Jun 12, 2013 | Change, Customers, Lean, Operations, Sales
The sorts of customers you have play a significant role in defining who you are.
A former client had a customer base that valued the hands on, custom design, and short supply chain they offered on their packaging component items. That group of clients were not buying the high volume, commoditized products, but far smaller volumes for more specialised and bespoke products.
However, promises of large volumes can be seductive, so in the face of squeezed margins and a flat industry, they broadened their product base to include the low margin high volume items required by the large commodity product suppliers.
The equation was changed, no longer did they enjoy an intimate relationship with their largest customers, being engaged in their businesses at a detailed, technical and developmental level, they were just suppliers who could be replaced with product from China or the US.
The result is a flat revenue line over the last 5 years, with fragile margins despite great success in increasing the productivity of their asset base and employees, and a significant lowering of overheads.
It takes guts and vision to turn a customer away, but it often pays.
Jun 10, 2013 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Small business
Most customers could not give a rats arse about your vision, values, your customer value proposition, and all the other stuff highly paid consultants rant on about (obviously not me).
What they do care about are the little things, the ones that affect them.
I bank with the same bank I have since they were the only ones who would lend me money for a house 35 years ago, and have just not bothered to change, I usually buy the one brand or petrol, not because it makes the car run any better, but because they are around the corner, and the restaurant I go to most is a little suburban French place that does seasonal vegetables in an ever changing vinaigrette as a side. I love it.
I used to always buy my books (yes, I still buy real books) at the same bookshop where one of the staff seemed to be able to read everything that came through the door, and was able to steer me towards stuff I might like with considerable accuracy. Now however, the store owner is cutting costs, staff has been reduced, and the recommendations of the 15 year old casuals are just not up to the mark.
So, before you spend all that money on the marketing consultants with the new bag of clichés, and web enabled tricks, exercise a bit of common sense and consider the small things, why people come to you, why they choose you instead of the place down the road or over the web, how do you deliver value to them, and what keeps them coming back.
It helps to ask, most people are happy to answer honestly, and the simple fact that you care enough to ask is valued.
Jun 3, 2013 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
Amongst the most common questions I get is “how do we make it viral?”
In the minds of most, “Viral” amounts to “Free” and it may be, but it costs to get there, even if the costs are often less obvious than an invoice from an ad agency.
Word of Mouth has always been the most effective form of advertising, and it still is. An endorsement from a friend or known expert, is marketing Gold. However, in the “old days” of word of mouth, you never heard what Mrs Jones said to Mrs Brown over the back fence, you just hoped you had done enough that it would be an endorsement rather than a panning, but on an individual basis, it really did not matter, so long as the balance was right.
No longer.
Word of mouth has changed into word of mouse, and the while the upside is seductive, the downside is the loss of control, and the immediacy of the impact.
You simply cannot control what is said, or the outcome of the saying, all you can do is respond, and the quicker the better, and with a healthy dose of common sense, a rare commodity it often seems.
May 29, 2013 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
This afternoon I saw the best example of marketing I have seen in ages, a metaphor for what it takes to be successful in this crowded, commoditised world.
Two youngsters, dressed in jeans and the T-Shirt of the Cancer Council were stopping people in the street and trying to have a chat with a view to extracting a donation. Both were working hard, were well presented, earnest, spoke well, and had big welcoming grins on their faces. However, one was far more successful than the other in both successfully stopping people, engaging in a conversation, and then extracting a donation.
The less successful was approaching people with the grin, and welcoming patter, only to have most people just brush by. The second did one more very simple thing, he offered his hand, and in almost every case, it was taken, the person stopped, and a conversation started.
The automatic reaction to the simple generosity of offering a hand in welcome was almost irresistible, even to total strangers, in a situation where they knew the “bite” was coming.
Amazing.
Think about your marketing, traditional or social, do you offer the metaphoric hand? Is the follow up “conversation” sufficiently interesting that it has the chance of engaging a potential customer to the point where they will give you their business?
I think offering a hand is the original Social Media, and it still works better than anything else.
Apr 26, 2013 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Small business
The most powerful way to get someone to agree with your idea is to ask them the leading question, and have them tell you.
Ronald Regan used this technique a lot. He did not tell the American people “your economic situation has deteriorated over the last 48 months”, instead he asked the famous question during his election campaign: “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?”. The answer was a resounding “NO” and he was elected.
Asking the right question can prompt a favourable, almost pre-deternmined response, but the formulation of the words to convey that response provokes a deeper, more intensive processing of the question. This leaves less room for ambiguity and uncertainty in the way the receiver responds to the question, and considerable committment to the answer.
I have also found it a great way to generate engagement at the opening of a presentation.
Apr 11, 2013 | Collaboration, Customers, Sales
“Relationships” is just a word used to describe the web of give and take that binds people together over time.
A transaction can take place without a relationship of any sort. However, a series of transactions that require choices to be made will slowly build into some sort of relationship, with a brand, a store, a salesperson.
Successful selling in the long term relies on relationships, the transaction is just a score keeping mechanism.
So, next time you sell something to a customer you have not seen before, it would pay you to find out something about them. Ask some polite, human questions, positively reinforce the intelligence of their purchase decision, find out what else you may be able to do for them, and give yourself the opportunity to turn a transaction into the beginning of a relationship.
