Smithereens: Productivity, Persuasion and Prose

A Categorical Imperative: The Importance of Using Specific Blog Categories

2008-07-17T13:21:00.010-04:00

Can you even imagine a pun that is more high-brow than the one I just used in this post's title? (I certainly Kant.) But fear not, this post is not about deontological philosophy, it's just about categories. On this blog. And how important it was that I started using them effectively.

You see, I realized last week that my long-and-growing list of Categories and accompanying tag cloud (see left) was becoming unwieldy and largely unusable. Chris Pearson's recent post on the importance of keeping categories trimmed to avoid provoking analysis paralysis in your blog visitors really hit home and I decided to do just that.

And so from my old, never-ending list of 100+ labels, I pored through every post and pared them back to just three, which coincide with this blog's three main themes: productivity, persuasion and prose. (I also added a few others like "technology" to denote the tech-heavy productivity posts and wordplay-wednesdays and marketing-wednesdays to set apart my ongoing series.) But the main purpose here was to create categories that were actually usable.

Finally, my categories are specific and few enough to truly be used as navigational devices, which Pearson advocates, rather than just a (pretty, but ultimately) useless cloud of stream-of-consciousness spouting.

Next, I went to work, looking for ways to leverage my newly trimmed categorical list in a way that would help my readers.

Enter the new navigational bar.

Yeah, My Blogger Blog Has a Nav Bar Now, What's It To You?

As you may or may not have noticed, Smithereens is sporting a spiffy new navigational bar across the bottom of the header (if you're on the site and missed it, scroll back up and admire, or if you're reading this in a reader, click on through and check it out.)

Now this may not seem like a very big deal, but the lack of easy nav bar implementation on Blogger blogs is a notorious shortcoming of the platform. It took some serious template tweaking to get it working. (Oh and if the header looks horrible to you, instead of slick and seamless, you're probably using IE version 6 or earlier. Why are you doing that? It's time to upgrade to Firefox. Or at least get IE7+ for the love of standards-compliant browsers! But if you're not on an antiquated browser and it still looks funky, please let me know in the comments as I'm trying to quash the last of the template bugs as quickly as possible.)

But what's important about the new navigation bar (and relevant to this post) is the addition of the "Choose a category" buttons. Let me explain my rationale for adding these, and explain what it means for you.

The New Smithereens Blog Buffet (It's All-You-Can-Eat)

When I started this blog just 6 short weeks ago, I wasn't sure exactly where it would take me. I knew that my most passionate interests were (and still are) writing, marketing and general lifehackery, so I decided to set those three subjects (poetically paraphrased as productivity, persuasion and prose) as my basic slalom poles, to use a skiing metaphor.

But one thing I have noticed recently is that having such an eclectic subject base can cause splintering among my readership. For example, the readers who were most enthralled with my Twitter Wit Writing Contest are not the same as those who drove my gadgety iPhone scoop post to 600 Diggs and beyond.

The problem came to a head when I started to feel as though posting about productivity and technology was putting off those who were more interested in writing or marketing, and vice versa. As the saying goes, you can't please everybody all of the time, only some of them, some of the time.

And so, I felt like I had to do one of three things to fix this issue:

1) Split the blog into two - one on productivity/technology/gadgets and one on writing and persuasion,

2) Narrow the focus of my blog down to just one or the other and stop writing about some of the things that interest me; or

3) Provide mored ways for readers to dynamically choose what content they consume.

After consulting with many of my trusted friends who've been blogging much longer than I, I decided that the third option was the best idea for now. (I don't have the time to properly maintain two personal blogs right now on top of client obligations, and I don't want to limit the scope of my writing just yet.)

And so, dear readers, now you can choose exactly which type of smithereen you want to take in on any given visit, and which you'd rather ignore. It's a buffet of useful ideas and now you can skip the salad bar and load up on dessert at your leisure.

If you like gadgets and productivity but could care less about how to differentiate tricky homonyms, click the Productivity tab (which also encompasses technology articles) and go to town. If you entered the TwitWit contest 3 times (I'm looking at you, washwords), but all the iPhone chatter drives you batty, click the Prose tab, and maybe the Persuasion one, and enjoy reading only the content you want to read.

Or if you're eclectic like me, and like all kinds of subjects, then...well... carry on. As you were.

But what about the many of you who follow my content by RSS or email? You're thinking: 'What do I care about all this? I never even go to your site.' (Thanks a lot.) Well don't worry, I thought of you too.

Brand Spanking New RSS Options, As Well

As of right now, not only can you get your Smithereens fix in subject-specific morsels on the site, you can also get separate post updates for free for any of the 3 categories.

This endeavour took a bit of Blogger hackery as well, and I am writing up a brief tutorial to post later tonight in case others are wondering how to do this, but the point is, you RSS addicts now have options too, so it was worth it:

For the Productivity feed, click here.

For the Persuasion feed, click here.

For the Prose feed, click here.

And of course, for the regular all-for-one-and-one-for-all feed, you can just click here.

I hope you find these tweaks helpful, and a good alternative to splitting the blog up into different sites. But what do you think, will you use the new Categories for navigation, or not? Let me know in the comments, I really appreciate the feedback.

