Blog - Ganador

I am your customer

Dennis Price — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:30:00 +0000

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Dear retailer,

I see when you reduce portion sizes without reducing the price.

I notice when you wipe the side of the cup with your hand.

I see the dirty cloth in your back pocket and the dirty mop and bucket in the corner.

I can spot the difference between a fake smile and a real one.

I know you think I am not going to tip if visit wearing my tracky dax.

I notice when you avert your gaze to avoid being approached.

I get that you don’t want to really be there.

I see all these things.

But I don’t care.

I can always go somewhere else, if not today, tomorrow.

Yours sincerely

Customer

How Apple thinks about design is a lesson in brand creation

Dennis Price — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:13:10 +0000

A simple short video (HT Neil Perkins) about Apple's design philosophy and approach. The KEY - I believe will be found at around the 30 sec mark with the first step.

Achieve success, negotiate and plan - in one funny lesson

Dennis Price — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 23:20:00 +0000

Father : “I want you to marry a girl of my choice”

Son : “I will choose my own bride!”

Father : “But the girl is Bill Gates’s daughter.”

Son : “Well, in that case… OK”

Next Father approaches Bill Gates.

Father : “I have a husband for your daughter.”

Bill Gates: “But my daughter is too young to marry!”

Father : “But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank.”

Bill Gates: “Ah, in that case… OK”

Finally Father goes to see the president of the World Bank.

Father: “I have a young man to be recommended as a vice-president.”

President: “But I already have more vice- presidents than I need!”

Father: “But this young man is Bill Gates’s son-in-law.”

President: “Ah, in that case… OK”

This is how good business is done.

Why do people post pictures of cats on Facebook?

Dennis Price — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 22:11:00 +0000

Why do the endless updates about every pose and every step of their first born – with running commentary? Or possibly worse, why post ‘inspirational quotes’ as the McPhilosophy of the day? (This is one reason why I quit Facebook.)

Why do they feel the need to record it? Why do people find it funny, interesting and worth sharing?

Answer: Because it matters to them.

If that sounds like stating the bleeding obvious, it is because it is. People think because it matters to them, it must matter to others.

They can’t understand why you don’t find it funny or interesting just as much as you can’t understand why they do.

People are inherently selfish and find it difficult to appreciate a different perspective – and this has consequences for how manage our businesses:

One: You are not your customer. You can’t just buy the product you like because you like it. You must buy what customers (other people) want.

Two: It doesn’t matter what you think the value of a certain item is; the value is whatever the customer thinks it is. (In real estate there is an expression: You are selling a home, the buyer is purchasing a house. Both parties would value the property differently because of their different perspectives.)

Three: When facing a difficult customer, we all know they are not right, but we also know that it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that they think they are right.

Four: It doesn’t matter whether you (or I ) believe in social media or like/dislike Facebook – all that matters is that customers do.

Five: You may think you are treating your staff well, but all that matters is what they think? (If I look at training priorities in companies I am inclined to think that your employees are probably right.)

I could go on, but you get the general idea: Humans find it incredibly difficult to walk in the shoes of other people.

We CLAIM to understand others, but somehow we don’t all find the same joke funny. I found a statistic (but lost the source) that 80% of managers think they deliver great service but only 8% of customers agree. The actual percentages are not important but the magnitude of that gap is significant.

The good news is that we can learn to walk in other people’s shoes just as we learned to walk in our own. It takes time, commitment and quite a lot of falling over, but eventually it will come naturally.

It starts, like any good old AA meeting, with an acknowledgment of the issue before attempting the remedy.

Have fun...

Dennis

Future-proof your business with Ganador.

PS: I am researching and documenting some of the major shifts in society and am sharing it for free to groups who are interested. HERE for those interested. (No strings, but limitations apply, so be quick.)

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How do you know what you know?

Dennis Price — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:53:00 +0000

Entertaining and smart. Watch this and re-think what you think you know as 'reality'.

