photo credit: Limbo Poet

Many times I’ve suggested that you read Cialdini’s Influence.

Today’s guest post is a follow on to Cialdini – an audio documentary about what makes people buy: “Desire by Design” from American Radioworks.

Enter the conversation in their minds…

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photo credit: (A3R) angelrravelor (A3R)

Happy New Year in November?

I don’t mean the Chinese New Year, the Jewish New Year or the new Federal fiscal year. I’m talking about the regular old New Year that happens on January first.

Are you ready for 2010? Or will you start getting ready for it on January second like a lot of businesses do?

I know some that simply don’t do much of *anything* in December. Their business is open, but strategically, it may as well be closed till 2010.

If your business is struggling, I suggest you reconsider that strategy. In fact, I think you’re nuts to wait 6 more weeks to start your business’ new year.

Why? Sorry, I thought you were serious about your business.

From all I’m hearing on the street, some businesses are having a pretty good year (really!), but others are struggling a little and some are struggling mightily.

It’s pretty much like any other time except that the definitions of “struggling a little” and “struggling mightily” have changed substantially for a lot of folks.

So in order to help you have a Happy New Year, I want you to start your own stimulus plan by start the New Year today in your business.

Do it right now.

Did I just outlaw December? Nah.

BUT…You have about six weeks until January first. I suggest you put them to very good, very strategic use.

With the exception of retailers and a few others, right about now it’s very common for lots of businesses to start mentally winding down for the year.

I understand that the temptation to join them is strong. I also understand that for many, your business is sucking wind. If that’s the situation at your place, you just can’t wait six weeks to get serious again.

I don’t mean that you should skip all the family stuff you do for the holidays and work late on Christmas Eve. However, I do suggest that you get very strategic, very focused about how you use the valuable time left in the year rather than coasting through it like most everybody else.

Rather than not hiring, interviewing, or starting new projects because it’s the holiday season, I suggest you do just the opposite: Start / continue the process today.

Whatever it is, do it TODAY.

Get up an hour earlier on Thanksgiving (if you’re not in the US, get up early anyhow). Get up an hour earlier on Black Friday. Keep that up for the rest of the year. If nothing else, your area’s coffee business will improve (yes, that was a joke).

For every hour of work, ask yourself: “Is this getting me closer to where I need to be, or is it just busy work that I can delegate or not do at all?”

If you have new projects planned for 2010, think of the project as a fully loaded semi-truck (80,000 pounds of in-your-market coolness) and use the next six weeks as the acceleration lane to get that semi up to highway speeds, business-wise.

Finally, be ruthless with yourself and your time. Focus like your next meal is on the line cuz it might be.

Remember Jim Rohn’s comeuppance? (see below)

He couldn’t even afford to buy a box of Girl Scout cookies from the cute little Girl Scout at his door. A grown man with kids, working at an executive position.

That’ll focus you in a hurry. Are you that focused?

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photo credit: Mads Boedker

Last night in the grocery store, 2 moms stopped me in the frozen food section. I thought I was safe since their kids swim with mine on the Columbia Falls Swim Team.

As I stood embarrassingly close to the frozen sausage and egg biscuits and pre-fab hamburger patties, they did it…

They asked me a question about Facebook.

If I remember accurately, it went something like this:

“Mark, What’s with the gibberish-filled crap you post on Facebook?”

Specifically, they asked about posts like “RT @idealfool Lakecam now!!!: http://bit.ly/pfsn0“, specifically wondering if I was speaking Klingon or some other language that few people speak here in Northwest Montana.

They asked because most of the stuff I post on Twitter (anything that isn’t a reply or a direct message) is automatically reposted to Facebook. And then they called me a geek. Ouch.

There’s a business lesson here, so keep up, will ya?

Twitter lingo

Twitter has its own lingo that you pick up pretty quickly if you use it. For example, RT means “retweet”.

