Service as a WIN-WIN

If We’re Going to Write, Let’s Do It Well!

2011-12-16T13:47:00.000-08:00

Business owners small and large often find themselves facing a blank page as they summon their wits to write about their business, their latest promotion, or even an important communication to a customer or partner. Experienced business writer and Service for Profit team member, Kathy Wilson, knows that writing is hard, and she’s taken the time to give all of us the following “tips of the trade” this Holiday Season:

Kathy Wilson - Writer/Editor

Whenever you find yourself composing a piece of marketing collateral, whether it’s a product brochure, white paper, case study, or customer e-mail, you want to keep your message as concise and tightly crafted as possible. At the same time, you want to deliver something that will communicate key messages effectively, hold your audience’s attention, and hopefully have the desired effect (e.g., call us, go to our website, buy our product, take advantage of this special offer).

This means making careful word choices and packing in as much rich and impactful content as possible. What you choose to include, to emphasize, and to leave out should start with what you believe will most motivate your audience. Is it general product information, competitive differentiation, ways to achieve increased efficiencies, lower costs, a better customer experience? Maybe it's some combination of these?

Once you understand your audience’s key drivers, you can get down to the job of carefully crafting your message. This can present many choices but your primary filter should always be focused on relevance, brevity, and impact.

For example, let's say that the company you're writing for offers products aimed at simplifying operations, improving the customer experience, and reducing costs. How do you write the most compelling message around these themes?

You could just use short, easy to digest bullets to summarize the company's value proposition:

· Simplifies operations

· Improves the customer experience

· Improves the quality of service deliverables

· Helps reduce costs

· Helps optimize systems and processes

· Improves customer satisfaction

· Creates a more engaging customer experience

But now watch what happens when we dig a little deeper. How does the company (and its products) do these things, and what additional benefits might be gained? Here are some alternate versions that illustrate this point:

· Automates repeat processes to reduce complexity and simplify operations (or)

· Automates repeat processes to improve operational efficiencies and service quality

· Lowers costs with automation and operational efficiencies to enhance ROI

· Cuts issue resolution times with complete visibility across integrated service delivery platforms and processes

· Supports expanded services to improve customer satisfaction and brand loyalty

· Integrates across social media to deliver a more accessible and engaging customer experience

Finally, there is one more thing we should be thinking about as we are writing and self-editing our copy—namely, can any of our key benefits be quantified? If they can, let’s do it. The impact will be much higher, and your credibility much greater than just stating features and benefits in generic terms.

· 15% savings over competitive solution without compromising speed or quality

· 24% reduction in manual processing for improved operational efficiencies

· 33% reduction in issue resolution time with support system integration and company-wide reporting

· 50% increase in website visitors; 18% increase in conversions

Sound easy? Give it a try the next time you’re facing that blank page. Making things as concise and impactful as possible usually requires two or three passes as you tighten and refine your message. But when you find those perfect word combinations, it will have been well worth the effort.

[Kathy is an experienced business communications writer, residing in Silicon Valley and is available for marketing communication projects when you can’t summon your Muse. You can reach her at khwilson@sbcglobal.net. A version of this short article also appeared in the blog published by the Envision Technology Marketing Group of San Jose where Kathy is a frequent contributor]

All the News That's Fit to Print

2011-12-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

Your newsletter might not be the NYT, but your customers may love it.

Do they call you and say, “I didn’t know you did that!” Do you get more referrals and inquiries within a week of your newsletter’s reaching its audience? Do you get calls for offers in newsletter issues from 2-3 months ago? Do professional partners thank you for featuring them in your newsletter by referring clients to you?

If the answer to any of these questions is “No,” then it's time to spend time tuning up your newsletter and making it more a more effective tool for boosting profits, retaining and attracting clients, and enhancing engagements. Fortunately, we can help you with those goals.

Newsletters can be difficult to produce consistently

The only thing that most small businesses agree on about newsletters is that they can be a pain to produce month after month. The attention demanded to get out each issue, the rush to collect submissions from contributors or write and edit copy yourself, and the absence of consistently measurable results that justify all the hassle frequently combine to sound the death knell for these marketing projects after a year or so.

To make your newsletter effective, try these ideas:

Focus on one category of readers to keep content relevant If you focus on a single target (like “customers” or “donors” or “business partners”), it’s likely that your readers will respond well to your content. After all, your content was created with your readers in mind. Of course, this may mean that, if you have multiple constituencies to keep informed, you will need multiple newsletters. Making sure you serve the unique needs of each group of readers will pay off in successfully communicating your message. One measure of such success is reader retention, or the measure of people that open, read and react to your newsletter each month. Indeed, when it comes to reader retention, content is KING. Many customers will learn about some aspect of your business they didn’t already know about and become an instant repeat buyer.

For instance, I use Express Printing in Sunnyvale California for much of my business printing. It does a great job for me. Recently I read in its newsletter that it now offers me QR codes that can be printed on my marketing materials to link them to a mobile-friendly webpage to increase my click through and conversion rate. Not only have I added the QR codes to material for my own business, but I felt great about referring the folks at Express to my clients.

Full of Fun—Better Than “Strictly Business” Don’t just focus only on yourself and your business; include some content that’s fun to read. Newsletter expert Jim Palmer said is a recent seminar, “Adding fun content is a great way to extend the shelf life of your newsletter. People keep it around if it is fun.” Types of “non-business content” he recommends are:

Calendar items
Work tips
Articles on The Work/Life Balance
Healthy living
Vacation tips

Of course, you don’t have to write this additional content yourself. Jim offers it for syndication, as do other vendors.

Dual distribution -- paper and electronic For most of my clients, I produce my regular eNewsletter and they like it just fine. But for some who don’t work in front of a computer every day or might be more open to receiving the communication in a different format, I also distribute a limited number of copies printed in paper, mailed bulk mail. While paper newsletters have less competition in the mail box than do emails in the INBOX, 1-6 pieces vs. 50 electronic emails/day, and tend to have a longer shelf life, they are more expensive for me to send since I must pay for printing and postage. I let my customers choose which they want to receive.

Consider using a BLOG as your electronic newsletter distribution vehicle Many of us use an email content management system to mail out our eNewsletters. Tools like Swiftpage or Constant Content are handy for this since we can be alerted to who opened the attachments and which ones bounce, and our opt ins and opt outs are automatically tracked for us. But Howard Sewell, of Spear Marketing, recommends using a blog tool, like Wordpress, as your distribution vehicle for eNewsletters:

“It allows you to post content on a more timely basis, so that news items aren’t always weeks old by the time someone reads them in newsletter form. It permits comments, likes, social sharing, and other interactive functionality that you don’t get with a simple email newsletter. It allows for greater flexibility in how people choose to subscribe: via email, Twitter, RSS, or Facebook. And perhaps most importantly, it extends the shelf life of newsletter content well beyond the inbox, by allowing it to live on in search results where it can continue to generate traffic, subscribers, and sales leads.”

Share the pain to increase the gain. Sounds catchy, doesn’t it? What I mean is that you should not take on the total responsibility for writing, editing, fact checking, and posting or formatting for printing all the content yourself. Try to identify sources for content (experts within your company or organization, guest contributors, and even customers, i.e., testimonials or case studies). Setting up an editorial calendar, with major and minor articles slotted 3-4 months in advance, will help you solicit guest submissions with plenty of lead time. You can also get help producing your newsletter. Check your Chamber of Commerce for marketing communication vendors in your area.

Newletters are worth it! They can make you money and help your service business grow. Now’s a great time to revitalize the newsletter you have or take steps to start publishing one.

Your Marketing Plan: Make 2012 a Successful Year!

2011-11-29T13:21:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up in Connecticut, I would always know when my family was about to take a trip: My dad would announce that he had received the TripTik^R. This customized set of maps from AAA, still used today, had been assembled in a package of easily “flipable pages” to guide our auto travel. These maps would keep us on the right road, help us choose excellent stopping points, and help us avoid hazards like road construction and speed traps. To Dad, it was unthinkable to take a long road trip without his TripTik.

You business needs a TripTik, too. Your thoughtfully prepared marketing plan fills the same function for your business. Just as a TripTik links your starting point with your destination, your marketing plan requires identifying your specific business goals for the year. The process of creating a marketing plan then fills in the blanks by answering these questions: how will you get there? What strategies and techniques will you employ? How will you spend your resources” Who will assist you? If you want to achieve your objectives—and you do!--It is just smart business to invest in your own success by spending giving some time and thought to how your marketing plan for next year will enable you to achieve them.

Start by asking and answering questions.

Identify your goals. Goal setting can be hard, especially if they required that you must reach a consensus with others. Professional facilitators frequently use a technique called “back casting” to surface ideas from groups that have trouble formulating goals. Here’s how it might work:

Imagine it is Thanksgiving Day 2014. A full 2 years have passed! We’re all a little greyer or a little wider in all the wrong places. We’re going around the table talking about what has gone well and how much we appreciate the breaks we’ve had. When it is your turn, you rise and begin describing the specifics in your life, particularly in your business. How have things improved? What has changed for the good? What new challenges are you convinced you can surmount?

