photo credit: Luz Adriana Villa A.

A question came in earlier this month… “How do I compete with businesses that can offer similar products/services at a lower cost?”

The question is “Why are you depending on price to close your sales?”

It’s important to examine because *so many* people focus on it. In a weak economy, it’s natural for price pressures to be everywhere. Did you choose to compete on price, or did it sneak up on you?

If price is your edge, it should be an intentional, strategic choice. All else being equal, price will be the natural decision maker since buyer won’t have to sacrifice based on price.

The trouble is, all else is seldom equal.

Wiggling

In product sales, a competitor’s prices are usually lower because they sell more and can get better pricing from their suppliers. If supply costs are the issue, that’s something you can fix as your sales volume increases.

Until you get there, find some wiggle room. You may find that it makes price less important or even takes it off the table.

Wiggle?

There’s almost always some wiggle room in a price-sensitive situation for the underdog who is hungry enough to do more (ie: provide more value) than the “low price leader”. Remember, they’re the one totally focused on price and their entire business is built around it (think “WalMart”). Want to compete with WallyWorld on price? Only if you’re crazy.

Is price *really* the only way you compete with your competition? Not in my experience.

Whether you sell products or services, there are certainly those who shop solely on price, but there are always others who want more and don’t mind paying a little more for it.

Are there no other ways that you can add value to these products and services? Have you asked your customers?

Take some time to listen to your customers. I’m confident that if you listen, you’ll find a way to take the focus off price and put it on things that will matter a week or a month from now, when price is far less important.

Let’s talk about an example, something price sensitive and seemingly generic…like carpet cleaning.

Being seldom equal

I could call a dozen carpet cleaners who will do two bedrooms and a hall for $79 (or whatever). Maybe one or two of them would do a good enough job to earn a call back, even though I suspect all of them would do a good job when it came to cleaning the carpet.

Maybe your carpet cleaning skills are only 2% better than everyone else’s, or maybe they’re a little worse (yes, you need to work on that). It matters, but it isn’t necessarily what people highly value when they get this work done.

Your job is to be their carpet cleaner. The name that comes to mind when someone mentions a dirty carpet or that they need to get theirs done.

Not because you’re the one who happened to do it yesterday, but because you’re the only one they’d dream of calling after the way you handled it last time (and the time before, and the time before). You’re the one they talk about at church, in the aisle at the grocery store, at lunch the next day, on the golf course.

Your name comes up at all of those places because you did things no one else ever has and you did things in a way that no one else ever has. The next morning, they’re still reeling from the experience.

An experience? It can be. They may live in a tiny bungalow or a 12,000 square foot mansion. Either way, you can design and deliver a consistent end-to-end experience that they just can’t forget and can’t stop telling their friends about. Ask “What else can we do?”

Rethink your pricing

Despite improving what you deliver, it’s still worth putting thought into your pricing.

Companies often price their goods based on cost, the needs of their sales people, their catalog or their e-commerce store rather than in a way that attracts customers.

Your wholesale costs can’t be ignored, but you can restructure your pricing in conjunction with increased value and change the rules of the game.

photo credit: ruurmo

If your software business was “perfect”, what would it look like?

What do I mean? Here are a few ideas to get you started…

• What’s your product line look like?
• What services do you offer?
• How big (or little) is your staff?
• What benefits do you offer?
• How much vacation do you enjoy per year?
• What would your customers say about your company?
• How many customers would you have?
• What trade shows do you exhibit at?
• What’s your position in the market?
• What would happen when a support call came in?
• What would happen when a bug was found?

Not in the software business? So what. Replace “software business” with whatever you do. Alter the question list to fit your business.

You might be thinking none of this could ever happen.

Or you could start with your answers and work backwards to figure out what it will take to get there. Take one step, then another.

If you don’t ask yourself the hard questions…who will?

PS: Are you really in the <whatever> business? A drill bit manufacturer doesn’t sell drill bits. Ultimately, they sell holes. A coffee shop sells comfort, even to take out customers. What do you really sell?

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” – Steve Jobs

What’s your plywood?

PS: Thanks for raising the bar, Steve. Be well.

photo credit: flipkeat

I was reading AJ Leon’s blog this morning and thought that sipping a cuppa joe in Shakespeare’s hometown while gnawing on a “legendary brownie” sounds pretty good.

The term legendary struck me, as AJ probably meant it to. I don’t stumble across things of that quality every day, but I guess that’s the nature of legendary, isn’t it?

It got me to thinking about the products and services that I encounter and which among them are legendary.

Sometimes legendary just sits on the shelf and stares back at you – expecting you to recognize its stature without being told.

The Best Product Wins?

Some businesses act as if they were trained by this unseen, all-knowing old school mentor who believes that the best product wins.

This means that marketing, PR and any effort to become an authority in their market are things that only mediocre products require. The best should sell itself simply because it’s the best.

For that reason, the greatest product or service in the world may serve out its life in anonymous mediocrity.

Think about the businesses you visit regularly. Do any of them do something in a legendary manner? If so and they don’t make a fuss about it, maybe you should mention their amazingness to them and ask “Why the big secret?”