---

By the way, I know there was more silence than usual these past few days - I hope you'll understand. Along with the many changes I've been making to the Smithereens template, navigation and feed architecture, I've also added a couple neat plugins, like the informative contextual popups you can see in this post from Apture (an article on this service is forthcoming, too - very neat implementation.)

As well, I've been knee-deep in preparation for the launch of my first client blog for NewHomeAssociation.ca, an innovative company in Ottawa that is aiming to be the MLS for new home listings. It should be live tomorrow and I will update this post with the address so you can check it out.

The Rogers Wireless 5 Step Guide to Creating A Loyal Customer Base

2008-07-08T17:22:00.002-04:00

With all the news lately about the impending launch of the iPhone here in Canada on the Rogers network, and the exceedingly positive reactions the company has received from both customers and launch partner Apple, I thought it would be an excellent idea to dig in and examine just what Rogers Wireless does to create such a loyal and enthusiastic base of customers. Perhaps we can all learn something from the master.

And so I present to you a simple 5 step guide to replicating Rogers' great success:

Step 1: When It Comes To Pricing, Bigger Is Better

If you truly want to be a customer service maven like Rogers Wireless, the first thing you must do is throw away any preexisting notions you have about pricing.

Sure, people may say that consumers "love a bargain", or that they expect a "fair deal", but this amounts to little more than propaganda. The truth is, if you want customers to really respect you, you have to gouge them mercilessly.

This is one thing that Rogers understands intimately. Do you really think they are incapable of offering rate plans that "make sense" and iPhone data packs that would allow "standard usage"?

Well of course they're not, but why would they want to be lumped in with those amateurs south of the border anyway? Customers who pay through the nose won't turn up their nose, plain and simple.

Save the dignity for your stockholders.

Step 2: Maximize Customer Happiness With Unmanageable Overage Charges

The only thing customers appreciate more than high basic pricing is a good, unexpected overage charge. They tend to view this sort of thing as a "gouging bonus" or a "respect premium."

Just think, if they looked up to you for charging them $60 for a feature-poor service, for example, just imagine how that fondness would grow in the face of a 100-200% markup in aditional fees!

Rogers takes this prinicple to the next level by making their overage charges as difficult to avoid as possible.

At first you might think that if you were charging customers by the minute or kb beyond a certain threshold, they might appreciate some comprehensive way to track those metrics in real-time to ensure they aren't exceeded accidentally.

But you'd be wrong. In reality, customers enjoy the Russian Roulette-type experience of never knowing whether a call will be included in their monthly package, or will cost them $30. I can feel the suspense just describing it, can't you?

Step 3: Demonstrate Your Commitment: Put It In Writing

As the old saying goes, "Nothing says commitment like a prenup."

And there is a valuable lesson for businesses in that remark: If you want your customers to get serious about you, you better be ready to commit for the long haul.

The best way to show your customers that this isn't just a one-night-stand to you is to invite them into a longterm, one-sided contract. For added effect, it's best to make the duration of the agreement about 30-60% higher than average. How could your customers not feel unique and special?

Naturally, you're going to want to put some strict stipulations in the contract, too, for their own good. Rogers sets out an expensive cancellation fee for anyone who wants out of its agreements. And one day, when they look back, Rogers customers will be happy they got that tough love to keep them from doing something they'd regret.

Like going to one of those pesky, interfering competitors, for example. And that brings me to step 4.

Step 4: Buy Your Immediate Competitors, Ignore The Others

Nothing is worse than direct competition when you're trying to build up a customer base, and Rogers should know.

Just when your customers are starting to enjoy mortgaging their homes to pay for your service, you can always count on an annoying competitor to re-emerge on the scene touting "low prices" and "good customer service," stealing away the less informed among them.

So take a page from the Ted Rogers book and don't tolerate the annoyance. Just buy them. Studies have shown that your competitors' offerings become remarkably similar to your own after acquisition.

And what of the other competitors, you know, the ones who don't compete directly, but could still steal your customers away?

Well the best thing to do to deal with those is to ignore them altogether. After all, if their offering isn't as good as yours anyway, then they can't really be a threat to you, right? Let them talk all they want about "unlimited" services and "fair pricing." Your customers will still revere you for your stoicism.

Just look at how Rogers so expertly ignores competitive pressure from the likes of Telus and Bell. After all, Rogers knows it is the only GSM carrier in Canada, giving it exclusives on GSM-only devices like the iPhone, so why worry about those CDMA weaklings? It's not like things are going to change anytime soon.

Step 5: Finally, Ignore Public Outcry Whenever Possible

I hate to use another cliche, but it's simply too a propos in this case: If you want the baby to go to sleep, let her cry it out.

And so it is with your customers. Sure, from time to time, they'll throw a tantrum and think that they know best. Like kids, they may even threaten to run away. But in the end, if you just stay strong in your convictions, live out this guide to a T and generally ignore the fracas, your customers will truly appreciate it.

Don't believe me? Well just look at the Rogers case: There was some limited public naysaying about that iPhone launch, but the Wireless giant kept mum and just ignored the bad press instead of sinking to their level. And now people are already talking about declaring tomorrow a National Day just to call and say thank you. I rest my case.