Psychologists tell us that we always underestimate how fast things can change and that the more we can use our imagination; the easier it is for us to come up with new ideas. By focusing on a future date that seems far into the future, we allow out imagination to seek out-of-the-box ideas. Yet the reality is that, once unleashed, our businesses are capable of moving quickly to achieve new goals and dreams: A goal for 2014 frequently becomes a plan for 2012.

Goals are important, as are the traditional Who, What, When and Where – and “how much” questions. A SWOT (Strengths,Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is always part of the marketing plan that I develop for clients. This is also where competitive research can be helpful. Are other companies serving similar markets or making a similar product? What do their offerings look like? How are they priced? Is their marketing working for them? It used to be very difficult to get this information, but the Internet makes collecting this info easier. What about data that you can’t get on the internet or by interviewing customers? There are still ways to collect and use competitive information that are affordable and practical for small businesses. I recommend the Entrepreneurs Guide to Market Research by Anne Wenzel, which will be available in January 2012.

Giving thought to where you want to end up—your business goals—will inform the next steps, which determine how you make your journey – that is, how you execute your marketing plan. Planning obviously involves more than just setting direction. It also is the time to decide to focus on one or more target markets, the strategy to be employed, and the techniques that you will use to carry out that strategy. By “strategies” I mean, given a particular target market, how you will implement your goals. Typical strategies include Thought leadership, Pricing adjustment (Impact Pricing), or service productization. Once you have developed a working strategy, typically it is important to plan for a variety of techniques to realize your goal; these can include trade shows, websites, telemarketing, and email, to name a few. It is important to employ a mix a techniques since not all customers respond well to the same technique .

“How Much” can only be answered once you know the “where,” “who,” and “what.” Understanding the value of a new customer and the underlying cost of what you are selling (in labor or materials) will allow you to judge what you should “pay” to acquire a new customer.

Finally, it is important to build into your marketing plan certain “check-in” points. These represent opportunities to correct mistakes, revise assumptions, and correct for drift away from your objective. My dad’s TripTik consisted of specific pre-printed pages. Although it, too, is your guide to achieving your business destination, your marketing plan is a living document and will need to change with events that affect your market and the lives your customers are living.

Push, Pull and a Hand Shake: The Importance of Mix in Marketing

2011-10-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

“We’ve got a killer website. I don’t understand why we aren’t doing well!” If I had a nickel for every time I have heard that complaint . . .

Most people going into business for the first time don’t understand that marketing and business development necessarily involve a mix of approaches. While the idea that one single silver bullet will hit the target is understandably appealing, it’s NOT going to work because the target is never one individual who always has the same feelings and needs. Putting it that way makes obvious the need for multiple techniques and avenues to gain customer awareness and trust.

When I begin helping clients with their marketing plans, I always tell them that we need to plan for a mix of marketing techniques and investment. I use a mnemonic to help them remember the idea: Push, Pull and a Hand Shake. They need to blend Push marketing techniques with Pull Marketing investment and use personal marketing—that Handshake—for outreach and message correction.

Push Marketing – the Virtual Tap on the Shoulder

When marketers talk about push marketing, they are referring to the wide variety of techniques that can be used to attract the attention of potential customers and motivate them to take the first step in doing business with their clients. Telemarketing, advertising, direct mail—all are examples of this type of “interrupt” activity designed to call attention to a business and responsive action from potential customers.

Although all of these techniques have their quirks: some are more effective for certain products and services than others. But as a rule of thumb, the more you spend, the greater your success: frequency plus good execution yields desired outcome. Most of these techniques have the advantage of producing results fairly quickly.

But marketing campaigns based solely on Push, or Interrupt, marketing techniques inevitably fail. Why? This year, the average consumer will see or hear 1 million marketing messages, almost 3,000 daily. Since most automatically screen out most “interrupt messages,” other techniques must be used to get our attention.

Pull Marketing Investment

Many marketing tools do not interrupt the customer but, rather, support his intention when he seeks a product or service. The best example is search marketing, which is enabled by a website or blog that, when searched by a search engine, leads your prospect to your online information. You can also pay a fee to have him directed to your online information (pay for click). The more information you put online, on your website, your blog, your social media outlets, the more likely you will be found by a prospect interested in your business. Creating this online footprint can be expensive, and you must shoulder some of the cost before you sell your first widget.

Why assume the cost of implementing a Pull strategy? Simple: it works. MediaPost recently reported that U.S. spending on search engine marketing (another pull marketing technique) will grow from $12.2 billion in 2008 to $22.4 billion in 2013. Indeed, companies are embracing the idea of building entire campaigns around content that is shared through a variety of online and social media platforms. But just like efforts based solely on Push techniques, using Pull techniques in isolation may be self-limiting. For one thing, the expense of investing in and perpetually refreshing content in the absence of immediate demand (and business) is risky. Without continuing feedback from the target market in the form of measurable traffic, engagement, and commitment to the buying process, companies will be hard-pressed to continue to invest in Pull marketing.

Pressing the Flesh

The least expensive and the most effective marketing technique is personal marketing. It has long been employed by the smallest businesses. From the business card and referral swapping in networking groups to the attention-getting and positive reinforcement from public speaking events, actually meeting and touching your potential customers can be very gratifying. It provides a level of information and affirmation about you and your offerings that cannot be equaled. A little time spent honing your 30-second commercial can garner you new business in a single afternoon of networking. It also gives you immediate feedback about what parts of your message seem relevant and which parts don’t resonate with your prospects. You can also use that information to tweak your push and pull campaigns if they are running at the same time.

Marketing efforts that embody all three of these marketing modalities stand a good chance of being successful. They generate needed immediacy, higher conversion, and lower cost per lead.

How Much is the Doggie in the Window?

2011-10-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

I confess: sometimes when I’m flipping channels, I might occasionally land on the Home Shopping Network. Imagine my surprise last night when I noticed the funny square barcode in the lower right hand part of the screen. The announcer invited me to use my smart phone to get more info and actually make my purchase!

Quick Response (QR) codes got started in Japan as an aide to inventory control. According to Wikipedia, they were created by Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994 to track vehicles during the manufacturing process. Since then, they have been seized by national manufacturers to provide all kinds of information. Since QR readers are freely available on smart phones, the expectation is that they will become the “vehicle” of choice for conveying detailed info about products and services to exactly the people who want to see it. As my local printer, Terry Doland of Express Printing, has written in his blog: “Using Smartphone technology, people can scan a special QR (Quick Response) code and have their telephone connect to a web address, download a MP3 file, dial a telephone number or prompt the email client with a sender address.”

If you want to market to the hundreds of thousands of “smart phone” users, a demographic growing all the time, you will want to consider how to incorporate into your marketing mix the QR code.

So should you design your next mailing piece or flyer to feature a QR code?

“Not so fast,” cautions Manie Kohn, President of Don’t Tell Me, Show Me, a Silicon Valley company using an unprecedented combination of progressive online marketing, quality control and Realtor accountability to empower home sellers when choosing a real estate professional.

According to Mr. Kohn, current QR codes are associated with three problems as marketing components:

1. Small Market – only 6.2% of cell phone users scanned a QR code in June 2011, 23.5% of whom actually scanned from a poster or flyer according to the tracking firm, comScore.

2. Linked to unreadable content – many firms using QR codes linking them to WebPages that are not optimized for mobile devices. Consequently, “eyeballs” are lost when customers can’t see content easily or quickly

3. Too many links in the chain – for QR codes to serve up a prompt and positive user experience, phone must have a QR reader app that works well, is instantly accessible, Web connectivity, and readable meaningful content. Lacking any link loses customers.

My own opinion is that a QR code does not detract from the marketing message and seems like an easy way to win the attention of prospects with little incremental cost. I have added a QR code to my business card, which links to a mobile-ready version of my bio. I also recommend using QR codes to people trying to sell their car or a house with a flyer.

QR codes also seem a great way to sell services, especially if they can be linked to videos or podcasts that extend the service value proposition. But most pundits agree that until ALL cell phones come with built-in QR readers, adoption will be hit and miss.

The “Thank You” Economy--Missing Link to the Social Media Story?

2011-09-26T21:39:00.000-07:00


The Thank You Economy

I just finished reading The Thank You Economy by Gary Vanderchuck. I won’t use the word “revolutionary” because I his ideas are entirely expected and are indeed the “next step” in understanding how to influence the process of purchasing services. If I had no clue about the importance of social media to building a successful professional services business, I would now. The Publisher’s Product Description provides a good set-up:

“If this were 1923, this book would have been called "Why Radio Is Going to Change the Game" . . .

If it were 1995, it would be "Why Amazon Is Going to Take Over the Retailing World" . . .

The Thank You Economy is about something big, something greater than any single platform, no matter how revolutionary. It isn't some abstract concept or wacky business strategy—it's real, and every one of us is doing business in it every day, whether we choose to recognize it or not. It's the way we communicate, the way we buy and sell, the way businesses and consumers interact online and offline.”

The author does a great job explaining how the rise of the communications we call “social media” will combine with behaviors of successful customer-centric companies to turn the marketing calculus on its head.