I’d Drive Across Town For…

Which products/services are without peer? Which of them would you drive across town for? Which of them do you seek out or at least think about every time you’re in that part of town, the state or the country? Which product, service or business would you go out of your way to enjoy sharing with a friend?

A few that come to mind:

• The Canon 70-210 L (a camera lens)
• That one salesperson at Talbot’s in Springfield Missouri.
• The Panamanian coffee beans I get a little bit of every year, especially when joined with Joel’s perfect roasting.
• The deli/butcher shop counter guys in the paper hats at Harter House.
• The huckleberry milkshakes at a little place in Driggs, Idaho, just across the state line from Jackson Hole.
• An evening meal at Charley’s in Tampa.

These things aren’t legendary because what they create is untouchable. Some are quite common, yet they deliver a step (or three) above anyone around them. Some are legendary because their creators form a great memory in the process of delivering them. Some are just incredibly consistent at touching all the bases and doing so in a manner that’s just right. Some are just great.

Being Legendary

Do you see any common behaviors or characteristics of those offering this level of quality? Success leaves clues.

To me, the folks that deliver legendary service offer consistency, little surprises, thoughtful, caring service. Not just nice, but more than you expect. Above and beyond.

More than that, they set expectations by sharing with you that you’re about to experience the extraordinary – and then they deliver that and more. Talk isn’t enough. Delivery is critical.

Muhammad Ali told you in advance, followed up in the ring, and as he stood over you….told you again while canaries circled your groggy head.

While you don’t have to deliver your message like Ali, you also shouldn’t miss the opportunity to better people’s lives in some way by helping them to see that that you have something amazing to offer.

It’s worth the effort, even for a legendary brownie.

Are you paying this much attention?

Are you putting this much thought into what your customers’ do with your product?

Are you then following it up by shipping what they need?

Yes, these stackers are a blatantly obvious invention to anyone who has made a smore at a campfire.

The important thing is that Kraft thought enough to make them.

photo credit: geoftheref

Are you indispensable to your customers?

I was thinking about this earlier this morning, started this post and got sidetracked by “real work”.

Apparently, it was destined to stay on my mind because a couple of hours later, Hugh’s email newsletter sent me this, which is RIGHT ON POINT with the indispensable question.

The question that you have to ask yourself – daily, rather than once – is “What can you do to make yourself indispensable to your customers?”

A few examples to get the juices flowing:

• If you sell coffee, how can you help your customers wade through the coffee buzzword maze and enjoy *better* coffee? What’s fair trade? Is it really fair trade, or is it just another marketing buzzword?
• If you sell cars, how can you help your customers make better decisions, get more from their investment, and save time and money on repairs? How can you help them remember to perform the regular maintenance that allows them to depend on their vehicle regardless of the weather?
• If you repair lawn mowers, how can you help your customers get a better looking yard, without injury, cheaper, safer and faster? How can you save them time and money on upkeep and repairs? How can you help them remember to change their oil, sharpen their blades and make their mower perform better and longer?
• If you help people deal with (and prevent) legal problems, how can you help your customers avoid rushing into your office with a problem that has to be solved NOW? Ounce of prevention, pound of cure kinda stuff. Be their lawyer every day or every week, just a little vs. being their rescue squad every 5 years.
• If you treat people’s injuries and diseases, how can you help them be safer at home and at work? How can you help them by advising them on nutrition and other preventative care, without becoming a nag? Knowing that these things require lifestyle / habit changes, how can you help your customers/patients make that happen? How can you help your patients make sense of the constant flow of health, nutrition and prescription information placed in front of them each day? How can you help them prevent injuries and disease, rather than waiting until they occur so you can treat them?
• If you sell building materials to professional contractors, how can you help them find more business so they can buy more building materials? Can you help keep them informed about industry promos, tax incentives and other things to help them be more competitive?
• If you sell advertising (better sit down), how can you help your clients track the effectiveness of all their advertising? How can you help them calculate the ROI on the advertising? Not guesswork, but real numbers based on the foot/internet traffic, revenue and profit each advertising source generates. Who is indispensable, the ad salesperson or the ad salesperson who is also a partner in profitability?
• If you sell computers, ANSWER YOUR PHONE. Those people on the other end of the phone who don’t know as much as you’ve forgotten about a computer are the ones with all the money. They’d like to give it to you, if only you’ll help them. Yes, to be indispensable in the computer business, quite often it’s as simple as answering your phone and helping them with their problem without being arrogant. In fact, just answering your phone will be a huge first step.

If I didn’t mention the business you’re in, use these things as inspiration to do what makes your business indispensable to your customers. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that because your specific type of business wasn’t mentioned, it won’t work for you. Likewise, if you’re thinking to yourself that “my business is different, it won’t work for me”, you’re right. If you don’t do these things – they won’t work for you.

The goal in doing all of these things is to position yourself and your business as the only place that your clients will consider doing business. Arrive at that position by doing this kind of stuff and both your checkbook and your customers will thank you.