All of your business decisions are based on what you think you know - so it is worth knowing how you know...

A fish rots from the head down

Dennis Price — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:00:00 +0000

That's is a great Aussie expression, don't you think.?

And has major implications for the delivery of customer service. DOWNLOAD THIS INTERVIEW (pdf) to read an article published in the Geelong Advertiser recently (after yours truly was interviewed.)

Let me know if you agree/disagree.

This guy won't drive when drunk -EVER

Dennis Price — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 22:38:00 +0000

This is one of the most graphic advertisements - if you can call it an ad - that you will see in a long time., or maybe have EVER seen.

Do you think it is too much?

Two words on how to become successful (Friday Funny)

Dennis Price — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 05:17:19 +0000

"Sir, What is the secret of your success?" a reporter asked a bank president.

"Two words"

"And, Sir,what are they?"

"Right decisions."

"And how do you make right decisions?"

"One word."

"And,sir, What is that?"

"Experience."

"And how do you get Experience?"

"Two words"

"And, Sir, what are they?"

"Wrong decisions"

The Retail (R)evolution starts here

Dennis Price — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 22:51:00 +0000

Human beings are, from an evolutionary perspective, not well-equipped to deal with danger and change. We are not particularly fast or strong. We have no special ability to ward off danger (like thick skins, shooting poison from our fangs or a special camouflage) and all we can rely on are our minds.

But we are failing miserably to use our only evolutionary protective mechanism.

Knowledge has been democratised and education is being de-institutionalised. The last barrier to fall is the idea that teachers/trainers hold the ‘keys to the kingdom’. When they abandon formal assessment, and the industrial notion that knowledge can be certified, then real progress will happen.

People no longer believe what journalists tell them
People no longer buy what you sell them.
People no longer go where you lead them.
People no longer learn what you teach them.

This means there the death of the journo, the salesmen/marketers – and also the leaders and teachers who physically, psychologically and intellectually see themselves as rightfully ‘owning’ the front of the class.

As usual, at the edge of change, chaos rules. The world is evolving into something that we are not ready for and do not have the answers for. Will people be willing to give up ‘qualifications’? Increasingly they will. It has never been a prerequisite to success and now (thanks to the internet) we all know it – and fact many of these people are our heroes. The cachet of a paper seal has evaporated. Recently Peter Thiel (PayPal founder) paid 20 young people $100K to quit college.)

We have seen the nascent trend of a ‘non-training-approach’ to learning. It is still struggling to define itself, and if it does not hang itself in a forest of jargon, we are onto something: integrating the knowledge of doing with the act of passing it along in the process of working.

As you may expect, we have a technology that enables people to learn socially (from each other). There is a technology platform for everything! The uptake is slower than expected. Organisations (HR) want to ‘control’ theses interactions with a set syllabus, but little do they realise that the conversations are happening anyway: people are talking and learning from each other as they always have; but now they have the tools to bypass the traditional gatekeepers and access the relevant knowledge from a source and a time and pace that suits them.

Which brings us to the Retail Revolution.

As you well know, many retailers are struggling – maybe including you. And if you want to successfully evolve, we have to start using our brains – in particularly our collective minds.

In every business there are frustrated employees who KNOW the answer and who may even be willing to share it with you. The reasons why they don’t are obvious:

They don’t like or trust you
They are disengaged and passive
They don’t feel empowered to share and contribute
They are unskilled/ feel unequipped
There is no opportunity/ mechanism to share and contribute
You don’t ask

The confronting truth about all if this is that YOU are to blame if these symptoms pervade your business. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there really is no one else to blame.

Our only evolutionary advantage is our brains. If we don’t use those to proactively adapt to these evolutionary pressures, we will become extinct because the forces of change cannot be held at bay, we can only adapt.

Every successful organisation comes about because of the collective minds within that organisation applying themselves to the tasks at hand. The journey of success for your organisation starts when you get all those minds working together towards a common goal.