How To Manage Multiple Personalities Online Without Going Crazy (Hint: It Involves Gmail, Twitter and FriendFeed)

2008-07-07T12:33:00.010-04:00

Just for starters, I should point out that this article isn't about dealing with multiple personality disorder by using online tools. I'm sorry to disappoint.

But what it is about is figuring out how to manage multiple online brands and blogs without going crazy.

You see, for many bloggers, writers, and full-time web-workers, one of the hardest things we deal with on a daily basis is maintaining multiple personas online for marketing, conversation and promotional purposes.

Now if you only have one or two sites and they are owned and run by you, these can probably be promoted, bookmarked and discussed using a single coherent brand on the likes of Twitter, Friendfeed and Digg. That's what Darren from the Problogger network of blogs does, for example.

But what about when clients hire you to blog for them on their site, and expect you to promote and optimize that content too using social media as part of the deal?

Or what if you just want to use different, relevant usernames for each site to help optimize them for search engines?

Then, before you know it, you're juggling multiple browsers and hundreds of tabs, trying to keep up with two or more different online identities, each one with its own group of friends and followers and its own conversation threads: Next stop, white padded room.

That is, unless you could somehow pull all of these together in a way that allows you to view all the input and respond from one central location...

Two Problems, Two Solutions

This topic has been on my mind lately for a couple different reasons. First, I will be launching a new blog for one of my clients this coming week and so I had been thinking about how best to promote that new content without confusing my own personal brand.

Then, my friend Alexis Siemons from the My Tea Cups blog, mentioned that she was getting increasingly frustrated by the same problem. She had been trying to set up new social media accounts to promote her great new blog about etymology and words over on The Hatchet (an online magazine) called, naturally, The Word. (I think she's on a two week trial there, so head over and take a look and if you like it, leave a comment.)

Anyway, the point is that she was having issues, too, particularly with Twitter's one-account-per-email rule.

And as I see it, that is one of the two main issues we deal with when trying to maintain disparate social network accounts online: Doing so requires too many email addresses!

The second challenge is that the accounts themselves are too difficult to keep updated after you've set them up successfully.

Let's take a look now at how we can deal with each of these problems in turn.

I Don't Want Another Freaking Email Address

I'll use Alexis' problem as a point of reference here again: She already had two email addresses - one generic ISP and one Gmail - and didn't want to set up another one just to create a new Twitter account for the new blog.

Fair enough.

Of course, with Gmail being free and coming with automatic-forwarding baked right in, it wouldn't be that difficult to set up a new account, and then just redirect it to your main one. But why add another email address to your growing harem when you can just use Gmail's dot hack to trick Twitter into allowing multiple usernames for one email address?

I won't go into great detail about what the Gmail dot trick is, because it has been covered quite well elsewhere, but the Cole's Notes is this: when you sign up for a Gmail Account, you are actually reserving not only your username, but also every variation you can create by inserting periods.

So if your email address is johnsmith@gmail.com, email directed to john.smith@gmail.com, j.ohnsmith@gmail.com, j.ohn.s.mith@gmail.com all go to the same inbox. Nifty, eh?

(My apologies to John Smith for exposing your email in four different iterations to the spambots, but let's face it, I probably wasn't the first.)

Now how can we use this trick to fool Twitter into letting us have multiple usernames all tied to one email?

Quite easily: Just sign up for one name with your regular account, and another by adding a dot (and another and another if need be, using as many email variations as possible.)

I've tested this, and it works like a charm.

What I haven't done is a full scale analysis to see if the same tactic will work on other Social Media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and the like, so your mileage may vary. But maintaining brand association on services as content-critical as Twitter or other microblogging platforms is often the most important piece of the blog promotion puzzle anyway.

In any case, I will be doing further testing in the coming days as I prepare for the new blog launch, and will keep you posted on what I find.

Now For The Hard Part

Of course, while having all your Twitter (or other social network) updates directed to one Inbox does alleviate the management stress somewhat, we are still faced with the arduous task of following and contributing to all those dislocated conversations.

But not to worry: This is where FriendFeed can come in handy.

If you haven't heard about it, FF is an innovative service that acts as an aggregator for all your online activity, and that makes it a perfect tool to track and manage multiple accounts on Twitter or elsewhere.

Using the Twitter example, you can easily add your multiple accounts to a single FriendFeed stream with a couple clicks. Then you can easily track both threads in one window. (And in one browser too, since you would need to use two to be signed in to two different Twitter accounts at once.)

To make things even better - FriendFeed even allows you to reply to Tweets you receive in your stream, and will show those replies as coming from the Twitter account where they originated!
How cool is that?

So that's it- wasn't so painful, was it? Now you can easily manage as many online personalities as you need to all in one central location.

Just make sure they don't start talking to each other and everything should be just fine.

---

What about you, how do you deal with managing your different identities online? Do you have any need to do so? Can you let us know if these tricks will work with other non-Twitter social media sites? The comment form awaits your insight!

DISCLAIMER: This tip can obviously be abused for dishonest and spammy purposes, but that is not the intent of this article at all. Don't use it for that. Come on. Nobody likes a spammer.

Positively Negative: Is There Ever a Place for Alternate Perspectives in Marketing?

2008-07-03T01:24:00.013-04:00

A post this week by Bob Younce over on The Writing Journey blog sparked an interesting discussion about addressing both sides of the story in your writing.

