your entries online. You want to build a positive image online. What you say and how you say it really does matter!

Any important rules I forgot?

I don’t often blog about B2C marketing – mostly because much of my work is in the B2B world, but being on vacation for a few days with the kids last week exposed me on a personal level to a lot of B2C marketing, and I had a client meeting that brought some it back to the business level.

The particular form of marketing I am writing about is merchandising. At a retail level, merchandising refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase. (thanks Wikipedia). Anyone who has ever been to a Disney park, knows that they have this down to a very well calculated science. Every major attraction ends in a gift shop and those gift shops are well merchandised to the attraction you just left.

So this past week my family and I spent 4 days in New York City and went to the Museum of Natural History, The Intrepid Aircraft Carrier Museum, the Central Park Zoo and Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. Out of this group, only Mdme Tussaud’s is for-profit. The rest are trying to get funds to run a great experience any way they can.

The easy lesson is first. If you run an experience attraction, exhibit or a museum, keep your gift shop open a bit later than the main attraction/event/experience. As much as my kids like the museums, they are still at the age where the gift shop is also an attraction for them (to my dismay). And at both the Natural History Museum and at the Zoo, the gift shop closed at the same time as the exhibits so we never saw that “exhibit”. (Actually, the History Museum gift shop closed earlier – they would not let us in 10 minutes before closing time). I know for certain in both cases that each organization missed out on having me part with a share of my wallet. Do the economics of staying open later make sense? I’d don’t for sure, but keeping one or two people on staff for an extra15 to 30 minutes is probably worth an experiment.

Merchandising for the Intrepid Museum should have been easy. It’s a military exhibit with lots of planes, boats and history. But a walk into the gift shop was a frustrating experience for a 9 and a 10-year old boy. There were a lot of toys for younger kids. And lots of traditional tourist souvenirs. But really nothing for them. They had one basic style of t-shirt, but not in a kids size. Some models that could be put together if you were a bit older, but none of the basic snap together kinds. Lots of shot glasses or coffee mugs, but no plastic water bottles that my kids would use at their baseball games. And almost nothing they had was oriented towards girls (not women, but girls) In short, they did a great job of merchandising to adults, veterans and parents with little kids, but missed the tween/teen demographic completely. My younger boy decided to not get anything and save his money for the wax museum, which was where he really wanted to go.

The wax museum was a fun experience for the kids, and my wife and I got a few teachable moments with them talking about some of the more important history figures in the museum. So you would think with replicas of presidents, inventors, celebrities and artists, that there would a great gift shop to follow. And you would be wrong. There were a few items with Madame Tussaud’s name and logo on it, but really nothing that would representative of what we had just walked through. No small wax figures. No kits to carve your own statue from a block of wax or clay. No candle (wax) making kits. There were SO many merchandising opportunities based on the people in the museum and what they had accomplished. But nothing was taken advantage of.

All this came rushing back to me when I met with a client who is opening their first retail space. They have been selling hand-crafted food over the internet and are opening a small kiosk in a newly created space in New York City. We talked a lot about how to leverage that space for their online business and for follow-on business. And in the end, the one additional suggestion I gave them was to merchandise the space appropriately as well – sell the appropriate plates, glasses and utensils that compliment the food they are selling. Some people may buy the food, some may buy the accompaniments and some may actually buy both.

To help you think about your merchandising – your cross selling opportunities – here are my top 7 tips:

1. Think beyond your target audience or customers when selecting your add-on sales products. For example, do parents usually come with their kids? Are you thinking of the kids also? Is your store targeted towards women? If so, What can the men that accompany them do (eg spend on) while waiting for their partner?
2. Don’t have huge price gaps in your offerings. You shouldn’t have $2 offering and $50 offerings. Find products that fill the gaps in the price range as well as serving your audience.
3. Make it relevant – It may seem obvious, but tie your cross sell or merchandized products to your offering and to your brand. As an example, if you are a restaurant, do you offer a cookbook of a similar style?
4. Look at the human behavior around your store/exhibit/booth. Does it make sense to leave your gift shop or cart right outside your front door open a bit later to get those who are last minute (don’t we all run late when kids are with us?)
5. Height matters – Disney does this better than anyone – put things for the kids at kid level
6. Give away something for free that costs you little but helps your customer or visitor remember you – a printed map of your attraction, if you are a restaurant, a picture of your customers at their table, a token (literally) of your appreciation (I have about 5 of those from a local cornstalk maze that we take the kids to each year)
7. Location counts – merchandise near where a decision gets made. The wax museum had a “make a wax hand” offer in the middle of the tour. But we didn’t want to carry it the rest of the way. If it had been at the end as well, we probably would have done it.

What other tips, ideas or secrets do you have to share?

Okay, I should have known better.  I’ve been quoted out of context before.  Usually it is in a mainstream publication and by a responsible reporter making a honest mistake.  But sometimes a laugh line gets you in trouble, and this time the joke was on me.

I was presenting on building a marketing foundation for your business at the SugarCRM conference, SugarCon.  The audience was supposed to be software resellers and consultants, but I ended up with a few customers and a reporter or two in the crowd.  We talked about marketing and messaging and social media. And we got to open questions.

The question I got was phrased this way:  “We are having a debate internally in our company about what we should publish from our customers surveys.  Should we be totally transparent and publish good reviews and bad or just the good ones?”  Notice, they were talking about surveys they did – not online reviews they wanted to edit or comments made in public spaces.  This is an important distinction.  When you survey your customers, you are doing so to get honest feedback and if you do it well, you also ask for permission to use their quotes in your marketing materials and your website.  And if you get good quotes, you use them.  Why would you publish privately provided information that was bad about your company?

So my response to this person was that I would not publish the bad reviews.  They pressed me on this.  They said something like “so isn’t it being dishonest if you are not totally transparent?”  To which I responded “It’s marketing, not honesty”.  Great turn of phrase. Got the laughs. Completely appropriate to the topic at hand – which again was about publishing some, all or none of the customer surveys provided to you in confidence.  But taken out of context, boy does that quote sound like crap.  And a Chelsi Nakano from CMS Wire took that quote out of context and used it for her punch line entry for her article – most of which was actually pretty favorable to me.

So why I am writing this?  I guess 4 reasons:

1. I hate being quoted out of context and this one deserved an explanation
2. It’s a great reminder to anyone speaking in public anywhere to never assume you know who is in the audience and that they will take what you are saying the right way.
3. It is instructive in that I would have never found this quote without using my own twitter search to see what was being said about my name – social media and web media is out there in the farthest reaches of the business universe
4. Lastly to generally say sorry to any professional marketer who may feel like I damaged the overall credibility of good, honest, social marketing with the comment

Marketing has changed a lot in the last 5 years and there is nowhere to hide.  You need to be honest and transparent and provide value.  When a customer has a bad experience, they have all the tools to write about it.  And when you ask for feedback, you will get it – many times at a higher return rate from unhappy customers that can now vent directly to you rather than to the anonymous twitter-sphere. But that doesn’t mean you air the dirty laundry that you went out to collect, in public.  It means you do the wash and fix the issues.

Marketing’s role is still about showing your company, your skills and your product in the best light.  So in the end, I do stand by the comment.  You have to be honest in your marketing.  And asking customers for feedback is critical – you can’t get better without it. But truthful marketing doesn’t mean telling everyone, everything, all the time.

I’d love your opinion on this – I’m always willing to learn a new perspective.  Leave a comment.