When you “Retweet” someone else’s post, you are saying “Someone else posted this and I think its important / funny / stupid /sad / amazingly cool / etc enough to repeat to the folks who read what I post”.

The @ sign is also Twitter-speak (mostly). @WSJ, for example means “The Twitter user named “WSJ”, whose posts you can find at http://www.twitter.com/WSJ”

I don’t think I need to explain HTTP://, but the rest of the URL looks weird and it’s easy to either think it is a typo or a link that no one in their right mind would click on.

Normally you’d expect a .com, but a lot of these URLs coming from Twitter posts end in .ly, .me, .gd and other really short abbreviations rather than .com.

“No way am I clicking on those“, you’re thinking.

These sites are URL shorteners – though it does pay to be careful…

URL shorteners take a really long URL like this: http://ittybiz.com/customers-cant-afford-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ittybiz+%28IttyBiz%29&utm_content=Google+Reader and turn it onto something rather compact like this: http://is.gd/4WLix

The reason URL shorteners are used so much is that Twitter only allows 140 characters in posts placed there. That URL above is longer than Twitter’s message size limit, so my Twitter program automatically shortens it using free services like http://bit.ly, http://is.gd or http://tinyurl.com.

Yeah, but what did you REALLY say?

We’re getting there.

The bit.ly URL in that “RT @idealfool Lakecam now!!!: http://bit.ly/pfsn0” post goes to http://www.nps.gov/ns/featurecontent/glac/webcams/popup-lakemcdonald.html, which is a glorious view of the mountains of Glacier Park as viewed from the south shore of Lake McDonald (cloud cover and darkness notwithstanding) – which is obviously what the original poster means by “Lakecam now!!!“.

@idealfool is the alter ego of Barry Conger, the volunteer Executive Director of the First Best Place Task Force, a seriously cool community organization here in Columbia Falls. Yes folks, Barry is one of those community organizer folks – and he’s read Hildy’s book, so now he’s really becoming dangerous.

Anytime you see an @ followed by a reasonably short name, it’s usually someone’s Twitter name. If you were around during the heyday of CB (citizens’ band) radio, the @idealfool part is pretty much the same as a person’s “handle” on the CB.

And the lesson?

Don’t assume that your wicked cool lingo from one context, group, environment, industry, peer group, media (or whatever) will be crystal clear to and perfectly understood by people in another.

Communication is critical. Don’t assume.

No, I’m not sure how to resolve that in this case without turning off the automatic repost of Twitter messages to Facebook. Yes, I’m thinking about doing exactly that.

Update: Today’s Freakonomics post in the NY Times is another fine example of a message that means one thing in one group and something vastly different to another – the term ”Shovel ready”.

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photo credit: myuibe

Here’s a little quiz about influencing decision makers: http://www.influenceatwork.com/CialdiniQuiz.html

Tell me how you did – and what you think about your answers (a key/explanation is provided after the quiz).

I got a 90%. The one I “missed” I disagree with because I think the right answer requires a mix of two possible answers ( the only two that make sense on the Microsoft question).

One important thing to take from this: Your ability or desire to influence stems from knowing that your solution will truly HELP someone and/or their business. The way I look at it, if you have THE solution for a particular problem/situation, you have an *obligation* to become an expert at showing why people need it.

This isn’t about some infomercial that sells someone crap they don’t need. It’s not about how many “closes” you have memorized (what a pile of crap).

It’s about your ability to understand your customer, analyze their wants and needs and then – if your solution fits – explain the solution in a way that makes it drop-dead-simple to make a purchasing decision.

More reading on this topic: Cialdini’s book “Influence”.

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photo credit: lepiaf.geo

Today’s guest post is from a pinnacle of business wisdom, Tom Peters.

First, a quote:

I am constantly asked for “strategies/‘secrets’ for surviving the recession.” I try to appear wise and informed—and parade original, sophisticated thoughts. But if you want to know what’s really going through my head, see the list that follows” – Tom Peters

Here’s the list Tom is talking about.