In grad school, Younce recalls being trained to state a thesis and defend it to the death, leaving the job of criticizing any weaknesses of argument to other peers in the field. And indeed, I can relate, as some professors at my university expected the very same thing.

While there was some discussion in the comments of that post about different Academic traditions and their respective expectations around this sort of thing, the main point of Bob's article was to discuss whether this academic phenomenon should apply to the production of partisan copy like sales letters and marketing materials as well.

In it, he wonders aloud if these persuasive pursuits should give both sides of the story, or stick to one side and tell it well.

Answering himself, for better or for worse, he compares copywriting to his own experience in grad school, concluding that you can't really "tell it like it is" when writing sales copy, any more than you can when writing a graduate thesis:

When you’re writing copy, you write about the positive points of a product or service- its features or benefits. You don’t write about potential problems with the product or about how another product might function in a similar way. You restrict the flow of information and leave it to the consumer to discover the counter-arguments or problems on their own. If you don’t, your copy doesn’t convert.

But is it true that your copy should always be single-sided and so narrowly focused as to ignore obvious drawbacks?

I, for one, don't think so. And I'm in good company.

The Preemptive Strike

So, before you claw my eyes out and direct me to one of the millions of available articles on the power of positive focus in sales and marketing (wait, one of them was on my own blog?), please hear me out.

I am in no way saying that the main focus of your copywriting efforts shouldn't be positive statements about the features and benefits of your product or service. They should be, and to disagree with that fundamental law of conversion would be foolish and asinine. What I am saying, however, is that preemptive damage control can be a very effective tool to add to your marketing arsenal.

Ok, so maybe the preemptive strike idea didn't work out very well for Mr. Bush, but we're not talking about breaching sovereign nations here, we're just talking about anticipating reasonable objections and handling them before they are even raised.

After all, in a sales presentation, everyone would be quick to agree that objection-handling is a major step towards closing the deal: A potential client with unanswered questions or unaddressed concerns is not likely to become a paying customer anytime soon.

But when you are writing copy for your web site, or a sales letter, or some other persuasive piece of content, you don't always have the opportunity to respond to those objections individually.

Instead, if your potential client thinks of an objection that offends them thoroughly enough while reading your information, and they don't find an answer forthcoming, they'll probably just leave.

But not if you anticipated that issue and dealt with it right from the start.

The Advantages of Shooting Straight

Putting aside any obvious ethical benefits of being honest with your audience (like being able to sleep at night, etc.), there are also many tangible reasons why marketers and sales professionals should want to shoot straight with their prospective customers.

And most of these reasons can be summed up in one statement: Your customers are not stupid, and they don't appreciate when you make them feel that way.

When you completely ignore obvious, relevant likely objections to your pitch, it comes off as naive at best and patronizing at worst.

Did you really think your customer wouldn't do the math and figure out that you're twice as expensive as your closest competitor, just because you never mentioned that in your copy?

Did you really think your client wouldn't consider the gas mileage on that car you're peddling, just because you ignored that discussion on your web site?

The reality is that consumers are more informed than ever and are more likely than ever to do extensive research on your product or service before making a purchase commitment. If you ignore their tough questions, they'll find the answers somewhere else. So why not at least try to control that conversation?

The Best Policy

Let's consider an example from my own experience.

One of my own clients offers a service: asphalt repair. This is a very competitive industry, with many companies offering a wide variety of solutions for the cracks and sinking that afflict many driveways here in Ottawa, thanks to our vicious freeze-thaw cycle.

The main drawback to my client's service, however, is that his pricing is quite a bit higher than many of his competitors. And when homeowners are being inundated with 3-4 flyers a week from different companies, they know the range of available pricing: It's not something you can hide.

So instead of omitting the fact that our pricing is higher in our marketing literature and sales pitches, I just tell it like it is.

"Look," I might say. "We are not the cheapest guy on the block, but when it comes to asphalt, you really do get what you pay for." Then I'll proceed to give a description of the shortcuts many competitors will take to lower their prices, and the thorough job we promise to do. In written materials, the same conversational technique works wonders, too.

All of a sudden, that high-price drawback has become a high-value mark of quality and the low prices of those competitors have become red flags for possible shoddy workmanship.

By coupling my frank admission with an explanation that resonates with consumers, I've increased the likelihood of a sale.

Granted, some negative aspects are more difficult to rationalize than others. It may not be as easy to explain the side effects of your drug in a positive light, for example.

But I think that if you put your mind to it, you can present drawbacks alongside and after your features and benefits, in such a way that they are at least clearly outweighed by the benefits you are purporting to offer (ie: rational humans won't even blink at a possible skin rash if what you're selling cures cancer.)

The way I see it, if you can't create a convincing sales piece without omitting every last bad thing about your product or service, maybe you need to go back to the drawing board and improve your offering first!

I'm not trying to re-write the sales handbook here, as counter-intuitive as much of this may sound. But I am trying to be realistic about the way people read and respond to persuasive copy, and in my experience, honesty is always the best policy and acting proactively is always better than having to respond to a suspicious client or losing a client altogether.

After all, at their core, sales and marketing are all about rapport. If someone likes you and trusts you, they will buy from you, plain and simple.