And for you to start down that path, you should let go of the idea that you and only you have the answers or are supposed to have all the answers.

‘Crowdsource’ your solutions from the people that have the most at stake – your employees and I guarantee that, if you have recruited well, you will be mightily surprised.

Have fun.

Dennis Price

Future-proof your business with Ganador

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Etsy as an option to go online

Dennis Price — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 21:49:00 +0000

Most retailers have considered EBay as an entry into the online world and it is obviously one that suits many types of retailers.

One that gets less coverage but has huge traction is ETSY. It would suit certain kinds of businesses well and yours may be one of them.

The video below gives a 5 min overview of the type of company it is - before you head off to their website.

The internet of things will change everyday shopping

Dennis Price — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 22:51:00 +0000

The Internet of Things is upon us.

In 1997 I produced a whitepaper for the South African Property Owners Association titled ‘Internet-enabled Buildings.’ I had the vision that air-conditioning and lighting systems will be controlled via the internet. I had visions that lessees would demand the cabling and the server rooms (with special floors and special conduits). That seems quaint by today’s standards.

Little did I know that that a building sensor would be talking to the lessee’s shoes and that the shoes would be talking to their watches and the watches to the auto door… and so on. Right now, every piece of equipment can be talking to every other piece of equipment.

NFC. Bluetooth. WiFi. Wearable computers. Smart devices. Cloud-based servers. 100Mb/s broadband speeds. Big Data. Smart algorithms. The recently launched Xbox One is a device (not just a gaming console) that has the potential to become the hub of The Internet of Things (TIT) in your house. Minority Report is looking less like science fiction every day.

All of these factors are combining to enable your pair of Nike shoes to talk to your fridge and your fridge to the TV and the TV to the supermarket website.

TIT can be defined simply as devices communicating with each other (via the Internet). You may or not be familiar with The Internet of Things – but the ecosystem I described above creates exactly that. And like most of the technology-driven trends, the pace is scary.

The internet traffic of 2017 will equal the total traffic from 1984 through to 2012; and a big chunk of this will come from TIT.

Unlimited storage capacity is required by the data explosion. Internet traffic will soon be measure in zettabytes. (That is ONE TRILLION gigabytes. Or to put it differently; one zettabyte is the equivalent of one billion DVDs per day downloaded every day for an entire year.)

When LG brought out the internet-enabled fridge, I taught the MBAs that it was for the same reason BMW raced in the Formula 1 competition: it is a showcase product that creates a positive halo effect for the brand, and that it wasn’t with the expectation of actually selling fridges. It seems as if I under-estimated that too.

Another prediction I’d made was that online supermarket shopping would eventually have negative consequences for many brands. People would save their shopping lists or that shopping lists would pre-populate with previous purchases to reduce the time necessary to decide what to buy. (To increase the convenience factor.)

The Internet of Things could become the Trojan Horse that kills many little brand soldiers because the ONE major implication (of many) of TIT is that high frequency and/or commodity purchases are delegated to a ‘device’.

Purchases of certain products can become increasingly automated – and the need for direct consumer involvement is obviated.

You don’t often think about how you purchase electricity – I am not even sure who my provider is. Soon you won’t be thinking how you buy your salt and your toilet paper and so forth.

I don’t know if you noticed, but nowhere did you actually consider your options and you did not have the opportunity of switching to a different brand. (Challenger brands may buy the rights to become a suggested alternative on your shopping list based on the eCommerce version of slotting fees.)

In this diagram, products that are positioned to the left of the yellow marker are probably vulnerable to a greater extent. Luxury and/or infrequent purchases are less vulnerable. (Contextual commerce may be the new black for these luxury products.)

Already there is a successful eCommerce business selling shaver blades via monthly subscription. Those users never again get the opportunity (or have the need) to consider all the brands on offer. From there it is a small step for the a small chip in your razor to actually place the order based on your usage pattern so that you don’t end up with a pile of blades you don’t need.