While you might think Tom’s remark is unusual, my experience has been that – without exception – every one of the “pinnacles” of business success that I have personally met and talked to have talked about the stuff on Tom’s list more than anything else.

Which should tell you something…

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photo credit: Unhindered by Talent

Something amazing happened to me during my trip to Vegas late last month: An airline exceeded my expectations.

“Exceeded” is a bit of a misnomer because my expectations are so low with airlines in general, but the fact is that they treated me like I would expect to be treated.

These days, that’s exceeding expectations.

I was flying Alaska Airlines from Vegas to Seattle and we had a terrible headwind that made us 45 minutes late.  Normally, I wouldn’t care but I had a 55 minute layover and had to change terminals.

After waiting an interminable amount of time for the late plane to unload, bypassing every restroom in the airport (time’s a wasting) as I ran through the airport like OJ (hey – it was running like OJ to me) to barely make the little automated tram to the next terminal, then doing the OJ again from the tram to my gate…I arrived.

Most of the lights in the terminal where I ended up were out as all the other gates were closed. When I finally arrived, there were two people in that part of the terminal: Me and the Alaska gate agent.

She waved me toward the open gate exit and said “We’d almost given up on you.”

In 25+ years of traveling, I’ve never had someone hold a plane for me. Maybe it was because it was the end of the day. Maybe it was because they didn’t want to pay for a hotel for the night, much less the aggravation of dealing with rebooking me.

No matter what it was, it would have been easy to let that plane go.

But they didn’t.

The agent could have called it a night – it was quite clear that they were done for the day – it was after 9pm in this very sleepy corner of SeaTac.

But she didn’t. I doubt she held that plane because of an extensive management training course. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s simply the right kind of person for that job.

What do you do to figure out whether someone is the right kind of person for a customer-facing job?

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photo credit: cerulean5000

Vegas is always an entertaining trip, and in one way or another, it always comes with lessons.

This time: 4 cab drivers, 4 completely different experiences.

First, the guy who picked me up from the airport. Very courteous, asked me how I wanted to get where I was going – and then proceeded to take the long way. While he was a good conversationalist, taking the long way did not impress.

Second, the guy who picked us up to haul us to another hotel. Courteous, long-time Las Vegas resident, helpful, chatty but not too chatty and even took us in the short way to enter the hotel. A good experience, even though it was short.

Third, an amazing experience. Not good, but amazing. A foul-mouthed cabbie who drove like Mario Andretti (in a Jeep?), wound around through back streets past every strip joint in Vegas, and even managed to offer us a coupon for a hooker. Stunning.

Finally, number four.

He came to us after several other cabbies declined to take our group of 4 and our big load of baggage and trade show gear.

He pulled up, hopped out and asked why no one else was taking us. The cab guy from the hotel told him about our gear – rather than turning away, he reached into his trunk, pulled out a bungee cord and proceeded to cram that big pile of stuff into the trunk, bungee it securely and said “Let’s go”.

Four different people, doing the same job and providing four different types of experiences.

Which one do you hire?

And how do you know which type of experience they’re providing to your customers?

How many of cabbie (employee…) number 1 or 2 would it take to run off your customers?

What steps are you taking to figure out which group your staffers belong to?

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photo credit: Alex E. Proimos

In the days before 9/11, our local airport (Glacier International aka FCA) had a mix of mostly Boeing 737/727, prop and regional jet traffic.

Since 9/11, most of our traffic other than flights to Minneapolis are regional jets or props. When I fly Delta to Salt Lake, for example, I’m usually flying some Delta Skywest regional jet (typically a Canadair model) that is codeshared with Delta.

Before much of the economy cratered over the last year, it wasn’t unusual to see two pilots in the cockpit of these regional jets that looked young enough to have just finished Rush Week at a local university.

Now, I don’t mean to put them down – after all, we always flew safely, never had an unprofessional effort by the pilots and the overall quality of the flight itself appeared no different than any other trip with more experienced pilots – still, there was always a comment or two by passengers when they saw a flight crew that looked like they had been shaving for less than 10 years (in the case of a male crewmembers).