Take care of them like no one else is willing to.

photo credit: kekremsi

Recently, the New York Times published a story about changing prices for books in print and how those prices compare to prices for electronic books.

In particular, the story focused on comparison pricing occurring at Amazon.com for books published both in paperback and for the Kindle, a very popular eBook reader manufactured and sold by Amazon.

The story teaches a very valuable lesson. It starts by quoting customers who automatically assume a lower manufacturing cost for an electronic book, since the incremental cost of producing extra copies appears to be (or close to) zero.

Customers, unaccustomed to seeing a digital edition more expensive than the hardcover, howled at the price discrepancy, and promptly voiced their outrage with negative comments and one-star reviews on Amazon. “Really, James Patterson?” wrote one reader from Elgin, Ill. “Why would it possibly cost more for a digital download than printed and bound ink on paper?”

Nowhere

Nowhere does anyone say anything about the fact that the reader gets the same VALUE from both books.

Nowhere does anyone say anything about the fact that the reader can read the Kindle version on their PC, Jerry’s iPad, Dad’s Blackberry, Joe’s iPhone, Sandy’s iPod Touch or their brother’s Mac.

Nowhere does it talk about the ability to share comments/annotations, read a page on one device and find it in that same place when they start reading the next time on a totally different device.

For that matter, nowhere does anyone note that the value of the book has nothing to do with the cost of ink, paper, binding or electrons.

Neither should the author of a book, regardless of the means used to deliver it.

Oh the cost of it all

Yes, I realize that the printed book seems like it ought to cost more.

After all, someone had to put it in a box, put it on a truck and deliver it to the local bookstore. There’s the cost of the driver, the truck, the fuel, the paper, the ink, the brick and mortar that built the store and so on.

The difference to most is that people typically don’t see the costs invested to deliver the electronic form, all they see is that 1 copy costs no more than 2 copies because it’s just another download.

When people howl about the price of an electronic book, no one considers the amount (much less the cost) of research and development necessary to design the Kindle device and have it manufactured and shipped to the U.S.

They don’t marvel at the costs of the servers and software to support the book’s transport to a wide range of devices and software viewers.

They don’t consider the boardroom and engineering efforts to work out deals with cellular carriers so that the device can download newly purchased books and sync anywhere in the world without so much as a login.

But none of that matters. It’s great evidence. Great talking points.

But it doesn’t matter one bit.

What matters

The value of the content inside the book is what matters.

What if you opened that book and in two hours of reading learned something that changed your life, changed your business or cured a problem you’ve had for years?

Is the allegedly zero incremental cost of that electronic book in any way relative to the value you received from it? No way.

Are professional baseball bats priced like a 2×4? Are a PGA champion’s golf clubs priced like stainless steel and graphite you might find in an auto parts store? Of course not.

So why is it so easy to assume that a printed book is worth more than an electronic version?

Because no one put any effort into convincing you that the electrons (or the paper and ink) don’t even begin to set the value.

98 cents

Your body is worth about 98 cents in “ingredients”.

Going by that measure, Winston Churchill and Einstein are each the equivalent in value of mass murderer Charles Manson.

I don’t think so.

Never let your products/services get to the point where the value you deliver is calculated primarily by the container it’s delivered in and/or the material it’s made of.

photo credit: JOE MARINARO

Like I suspect you do, I get a number of automated emails asking how someone’s service was, or reminding me to deal with this or that before a deadline.

Most of these are innocuous emails that were done with an honest effort to help, but because the process was left unfinished, there’s very little long-term or accumulating value in them.

More value *could* come with a little more automation salted with a little personal touch.

For example, if I take a box to the local UPS Store (which recently reopened in our town, thankfully), I have an email waiting for me before I arrive home from the 3 mile drive from their shop.

The email includes the tracking number, a link to check on my package, an estimated arrival date, and perhaps the destination and a brief thank you.

Right up to that point, this is a minimum that should be getting done. There’s value in this email because I can check the link and perhaps put the email in my calendar so I remember to check the status later. Yes, a link to an iCal file to auto-add the delivery date to my calendar would be a nice option.

And then….silence.

Silence isn’t the right answer. It’s unfinished business.

Why silence isn’t golden

In many businesses, there is no email confirmation going on.

When doing business with those firms, I have to call (or they do) in order to find out what’s going on, when my work is done, what the estimate amount was and so on.  For those businesses, this post is a bit of a what-to-do checklist.

So why is the silence after that first email “unfinished business”?

Because it doesn’t complete the task at least as well as you would if you were standing in front of them when the package was delivered. An email isn’t an excuse to get out of work. It’s a way to give your customer the choice of being better informed.

But still, unfinished?

Yes, because (for example) I don’t get an email when the package is delivered and signed for.

That means they’ve missed an opportunity to confirm that the transaction completed as promised while subconsciously reminding me I use them because their job is to set my mind at ease.

It also subconsciously plants yet another seed that I can trust that business to get my package where it’s going safely and on time so I can consider the job delegated successfully.

That’s a big thing if you’re in the service biz.

