Fifteen minutes with Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.tv – which means you get some colorful language on occasion – but you also get a dumptruck load of value.

Gary has a way of cutting through the excuses and the cants that few can put into words like he does.

What are you waiting for?

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photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

Imagine how ridiculous it would sound if one of the farmers in America’s breadbasket said “How can I get a new crop of winter wheat to harvest tomorrow / next week / next month?”

Maybe someday the science of farming will allow such a thing, but these days, farmers still have to depend on planting, nourishing, weeding, sunshine, rain and especially – the passage of time – before thinking about enjoying the fruits of the harvest.

Consider all the planning, preparation and investment that has to go into that wheat crop. Even if all you do is lease the land to someone else and take part of the crop as your rent, it doesn’t reduce the effort necessary to produce a harvest.

*Someone* has to do the work.

The same is true in businesses outside of farming.

Despite this, I’m still surprised (not sure why) to find many small businesses running their “farm” without an essential component.

These businesses have no written marketing plan. Or worse, no marketing plan at all.

If they were farming, they wouldn’t expect to harvest without the planting. Yet they operate as if “Build it and they will come” is a viable strategy.

It’s easily the most disappointing situation I encounter when talking to business owners about what’s going on in their business. Fortunately, it is easily corrected. In fact, we’re going to do that today.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

In the worst of situations, someone’s marketing is driven which ad salesperson next walks in the door.

Yes, some of that is rationalized as “Well, that’s why I came to you”, but that isn’t good enough.

Not in this economy (not in any, really).

*Every single business* should have a marketing plan (presumably part of your business plan), even if it’s a very simple one – way before they get around to needing help from me or anyone else who provides business assistance.

Would you head into the wilderness on foot without a map and compass, or at least a GPS? Probably not.

Lewis and Clark may not have had a detailed map of the Northwest, but they had a plan. And Sacagawea.

Today, you can call me your marketing plan Sacagawea (yeah, I’ll probably take a few hits for saying *that*).

I want *every* business to have a marketing plan, even if it’s a simple one.

Let’s put together a basic one right here, right now.

Heading West

One of the things I do when I start working with folks is give them a questionnaire that helps me understand their business.

It asks them a ton of questions and gives them time to put some thought into their answers, rather than trying to hurriedly gather it during an initial consultation.

Here’s a very simple (and abbreviated) version of it:

What do you do?
Describe what you do in the length of a text message. I don’t want to hear four boring, meaningless paragraphs from the corporate buzzword generator. Even the people who read that stuff don’t know what it means.

Why should I get that from you instead of everyone else?
Not some namby-pamby “because we give great service” (so does everyone else – they think) and heaven forbid “because we have the best prices”. Give me a real, compelling argument to use you and no one else.

What are you doing now, marketing-wise?
Describe in detail your efforts to find new customers and bring back existing ones.

Of those things, what works? What doesn’t?
Self-explanatory. If you don’t know, why are you doing those things?

Who is your ideal customer?
The perfect customer. Describe them. What they do, where they live, what they read, demographics, income, business, you name it. Go deeper than you think you should and keep in mind – it won’t be deep enough. I’ll still have questions about them.

Where are these customers?
As I tell you often, it helps to fish where the fish are. Where are yours?

That’s a massive simplification, but for today, it’ll have to do.

The answers will help you form the core of your marketing plan. Get to work, you’ve got planting to do.

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photo credit: Misserion

Last week, I walked past the door of a just-closed business – one I often used for both business and personal services.

It was a shock, particularly since it was a franchisee of a very large business – one I’ve *never* seen close before.

Then I remembered what I’d seen there during every recent visit over the past month or two: the front desk staffer was never behind the front desk when I walked in. Instead of being behind the counter, they were in the retail space playing a Facebook game called “Farmville” – on a computer intended for customer use.

While there are legitimate uses for Facebook, Twitter (etc) at local businesses, this isn’t one of them.