Find out how companies big and small can scale personal, one-on-one attention to their entire customer base, no matter how huge, by using the same social media platforms that carry consumer word of mouth. The Thank You Economy offers compelling, data-driven evidence that we have entered an entirely new business era, one in which the companies that see the biggest returns won't be those that can throw the most money at an advertising campaign but the ones that can make their customers feel that they care the most about them.

The businesses and brands that harness the word-of-mouth power from social media to shift their cultures to be more customer-aware and fan-friendly, believes Vanderchuck, will be successful in getting and keeping customers over the long term.

SWOT Analysis -- A bit of James Bond for Your Business

2011-09-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

“I need a four-letter word ending in ‘T,’” I yelled out to my wife in the next room. My daughter in Indiana had gotten me hooked on an i-Phone app called “Words with Friends,” and here I am at 6:30 a.m. squinting at the screen.

“Try SWOT,” my wife yells, and, feeling particularly stupid, the palm of my hand flies up to hit my head. How could I not have thought of this word that I have used almost every week for the past years and written countless time? In marketing business, SWOT has a special meaning because it’s an abbreviation for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. And for every small business, part of its annual planning process should be a SWOT analysis.

A SWOT analysis is a great way to identify and summarize many of the factors that can influence small business success. Along with goal setting and a marketing plan, it can help inform business owners and managers about their best choices for investment, hiring, promotion, and even new product development.

I like to capture SWOT findings in a graphic consisting of a large rectangle divided into 4 equal squares. In the upper left goes a list of Strengths—the skills, abilities, and assets of the business. What does the business do particularly well? Are any employees “thought leaders” in their industry or can any employees be expected to make an extraordinary contribution to the business in the months ahead? Anything a customer wants that you provide and your competitor doesn't can constitute a possible strength. This is the place to list every aspect of the business that makes it a “stand out” enterprise.

To the right of that rectangle goes Weaknesses, a list of problems, temporary or long term, which could impair success of the business in the months ahead. A cash-flow issue? Running out of space? No parking for customers? Lack the latest machine or offering? Rack your brains to think of anything that could hamper your business in the months ahead. This is the place to list them.

In the bottom left square go those business bright spots that you see for the months ahead: Opportunities. If you provide house-cleaning services, find out how many potential customers are prospects moving into a new subdivision. If you’re a printer, find out what businesses are changing their names—and consequently in the market for re-branded stationery products. Are your present customers converting to a new platform and will they need migration services? What upcoming opportunities do you see for an uptick in business or profits?

Finally, in the bottom right square--Threats. What stands between you and success? What specific development in the coming months could interfere with your plans for business success? Potential threats include downward price pressure, technology change, or even a specific competitor. It is possible for opportunities to become threats and vice versa. But advance thought and planning can reduce your exposure to threats and, sometimes, even transform them into strengths.

For example, computer maker Dell has been locked in competition with HP for leadership in the PC market. Here is a SWOT analysis, compiled by a 3^rd party as an exercise, of the factors effecting Dell in the next year.

Once you’ve completed your SWOT analysis, you can use it to give your business an edge. Take all necessary steps to avoid the threats you’ve identified and leverage your strengths to position your business to take advantage of the opportunities you’ve identified.

Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot When Using Powerful Marketing Tools

2011-06-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

When I opened the envelope, a crisp $10 floated out. Yup, it was real and completely spendable. The letter from one of those survey companies wanted a few minutes of my time and was willing to pay in advance for it.

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketing and Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing are different realms. But both are slaves to customer expectations. To be successful, they need to adapt their customer overtures to what customers expect and will tolerate. Of course, giving money away is a great way to initiate prospect relationships!

Consequently, I was predisposed to be patient when a few days later the survey company phoned me. When I look back on it, my surprise was how quickly I lost confidence, interest, and patience with this firm and metamorphosed from being a “booster” to being “completely dissatisfied and disinterested in further contact.”

So what happened? I think that the mistakes this firm made in managing our relationship are all too frequent and bear examination. Company X--I won’t embarrass the firm—is a leader in compiling usage data on American consumption patterns of mass media. Owners of radio, TV, and cable channels depend on accurate data about their audiences in order to set ad rates, confirm programming decisions and directions, and acquire other information to guide their business. This data is provided through a process of statistical sampling, a specialized function provided by a few companies that constantly revise their collection methods.

When Company X called, I was ready and willing to talk with them. Asked if I would be willing to join their panel, I said, “Sure.” “Not so fast,” they said. “First, we have to qualify you to confirm we are talking to who we THINK we’re talking to.” (Ok, they paid me $10 for some time. I will give them the benefit of the doubt). We then launched into a fifteen minute question-and-answer session with increasingly probing questions. When it developed that my wife would also need to participate and that she would need to give her approval in person, a follow-up call was requested. When the agreed-upon time came and went, I was unable to successfully call them to finalize things. When they finally called back and attempted to “requalify” me, I lost patience and called a halt to everything.

I’ve thought about this episode and believe it offers important learning for marketers in B2B and B2C roles.

1. Customers expect consistency in their communications. Paying someone in advance for their time sets an expectation that you have their interests in mind and that you have a keen awareness of the value of their time. Once you position yourself or your company as having a specific belief or attitude, consistency assumes an even greater importance

2. Companies often confuse processes designed for their convenience with customer-friendly processes.

3. Proper segmentation is important to marketers. But needlessly enlarging your prospect pool to make up for prospects who become disaffected before they can become enrolled is also expensive – and can have indirect brand-impairment consequences.

Companies like Company X have outsourced the prospect segmentation process to low-cost call center personnel whose freedom of action is tightly controlled by a script and process designed to minimize errors. “In an effort to screen large numbers of prospects in a cost-effective manner, many call centers utilize low-wage team members with minimal discretionary authority and tight performance metrics, “ says Kerry Elkind, call center trainer and change management expert. While this might help the bottom line and make the “segmentation process” more predictable and cost-effective, prospects who feel steamrollered by these processes may well opt out before the enrollment or sale can be concluded.

The direct effect of unfriendly processes is a needless enlargement of the prospect pool. That means more people in the initial mailing, more expensive enclosures, and more prospects to process. But the indirect cost can be significant, too. I have told many people about my negative experience. Multiplied by many times, that is a lot of negative reputation impact.

According to Elkind,“Call centers are powerful vehicles for transforming prospects into customers and repeat customers. To achieve this goal, though, call centers must meet (and exceed) customers’ increasing expectations and demands for a level of professionalism that can be implemented only through training and a careful analysis of contact procedures. This can only be obtained through implementing and maintaining a double-feedback loop which listens carefully to the voice of the customer.”

The moral? If you are going to use powerful marketing techniques to get attention and introduce prospects to your company, service, or offering, be careful. Consistency, customer orientation, and professionalism will pay off and in the long run, it will also be less expensive.

Are You Getting Referrals?

2011-03-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

At a business meeting recently, we went around the table telling our colleagues about the “best referral” we had in the last year, the business lead that generated the most revenue. After thinking about it, I realized that for the past twelve months I had not received a single referral that resulted in business! Fortunately, I have been busy, but looking back, I realized that all my business had come to me directly—by meeting and talking with people. I began thinking about why I had failed to reap any benefit from this traditionally important source of professional business leads.

After completing a survey of some recent customers, I identified some interesting answers. The top three reasons for not referring to me were:

1. “I didn’t feel comfortable about what promises I could make on your behalf. Everything you do is different for each person.”

2. “I don’t like asking people to do something. I just gave them your card.”

3. “I just forgot about you!”

If you are wondering why your referral pipeline is not as full or moving as swiftly as you would like, consider whether the feedback I received could also apply to you and your potential referral sources. If any do, you may find that some solutions that I recently implemented may also work for you.

Make Promises

There is a big difference between telling people what you do and telling people what promises they can make on your behalf. When I introduce myself at networking events, I usually say something like, “I specialize in helping companies increase their revenue by developing, launching and selling services.” I thought that was adequate, but I have been experimenting with a new “promised-based” description: “I work with small businesses for 6 months at a time to increase revenue by as much as 30% by selling new and existing services in smarter ways and for more money.” People have told me that they feel more comfortable with the second version. What do you think?

I’ve heard other people use “promise-based” descriptions for what they do:

“I specialize in helping people who can’t pay their mortgages or who owe more than their house is worth. I will meet with them and offer suggestions without obligation.” My friend, Rick Smith, of ClickHome Reality, San Jose, CA, specializes in helping people sell houses at a difficult time. The way he describes his offering clears up any doubt about what he will do for anyone I may send to him.

“If you know of a group or organization that would like to tour the Winchester Mystery House and would like to save some money on admission, have them contact me. I can offer them a group discount.” It ‘s hard to be confused about what will happen if I send you to my friend Nathan Emmett at the Winchester Mystery House. If you and 14 friends want a tour, he’ll give you a discount. Simple.