In addition, they miss the opportunity to add a comment that…

• Reminds me that 9 packages have been shipped this month and all arrived on time for less than USPS or Fedex rates (or similar).
• Reminds me that customers who ship as often as I do can save time by opening a monthly-pay account at the store, allowing me to walk in, drop the package and leave rather than wait in line to ship and pay.

And so on.

Note that none of these emails require any manual labor once the templates are setup. The automated shipping notification systems are doing all of the work from that point forward. The result is that your business is more productive (given fewer calls re: package status) and your clients are better informed.

The next step: Those “How was our service?” emails could be of far more value to your customers and your business if someone paid attention to them. More on that tomorrow.

PS: These references to email could just as easily be text messages to my phone. Wouldn’t be lovely if I could choose one or both?

photo credit: ToastyKen

The oft-referenced-here Cialdini work “Influence” speaks in volume via today’s guest post from Rob’s IM Reports.

While the guest post’s video is intended to be funny, it does a nice job of illustrating a situation most of us have faced at one time or another.

You might also have created some of them. Did they make you squirm?

Preventing squirm

How you communicate value (and thus price) – and do so ethically, without royally ticking off your customer – is HUGE to maintaining your price structure.

Maintaining that is critical to creating the profits you need to stay open, grow and if necessary, hire.

We’ll talk more about that next week as we jump into the Amazon e-book pricing mess.

photo credit: williamcho

One of the difficult things about entrepreneurs is maintaining your focus.

Most entrepreneurs are interested in many things, so the BSO (bright shiny object) threatens to pull them away from their core mission cuz that other thing would be soooo interesting to work on.

Still others wonder what their core mission is.

Just this morning I heard a guy ask “What if I don’t know what I want to do?”, in response to a suggestion that he find his purpose in life and focus on finding a way to make a living serving that purpose.

If  YOU don’t know what you want to do, I’m not sure how anyone else would. OTOH, why not ask someone? “What kind of work would you call me in to perform before you’d call *anyone* else?”

One way

We’ve discussed this in the past and one pragmatic suggestion was to consider the things that you get asked to do by the smartest people you know. Stuff you actually *want* do, that is

A bit more entertaining way would be to think about some others who do amazing things in their line of work.

Say for example that you asked Clark Kent. He’s Superman. His answers might be “Leaps tall buildings in a single bound”, “Faster than a locomotive” and “X-ray vision”. In other words, he has super-human strength.

If you asked Peter Parker, he might talk about his ability to walk up a skyscraper.

You get the idea.

So…when you perform from your strengths as if you are a superhero, how would you describe your power? What super-human strengths do you have?

Here’s an example

Mine center around a few related areas.

• Though I don’t always exercise it, I seem to find it easy to have a conversation between warring parties without either of them wanting to fit me for a pair of Jimmy Hoffa Concrete Galoshes (No, I have no desire to play detente-boy in the Middle East).
• I find it easy to ask troubling but non-confrontational questions about situations and opportunities that others don’t often see, though I think a good bit of that is because people are too close to their situation to be honest with themselves (or to have clear vision). I’ve been guilty of that as well. We all have forests that keep us from seeing trees.
• Processes (technical, marketing, operational, you name it) have always intrigued me. I feel very much at home looking at them from perspectives ranging from 10000 ft to piece by piece dissection. “Seeing” how they can be improved has been a core strength. I have to be careful with this one because it’s easy to become the guy wielding the shovel. All I have to do is I let “my altitude” get too low – and thus too close to the process rather than going big picture. Yeah, I know. A little wishy washy.

That last one is what merges the marketing side of my head with the geek side.

Enough about me…has that given you an idea how to describe your super power?

I’d love to hear yours.

photo credit: Hamed Saber

This has been in the queue for a while, and the source of the discussion is BizJournals.com, which I’ve read regularly for years (yes, that’s a hint).

While there are some good points in this piece, some parts of it read as if it was written by a Yellow Pages salesperson (not traditionally a person experienced in running a small business, nor in results-oriented marketing).

Here I quote the author’s advice (which isn’t all bad) in plain type and include in bold my thoughts on their “6 fundamental points”.

1. People buy based on familiarity. That said, the primary value of advertising is branding and name recognition. In other words, you cannot control timing — when a person needs what you sell — but you can heavily influence who they think of first. This means that you should not invest in any advertising media unless you are willing to commit to a minimum of six months, and preferably a year, of consistent, repetitive messaging to your targeted demographic. Print publications are still king when it comes to reaching the local audience — but people need to see your message repeatedly if they are going to remember you when it is time to buy. We’re familiar with a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean we buy them. Give me a compelling case to buy, not “familiarity”.

   No question that timing advertising to purchase time is difficult (exception: search-based advertising), and no doubt, you can and should be invested in influencing who people think of when they consider what you sell (what I call “top of mind” positioning). Consistent messaging to your targeted demographic is part of creating that top-of-mind positioning. This is one of the reasons I remind you to consider using direct mail (among other things).

   But to claim that newspapers do such targeting is crazy in most cases. Further, the implication that you shouldn’t expect success for 6 months to a year is unacceptable. In some markets, large papers (often via national newspaper insertion service vendors) have successfully used insertion technology that lets you target demographics quite narrowly. In most markets, this kind of targeted marketing is not available to newspaper advertisers.