With all the shakeup in the economy and airline industry, these regional jets are now being captained by what appear to be very experienced, mostly white-haired guys who are probably old enough to have flown combat in Vietnam.  As the airlines downsize the number of flights, experienced pilots get pushed down the system to the regional jets.

The smart thing that the airlines are doing – at least SkyWest – is pairing these experienced pilots with the younger pilots who were already flying with them. The ability to let these experienced folks mentor the younger pilots is huge – and it wasn’t something the airlines appeared to be doing prior to changes in the economy.

I talked with several passengers about this during my recent trip to Vegas and all of them found it not only smart business – but comforting to have 30+ years of experience in the cockpit instead of the assumption of 5 or 10 years – even if the younger pilot was doing the flying.

How does this relate to your business?

• How are your new staff members learning the ropes? How are they getting “co-pilot” experience with the equivalent of your white-haired, experienced pilots?
• Looking up into the cockpit and seeing a 50-ish white-haired guy brings confidence in the delivery of air travel without saying a word. For all we know, that guy had no more experience than the co-pilot, or came out of a 20 year retirement due to losses in the stock market and might have fewer regional jet flight hours than the young co-pilot. Didn’t matter, at least until we had the chance to find out more. What gives your customers’ confidence about your business’ ability to deliver with safety and high quality? What are you doing to show them the “white hair” or whatever it takes in your line of work?

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photo credit: jurek d.

Today’s guest post is another story from Dustin about little things.

Some people notice these things, some don’t.

Ask yourself which kind of person you want for a customer, but think before you answer.

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photo credit: typicalgenius

While it would be easy to squeeze them off one by one, I won’t go into all the obvious reasons.

This one is a bit more subtle but just as deadly to a company. The really poisonous thing is that attitudes like this come from the top down and they are CYA’d all the way up the food chain.

Further comment on this whole airline thing will come in a future King For A Day, but for now, just check out Dustin’s experience in today’s triple feature guest post from Dustin Curtis.

• Dear American Airlines
• Dear Dustin Curtis
• Incompetence

Your takeaway?

Two things:

First, little things matter. Ever watch someone try to use your product or website? Ever watch them try to find information in your brochure or find the milk in your store? You make them crazy. Really. Just watch them, but don’t say I didn’t warn you – it’ll make *you* crazy until you fix your business.

Second, customer feedback matters. If you can’t fix it in an hour, a day or a week, people generally understand if you’ll just take the time to tell your story. On the other hand, if you don’t respond or you respond rudely, they’ll remember it for years and tell everyone they know. Not that difficult, yet all too rare.

PS: Dustin – Yeah, I know. The blog badly needs a redesign.

Tomorrow, more from Dustin. Why? Because he understands that little things matter, even to the sweaty guy in the last row on JetBlue.

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Download audio file (KingForADayVerizon.mp3)

photo credit: Sister72

I‘d like to introduce a new series called “King for a Day“. For the acronym-challenged, you might see me refer to it as KFAD now and then, so don’t assume I’m talking about a local radio station.

King for a Day is a series that will discuss some steps I’d take or issues I’d address if I was to become what else… “King (of a particular business) for a Day”.

The idea is to use big companies that many are familiar with and allow you to extrapolate from there to your business – whether its a good or bad thing they’re doing.

You should expect the discussion to center around the consumer for what I hope are obvious reasons.

If you’d like to nominate a business, add a comment and I’ll add your suggestion to the list.

I’ll be publishing KFAD on the first Friday of the month, so stay tuned for future episodes. Because these posts might get a little long, I will also podcast them. You might find a little bonus content in the podcast, so subscribe via iTunes, Google Reader or whatever you use to listen online.

One last thing to repeat before we start this exercise. This is not really about the companies that we discuss. All of this is just another way to get a point across that it’s about you, your company and most importantly, your clientele.