And in my books, there is no better rapport-builder than a compelling, true story. When your potential client feels like you're speaking on the level about your drawbacks, they will be more likely to believe the positive things you say too, and that trust will translate into more conversions, guaranteed.

---

What do you think? Is there a place in sales and marketing pieces for honest admissions and explanations, or do you subscribe to the school of thought that "what they don't know can't hurt them"? Let's continue this discussion in the comments.

(Barely) Marketing Monday: The Power of Positive Words in the Art of Persuasion

2008-06-09T23:00:00.001-04:00

For this Marketing Monday post (hey, it may not be Monday anymore here in EST, but it still is in... Vancouver...), I was going to write an article on the difference between branding-advertising and call-to-action advertising, but after reading a great post over on Copyblogger this morning, I changed my mind and decided to put that one off until next week.

The Copyblogger post in question was a guest article by Willy Franzen of the blog One Day One Job, provocatively titled "How to increase your blog's subscription rate by 254%."

It's worth the read, but the basic gist of Franzen's thesis is that using the word "Subscribe" as a call to action on your blog actually discourages some readers from doing so, because they associate that word with old-media concepts of paid subscriptions. In his case study, he eliminated that word on his own site's buttons and saw his subscribership rocket.

Now one commenter disputed Willy's Google Analytics graph and wondered whether the resulting growth was really 254%, but in the end that doesn't really matter to his argument. As Sonia Simone (of the great blog Remarkable Communication) responded a few comments later, "I’m not picking a stock here– the trend is what matters, and I buy Willy’s assertion that the trend is significant."

I couldn't agree more. And really, why wouldn't it work? The fact is, whether we like it or not, our minds always make mental associations between words and certain emotions. It's involuntary, it's somewhat inexplicable, but it's also undeniable. So while other factors like the placement of your buttons and ease of use are obviously important, too, Willy's is a new angle and a simple, actionable suggestion. Why not try it?

When I read the article, I had a kick-myself moment, and immediately resolved to remove the word Subscribe from my RSS button. I have already redone the graphic and will upload the new one tomorrow and keep you posted on whether this has any noticeable effect on subscriptions, but I don't doubt that it will help.

In any case, this post and the discussion it reminded me of the broader subject of word associations, and how it relates to sales, marketing and any other art of persuasion, really.

What You Say and What They Hear (Is Different)

My first experiences with the power of word choice came when I was running my own painting company several years ago. At the time, a sales mentor of mine suggested that, when doing ~~sales calls~~ estimates, I should choose my words carefully and avoid certain expressions at all costs.

Instead of "price", encourage the client to make the "investment", I was told. When asking for the sale, request that they simply "authorize the agreement" instead of "signing the contract." You get the idea.

In hindsight, the logic is simple, and it's the same as that behind Willy's Subscriber-ban. When you say "price", people think about their wallet getting thinner, but when you say "investment", they picture their house appreciating in value.

When you ask them "authorize an agreement," it evokes a feeling of mutual understanding, versus the words "sign" and "contract", which make one think of deals with the devil.

At first, though, I was skeptical that such semantic tweaks could have any real effect on my numbers. Nonetheless, you can't argue with results. And not only did my sales go through the roof, but I could actually see that the reactions of my prospective clients were noticeably warmer when presented with these "fuzzy words" rather than the colder alternatives.

How Can You Use Positive Words in Your Persuasive Pursuits?

The lesson here is fairly simple - whether you are writing web content, penning that perfect marketing piece, or preparing your next sales pitch, try to stay conscious not just of what you're saying, but also of how the words you use will make your audience feel.

This isn't about "spinning" or "twisting" your unique selling proposition, or lying about what you do, or misleading your prospects in any way. It is about acknowledging the power your words can wield in order to communicate those things, and choosing them wisely as a result.

You want someone to fill out your form (taxes)? Try promoting your questionnaire or quiz instead (Jeopardy!)

You want someone to listen to your door-to-door pitch without slamming one in your face? Why not offer a free estimate or consult (I can afford free) instead of a discounted service (I don't want to be sold at my front door, at any price.)

You want people to stop mentally filtering out your blog's advertising blocks (I'm here to read, not buy)? Why do you think so many of the big blogs ask you to consider supporting their sponsors instead?

Yes, I know, all this talk of feelings may sound a little new-agey at first blush, and it might make the stiffest among you cringe, but the reality is that people won't do what you want them to do unless they feel like doing it. So if you make sure you're making them feel the right things, you just might find that they'll start to do the right things, too.

---

Do you have examples of how you use positive words to improve your sales, marketing and copywriting endeavours? If so, please share them in the comments!

If you liked this post, please Digg it using the button below, or share it with someone you care about by email or by linking to it on your blog. They will thank you.

PS- If you'd like to ~~subscribe to my blog~~ get my blog entries by RSS or email for free - just click here!

Marketing Mondays: Collaborative Incompetence, or How To Kill Your Company Slowly

2008-05-19T02:02:00.001-04:00

[Introducing a new segment on Smithereens - Marketing Mondays will kick off your week with new insights on sales, advertising and branding, starting today. I hope you enjoy it.]

As any marketing guru or branding expert will tell you, the best kind of marketing is really good customer service. Clients who feel appreciated, important, listened to, catered to and satisfied pull out their wallets and purchase. Clients who feel used, ignored, unimportant and unfulfilled pull out their phones and call your competitors.