   The real shame is that this kind of targeting does not extend to display ads or classifieds, though given the nature of newspaper print technology, it is understandable. The large service vendors I mentioned above are not built to service your local town daily or weekly newspaper.

   Newspaper advertising performs best in small communities. The why should be obvious and it explains the numbers you see on the continued success of weekly papers vs. big city dailies.

2. Mix up your marketing channels. Print publications today are the only media resource that can provide you with multiple reach products — print ads, inserts, online campaigns, Post-It notes, specialty magazines, etc. — in ways that are customized to attain specific marketing objectives.The “only” resource of multiple reach products? Direct mail houses, web designers, email vendors and a number of others would be surprised to learn that. You don’t “mix up your channels” just for the sake of doing so. You choose them strategically. Who reads that? Who watches (and when)? Who listens to that (and when)?

   Each media/each piece, while integrated with the overall plan/message still needs to perform. It still must be measurable and produce a desired result (financial or otherwise). It still must make an offer or induce the next desired behavior.

3. Work with a qualified expert. A skilled, well-trained newspaper ad rep can replace your need for an ad agency by providing well-designed, targeted ideas to attract new customers to your door — at no additional cost to you. While it is true that using their design department can save you some money in the short term, newspaper ad reps are primarily concerned with design from a designer / artistic perspective. Sure, the agent wants you to come back and buy more ads (see #1 above) so they are tangentially vested in your success, but they are not typically well-versed in direct marketing, and have rarely owned their own business. The mindset is important.

   Small business owners know that results are what matter over all else. Winning ad contests and design awards mean nothing if the ad DIDN’T produce an acceptable ROI.

4. Utilize a combination of print and online media. Contrary to conventional wisdom, newspaper readership is not declining, it is simply migrating. More people are reading the newspaper than ever before; the growth in readership is coming from people who are reading the news online instead of in a print product. The point? Newspapers still deliver excellent results, but you must advertise in both print and online to attain maximum reach of your message. Depends on who you are trying to reach. This has traditionally been the difficult thing about newspaper advertising. They have largely been unable to deliver (and thus charge) for ads (for example) that should be sent only to married women 35-55 with a household income of $xx,xxx or more. Instead, they charge a lower rate to advertise to a large portion (or all) subscribers with very little if any targeting.

   In many cases, a zip code, a specific section or a certain day of the week is the best you can get as far as targeted marketing in much of the newspaper world. In some cases, it’s all or nothing. That’s OK, but you must take that into consideration when designing your ad, much less deciding whether or not to place it.

   To business owners that understand and leverage direct marketing and expect more than the tired “1% is typical” response, the inability to target specific types of readers is not acceptable.

   As for the assertion that readership isn’t declining, ask your newspaper to show you Google Analytics to back up their claim that they are recovering lost print readers via *their* online site. Don’t take no for an answer. Ask for references, as you would with any other advertiser.

   Pick a few ads for similar markets and be sure to choose those whose ads are sized much like yours will be. Call them and pin them down. Ask them if their ad is performing, but don’t settle for “yes”. Ask what the return on investment is. Ask how many new customers the ad brings in each issue (or each week). What are your criteria for calling the ad “successful”?

5. You will get much better results by running a smaller ad for a longer period of time than by running a large one for a shorter duration. When budgetary constraints are an issue, the duration of the campaign is of paramount importance.In general, I agree with smaller ads for a longer period vs larger ads for a shorter period, but the duration of the campaign isn’t the paramount issue. If you put $10 into an ad and get $20 back each time, wouldn’t you want to run the ad until it stops working? Producing results is what matters.

6. When using online advertising, always include a link to your website in the form of a “click” button, and include a special offer in your message. This serves as a portal to drive traffic to your website. A button and a text link should both be tested (response varies depending on the audience). The ad’s job is to get you to do the next thing – click through. The page where the click through goes had better be a specific landing page for that ad’s offer, NOT the home page of the website.

   The landing page is your responsibility. The link is theirs, so make sure they include the right analytics parameters and landing page address so that you can measure response, know exactly where it came from and present the proper in-context offer that matches the ad that the prospect clicked. If the paper wants to send clicks to your main website page, they don’t understand online marketing.

7. During your ad campaign, change your message every four to six weeks, but always include your logo, and maintain a consistent look to your messages. This serves to reinforce your brand. Remaining consistent is fine as it concerns your logo and look (think “Apple”). However, changing your message just because the calendar says so is foolish. There are successful marketing campaigns that have been in use for decades with only trivial changes after initial fine tuning.

   If your ad is returning 20-30% ROI consistently over a long period, why would you change it just because the calendar said so? When you make changes, test them. Every single one of them. Always be trying to beat the current “best performing” ad, not simply swapping it out because you’re tired of it.