Don’t Ask for Something; Give Something

Asking someone to do something is hard. Giving a gift is easy! My friend and client Dan Gonzales, of the San Jose law firm, Ferrari, Ottoboni, Caputo & Wunderling LLP, recently wrote a “special report” that addresses risks of holding commercial property outside of an LLC. When I talk with my clients, I never ask if they would like a recommendation to a good attorney. (Obviously, my asking could seem insulting!) But I do frequently ask if they would like me to have sent to them a copy of Dan’s special report, which is well written and likely to impress them with Dan’s understanding of the law. If they say “yes,” it could indicate that they have a need for legal advice—and not just concerning the topic of the report. Offering this gift is a great easy way for me to generate leads for Dan while offering something of genuine value to my other clients.

So ask yourself: Is there an informational product you could create that would make it easy for your referral sources to give a gift from you? This is what I came up with. What do you think?

Forgotten? I’ve got an app for that!

People are busy. Moreover, according to psychologists, we have the ability to hold only about 10 people in our “shelf of mind”—the virtual bookshelf in our minds. As we meet new people in the course of business, other people automatically drop off the shelf unless they remind us of their existence. If they can link the reminder with an additional benefit, even better.

To do a good job of staying on a customer’s “shelf of mind,” many firms send them newsletters or greeting cards. The key to success with both a newsletter and card program is making your content relevant and useful to your clients and potential clients: it’s never all about you; it’s about them. Because then it gets read and you gain “shelf of mind” as someone attuned to their interests. My CPA is my son-in-law, and the father of 3 of my grandchildren, so whenever I talk to the grandkids or my daughter, I am reminded of Dave’s tax practice. But even if I didn’t have Dave on speed dial, hearing from him once every 3 weeks or so with an article or a bit of news that might affect me or my business would be a great way for him gently to remind me of his availability.

To stay in touch with clients and contacts, I have used a newsletter and created a business Facebook page that I post on daily. But I think that may be too passive. I’m going to start calling people about once every 6 weeks or so just to check in with them.

What are you doing to stay in touch with clients with whom you are not actively working? Please let me know and in a future blog, I’ll share your strategies so all of us can benefit from them.

Making An Email Introduction--or Declining to Do So Graciously

2011-02-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

"I’ll send you an introduction via email!”

Sound familiar? How many email introductions have you made in your busy career? If you’re like me, I bet you routinely take sloppy short cuts:

Have you simply copied both parties to the introduction in your email, without first checking with each of them to see if they want to be introduced?

Have you been unclear about WHY you are introducing them (who gains, and why)?

Did you forget to give both parties an “out” if they don’t have the time or interest to meet?

The short cut to which I am most prone is the first one: I am always pressed for time and don’t always call or check with both parties before making an email introduction. According to the Harvard Business Review this is a BIG DEAL. My friend Bob always makes a practice of calling people to make sure they are open to an introduction. Other people send TWO emails, one to the first party, await a response, and only then forward the introduction to the second party. This seems cumbersome, especially if I am doing 5-6 email introductions at a time, which is typical after a BRN or networking meeting.

Recently, I discovered an elegant solution. Called “Introduction Agent,” it is a double opt-in Web-based tool that requires both parties to opt-in to the introduction before the stored introduction is sent. Created by two software developers in their spare time, it offers a pure Web-based method for doing email introductions right. It is free. Try it yourself.

The Introduction Agent forces you to be clear about why you are introducing, gives either party a way to opt out, and makes you look very professional! I talked to Introduction Agent Co-founder Allan Grant about this need to “pre-confirm” email introductions:

“Most Introductions, however well-intentioned, fail. When we started working on Introduction Agent — this was something we believed from analyzing the success rates of our own introductions, but we didn’t have any proof for it. Now that we’ve built the service, we are starting to see some meaningful data to support this. In analyzing the last three months of introductions created using Introduction Agent, we’ve found that only 47% percent of sent introductions are accepted. That means that when someone sends an introduction asking two friends to connect, the introducer is wrong more than half the time.”

So the key point is – either do it virtually (on the web or with separate emails) or in real time with a quick phone call, but it is critical to check first before sending out your virtual introduction to all parties.

But what if you don’t want to make an introduction?

Have you ever been asked to make an introduction that you didn’t want to make? I have. I took the easy way out and made some excuse to the person seeking an introduction that the person to whom he sought an introduction was traveling or in the hospital with a tropical disease. But again, a recent article from Jodi Glickman at HBR offers some great advice for this sticky situation. If you don’t think the introduction is a good idea, don’t make it. But if you decline, how can you do so without incurring hurt feelings? Unfortunately, for this dilemma there is no Web app. But I have some advice:

1. Be honest—more or less. Explain why connecting the requestor with one of your contacts is not a good idea. Offer specific reasons.

2. Offer a consolation prize. Is there something else you COULD do that might be helpful to the requestor?

3. Stay in touch. Leave the door open for a future introduction. Perhaps circumstances will change in the future, and you will feel different about facilitating the desired contact.

Email introductions are a powerful network-building tool. Take a few minutes to examine your past practices, then resolve to be better at helping yourself and your contacts expand their networks.

Sometimes a Crank is Just an Unfamiliar Gear!

2011-01-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

Leigh Van Valen died in last October. I read his obit in the NYT. I’d like to be able to say I recognized his name, but it was his picture that caught my eye. He looked like a grown-up version of some of the geeks with whom I went to school, the ones who were brighter than I. The way Dr. Van Valen lived his life has something to say to all of us.

The guy was brilliant: he published over 300 scholarly papers on all sorts of subjects, rarely twice in the same field. Although his early degree was in zoology, he was just as likely to write something publishable about evolutionary biology as about ecology. His immense energy led him to stick his nose into and challenge lots of established dogma. “He could be a fly in the ointment in the sense that his ideas often upset people, and it took time for them to be accepted,” said William B. Provine, a historian of science at Cornell.

One of Van Valen’s most talked-about concepts came to be known as the “Red Queen Hypothesis,” after the character in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. If you remember, the Red Queen noted that "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." The Red Queen Principle can be stated thus:

For an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with. (Van Valen, L. (1973). A new evolutionary law Evolutionary Theory, 1, 1-30)

In its time, that concept and the paper associated with it were deemed so controversial that the paper was rejected for publication by 20 established professional journals. As a reaction to his difficulty in finding a publisher for his ground-breaking, contrarian idea, to publish the paper Van Valen founded his own professional journal, Evolutionary Theory. As its editor-in-chief, for years Van Valen spent hours poring over every submitted manuscript, many of them from people whose credentials and publishing history were light to nonexistent. Asked “Why do you spend all that time with submissions from cranks?” he replied, “It can be hard to tell a crank from an unfamiliar gear.”

How well do we separate the cranks from the odd people who have something unexpected to offer or say? Today as part of our strategy to make it through too-busy days, most of us tend to triage our perceptive inputs, censoring what we’re willing to listen to. Consequently, I wonder what “unfamiliar gears” we tune out. Van Valen’s life and willingness to entertain ideas that are decidedly odd should make clear the wisdom of listening to ideas that challenge our own.

Who knows what "crank" will be coming up with the next great idea?

Up, Up and Away with an Innovative Push & Social Media Campaign

2010-10-31T16:46:00.000-07:00

I think the lines between traditional Push, and Pull marketing are blurring, and especially as social media becomes more relevant to spreading the word about your service brand. My friend Roger Smith was kind enough to tell me about an interesting one involving the Northern California company Airship Ventures (owners and operators of one of only two blimps in the world), its marketing partner Farmers Insurance, and the online gaming site FarmVille. It’s a great example of how one company is leveraging traditional marketing investment in new ways to reach prospects it never would have through traditional means.

Farmers Insurance Group of companies, the nation's third-largest insurer of both private Personal Lines passenger automobile and homeowners insurance, also provides a wide range of other insurance and financial services products. Farmers operates primarily in 41 states through the efforts of approximately 20,000 exclusive and independent agents. responsible for serving more than 15 million customers. Bottom line – it is a big company, with plenty of resources for traditional marketing campaigns. Yet it has made a significant investment in using Social Media in a new and unique way.

Farmers is leveraging its investment in traditional push marketing via an unusual implementation of a floating bill board and a very new marketing vehicle, the Facebook Business page, to reach hundreds of thousands of new customers with content on its company, its offerings, and its brand promise. Here’s how it works:

Farmers invested a sum of money to advertise for a limited time on the sides of the Eureka, one of the world’s two functioning airships. In making this investment, the company is following the same marketing imperative to promote its brand for 80 years.

“This is the ultimate billboard for Farmers, showcasing our brand for miles,” commented Kevin Kelso, Chief Marketing Officer of Farmers Insurance Group Inc. “Whether it’s flying over sporting events or community-based fundraisers, the Farmers Airship is a larger-than-life reminder of Farmers’ commitment to the communities we serve.”

The Eureka, operated out of Moffet Field by Airship Ventures, has been seen frequently in the last 6 months in the skies above San Franicscos Bay, Los Angeles, and San Diego. It publishes a regular flight schedule, sells seats on its website, and even has charter opportunities available.