When I entered the store, the employee would get up and go behind the counter and provide acceptable service.

I noticed a change in this place right after the holidays. The enthusiastic, eager-to-please employees (2 in particular) disappeared and were replaced with “average/meets typical expectations”.

Maybe that enthusiastic person was the owner and they were filling in during the Christmas rush, no matter what, their departure definitely impacted their service.

The real source of this problem

Yes, I’m talking about the owner/manager.

Sitting around playing games isn’t all the employee’s fault. It’s primarily an indicator of a management problem, particularly since someone, somewhere had to know that the business was close to dying.

So why is the Farmville-fest the owner’s problem?

Because the person playing the game couldn’t have had enough measurable work to perform.

If there isn’t enough business coming in, that person could have been tasked with putting together mailing, calling existing customers (I know *I* never got one) to see if they could help with any current projects, emailing existing customers, or worst case – dusting the place.

You get the idea.

Failing to Plan

Without such tasks to perform, you don’t have enough work to do, and at this point, anything would be better than leaving your staff with nothing to do but play Farmville.

A strategically designed marketing plan would produce work from both new and existing clients. Even in the worst of all possible situations, working the plan would produce *some* work of its own.

Then the Farmville farmer would have something more productive to do – and it’d be measurable so you’d know if anything was getting done without having to hover over them.

Having meaningful work for your staff to perform is ultimately your responsibility.

If you don’t give your staff substantive, profit-generating work to perform when retail customers aren’t standing in front of them – you’re get to pay twice: once for their wages and once for the lost revenue / lost customers.

Can you afford that?

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photo credit: gualtiero

Today’s guest post is from Josh Whitford from over in Fargo, dere (hey, we’re both way up north here so I can say that dere).

Josh did a really smart and simple thing to get in touch with – and get advice from – Warren Buffett.

While it’s great to get advice from Mr. Buffett, the key thing here is not so much the specific task Josh was assigned but that he sought out the wisdom in the first place. Constant improvement is not a luxury, it’s a requirement.

Asking questions of those who know more than you (and/or know the success you want) is definitely a good strategy (ever hear of “Think and Grow Rich”?)

Speaking of, I’m on a quest to increase my reading to at a least a book a week this year. While it has impacted some other things negatively (at least from their perspective), I see positive results in my work, this blog (sometimes negative results – like far fewer posts), and life in general. Highly recommended.

And yes, I should be blogging about those weekly book adventures, shouldn’t I?

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photo credit: pedrosimoes7

Year after year, I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to watch young men turn from “typical 5th graders” into amazing young adult leaders. Because of that, examples of youth leadership in the news tend to get my attention.

Here’s a study in contrasts of leadership and character from two young ladies:

Got a reputation?

Earlier this week, actress Lindsay Lohan decided to sue E-Trade because they had the nerve to name a character with the same first name as hers in one of their baby commercials – and the baby just happened to be a “milkaholic”.

Lohan claims that the “milkaholic” baby was a jab at her substance abuse problems. Maybe it was and maybe there’s a lesson there about public figures, leadership, role models and so on. Just maybe.

An enterprising person or their agent might have contacted the California Milk Processor Board in order to leverage the alleged characterization into a fun, and probably popular, commercial for their “Got Milk?” campaign. But that didn’t happen. Too busy calling the lawyers to see a good opportunity, perhaps.

The shiny side of the coin

Later in the week, a client sent me a link to a leadership post about Megan, who convinced her big-time CEO dad that he needed to keep a commitment to run in a half-marathon, despite having a seriously overscheduled, busy executroid week.

Megan’s clearly a fine example of the ability of young people to lead. Her email was classic, post-on-the-wall stuff that every leader should read, file away and pull out once a month to review – just in case.

Now…think about your day. What example are you setting for the people around you?

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More customers, more productivity, more profit. Guaranteed.