8. Newspapers employ highly skilled design professionals who create thousands of ads for customers – at no cost to you. Work closely with your advertising rep and their design team to create high-quality copy that you can utilize in other marketing efforts for your business. Yes, the newspaper does usually have highly-skilled design pros, but are they highly-skilled / trained in direct marketing as well as graphic design? Hopefully so. Would you rather have an ad that wins design contests or an ad that brings in 10x what it costs each week? Id prefer both, but I’ll choose the 10x response if I can only have one of the two.

9. Take advantage of appropriate special sections as a ‘booster shot’ to your overall ad campaign. This is an inexpensive way to reinforce your message in a product that has a highly targeted audience and an extended shelf life. Make sure your message and the audience fit the ideal audience for the special section. Ask for placement in the section that complements what you’re selling.

10. Be patient. Look at any quick sales that you make as a bonus, but not as the primary measurement of advertising effectiveness. Recognize that it takes time to build brand recognition, particularly if you are a new business or are entering a new market.Horsehockey. This is about setting low expectations so they can sell a long ad placement. There’s nothing wrong with a long ad placement that works. Your ad, your offer should be compelling enough to create business the day it appears. If it doesn’t, then it needs work.

11. Finally, remember that it is the newspaper’s job to bring new customers into your door; it is your job to keep them. Word-of-mouth marketing and repeat customers are the lifeblood of your business. These do not depend on advertising; they depend on your ability to provide an outstanding, memorable experience to your new customer. Advertise to bring them in, and the rest is up to you. Couldn’t agree more.

(end of point/counterpoint)

If you think I’m anti-newspaper, keep in mind that I write a successful newspaper column. I’m not anti-newspaper (and in fact, was recently involved in a successful newspaper insert campaign). However, I am against wasteful, ineffective advertising.

Make your advertising decisions for the right reasons so that you can advertise even more. When you can afford to advertise more than your competitors because every advertising dollar produces positive ROI, you’re on the right track.

photo credit: shortlake

Every day, a lot of folks pull on the panty hose or cinch up the silk tie, drive a $20-30-40K car to the office and then proceed to pursue prospects with a club, just like the caveman did umpteen thousand years ago.

They’ve been told (or know from experience) that for every 500 (or 150, 0r 4500) prospects they chase, they’ll manage to catch and club a certain number and drag them back to the cave (er, I mean office) by the hair, just like those Geico guys used to chase to do when they chased mastodons thousands of years ago.

So how does the modern day caveman decide what to do today? They look at their quota for the day and go out looking for someone to club.

But…I don’t see many doing the math. Of those who do, seems like an awful lot of them are taking that quota for the day and multiplying it times the number of mastodons… I mean prospects… it takes to get a daily-quota-full of customers.

Don’t get me wrong

I don’t want anyone to think that getting those new customers is a bad thing. It isn’t as long as you’re delivering what they want and need.

My point is that you’re wasting a lot of time chasing the mastodons that do little more than waste your time. Why chase something that runs 1 mph (in effect) faster than you?

To wear it down? What if you wear down first?

Will you be able to run just as fast at 50 as you do at 25 or 30? (inside secret – not likely, no matter what YOU think)

To be sure, if that’s the only way you can get there, by all means head out with your club rather than doing nothing.

Just keep in mind that you’re working harder than you have to. Not that there’s anything wrong with working hard (notice a pattern here?), but if you’re gonna lift mastodons over your head, lift the ones that pay off.

So what’s the alternative?

Get the mastodons to chase you

Taking your club, going out and getting 500 NOs so you can get 10 YESs works, but it works in a way that hides the waste.

What if you could get 25 to 50 of those people to line up in the “Maybe, tell me more” line IN ADVANCE?

Not only would you waste a lot less time hearing “No” but you’d have a TON more time to talk in detail with folks who are actually interested in what you’re have to offer them.

Instead of rushing from No to No, you’d have all that extra time to actually LISTEN to the Maybes. Imagine how much more you could learn about what they need.

Real time, real money

Let’s take a look at the real cost. “Extra time” is a little too fluffy for me.

Figure you spend 5 minutes at the most *on average* with those 500 prospects: 5 minutes per call times 500 calls is 2500 minutes.

That’s TWO and a half WEEKS, plus an hour and change, assuming you’re working 40 hour weeks. You’re getting nothing else done for that two and half weeks?

• Can you pay your way on the 10 or 50 clients/sales that gets you over that 2 week period?
• Can you maintain that pace?
• Do you have that many leads? (1000+ leads per month)

It’s a lot easier and more profitable to be the expert that people in that market seek out by reputation.

Plus it gives you the time to serve those folks properly rather than wasting your time disqualifying (“getting rid of”) 450-475 people.

Let your positioning do that.

More customers, more productivity, more profit. Guaranteed.

That’s my USP (unique selling proposition), but some might also call it my mission statement. I don’t really look at it like a mission statement by someone’s pure definition, but in a lot of ways – they are the same thing.