More than great commercials, clever slogans and celebrity endorsements, the customer experience is what will truly dictate the long-term success of your brand. As construction marketing blogger (and my boss) Mark Buckshon writes, the bottom line is this: "You will not have a sustainable business unless you deliver the goods and your clients are truly impressed with your service."

Well, that's how it's supposed to be, at least. But, you might be wondering, if that's the case... then why do some big companies seem to get away with offering mediocre products and services without consequence? Do branding rules only apply to the little guys?

I often wonder the same thing.

Why is it, for example, that when I use the self-checkout terminal at the grocery store, or when I pay for my parking in an attendant-less lot, the payment terminals are happy to accept and differentiate between a twenty and a ten-dollar bill; but when I want to deposit cash at my bank's ATM, it has to be in all together in an envelope and may be held for days because "the contents must be verified"?

And why is it that my cellular provider is willing to offer me unlimited evenings and weekend minutes, but won't provide me a way to track the usage that really matters - my limited daily minutes? While we're on the topic, why are Canadian wireless voice and data prices leaps and bounds higher than prices for the same services south of the border?

Why do these companies get away with such mediocrity? The answer, I think, is.. because they can.

Or rather, because they think they can.

Explaining Collaborative Incompetence

Collaborative Incompetence is a term I have coined to describe when multiple companies in the same niche appear to have come to a short-sighted realization that in order to remain viable, they don't need to be the best-of-breed, they only need to... not be worse than everyone else.

To illustrate the concept, imagine only 10 students were going to write the SAT exam this year, and the entire weighting and bell-curving was going to be based on that small pool. Now in order to succeed, those students have two choices; a) they can either study and practice and strive to be the best, or b) they could all collude and arrange to be equally incompetent together!

Because each score is only graded against the "top" score in the group, these students can effectively ace the SAT just by not scoring significantly poorer than everyone else who isn't trying.

The same principle holds true sometimes in business.

Take the earlier bank example for instance - they don't feel any pressing need to make my life easier by accepting and crediting my cash deposits instantly for two reasons:

Every day they can put my money on hold is a day they can invest my money interest-free, and

They're pretty sure nobody else in the industry is going to do it, either.

And it's that second reason that is the real source of the problem here, because that attitude is what causes companies to make purely profit-centred decisions instead of customer-centred ones.

Here in Canada, there are really only a handful of major banks - the so-called Big 5 of Royal, Scotia, TD, Bank of Montreal and CIBC. If each one of these major institutions can be sure, either explicitly or implicitly, that none of the others is going to offer that particular convenience to their customer, then what is the incentive for them to do so? Why incur additional infrastructure costs and change the way they do business when everything seems to be going swimmingly? More to the point: Why disrupt the status quo?

While the banking system in the United States is far more decentralized than it is here, they too have problems with ownership concentration, and as a few recent Consumerist posts show, Americans are no more immune to annoying anti-customer behaviour from the largest US financial institutions.

Ideally, the forces of the free market should preclude this type of behaviour, because, as we established in the first paragraph, dissatisfied customers can simply take their business elsewhere. Unfortunately, though, this mechanism doesn't work very well when the industry oligarchs seem content to pass business around in a circle indefinitely.

Think for a moment about the cell phone example I gave earlier - how many people do you know who have switched from one cable provider or telco to another, and another, only to find that they are all equally despicable? I have personally had cellular, landline, cable and internet services with all three of the major telecom companies in Canada (Rogers, Telus, Bell ), each time switching because of some egregious display of customer disservice, only to find that this is (sadly) the industry norm.

The providers must assume we will eventually just give up and stop taking our business elsewhere because the substantial headache of switching is not worth the marginal benefit. I hate to admit it worked on me, but it did - I've reluctantly accepted that my current provider might be the lesser of three evils, and have stayed put for awhile.

Even though there are more active companies in the market in the US and this has some effect on prices, the larger ones still seem to have this poor customer service attitude to some extent. (Check out this so-bad-it's-almost-funny list of articles about Verizon customer mistreatment on Consumerist.)

But Every Empire Falls Eventually

At first glance, the companies who tend to get away with this kind of poor customer service may seem to be sitting pretty, but the reality is that settling for mediocrity is always a short-sighted endeavour for any business, no matter how big or established.

Eventually, someone will get so sick of whatever problems are currently not being addressed by the old guard, and they will stop at nothing to disrupt the very status quo that the latter was working so diligently to preserve.

It wasn't so long ago that those same banks tried to get away with paying measly interest on our savings accounts - until upstart ING came into the market and disrupted the trend, forcing interest rates up.

And if rumours about a possibe T-Mobile entrance to the Canadian telecom landscape turn out to be true, the current telco triumvirate will have to take a good, hard look at how they treat their customers as well. In fact, the entrance of upstart no-frills cell provider Koodoo Mobile has already prompted some changes in pay-as-you-go rates from Rogers and Belus.

History is littered with examples of companies who clung to the old way of doing things so long that they became irrelevant, while new technologies and new companies moved in and stole market share. The steady fall of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) with the rise of the MP3 and file-sharing comes to mind. Once King-of-the-Web Yahoo losing its grip to Google is another example. (And look where they are now.)