Humans are creatures of habit, so one should consider the risk profile of your product life cycle in the light of the Internet of Things. It becomes another question that must be added to the (long list of) strategic questions you must already consider as you jockey for survival:

How does The Internet of Things impact my business?

As always, the million dollar question is actually what we must DO about this, but that is not something resolved in a blog post…

Have fun.

Dennis

FUTURE-PROOF YOUR BUSINESS – A Free Presentation. Find out more at Ganador.

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Collaborate. Co-Create. Share.

Dennis Price — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 22:21:00 +0000

From the Economist - a good list of examples to consider.

This is ONE of the trends we pick up on in our Discussions & presentations: RETAIL TOMORROW.

Is this the best $12Bn ever spent? (cartoon)

Dennis Price — Thu, 30 May 2013 22:36:00 +0000

Hey it is Friday, allow me this...

Source: 3d-pictures.feedio.net

Email and SMS (for old school retail marketing)

Dennis Price — Wed, 29 May 2013 22:27:00 +0000

Watch this space for a major announcement on an APP you would be NUTS to ignore, but in the meantime, here is a quick guide to some tools and resources for Email and SMS marketing

EMAIL: PROVIDERS

1. http://www.comm100.com/

Has an integrated suite that will allow significant growth into other areas including Live Chat etc if they run an eCommerce operation

2. http://www.aweber.com/

Popular for people who actually SELL stuff via their newsletters, and it has a great Autoresponder.

3. www.mailchimp.com

I personally use Mailchimp and they have a great FREE option with few limitations. It is easy to use and costs nothing for the basic level. (And also have good support.)

4. http://www.streak.com/

This is an APP which puts Gmail on steroids, but it is a bit more about one-on0one prospecting and selling than mass marketing emails.

All three of the above providers have ‘RESOURCES’ sections where they can learn more. Additionally, there are some more resources here: http://www.subscribermail.com/learn-more/

SMS: PROVIDERS

I don’t personally use SMS marketing for obvious reasons. But two providers that I have looked at superficially for a client are:

1. http://www.directsms.com.au/

2. http://burstsms.com.au/sms-marketing

I think that SMS is already being overtaken by in-app notifications, so...

As I said: Watch this space for a major announcement on an APP you would be NUTS to ignore.

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The good news you don't have to sell in retail

Dennis Price — Tue, 28 May 2013 23:00:00 +0000

In a fast moving retail environment, you don’t have to sell. At least not the way most text books and some gurus tell you.

There are two conditions:

Make sure the store is laid out to optimise the opportunities to buy.
Make sure your visual merchandising tells the right story.

Then you can help the customer buy:

3. Simply have a conversation with the customer; a conversation that shows you are generally interested in what they want and help them get what they want.

Of course this means that you can’t stand behind the counter if you really, authentically and effectively want to engage with the customer.

Once you are in this position (you have achieved 1-3 above) then you may able to focus on learning some of the techniques that will help you have more productive conversations with customers. It takes skill to lower barriers and appeal to their emotions, and this skill can be learned.

One thing is for sure: it is NEVER about hard sell.

If you do this right, you may not get the sale today. But if you do it right you will get sales more often than most, more often than before; and worst case, you will get it next time.

And this means you are in the business for the long run.

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Marketing is evolving, and you better believe it

Dennis Price — Mon, 27 May 2013 23:00:00 +0000

Students of Marketing will be familiar with Kotler’s typology that identifies the transition from a product >>> sales >>> marketing orientation. That was a brilliant insight. He even foresaw the shift towards ‘societal' marketing:

1. The production concept (World War eras)

2. The product concept (Post WW2)

3. The selling concept (1950s)

4. The marketing concept (1960s onwards)

5. The societal marketing concept (now)

The fundamental assumption of this schema is that marketing is something that marketers do and the consumers are subjected to. Oh, how things have changed.