So why is it that and not something like “blah blah blah optimal blah blah blah cohesive blah blah blah forward-thinking blah blah solutions blah blah blah”? (as spoken by Charlie Brown’s teacher)

Other than the fact that I can actually *remember* the short one, it’s because I’ve been through the process Dan Heath describes below in this short 3 minute video:

It’s usually an AWFUL process and interestingly enough – after all that self-inflicted punishment, I always work my way back to the original statement and keep it because it’s short and powerful. It doesn’t have a lot of crap, wordsmithing or baggage. Believe me, I’ve tried adding words to it like “I help small business get …” and so on.

EVERY time, I end up pulling those things out.

Norm at Norm’s News in Kalispell says “Eat dessert first”, for example. They sell old-fashioned candy, milk shakes like your great grandpa talks about and so on.

Is yours short and powerful?

Is yours not only short enough to remember, but powerful and impactful enough to act on and motivate others? I hope so.

Don’t stop there – Now apply this to your marketing message(s).

If they feel like something that came from the meeting described in the video, ask yourself a few questions:

• Could this be why your marketing is so darned boring?
• Is this why your response rate is 0.005%?

Uh, yeah. Probably so.

Take that dude with the corporate-speak hat out in the parking lot and have him park cars, wax deck chairs or something until that stuff clears out of his mind. Maybe toss one of Seth’s books at him.

No matter what – take a firehose to that vocabulary. It’s boring, it doesn’t stand out in any crowd and it sure doesn’t compel anyone to do business with you – not even the stodgiest of companies.

Now, start over. Remember what you wanted to do when you started this thing? Remember the stuff you do for customers that gets you jacked up? Remember the thing that you’d rather do than almost anything (yeah, besides “that” and skiing, of course).

That’s what your mission – and most likely your USP – is all about.

Update: A nice resource from Dan and Chip Heath to help you get this process right, tossing out the stuff you dont need.

Your competition’s employees in LowRentEconomyIstan are willing to work this hard – and not for $50K a year. Maybe for 50 cents a day.

Someone mentioned to me privately after reading Where were you that if he didn’t know better, he’d think I was trying to put a guilt trip on folks.

He didn’t mention it (though I know he realized it) that my real point was that anyone used to competing locally has already found (or will soon find) themselves competing in a statewide / regional / national / global market.

How you react is the critical thing.

Whaddya do, wait, whine or work?

A friend’s business is facing a similar challenge.

For two decades and then some, they’ve competed against local and in-state firms.

That’s all changed now.

In the last year or so, every single opportunity they’ve bid on has had national and regional players at the table.

My guess is that some of you are experiencing the same thing.

In that environment, in their market, qualifications aren’t likely to even make it into the discussion before local firms get pushed off the table.

The national firm’s materials will make them the obvious choice (where have you heard that before?) because a local firm’s marketing materials, sales expertise and experience will be *normally* be hard pressed to match that of a national firm.

Of course, those processing the bids won’t acknowledge it and they might not even realize they’re doing it because worst case, it happens subconsciously as if they were staring at a pretty girl or a handsome man.

Because they have to compete on a bigger, shinier stage, these firms have honed their image and their materials over years of competing with other national and regional firms. It’s quite possible that some of them have had to battle it out with international competitors.

That leaves the local firm with the same choice we discussed a while back: Wait, Whine or Work.

Again, we circle back to “what other people do”. What do they do to succeed that you don’t yet do? It doesn’t matter how important *you* think these things are. What matters is how important they are in the minds of your customers and prospects.

In simple terms: What’s the market think? How do they buy? Why do they buy? What puts them over the edge?

Your reasons don’t mean much. Theirs mean everything. Either you deal with global competition or it’ll deal with you.

Waiting around for some Senator to “fix” your competitive problem isn’t gonna help. Fix your competitive position yourself. It’s faster and a lot cheaper than a politician.

photo credit: coolz0r

On the BBC television show TopGear, one of the hosts was reviewing a new Audi sports car.

After going on about the car, cooing about its performance and handling, he had to come up with something to say how amazing he felt about it overall.

Keep in mind that despite slowly changing demographics, this is mostly a guy show. It’s about cars, geeky mechanical stuff and perhaps most importantly, stupid projects we build for no apparent reason.

So he said about the car…. “It’s like Scarlett Johansson’s lips.”

He said it much better than just saying “Wow”, or perhaps just by staring “for too long” as if you were hypnotized. I’m guessing that anyone who actually knows who Scarlett is (or at least has seen her photos/movies) knows exactly what he means.

By describing it in that way, he put an exclamation point on it that made it difficult not to want to drive the car.

How do the testimonials your clients give make it difficult not to try your products and services?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Rory Sutherland asks how a prospect or customer gets to that place in this 16 minute TED video. Sort of.

How does perceived value impact your business and your clientele’s thinking?

How could it?

It’s not about lying or confusing prospective (and existing) customers.

It’s about making it easier to see the value in what you make or do. You have no more important job and that’s what marketing (and positioning) are all about.

If you sell the best *whatever* in the world but know one seems to know about it, does it really matter how good that *whatever* is?

Making it obvious to the customer why they can’t get to sleep that night without getting their hands on a package of that thing (or service) that you sell. Holy cow, I gotta have that.