When reading the stories in KFAD, you should expect to:

• Search for parallels in your business
• Identify takeaways.
• Implement change for the good of your clientele – which will bring good things to you.

So let’s get started …

Focusing on the wrong thing

While it would be easy to start this out by being the King of the Airlines, I’ll mellow on that just long enough to give Verizon the treatment. The reality is that most of my comments would fit any cellular carrier, but Verizon is the one I’ve used for the last 5-7 years and thus am most familiar with.

Negative consequences

When I find a business in trouble, or simply annoying the heck out of me, it almost always seems to come down to them focusing on the wrong things.

For example, Verizon recently announced they would double their termination fee. How does this help their customers? Is it about punishing the customer? That simply won’t work.

Focusing on negative consequences completely ignores the customers who stay – and aren’t they the really important ones?

In fact, it marginalizes these customers because you’re clearly focusing on things they aren’t even doing. You’re focused on things you don’t want to happen instead of the things you *do* want to happen.

So not only do you tick them off, but your business is focused on the wrong, wrong, wrong thing – which doesn’t serve your customers.

Engage me in a Cinnabon-inspired lovefest

If I’ve made up my mind to leave you for an iPhone, a $300 termination fee isn’t going to stop me. In fact, it’s likely to tick me off and incentivize me to ramp up the goodness that I plan to milk from my new strategic communications device (no, it’s not just a phone).

Think about it: If *I’m* willing to put up with AT&T, I must have a *really* good reason to do so.

Instead of threatening me with doubled cancellation fees, you should be giving me a reason to stay. Give me lots of compelling ones, in fact. Give me things that make me want to write long, lilting caramel-covered blog posts about you that are as sickeningly sweet as a slightly under-cooked airport Cinnabon with extra frosting.  Hint: A good start would be to make it possible for me to buy a Verizon-compatible iPhone.

Focus on making changes that make your service so valuable that I *cannot* leave you. Don’t focus on things that cause you to waste management and technology resources – such as new ways to punish people who are likely leaving you anyway.

A man’s got to know his limitations

I have a 400 minute call plan. Rarely do I go over, but over the last 2 months, I’ve gone way over. I didn’t find out that little tidbit until the $400 bill arrived.

Any cell company that was interested in keeping their clients happy would tell me before that happened.

Any cell company that really cares would do what is reasonable (or do MORE than is reasonable) to see that their customers don’t make mistakes using their product. Common sense says that providing good customer care includes telling your clients when they are approaching an overage. Even banks do that.

Need a revenue source focus for this conversation? It’s a great opportunity to ask someone to upgrade their plan, even if only temporarily. Imagine that, getting paid for taking proper care of your customers.

Perhaps you might have a 3 day/week/month “Bump” plan that gives you an extra 100 minutes a week for when you’re out of town unexpectedly. Perhaps you could turn it on by dialing “*bump” and then go about your business.

When you do this, Verizon would automatically add the charge and 100 minutes per week (month, whatever) to your plan. Likewise, it would automatically terminate it after the 3 weeks/month/days or whatever.

No doubt, someone might say “we don’t have the ability to upgrade your plan, or sell temporary “bumps”, because our systems don’t allow for that”. I say – that’s an easily solvable problem in your billing system.

Same idea for text and data plans that near overage points.  (apologies to Clint for the heading)

Data plans (required)

Recently I took my 17 year old to the Verizon store to get him a new phone. His last one met with an unfortunate end of life scenario and this time, he was buying the phone himself.

Unfortunately, out of 20-30-40 phones (however many they had), only TWO could be activated without a data plan.

Now tell me, what 17 year old really *needs* a data plan? Can you justify $30 0r $60 a month additional for that? The salesperson’s line is that they aren’t allowed to sell the phone without a data plan.

For an iPhone, I get that. For a smart phone that is designed to be totally integrated with email such as a Blackberry, I get that. For a regular old cell phone, whether it has lame web capabilities or not, the customer should have the ability to get service without requiring an additional $400-$700 a year data plan – particularly for a teenager.