So Farmers creates a business page on Facebook and introduces a sweepstakes encouraging visitors to promote Farmers to their friends and enter a drawing for a ride on the blimp. Filling out a sweepstakes entry on the site and clicking on the LIKE button not only provides a lead for a local Farmers agent but also allows Facebook to put Farmers content on your personal Facebook page (they call it your Wall), which triggers a news feed to visitors’ FRIENDS lists. That’s right: if you complete the entry and click LIKE, all of your Facebook friends are notified that you "like" Farmers insurance and have entered the airship sweepstakes.

When I submitted my entry last week, I learned that over 37,000 entries had already been submitted. Seems like a lot, right? But consider that if each person submitting an entry has 10 friends, the contest has already helped the company reach 370,000 people with its product message. But wait, there’s more !

How do you get people to go to the Farmers Facebook page in the first place? Well, you can offer an incentive, you can publicize the incentive using traditional PR techniques, or you can tie in the campaign with ANOTHER online property with LOTS of traffic.

For example, there’s, Farmville from the online social gaming company Zynga. The Farmville game, played online with networks of online friends, is free to users, has a VAST following. Ever played it? If you are looking for reasons to give it a try, check out this posting. Apparently, it simulates lots of the competing forces that affect a typical farm, including bad weather. HOWEVER, if you click on the blimp, and “LIKE” Farmers Insurance, you receive protection from bad weather for a period of time (or could until Oct 27^th, when this feature expired). A great many people felt this was reason enough to provide their contact information to Farmers and share the company’s information with their friends.

The point is that Farmers has made a significant investment in introducing its company and brand to a large and growing demographic (Facebook users, the “farmers” of Farmville) in what seems a powerful validation of the power of social media marketing.

To use social media to promote your brand, you don’t have to rent advertising space on the blimp—though that would certainly be cool! There are less costly vehicles: Do you have a blog? Have you created a Facebook page for your business? Consider adding these “online properties” to your marketing mix because they will enhance your ability to attract new customers.

Get Out of Your Own Way

2010-10-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

The other day, I saw The Social Network. Much has been written about the movie and its underlying events. But, as usual, the movie got me thinking about my own less rarefied circumstances.

In the movie, the character played by Jesse Eisenberg pursues a vision of a website for holders of "Harvard.edu" email addresses. Repeatedly, he seems surprised by the ideas others have for expanding on his idea. In my opinion, his vision of success was fairly humble. But It was enough to goad him into action and keep him working.

In the small business space, I see many people with great ideas who could move forward with reasonable success and safety but hesitate because they cannot see the end of the road. They let themselves be stymied because they have no clear idea of what should be their tenth steps—even though they have taken only a first step. I wish I could say to them, “Sometimes you don’t know what turns your business idea will take, so don’t worry about it—just keep moving forward.” People passionate about an idea should pursue it. And they should expect surprises around the bend. That’s what happened to Brian Backus.

Brian is the founder of a hot new start-up called Kidlandia. That’s right – as in "Kid’s Land". As a hobby and a labor of love, he started creating personalized maps of “fantasy lands” named after kids of friends and friends of friends. He had no idea how to scale the idea, and it seemed like a dead end, as a business. But now, with the help of some of his technology-savvy customers, www.kidlandia.com is on the Internet, he has automated the map production, and he is well on his way to founding a successful company. (I just created a map for my grandkids and I had as much fun creating it online, as they will have when they receive it).

One of my friends confessed to me the other day, “I censor myself sometimes. I keep myself from running with an idea, most of the time from fear that it won’t be successful.” Well, we all do that from time to time. But sometimes we learn lots from ideas that don’t work out….wisdom we bring to the next idea.

My thought for the day: don’t over analyze your idea. Unless you are gifted with precognition, you can’t know what will happen. Give your idea a chance to grow. Give yourself a chance to grow into your idea. Get out of your own way. Don’t let your drive to create the “best of the best” business keep you from exploring ideas that remain vague. You just might discover a treasure map.

People Take Pleasure in Rituals

2010-09-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

Today I fled the house while my wife, Luda, was getting ready to go to the City. I figured a quick trip to Starbucks for some coffee would be just the ticket—and it was. I must have been unusually observant this morning because for the first time I noticed stenciled on the door to the coffee shop this “saying”:

Take Pleasure in Rituals

All morning, I’ve been thinking about this gentle command.

It’s not just because it’s smart marketing (make Starbucks your ritual daily stop and they sell not one espresso, but 300 this year!), but because it defines a lot of what I am seeing in today’s small business market. There is inertia out there that I have been tempted to blame on the economy but which is more likely a manifestation of one of our core behaviors: we take pleasure in doing things we can do on “automatic.” Such rituals offer comfort. And we change them only with great difficultly.

Luda and I talked about these matters in the car. When a person buys office supplies, for example, it‘s easier to call Joe at the office supply store and have him deliver XYZ than it is to get on the Internet and start price shopping for a supplier. Of course, as Luda pointed out, at least for professional services – legal, medical, dental, etc.—trust in the provider a person knows is probably more important than simply performing a ritual. As usual, Luda’s point is valid—BUT it seems to me that complementing that trust factor in returning us to vendors we know is our expectation of transacting our business smoothly, with no hassles, no surprises, no new formats, codes, procedures, etc. to master.

But what about visits to a health club? Let’s say that you’re a member of Fitness USA, and a new club opens up. The cost is about the same, but the facility is beautiful and has lots of shiny new equipment. Why doesn’t it get all the business? Perhaps because of the power and the appeal of ritual. Customers are used to the other place, and without feeling any strong dissatisfaction, they don’t have sufficient reason to forgo the familiar for what’s new.

It also helps to explain the mental dislocation associated with job loss. People who become separated from their daily occupations also lose connection with the places, people, and activities loosely associated with their particular physical location or work environment. It’s hard not to be getting that regular paycheck—but it’s also hard to be forced to give up the “rituals” that went along with it.

Luda shared another perspective. As an immigrant from Russia (she moved to the USA over 30 years ago), she and other immigrants had to deal every day with the loss of rituals – activities performed and items employed almost automatically. Nothing was done the same here as it had been done in Russia. “My head hurt, trying to think through every single life action,” she recalled.

How can this tendency help service businesses?

Is there a way you can position or deliver your service that would help your customer participate in a new “ritual” that is closely associated with your business? Like Starbucks’ encouraging customers entering its stores make frequent and regular visits, can you create a ritual opportunity for your customer? Maybe a regular newsletter, a weekly check-in call, a complementary newspaper subscription, or delivery of a monthly business book of your selection (with a note). Perhaps there’s a way to combine a customer-pleasing ritual with the routine delivery of your service. Instead of working against human nature, trying leveraging this tendency. You will keep your customers longer, they will be happier and, maybe, be more willing to tell others what a great job you are doing for them.

Are you already using rituals that strengthen your relationships with customers? I would be interested in learning how you use our natural preference for ritual in your service business efforts. Please share interesting stories with me. I will write in a future blog post about the most interesting examples I receive.

Integration is the Key to Small Business Development Success

2010-09-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

When I talk to groups of small business owners, the frequent question is usually about how to get more customers.

“The approaches that have worked for years aren’t working in this market!” they complain.

Yup, the marketing techniques have changed to keep pace with the evolving customer attitudes. Consider this interesting observation, recently published by Juniper Research, a major market research company:

Sixty-six percent (66%) of consumers responding to an offline advertisement visited the web site of the company advertised or a search engine to learn more. Fourteen percent (14%) called a phone number from the advertisement.

This simple observation supports the experience of many and the recommendations of almost every professional marketer I know: to be successful, your strategy must include PUSH marketing (ads, so called “interrupt media”), PULL marketing (like websites, Facebook business pages, review sites, etc) and PERSONAL marketing (networking events, Chamber events, speeches and public presentations).

To be successful in your integrated marketing effort, you would be well advised to become familiar with some of the best practices in each of these areas. A complete briefing on that would call for a book (hmm) but let me give you ONE idea to focus on in each of these areas.

When designing your PUSH marketing materials, I strongly recommend mixing graphics with text. If the graphics are relevant to the text and the audience, marketers who routinely follow this approach can enjoy a response rate 2.5 times greater than that enjoyed by promoters who do not.

When considering what to serve up to your prospects on websites and blogs, the guiding principle should be relevance to your target audience. Forget about fancy visual effects, if it is relevant it will be persuasive. To insure relevance, many times marketers use “micro-sites” or customized landing pages to insure that the searcher gets exactly what he is looking for. Someone searching for a patent law resource might be directed to the patent law landing page of a large site devoted to a range of services provided by a large law firm. Because the searcher does not have to go digging for the information he needs, he is more likely to be favorably impressed by great content.

Ready to start networking and building your personal contacts? Yes, business mixers are great, and even joining dues paying networking groups can work for some people. But the key to building momentum from your personal networking is making a lasting impression. It is hard to do that by trading “elevator speeches”. Instead of approaching this effort with a self-interest focus, try instead to figure out how you can help the people you meet. Can you introduce them to someone you know? Can you invite them to a meeting or steer someone to them that will provide a service they need? Focusing on the needs of the other guy will get you noticed in the long run, and will compliment your other marketing efforts.

Pursuing an integrated approach to marketing your business and growing your network is not a short term strategy but it can be cost effective and successful in the long run.