Think about it over a bowl of Diamond Shreddies. I suggest the combo pack…

photo credit: gruntzooki

Would airlines be (more?) profitable if they didn’t have to pay for the fuel to get their planes from the runway to 35,000 feet?

I’m guessing they would. Think about all the fuel it takes to lift half a million pounds (or so) of aluminum, fuel, people, iPods and 3 ounce shampoo bottles all the way to 35,000 feet.

A lot. From the research I’ve done, it takes about twice as much fuel to climb as it does to cruise. There are variables, but that’s the basics.

Whether you run an airline or a flower shop, how you get started is important.

What it costs in time and money to get a new customer rocking and rolling with your product and service is more than important.

Set the tone

How you get started usually sets the tone for everything that comes after that point.

As I may have told you that back in the prehistoric days (ie: the photo software), we were always looking for a way to shorten the sales cycle. To find a way to make people think “yep, gotta have that now” vs. “gotta have that, but maybe next quarter”.

We talked about this a little not long ago when pet peeves was the topic of the day.

One of the pet peeves of any custom software product is the setup process. In the case of a detailed, vertical market package like ours (and perhaps like yours), “teaching” the software how you run your business isn’t easy.

We had one couple tell us that they put it off for 6 months and ended up renting a hotel room for the weekend just to get the setup task behind them. Well meaning, always intending to do it, but never could get enough quiet time to educate our software – until they got a room.

Hello? McFly? Am I paying attention to that?

Absolutely.

Yes, of course we started doing the setup for them. I may have told that story here before. Doesn’t matter – it’s that important.

It transformed our sales process and started our customers off so fast that they were productive in short order.

It was a killer start to our relationship because it allowed our experts to set the software up right (kinda important) and the information they sent us (price lists, policies, documents and such) helped us understand our new customer’s business.

Oh, and they loved it because we did it for them and their investment started getting used right away.

But that isn’t why I brought it up (though it’s a pretty good reason.

Bang

And that’s what I’m getting at today. That setup thing got them started with a bang. In no time, they were productive and at cruising altitude at almost no cost to them in time or hard dollars.

No excuses. 7 days from purchase to startup. Everyone’s head turns at that “no time or hard dollar cost” thing – especially in 7 days.

What can you do to make the climb to cruising altitude easier for your clientele?

Whether you sell software, coffee beans, tax services or lawn tractors, I’ll bet there’s something (else) you could be doing to make the climb a little bit (or a lot) easier.

Now…imagine what a competitive edge it will be when you can say something like this: “If you buy our planes and use our maintenance services, we’ll pay for the fuel required to get our planes from takeoff to cruising altitude and we’ll do it for as long as your service contract is in force.”

Obviously you’ll be saying it in the context of what you do – but I think you get the idea, mostly because my example is so far fetched.

Perhaps best of all, I’ll bet you can find something awesome without giving away 6500 lbs of jet fuel every day (per plane).

photo credit: Sukanto Debnath

The primary message / goal / mission of this blog is that you and your business need to create a more personal connection with your clients.

To that end, someone asked me this morning about the website work that I do. We talked briefly about the technology (because that someone was a technical person) but the really important thing to talk about is the conversation you want the site to have with the people who visit it.

To your existing clients and those who already trust you, your site can be a channel to elicit conversation, to keep folks up to date on what’s new in your business and how you can help them.

But…you have to get them from “Hi, nice to meet you” before that conversation makes sense. Otherwise, it can feel like spam or an unwanted telemarketing call.

Nice to meet you

To everyone that you’ve never met or who hasn’t yet got a reason to trust you, your website is an introduction. It’s a way to expose to them what you do, what you think, what you have in common, perhaps personally and professionally but more importantly mindset-wise.

How would you want a client, friend or partner to introduce you to a prospective new client or business partner?

How would you want to be introduced to someone who has needs that are a *perfect* fit with your best skills and deepest expertise?

How would you want to be introduced to someone who already has the trust of 614 people who would greatly benefit from what you do?

What conversation about you would motivate the perfect prospective client feel the need to contact you immediately?

Is your website doing these things?

photo credit: joshuahoffmanphoto

Kinda stands on its own, doesn’t it?

http://www.cowboyethics.org/TenPrinciples.html

It’s what customers want and expect, but in many cases they’ve become accustomed to much less.

Use it as a starting point and deliver no less.

I have to say that I never expected a country-western song to be a guest post, but it is what it is.

For the rest of the story about how United Airlines baggage handlers trashed Dave Carroll’s guitar and more importantly, their customer service and management mistakes afterwards, drop over to FastCompany.com.

4.5 million views later, it’s more than the old saw that customers who have a bad experience tell 10 people. Nowadays, they can tell everyone, everywhere.

If your service isn’t what it should be, don’t be surprised if you end up going viral for all the wrong reasons.

Of course, that assumes that you care in the first place.

PS: Play close attention to the winner in this deal: Taylor Guitars.

Update: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer covers the story.

Update: United Breaks Guitars – Song 2

Update: A video that was supposedly made by the Mrs. Irlweg referred to in both songs. I don’t know if it’s really her or not. If it is, not a wise move IMO.