The iPhone (the official line vs reality)

Every time I go into the local corporate Verizon store, I ask when they are getting the iPhone.

I do it mostly to see what kind of response I get. Clearly they’ve been indoctrinated by corporate, because I get the same response every time. It’s something along the lines of “We don’t want the iPhone. It’s putting AT&T out of business and making their network too busy. Have you seen AT&T’s stock lately?”

Yeah, whatever. Have you seen AT&T’s churn rate lately? It isn’t because they offer the best service and customer care in the business.

Advice to whoever is training these folks: Get over yourself. You *want* your network to be hammered. Sure, you want it responsive, but you want more, more, more demand. You want the problem AT&T has, ie: “How much capacity can I build this year?” The more demand, the less likely you’ll ever lose them.

The source of the “Why would we want the iPhone?” attitude might be Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg himself. In 2008, Seidenberg’s childish response to iPhone question included calling the iPhone’s success a “conspiracy”.

Late in October 2009, it seems that 2 billion app store downloads and a 1% AT&T churn rate might have tempered Seidenberg’s attitude a little, as he responded to questions about Verizon selling the iPhone by noting that they were certainly interested and that it was “exclusively up to Apple“.

Disabled GPS chips

With the exception of the Storm and the (new) Droid, Verizon disables API (programming) access to the GPS chips in phones – *except* for their extra services/products. For example, you can’t use certain Google’s Mobile Maps features because Google can’t get to the GPS chip to say “Hey, where am I?”  How is that customer friendly?

It isn’t. You should be.

You get the idea by now I hope: It isn’t about you, your products or your services. It’s about all the things those products and services can do to benefit your customers.

Update: Karmically enough, the same day I post this, Apple Insider reports that a Verizon iPhone is on the way. That would keep me on Verizon.

Update: More on the topic from Digital Daily, including a reaction from Verizon.

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photo credit: paintMonkey

Yesterday, we went over the first 50 items on the NY Times’ “100 things restaurant staffers should never do”, and mentioned a few other folks that might also use those things even if they don’t own a restaurant.

Today, the NYT published the next 50, and once again – they might be focused on a restaurant staffer’s duties but you have similar, little tiny, insignificant things in your business that matter JUST AS MUCH.

Hopefully this list from a restaurant will help you find them in your place and do what makes sense for the customer.

What I hope you don’t do is discard the entire list because you disagree with one of them. We’ve all had a waiter do something little that bothered us, grossed us out, or whatever. Your staff does little things that have the same impact on your customers.

For example, do you have a counter service person who licks their index finger while flipping through papers? Do they then hand the paper over to the client? Normally, maybe a minor thing. In the days of H1N1 (swine flu), it may or may not be a way to transmit the flu but it will still cause concern.

Just a little thing…like the difference between the way water behaves at 211 degrees F vs. 212 degrees F.

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photo credit: goldsardine

If you don’t own a restaurant, the temptation might be to turn the page and blow past part one of the NY Times’ “100 things restaurant staffers should never do” story.

Or maybe you’d read it like a diner, thinking “Yeah, #2, 13 and 34 really annoy me”.

Don’t waste it like that.

The list is all about whatever *you* do, no matter what that is.

I guarantee that your oil change store, dry cleaning store, clothing store, bar, coffee shop, software business or consulting firm can adapt most of these for your business.

You don’t have to agree with all fifty. For example, I *prefer* to know the waiter’s name. It’s more… personal. But you knew I’d say that.

Even if you don’t agree with all of them, use the list to your advantage.

Update: Here’s part 2 of the NY Times “100 things” list, along with my comments.

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photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

Ten months of 2009 are gone. Take the pulse of your business and ask yourself: “Is the business where I wanted to be by now?”

Before you think this is all about the finances, it isn’t. It’s all about where you wanted to be. Maybe it’s about finances, but there might be more important indicators. It’s easy to be profitable and still heading in the wrong direction, for example.