Consider the diagram below to understand the evolution of marketing. (You won’t find this in a text book, so if you are an actual student, don’t reference this as an absolute given – it is my interpretation of how marketing is shifting.)

Mass Marketing

We are all familiar with the early years of mass communications (radio and TV and the advertising that accompanied that era.) In Australia I gather this is the era of Louis the Fly.

Target Marketing

The explosion of media including specialist magazines and local stations gave marketers the opportunity (or forced them) to became more sophisticated in choosing their channels and their messages.

Niche-marketing

Technology enabled real niche-marketing, which became viable because of global economies of scale. Entrepreneurs could start to leverage the long-tail opportunities.

Always-on Marketing

Ubiquitous marketing of the message was also enabled by technology. You could see the same message on any device, on any channel, inside and outside the home. (I think Tom Waterhouse marketing is a good example of this. J)

Contextual Marketing

Marketing that is embedded in the everyday experiences of people. This is become more prevalent in the online world (see this post), the emergence of The Internet of Things is going to make and break many marketers.

On-Demand Marketing

The march towards consumer empowerment finally culminates with the consumer being fully in charge. The only real ‘influence’ will be the social circle, and for the rest, the consumer will open themselves up to information about products as and when they need it.

The three key features of On-Demand Marketing are:

Now (in the present)
Simple (try 140 characters message or 9 sec video on Vine)
Personal

Interpretation:

I am not suggesting for one minute that any organisation abandon TV/ Newspapers/Radio etc. Like with most things in life, the transition is a process that takes time and large numbers of people are still effectively reached via TV advertising. (You may reach me, but not my son, for example.)

What we need to do is to start the thinking processes to design our retail proposition to be future-proof. Unlike most other transitions, the final transition means that once you have lost out on the opportunity, you may have lost out permanently. The first-mover advantage will be enormous.

The starting point is to conduct a brand audit to really understand what it is AND how customers think about your business. This marketing evolution also drives home the point that you don't actually 'own' your brand - since your brand is what the customer thinks it is.

I would love to hear some stories in the comments about how you are already embracing these changes.

And a quick pop quiz: how many organisations are still stuck Stage 3 of Kotler’s hierarchy?

SPECIAL OFFER:

Future-proof your business with Ganador.

PS: I am preparing a presentation about these big picture shifts for a conference that I am doing for free, so I thought I will share the love around if you are interested in that sort of thing. See HERE for those interested. (No strings, but limitations apply, so be quick.)

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10 things the internet brought us – for better or for worse…

Dennis Price — Sun, 26 May 2013 22:18:00 +0000

Amazon & convenient eCommerce: Made a few millionaires at the price of the livelihood millions of little guys.
Instant news: Even as it consumes the industry that feeds it along the way.
eLearning and access to education for thousands: So that students don’t have to go to class anymore.
Online gaming: So that nerds can be alone together.
Email: Who needs to talk to anyone anymore?
Porn: No need to buy DVDs from shops with curtains on the door.
Spam: Employment opportunity for Nigerians and East Europeans
Wikileaks: Hackers hiding behind civil libertarians.
YouTube Entertainment: Have you ever read the comments?
Social Media: The biggest thing since porn

To help the needy need more.
For the self-righteous do-gooders to compete with self-righteous fundamentalists.
Party-crashers & Vigilantes: An instant mobilisation tool
Trolls: Because we treasure freedom of speech.

Which raises the question: What DID we do before the internet?

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If you spend all your time not getting fired...

Dennis Price — Fri, 24 May 2013 07:07:59 +0000

"If you spend all your time not getting fired...you slow down to the speed at which you won't get fired." Dave Trott.

Think about that and weep friends...

Success Strategy for Funny Friday

Dennis Price — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:21:00 +0000

Source: www.dumpaday.com

Learning from the Master (Dan Pink) on Selling

Dennis Price — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:41:00 +0000