Other companies may not try to displace the industry fixtures, per se, but they will move in and provide services to segments of the population that the latter ignores.

The lack of minute-tracking tools for mobility accounts is a good example: the situation is evidently just as bad with the US telcos, bad enough to inspire young startup Skydeck to step in to give wireless users a whole host of tools that the wireless providers should be offering. (Alas, Skydeck hasn't launched in Canada yet.)

The point is, even the mighty can fall and any company that believes it can survive and thrive by doing what it has always done is sadly mistaken.

So What Can We Learn From All This

Chances are, if you run a business, it's not in the Fortune 500 and it doesn't belong to an exclusive and lucrative legal cartel. (Well maybe it is and maybe it does - if so you may contact me to inquire about advertising rates.)

But if you're running your own small business and trying to market it effectively, what does all this have to do with you anyway?

Well, I think there is a very simple lesson to be learned here for any business, big or small: complacency is a poison pill.

It doesn't matter if you are running an international financial institution or a local bakery, if you don't strive to exceed your customers' expectations and innovate in your field, you are doomed to fade into irrelevance eventually.

Because in the long run there is simply no immunity afforded for incompetence, collaborative or otherwise.

---

If you enjoyed this piece, please use the Digg button below to vote for it. I also welcome your opinions, positive or negative, in the comments.

Home Builder Minto Developments Pushes The Envelope With Their Innovative EcoHome Project (Pun Intended)

2008-05-14T02:22:00.001-04:00

If you are at all interested in environmentally-friendly building and sustainable design, or if you enjoyed my previous piece on "Greenwashing", you may be interested in reading the latest post over on my Tracking Construction Trends blog.

Here is a brief excerpt:

No, you haven't stumbled across Treehugger.com accidentally (though if you haven't been there before, you should check it out.) And no, this blog isn't strictly about green building, but it is about tracking trends in the construction sector, and as I pointed in my first post here, no conversation looms larger in our industry right now than this one.

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of attending a tour of the Minto Eco-Home in Manotick (about a 15 minute drive south of Ottawa)...

READ MORE

It's Not Easy Being Green (But It Sure Is Easy to Pretend!) [Introducing the "Tracking Construction Trends" blog]

2008-05-13T02:23:00.003-04:00

EDITOR'S NOTE NUMBER 1:

With this post, I am officially introducing my new and more professional-oriented blog, Tracking Construction Trends. Well, I know exactly what you're thinking - "You're barely handling one blog, now you're going to try and maintain two??" I was thinking the same thing!

But the truth is, my employer (Mark Buckshon at The Construction News and Report Group) is an avid blogger himself and a strong advocate of the power of corporate blogs for communications, marketing and team-building.

Because I started this site, Smithereens, as a personal interest blog, and not a strictly-for-business site, I sort of went my own way with it in terms of naming conventions, design, etc. But since I also want to be a part of the CNRG's growing network of company blogs, I intend to post (a little less frequently) on this new blog that conforms to our corporate image about topics that interest me AND are relevant to the construction industry we serve.

Occasionally, when an article that I write is relevant to both blogs, as I feel this first posting is, I will cross-post it on both sites. Where the subject matter is mostly or strictly construction-related, I may post a teaser here, or nothing at all. I hope you enjoy the both content here and there.

----

EDITOR'S COMMENT NUMBER 2:

Every month in the Ottawa Construction News, I write a column called The Publisher's Viewpoint about current issues that are pertinent to the industry. What follows here is this month's column, mostly as it will appear when it comes off the presses this week, with a few more points and links added in here and there. A PDF of the May issue is also embedded at the end of this post for your reference.

This month's column was on the phenomenon of "Greenwashing." Our company President Mark Buckshon has also recently written about this issue on his blog - you can read his thoughts here...but be sure to come back!

Please remember that while there are certainly general marketing lessons to be drawn here, the article was written for the construction industry and I haven't changed the tone in that regard. Enjoy.

----

Readers of the Ottawa Construction News have heard a lot of talk in our pages recently about Green building, LEED building and sustainable design. In fact, in the soon-to-be-delivered May issue, they will see a feature profile of the new EcoCite LEED condo development on the canal by Taplen Construction and Christopher Simmonds Architect. (You can view a PDF of the Special Feature here.) At the OCN, we like to bring attention to these types of projects, and to green issues in general because we believe they are important to consider for the future of our industry.

But anytime there is a paradigm shift within an industry, like the one we are seeing now toward Green building practices, there are likely to be two camps: Those who truly believe in the new paradigm and whose body of work clearly shows it (like Taplen, Simmonds and others), and the hangers-on who merely try to 'hop on the bandwagon' without really changing the way they do business. (Here we won't name names.)

The latter camp is so common, unfortunately, that there has already been a term coined to describe those who try to make business-as-usual look 'trendy' and environmentally friendly: Greenwashers. It's a portmanteau of "green" and "whitewashing", and it means exactly what you would expect.

So what is Greenwashing and how can you avoid it in your own business, and in your own marketing? Well, I heard an excellent example of this phenomenon on the radio the other day and although it is from outside our industry, it does illustrate the point really well.