If you’re behind, what can do add, change, delete, correct or adjust to get your progress back on track to meet/exceed your business’ goals? Have you actually done what you said you would do? If not, why not?

Not just about Retail

Big retail (and far too much of small retail) looks at these next two months as what gets them into the black. They’ve even named the day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” because that’s the shopping day that traditionally moves their business into the black.

While many outside of retail often look at these next two months as throwaways due to the number of holidays, vacations, parties, travel, hunting season and so on – that’d be a mistake.

Likewise, lots of companies put off hiring during these two months (hmm, so NOW till January is the time to pick off the best talent?).

As for the delay, I can find a holiday and related excuses to do that in any month. Why would you do that?

Thank them

In a few weeks, Thanksgiving is coming up in the U.S.

What a great time to take a little time to thank your clientele for their business – just don’t be boring about it and don’t make it a sales call. Whatever you do, do it as a sincere thanks rather than making it ordinary and using it as just another opportunity to pitch everyone.

For Canadian readers who are thinking “Darn, our Thanksgiving was last month”, it’s not too late. Simply acknowledge that you’re a bit tardy so you thought you’d thank them in time for the Americans’ Thanksgiving.

2010

One last thing on this topic – now’s the time to get moving on an assessment of 2009’s successes and failures, and start laying out your 2010 plans and goals. Have your plans and strategies ready for Jan 1 (and start them earlier if it makes sense). Don’t wait until Jan 1 to start this process.

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What about in other markets that affect yours?

Ever want to know at least a little bit of what Google might be thinking?

This 5 minute excerpt is the meaty part of a 45 minute long discussion about the future with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Listen to what Schmidt says about the inevitable intersection of TV, radio, video, internet – ie: of media in general.

Sure, it’s obvious. And it’s just one aspect of what he’s speaking of.

But are you considering it in your marketing? In your product delivery? In what your products and services look like? In who you have on your staff, the skills you’re looking for in new hires and the training you’re offering to existing staff?

You don’t have to be in the tech business for this to have a profound impact on you. Has the iPod has affected businesses other than those who make cassette players? Surely.

What often separates the big dogs from everyone else is that they think ahead, they look ahead and they position themselves to be at cruising speed when that next big thing gets traction and hits cruise control.

Focusing merely on survival is not only a great way to never make it to top speed, but to find yourself on the wrong highway altogether.

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photo credit: JustinLowery.com

You’ve probably heard the saying “No rest for the wicked” (or weary). Weary might be a better choice in this case.

Should you be scared like the author suggests that Microsoft perhaps should be?

Microsoft, like many successful companies large and small, has reinvented itself before. It’ll probably have to do it again, and perhaps so will Google. I’m not here to help them though.

If Amazon starts selling online to your market and does so with better prices and free shipping – do you just roll over?

I don’t think so, but that’s your choice.

One thing to keep in mind – Never forget what business you’re really in.

If it’s a business in a market that is easily transformed into a commodity, transform how you deliver value. Deliver it to additional markets.

Think a little…

Scared is the wrong word, don’t you think?

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So…what did you do to have a little fun?

Here are a couple of examples:

One of the many coffee shops that I prod now and then came up with this (among other things) for Halloween.

Note the R.I.P. sign, then check out the 2nd image.

Below in the hand of the chalk outline, a familiar green logo. Who could it be?

Wonder how many people commented about that when they got back to their office?

But it wasn’t just retail and restaurants getting into the act. Major colleges did too, like LSU who remade the Michael Jackson Thriller music video:

Good stuff and just a few of the creative examples I’ve come across this week.

PS: For those wondering about the highest adult spending holiday, it’s Valentine’s Day. Get a head start.

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While the above video is several years old, this news piece about a real group of would-be rappers placing their order via rap is not only new, but managed to get the boys arrested.

How would your employees react? How would you react?