Why the time for Branded Email is NOW!

2010-06-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

This is a GREAT time for anyone in business to start using Branded Email rather than plain text email messages. Those who don’t will miss out on today’s best deal in “push” marketing.

Every week, I speak with many people about their marketing – what’s working, what’s not, and why. Those that read this blog regularly know that I am passionate about preaching a balanced marketing effort: a combination of Push, Pull, and Personal marketing efforts that, together, generate the results you want. Yet it’s amazing how often I hear, “I have a website, but I get no traffic!” Search engines are great, but you can’t depend on SEO to give you all the visibility your business needs. You need to drive your own traffic.

Here’s where “push” Marketing comes into play. Ads, postcards, email marketing campaigns, and even social media are all great for driving traffic. The most frequent “push marketing collateral” that businesses create is the 20 or so emails that each and every employee sends in the course of a usual business day. Now is time to harness that volume to drive brand awareness and traffic to your website, blog, or Facebook page.

Distinguishing between “Branded Email” and “Email Campaign Management” is important. Branded Email is sent in the normal manner of email generation – one message at a time using your desktop email client, while “Email Campaign Management” is a single message sent to a list of addresses, usually using a special website facility that provides metrics like click through rates, open rates, and opt-out tracking. Both types of email have a place in the overall marketing effort, but Campaign Management is more complicated, requiring that messages are sent from within a specialized website, which is $20 to $50 per month per account and usually limited to a few specialized operators that run this tool for the small businesses. Branded Email, a facility that is common to all the addresses in a given domain, involves some incremental cost but does not generally incur high costs, running about $7.00 per month per address. The benefit from Branded Email comes from the sheer number of emails generated by the business, each containing branding and a marketing link.

Branded email delivers your logo, your image, your marketing message, and even a link to thousands of correspondents every day. And if your addressees choose to forward your message, for a myriad of business reasons, additional people could see and react to your company’s branded message. Best of all, it is very cost effective: a flat annual fee offers you unlimited usage per account.

Not all mail is equal – and that is especially true of branded email. Email began as ASCII character-based messages. Over time, technical innovations allowed transmittal of HTML versions of email. But every email client (the application running on your desktop) decodes HTML email messages a bit differently. As a result, some email clients will display Branded-email in odd ways or may block it completely as suspected SPAM. In such cases, not only is your branded message not seen, your information-laden email, perhaps containing important instructions or data, does not reach its intended recipient.

Fortunately, companies that are in the Branded Email business have figured out ways to keep this from happening. When Outlook comes out with a new service pack, branded email vendors implement changes to their back-end programming to keep customers’ messages from being trapped by spam filters or scrambled by graphics filters.

In considering a Branded Email vendor, here’s what you need to look for:

1. Cost effectiveness – look for an annual cost of about $100 per account without restriction on number of emails sent.

2. Platform independence – look for a solution that will work regardless of the email client being used by the sender or the recipient

3. Spam compliance – seek a vendor that provides some assurance about the ability to get through spam filtering now part of most desktop email clients.

4. Flexibility – make sure you can change template, messages, and content at will.

Start getting that traffic boost today! Start using Branded Email for your routine company email messages.

Small Service Business Marketing Synergy Ideas

2010-05-06T12:05:00.001-07:00

Although true success in Small Business Marketing Rests on a combination of Push, Pull and Personal Marketing techniques, there is particular power in those initiatives that combine aspects of all three. Here are some suggestions:

---- Build a Facebook Page (used to be called Fan Pages) for your business and add to it each day.

In particular, add info of your upcoming talks, appearances, or networking events that you would like to invite people to (even if you are not speaking). Promote your page and ask people to “opt in” to receive your feed by clicking on the “like” button. This is a powerful integrated investment. You get the power of push, the reach of pull and if you get more face time with prospects, all the advantages of a personal marketing overture. If you're not sure why this is a great idea, check this link out for LOTS of reasons to do it!

------ Arrange a small wine and cheese event at your place of business or a neutral venue. Make a speech or give a tour. Record it. Share it.

I recently saw a presentation that explained how to get on to YouTube in 10 minutes. It is that simple now with new video tools. If you have a place of business, invite some prospects for a tour. If you run a virtual business, choose a nice meeting room and put together a presentation. Invite them. Make a video of your presentation (either during the talk or afterwards with your webcam). Use YouTube and use a variety of techniques to promote your video as a “pull marketing” element http://www.webtvwire.com/15-ways-to-promote-your-video-online.

------- Do you belong to a local chapter of The Rotary Club, Lions, Elks, Women in Technology, or any other service or professional group? Leverage this membership to enrich existing connections.

When is the next meeting? Is the program of general interest? Do they allow guests? Why not announce the program on Facebook, in your newsletter, or use a program like Evite (http://www.evite.com/) to send out an email to your LinkedIn connections or your Outlook contacts? Arrange to meet your guests at the door and introduce them around. They will appreciate the networking, you will solidify your relationship with them, and after the meeting, write up a little piece for your blog or newsletter and POST it.

If you need some additional ideas, give me a call for an appointment. I offer a free 1 hour of consultation without obligation or charge.

Tom Pencek

Service for Profit, LLC

tom@serviceforprofit.com

650-799-7261

Lumpy Mail – Secret Weapon or Dud?

2009-11-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

"Tom, if you’re not using Lumpy Mail, you are missing a great opportunity.”

The speaker was Jim Cecil, founder of the Nurture Marketing institute, and a lecturer at a marketing conference I attended in 1993. Jim had been talking about some amazing results he had obtained using regular mail, with an enclosure large enough to make the envelope “lumpy”. When doing a B2B mailing for a large software company based in Washington State (!!) he achieved a 63% open rate. (In direct mail circles, that is considered REALLY good).

Since that time I have used lumpy mail from time to time, where the value of new relationships was high enough that it made sense to do anything we could to make a connection with a target. As a matter of fact, I am working on two such programs now for a couple of clients. They work because, as one happy customer put it, “With [lumpy] mail pieces I've experienced as much as a quadrupling in response rate over "flat" letters and postcards. There's just nothing like dimensional mail...it's like being a kid again, ripping open your mail to see what the surprise is inside! ”

If it is such a great technique, why isn’t every B2B solicitation “lumpy”? Because the other side of the coin (pun coming!) is cost and lead quality. The cost per lead makes this technique an unprofitable one if the Lifetime Customer Value is not greater than $500, in my opinion. And then there is the cost of the “enclosure”. I got a piece of lumpy mail last week with a pen inside. I opened it, kept the pen, and threw out the mailing piece. You want to avoid buying the lead with an enclosure that is too valuable.

Howard Sewell, of Connect Direct Inc., a highly successful direct mail firm that focuses on high technology businesses, advises his clients to ask these questions before embracing lumpy mail for a lead generation campaign:

Is my goal maximum response at any price, or is it minimum cost per lead?
How much is a lead really worth to our company?
What qualifies a prospect as being a genuine lead, and will this campaign generate those kinds of prospects?

Facebook for Business?

2009-10-11T09:37:00.001-07:00

Many People have asked me about the suitability of using Facebook for business development. Recently, The Professional Services Journal posed this question to its readers, and the Journal's editor recently summarized the feedback. Here is her article, reproduced with attribution:

Tom

Face It: Facebook Can Help Businesses

Do it right to make it work

by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, Professional Services Journal

While many businesses see Facebook (FB) as more of a personal social network where people find family and school friends, an equal amount of businesses have set up shop on Facebook to create communities and boost brand loyalty.

Facebook allows you to assign minimal access to people whom you don't know well or know only on a professional level. They won't be able to see your photos and other personal information.

Not all readers agree on whether Facebook should be part of your business marketing strategy. Their advice falls into one of the following three ideas:

Take advantage of Facebook Pages and Groups.
Go a-twitterin' instead.
Look to your customers.

Take advantage of Facebook Pages and Groups

Facebook Pages and Groups can be a great place to serve your customers, share tips, announce upcoming free seminars and so on. When creating a Facebook Page, focus on offering value to your customers and mention your blog, newsletter and other resources. A good social network strategy uses various social networks and refers them to each other since everyone has a preference for one network over another.

Go a-twitterin' instead

For some businesses, Facebook might not be ideal, and they should look to Twitter instead. "Facebook is designed to keep you on the page as long as possible with all those annoying applets and friends poking you. Ignore FB and work a Twitter account into your business. It's best to focus your efforts on one avenue in social media rather than spreading yourself out too much," says Greg Wolkins, Web consultant with Catscape.

Look to your customers

Marketing's first rule comes to play here. What do your customers want? What do they use? "The whole point of social media is that it is social. Determine where your customers and collaborators are and join them. If you discover that your community is on Facebook, then develop a quality presence there. The same for LinkedIn or Twitter. The first question to ask is always, whom do I want to interact with and where will I find them? Once you answer this question, you'll know where you need to be," says Joan Koerber-Walker, chairman of CorePurpose, Inc.

Some business-to-business (B2B) companies have not yet warmed up to the social networking thing, especially with Facebook. CEO and President of Retention Resource Center Terri Schepps says, "If a business is consumer-focused, I can see the value in having a Facebook page. Facebook is not the best platform for B2B businesses. Mixing personal and business can be risky for both."