I won't name the company here, but a retail store was running a spot recently to promote their new environmentally friendly line of beauty and personal care products. "Come on in and buy from our new lineup of EnviroCare products," the ad beckoned, "and you will be entered to win in our grand prize draw with each purchase." (I've changed the name of the product line for the sake of anonymity.)

'So, what is the problem with this promo?,' you might ask. And in truth, nothing is really wrong with it on the surface - selling environmentally friendly products is a great idea.

But then the radio announcer goes on to explain that the "Grand Prize Draw" would be for... return airfare for a trip for two across Canada!

Now, let's just do a quick number crunch on that carbon tradeoff, shall we?

According to CarbonFootprint.com's online calculator, that grand prize flight to Whistler from anywhere in Canada could emit up to 2 tonnes of CO2 equivalents for two passengers, the equivalent of cutting down and burning two rain forest trees that are 40 feet tall and a foot in diametre!

I would like to hear the non-Greenwashed version of that radio spot. "With every purchase of our environmentally friendly shampoo, you will be entered into a draw to win our grand prize - the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you and a friend to chop down two giant rainforest trees!"

At the end of the day, this just seems to me like a case of really poorly thought-out marketing, because to an environmentally-conscious consumer (like myself), the obvious carbon footprint of that 'grand prize' sticks out like a sore thumb and just doesn't jive with the Green image they are trying to portray. Whether it was intentional or not, this company ended up sounding like they didn't really care about their effect on the environment, they just wanted to sound like they did.

So you may be asking, how does this relate to the construction industry, and what can you learn from this example? I think the lesson to be learned here is that if you choose to go about making your business greener, you need to be genuine in those efforts, and truthful in whatever marketing you do.

And it's important to mention here that you do have a choice. While I firmly believe that to remain relevant, construction companies are going to have to be environmentally conscious, you may disagree with me and that's your right. But if you do choose to dismiss Green building as a 'fad', and go about business as usual, don't pretend otherwise because your efforts to do so will be in vain.

At the Greater Ottawa Home Builder's Association's Hello Goodbye breakfast earlier this year, Bernard Hudon presented research showing that today's homebuyers are highly educated individuals who research purchases extensively and care about environmental factors. These buyers will see through a Greenwash-smokescreen.

And in the commercial building sector, the situation is no different. The biggest commissioners of buildings care more now than ever for the environmental impact of their projects, both for the effect they will have on their public image, and for the long-term cashflow savings that ecologically sound builds can provide.

A perfect example is the City of Ottawa, which recently mandated that all its new buildings 5,400 square feet or larger must be LEED certified at minimum, even expansion projects like the Goulbourn Rec centre one we profiled in the OCN in February. (The PDF is here.) These owners will not be fooled either by slick marketing that is less than truthful.

Applying for LEED and following that spec is a great idea for larger builds - nothing will convey credibility as well as an endorsement of your ecological efforts by the Canada Green Building Council. Marketing guru Seth Godin (whose blog I love) wrote an interesting entry recently where he argued that to truly market themselves as 'green' with any credibility, businesses will soon need some way to truly quantify their green-ness. As builders, LEED's points system can certainly do the trick.

Having said that, I know LEED can be expensive if your capital budget is thin, and I know its standards are simply unworkable in some circumstances (ie: rural applications.)

However, even if you can't build to LEED spec, and get that certification, you can still take steps to make your builds greener and let your clients know about your efforts in your marketing, without being guilty of Greenwashing.

Buy materials from vendors who are committed to sustainable development, like local firm The Healthiest Home and Building Supplies, or others around the city. For the record, using leftover drywall from a previous project is not "Using recycled materials"!

If it's a home you're building, make it easy for the eventual owner to make it as energy efficient as possible by participating in programs and building philosophies like EnergyStar, SolarReady and High Performance Homes. Check out St. Thomas, Ontario-based home builder Doug Tarry Homes for a great example of how leveraging those two programs can lead to great success. (We also featured Tarry in the most recent issue of the GTA Construction Report, the PDF is here.)

If yours is a larger development, why not replant some of the trees you tore down to build elsewhere? As a publishing company, we proudly put our money where our mouth by partnering with Tree Canada, which plants a tree for each one of our advertisers in every issue, so that the net effect of printing all our papers is a surplus of trees!

There are many other online resources that can guide you in the right direction:

This site by the American organization NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), outlines "Building Green from Principle to Practice," and aims show how building green can boost your bottom line.

This blog is interesting - it is the personal account of a newlywed couple in Calgary who sought to build a truly eco-friendly custom home. You can follow the process from early 2006 to present and pick up some ideas along the way.

Whatsworking.com includes a long list of resources on green building and sustainable development.

The CaGBC's own site includes some information on how you can build more environmentally friendly projects, even if you can't afford LEED. If you live near Toronto, you could also plan to attend Shifting the Mainstream - the CaGBC Summit on June 11-12, featuring keynote speaker David Suzuki. We are an official media sponsor for the event, and it looks like there are many useful seminars and talks planned for the two-day conference.

There are many, many things you can do to respect the environment when you build, and my recommendation is to do as many of them as possible, and to be honest about it in your advertising.

Because you're either making a difference, or you're faking it. And when people think you're faking it, that's worse than if they think you just don't care.

---

Here is the PDF of the May issue (click to see larger):

Ottawa Construction News May 2008 Section A