The obvious answer to their order is… “Do you want fries with that?”  (sorry, couldn’t resist)

Seriously though, while I can see where you might have trouble getting the order correct (I picked up some but not all of it), but there was a lot more to be gained from this by reacting positively.

Instead of taking a shot at alienating an entire community of teens for something this harmless, there are several other options.

One easy example: invite them to judge a Rap-Your-Order contest. McDonald’s corporate could get a big-time rapper to do the same thing on a national basis.

Think “American Idol meets Big Mac meets P Diddy.”

A contest would likely engage one of your highest transaction frequency customer groups – teens.

The Rap Police

Sure, you’d have to make it clear that rapping your order was not something you want to hear at the drive-up, and I’m sure that no matter what the solution to that issue might be, the average McDonald’s franchisee could figure out how to enforce it without alienating their customers.

It might be easier to encourage rap orders during very specific times. For example, you might offer some sort of promo (upsized drink, for example) for clearly rapped orders during a typical teenage-heavy timeframe, such as late night weekends.

Whatever you do, if you do it to engage your customers, you can think it through and figure out the ins and outs of the situation.

Your contest might turn into an annual event and might also get you quite a lot of no-cost PR.

Or you could be a grumpy old cuss and have them arrested. That’s sure to engage your teen clients and their parents (and friends and so on).

Which seems like a better long term move?

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How much is it worth to get recognized in public just for being thoughtful?

Hard to say. On the other hand, what’s it worth to know that a TV personality (or for that matter, *any* customer) will use your company’s service forever (or until you blow it)?

In my mind, a lot.

Since specifics are nice, consider that person might rent a car twice a year for just one day. I figure that might be $80-200 depending on the rental. Multiply that times 20, 30 or 40 years and it adds up.

Now imagine that it happens because just one of your staff members is helpful, thoughtful and does something that really costs you *nothing*. The ROI on thoughtful is pretty good.

Christopher Elliott gave Alamo Rent-a-Car a great testimonial on a major media not long ago because someone at Alamo upgraded his car without him asking, for no cost, simply because of where he was going.

What was *that* testimonial worth? When I walk by Alamo this week in Kalispell, Las Vegas, Seattle and Salt Lake – you can bet I’ll remember it. I wonder how many other viewers will remember…

Quite a strategy that counter person had, thinking about their customers’ welfare and the experience they might have while using their company’s product.

Imagine if it had gone the other way. If he’d gotten stuck, been late, had car trouble that was no fault of the car or Alamo, but simply had troubles because he didn’t rent “enough” vehicle.

Which way do your people think while helping a customer? Is that what you’d want if your grandmother was your customer?

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What if you did the right things and the smart things years before most of your competitors did? Wouldn’t that make life easier?

John Gerzema talks at TEDxKC about the post-crisis consumer (16m 34s), but there are some interesting business nuggets in here as well.

Smart companies, smart consumers

Gerzema talks about a lot of things that make the video interesting from a consumer and business perspective, but 2 things stuck out for me:

1) Some of the discussion is about all the changes that big companies are making to take advantage of the post-crisis consumer’s mindset, even though much of what they are doing are the things that *smart companies* have been doing for years.

They’ve been watching their expenses, tracking their advertising, spending money on investments they can measure, hiring smarter – and they’ve been doing this for years – just like the frugal consumers Gerzema talks about.

2) I found it interesting, and at times mildly amusing, that many of the “new” consumer trends that Gerzema’s team is discovering (presumably in urban areas) have been part and parcel of rural living for as long as anyone can remember. Emphasis on community, volunteering, ethics, “durable living”, not flaunting your bling (had to be said), and the like.

Most small town folks didn’t need the economy to crater to start doing those things.

Those 2 things aside, the 16 minutes is definitely worthwhile, so grab a cuppa joe and enjoy.

What to do next

Now that these things have reached beyond little towns like the ones around me and are reaching deep into urban areas, how can you adjust what your business is doing to get in step with the consumers where you live?

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