You can manage your Facebook account to connect with business contacts while minimizing what they can see on the personal side of your FB account. Users connect with others, join networks through Group and FB Pages and reinforce their business brand. In fact, should you decide to try FB for your business, discover 32 ways to use Facebook for Business .

Service Naming: Are We Missing an Opportunity?

2008-03-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

At a recent networking event, it had been a long day, and I was ready to go home. But I had paid to attend the event, which offered a chance to mix it up with VCs and small business funders. After slapping on my badge (why don't those things ever stick?), I headed straight for the wine bar, where I saw three bottles: a generic, mundane merlot, a generic white wine and something called Smoking Loon Merlot. WOW! I could almost smell the evening campfire, and hear the woods at sunset. My choice was easy.

Yet as marketers and sellers of professional services, we frequently pass up the chance to make the choice easy for our customers. Instead of enticing them with names of rich emotional significance, fragrant with the emotional impact of the benefits embodied by their services, we default to uninspired names like "Gold" or "Server Integration Service." No wonder our sales teams must work so hard to sell service contracts and service uplifts. Are pedestrian names causing us to miss sales and profit?

And we may not be missing just a tactical advantage; services can have a strategic impact on our core business. In the technology space, for example, support revenue represents the lion's share of the service revenue pie. At margins of 30 percent to 50 percent (or as high as 60 percent for some high-tier support offerings), support revenue contributes a disproportionately high percentage of the overall corporate profit.

Smoking Loon or Gold Medal Merlot?

Just because I'd go for Smoking Loon over mundane Merlot any day, I was delighted to come across some research that seems to support my preference. According to an IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) group study of its members, in some geographies, the "take" rates for high-level offerings using the precious metals naming convention (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze) are falling. Of particular interest is the observation that European buyers seem to be willing to settle for the "gold" offering: Sales levels of the highest and most profitable services and support offerings have trailed the U.S. results.

Does this mean that European buyers are less discriminating? Or that they have no emotional connection to the underlying value of the highest level support offering? I vote for the latter.

Moving from tired naming conventions to refreshing ones.

While traditional service naming conventions may be useful in helping customers quickly identify the most robust among a variety of offerings, they provide no emotional connection for the customer and no hint of a value proposition. Companies that persist in using these "tired" conventions may experience reduced sales levels of their top-tier offerings. This can lead to eroding margins, lower profitability contribution to their bottom line, and they may even cause loss of market segments to competitors that wake up and try something new.

The power of an effective service name can help establish a new offering, even usher in a whole new category of services. In the early 1990s, my friend, Justin, had a new voice mail and messaging service he demonstrated for me. Called "Wildfire," customers could summon it by speaking the word while connected with a special number. Once "in session," it allowed him to place calls without looking up numbers (the system used voice recognition software), send faxes or conduct other business. Even more impressive, when people called Justin, instead of just leaving a message, they could tell the system to page him or find him at one of his other numbers.

This was the early offering of a category of productivity tools known as voice-activated virtual assistant technology, and it grew with market enthusiasm of its value to customers. Sure, it was a genuinely useful service, but I believe that it "caught fire" among early adopters at least partially due to having such a great name.

Why isn't everyone drinking from the "naming" Kool-Aid?

So if names pave the path to riches, why aren't more companies being smarter about naming their services? Recently, I called my friend, Athol Foden of the firm Brighter Naming in Mountain View, Calif. The company has a cool site full of fun stuff about product and service naming, including a Naming Critic with examples and critiques of great and not-so-great service and product names.

Foden says, "Part of the issue is that so many small service companies haven't properly registered their names ...

Making sure you aren't inadvertently stepping on someone's unregistered service trademark takes a little time and research money, resources in short supply when you are rushing service products to market. If companies spend money advertising a service name, they need to trademark it to protect their investment in building awareness and branding. So, as with most things, planning pays off.

Coming up with a great name or naming convention can lead to more money in the coffers of your company, and it makes the choices easier for your customers. Of course, the Great Name didn't keep me from spilling Smoking Loon Merlot down the front of my shirt when I took too big a gulp.

"I should have had the white wine," I said to myself, as I made a quick exit.

Getting Started by Asking Questions

2007-09-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

When considering what type of services to offer your customers the simplest way to proceed is to start by asking them. What particular difficulty are they experiencing with your product? What is its business impact? But just asking your customers isn't enough - you need to understand the demands that their customers are making, and how your products are being used to meet that demand. You must strive to provide service solutions that your customers need, not necessarily those they say they want.

Many years ago a major car manufacturer began to study the new car sales market. They were attempting to understand why so many people hated to buy a new car. They talked to the dealers (their "customers") and then began to interview their customer's customer (the car buyer). The result was a new program, offered in selected markets, of fixed price car selling combined with full disclosure. No more haggling or negotiating. There was one price, and it was listed. This new service increased car sales in those regions where studies showed that new car buyers were women. Studying your customer and your customer's customer will tell you what service will reduce "customer pain" and increase solution value. Many times, you can get a good idea of value pricing, based on your interviews.

For instance, an installation and configuration service for complicated lab equipment could get newly purchased equipment "producing" quickly, at measurable value to your customer, which will tell you the value of the service, and provide guidance for pricing.

Consider starting your process by having a conversation with your customer. Ask leading questions and explain what you are trying to do. Consider asking permission to talk to a few of their customers. At first, keep your questions general and open-ended. Remember you are tying to surface a new product idea. As an idea begins to take shape, and you have a straw dog to share, consider going back to the same group to get more specific feedback.

5 steps to getting started with Services

1. Talk to your customers.
2. Talk to their customers.
3. Identify the "pain" associated with existing product.
4. Explore possible service "Band-Aids" for that pain.
5. Create a "test" service proposal and share it with your feedback group.

Service - Product Symbiosis - building service into the product

2007-08-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

There are lots of ways to look at service by categories, including by their relationship to “products”. Three categories include: 1) services added to existing products (last week’s issue), 2) services designed into products– this week’s topic), and 3) services independent of products. The “recipe” for successful service design, development, pricing, launch and promotion varies with the category of service.

Just as the old safety razors were useless without their disposable blades, services can supply an essential part of a total solution’s value proposition. How do you design a product and service in true symbiosis – with multiple yet interrelated value propositions?

Most of us have heard of TiVo but what about Teleworld Inc.? This Silicon Valley start-up can teach us a lot about how to accomplish this difficult service birth. According to Randy Komisar, in his book, The Monk and the Riddle, Teleworld was the brainchild of Mike Ramsay and Jim Barton: a home video server that would store incoming electronic information and be linked to a variety of output devices in the home such as Internet appliances and computers. But these innovators quickly realized that the key to success lay in the back-end service required to keep “home servers” working. Such services would include things like a smart program guide, customized viewing based on preferences, variety of services based on “learned” customer preferences. The team at this innovative company, renamed TiVo Inc., went on to revolutionize the home TV viewing market.

“We don’t make any of our set top boxes. Our partners, like Philips, do that. Instead, we focus on the services and programming upgrades, “explained Ted Malone, Director of Product and Service Marketing at TiVo. “The service we provide is not just the smart TV listings. It includes all the back-end technology: software updates, activation and authentication, and technical support logs. Eventually we will add things like Video on Demand or premium content.”

Although not the manufacturer, TiVo, depends on successful sale of set top boxes through retail distribution channels. Only when a customer has a box installed can he become a TiVo service customer. Unlike the hardware, the service is sold directly to the end user. That was one of the service marketing lessons that TiVo developed in its early planning. Another was starting off right with customers. “It was important from the start that we NEVER provide free service. We wanted to be certain to have a true business relationship with all of our customers from the start.” Says Malone.

5 Key ideas

1. Design your product with service in mind

2. Never provide the service for free.

3. Test your assumptions

4. If you can, sell your service directly to your end user

5. Avoid subsidizing the design, production or sale of “reusable” products in a product/service solution unless you can guarantee the viability of back-end service revenue.

Keeping a Low Service Profile

2007-07-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

Positioning: what are you going to sell, and to whom? If you have decided that service is "context" for your firm, are you going to package services for sale, give them away with your products, or a little of both? Perhaps there is an opportunity to tier your service - provide a particular level of service free with your product, and allow customers who demand it to pay for enhanced service.

That's a decision that Network Appliance Inc. has made. "We've determined that service is not "Core" for us. Since our products are simple and reliable, we bundle as much as we can into the product, at no incremental cost," says Collette Anderson, Services Field Marketing Manager for Network Appliance Inc. "Our goal is to make service a non-issue for our customers - to remove any reason for low satisfaction with our products."

Firms like Network Appliance Inc. (http://www.netapp.com) invest heavily in service cost reduction to reduce the customer's total cost of ownership. "Our Mean time Between Failure is extremely high but when customers do need service, many prefer to contact us through our service and support web site (http://now.netapp.com/public/sitemap/sitemap.shtml)," says Anderson. Web technology allows customization, and puts the customer in control of the service interaction, especially for self-service items like software upgrades or usage questions.

Remote support, and significant "back office" investment in database profiling and monitoring, is perceived as a powerful differentiator by many customers. "Occasionally we call the customer about a problem that they didn't even know about, but our system has diagnosed the trend, and we've already dispatched the part and an onsite installer," says Anderson.

This kind of "tailor made to the customer needs" positioning can also lead to a lot of custom service business. "If our customer asks for some special service or process, we bend over backward to accommodate him," Anderson explained. Sometimes fair pricing for custom services can be complicated and hard to calculate but a willingness to meet a customer's custom needs allows you to keep up with changing customer requirements. "When we find that a significant number of customers have asked for a new feature, we make it a standard service product."

5 Key Ideas

1. Combining services critical to customer satisfaction with your product, and service tiering, offering additional services or higher service levels for those willing to pay, will allow you to keep fixed costs down, but keep your more demanding customers happy.

2. In service "context" situations, don't apologize for the lack of a human touch. Customers appreciate cost minimization, and they like to "drive."

3. If they ask for it, and you can,-- give it to them. Generally, services are a lot easier to customize than manufactured products. Offer them on demand, for a small premium over cost. (You'll also get a built in Market Research benefit!).

4. Don't be afraid to "partner" if your customers need services that aren't in your budget.

5. Partners are also a great way to reduce the cost of providing on-site service.

Services - "nice to have" or "must have?"

2007-06-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

You know what they say in the real estate business: "Location, location, location. Location is everything!" In marketing, positioning, while not everything - the other P's are important, too - is the critical element that must be defined first by every business owner or service executive.

"Is service a core part of my business and revenue plan, or is it a necessary cost of selling my product?" This question marks a fork in the road on a well-made marketing map. Your answer determines how you'll position your business and, consequently, which fork you should take since; the choices faced and strategies called for are very different between businesses where service is core and businesses where it isn't. In both cases, however, achieving optimal outcomes calls for expert execution as well as financial investment. But because the roads diverge rapidly as alternative strategies are implemented, it's vital to determine at the out set the path that's right for you.

"Service is integral to our product and certainly core for us," said Ted Malone of TiVo. But if services are not "integral" to your product, can they still be considered part of its core? "Generally, if services account for more than 30% of gross revenue, I consider them a core element of a business," said Jorge Helmer, former SVP of SGI Global Services.

5 Key Questions

1. Is service a significant annuity revenue stream?

2. Is it integral to your product?

3. Do you use service to maintain customer relationships?

Yes = "Service at the Core of your Business Model"

1. Is service generally free or low cost?

2. Is it a "necessary evil," critical to keeping customers happy?

Yes = "Service in the Context of Customer Value"

Service-Core or Service-Context positioning dictate very different strategic planning and implementation. Some companies with multiple products employ both service models.

Answering the "core" vs. "context" question is only the first step in successful positioning.

Often, the easiest way to figure out whether service is a core part of your business is figuring out if it isn't. Among indicators that services are context is that they are a means to sell more product and generally maintain customer relationships. Many software companies fit this description. Service is a case number, a problem to be solved as quickly as possible, usually free or low cost, and usually not personalized.

The situation is quite different when service is seen as a core business component. Now, investment flows into increasing the value of service to the customer. Although call-avoidance technology may be employed in to contain the cost of service delivery, the focus is on selling services for profit. High-cost and high-value services are developed for customers that demand them. Service methodology is valuable IP, and services are closely bound into a company's brand..

Services with a "high touch," highly personalized delivery method will become key to maintaining and leveraging customer relationships. Over time, distinctions between service and product may blur as customers become habituated to purchasing personalized solutions to business problems. Service core companies often invest in field service personnel as well as significant logistics systems that assure timely access to parts. Finally, many service-core companies will invest in a specialized sales force to sell services directly to end-users.

Conversely, companies that conclude that service is "context" invest in service cost-reduction technology to drive customers to "low-touch" service. They offer little "branded" on-site, or high-touch services, focusing instead on services delivered through electronic means. The occasional high-touch customer interactions are centralized and managed to maximize customer satisfaction. Such companies often outsource support and logistics in order to focus on what they do best: make great products.

Professional Services: Golden Egg or Money Pit?

2007-05-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

Offering product-independent Professional Services provides several benefits to the product-focused companies bold enough to invest in them. Profits, increased account control, and subtle product tie-in compel many firms to bring these services to market.

"If you are selling solutions, selling consulting can be the high-margin part of the solution sale," says Thomas Lah, Director of Solution Engineering for SGI Global Services. "But to do it right, you have to keep in mind the ultimate impact on product sales."

Doing it right, however, is kind of like juggling four balls in the air - you need to keep them all moving at the same speed.

First, don't stray too far from your firm's area of core expertise. When choosing a professional service niche, sell what you are known for. Kathy White Learning Systems, a small southern U.S. publisher of reference books for critical care nurses, sells on-site nursing education, delivered by the Founder, Kathy White, RN. SGI sells professional services in Visualization and Imaging. "We help our customers solve unique problems in areas that are aligned with our traditional markets," Lah says.

Services can't be stored, freeze-dried, or mass produced. High-level consulting is a people-intensive business, and its output is created fresh, on demand. This always costs more than management expects, especially at first.

Third, expect high-level service sales channels to be different than those serving the product side of the business. "SGI sells consulting at the 'Executive' level in its target accounts but will frequently successfully sell IT products at the department-head level," says Lah.

Finally, recognize that the consumer of a professional service (who benefits) and your target customer (who pays for the service) are not necessarily one and the same. "Although our educational services are produced for and delivered to nurses," says John Mitchell, Marketing Director for Kathy White Learning Systems, "our customers (buyers) for this service are drug companies and professional associations." That means that your marketing effort could be complicated. For example, you might need to sell to one target (drug companies) but satisfy the needs of a different target market (provide education that nurses value).

Professional services can provide the high road to market validation and niche dominance. But they can also become a money pit that drains needed profits from other business units. Success depends on expert execution and a willingness to adapt to the demands of a fundamentally different business dynamic.

5 Key ideas

1. Great way for a product company to establish leadership in a competitive niche

2. Although NOT about selling more products, it's still important to select services within your product area expertise

3. Be alert to opportunities to incorporate learning from consulting engagements into future product enhancements

4. Plan for complexity in selling and delivery: your customers may not be the consumers of your services, and neither of them may have an interest in your products

5. Be realistic in spending future professional service profits; prepare for some hiccups in the beginning.

To thine own self be true: a good Service Strategy

2007-04-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

When entering a service market, positioning strategy takes on particular importance. The business solution, targeted potential clients, benefits, competitive advantages and business identity need to be firmly established. Seems reasonable, almost like Marketing 101. But as sales resistance is encountered, the biggest temptation is to tweak the positioning, since, unlike manufactured goods, services can be redefined and refocused pretty much at will. It is important to resist this temptation, at least according to John Bruce, EVP,Sales, Marketing, Business Development of Counterpane Internet Security.

"My most important lesson: stay fixed on long-term goals and vision, and avoid the temptation to be all things to all potential customers," says Bruce.

Counterpane's positioning statement is a great example of highly effective positioning of services (see box). In "service core" situations, companies typically follow 3 marketing strategies: service tiering, leveraging customer base, and brand extension through service packaging.

"We tier our service by offering more network sensor points," Bruce explained. "Much like you would alarm a home with 8, 18 or 38 different alarms." The trick in tiering is understanding what service elements are absolutely indispensable, and what are of variable value.

Happy customers equal a growing customer base. What is the best way to leverage those relationships? "As part of our trusted client relationships, we are asked to recommend complementary purchases and services that might improve the safety of their online environment, says Bruce. But since Counterpane is not in the hardware or ancillary service business, these fact-based recommendations provide an ideal partnering and brand extension opportunity.

"Our security experts devise, package and brand other ancillary services that some of our clients might find valuable. This intellectual property can then be licensed to our partners for delivery," says Bruce. By implementing a very narrow positioning, Counterpane can partner with others serving other complementary business niches, with each acting as a sales channel for each other to a positively impact their respective businesses. Most important, by selling Counterpane-branded services, each channel provides a separate sales and marketing engine.

Example of Effective Service Positioning Statement (excerpts)

* Counterpane's business is Managed Security Monitoring. In plain English, that means we watch over your network..(with).. real … expert security analysts who monitor your systems 24 hours a day. …

* And expert monitoring helps you manage the risks of being online…

* At Counterpane we believe that your firewalls, IDSs, routers, and servers are just the terrain you fight on.

* At the moment you're attacked, …what matters is the caliber of people defending you…

See full statement on Counterpane web site: www.counterpane.com Copyright - Counterpane Internet Security

5 Key Ideas when Service is "Core"

1. Stay the course: craft your service positioning statement and stick with it.

2. Focus on doing a few things well, or dominating one segment.

3. This creates barriers to entry for competitors and will spawn additional non-competitive channels for your service

4. Ask your satisfied customers how you can add value to the relationship. They will give you some great ideas!

5. Have more ideas for great services? Consider packaging them and licensing them to partners, rather than promoting them yourself and risk diluting your sales and marketing efforts.