That’s my USP (unique selling proposition), but some might also call it my mission statement. I don’t really look at it like a mission statement by someone’s pure definition, but in a lot of ways – they are the same thing.

So why is it that and not something like “blah blah blah optimal blah blah blah cohesive blah blah blah forward-thinking blah blah solutions blah blah blah”? (as spoken by Charlie Brown’s teacher)

Other than the fact that I can actually *remember* the short one, it’s because I’ve been through the process Dan Heath describes below in this short 3 minute video:

It’s usually an AWFUL process and interestingly enough – after all that self-inflicted punishment, I always work my way back to the original statement and keep it because it’s short and powerful. It doesn’t have a lot of crap, wordsmithing or baggage. Believe me, I’ve tried adding words to it like “I help small business get …” and so on.

EVERY time, I end up pulling those things out.

Norm at Norm’s News in Kalispell says “Eat dessert first”, for example. They sell old-fashioned candy, milk shakes like your great grandpa talks about and so on.

Is yours short and powerful?

Is yours not only short enough to remember, but powerful and impactful enough to act on and motivate others? I hope so.

Don’t stop there – Now apply this to your marketing message(s).

If they feel like something that came from the meeting described in the video, ask yourself a few questions:

• Could this be why your marketing is so darned boring?
• Is this why your response rate is 0.005%?

Uh, yeah. Probably so.

Take that dude with the corporate-speak hat out in the parking lot and have him park cars, wax deck chairs or something until that stuff clears out of his mind. Maybe toss one of Seth’s books at him.

No matter what – take a firehose to that vocabulary. It’s boring, it doesn’t stand out in any crowd and it sure doesn’t compel anyone to do business with you – not even the stodgiest of companies.

Now, start over. Remember what you wanted to do when you started this thing? Remember the stuff you do for customers that gets you jacked up? Remember the thing that you’d rather do than almost anything (yeah, besides “that” and skiing, of course).

That’s what your mission – and most likely your USP – is all about.

Update: A nice resource from Dan and Chip Heath to help you get this process right, tossing out the stuff you dont need.

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photo credit: Furryscaly

Remember the outrageous 7/70 bumper-to-bumper warranty Chrysler introduced back in the early 1980s when they introduced K-cars?

At the time, Chrysler’s quality problems were front and center reasons to avoid buying their cars. Likewise, major car manufacturers limited long-term warranty coverage to the engine and powertrain (ie: transmission, axles and such).

Iacocca came up with the “outrageous” warranty to get people past the quality question so they would  give Chrysler’s cars a chance. He knew the warranty was only good to get them INTO the cars – they’d have to meet their quality goals or that warranty would bankrupt them.

High Anxiety

While the warranty was a big change for car owners, the main purpose was to provide a little anxiety release. To get you to realize that Chrysler’s quality had changed, so much so that they were willing to cover *everything*, and thus, you could trust them to buy their vehicles.

Obviously, it worked. The K-cars saved Chrysler (for the time being, at least) and they paid back the then-controversial billion dollar loan (guaranteed by Congress) in 3 years, rather than the required 10.

It should be noted that Iacocca says much of the reason to pay the loan off quickly was to get the Feds out of his business. No question there is lots of controversy about the 1979 bailout / loan guarantee and the terms that went with it, but that isn’t the topic of the day.

Fast forward to today – when you wouldn’t dream of buying a car without a very-long-term bumper-to-bumper warranty.

So what does your business do in an environment of high buyer anxiety?

Remove the anxiety

Hopefully the obvious answer is to remove it.

Back in the Granite Bear days, we found some buyer anxiety issues cropping up. The few people who would ask for a refund would do so right at the deadline date. In almost every case, we found that those were also the folks who hadn’t started using the software yet. They were worried they’d be stuck with it and having not tried it, the obvious thing to do was ask for a refund.

One of our solutions was to extend our 30 day money-back guarantee to 60 day and then to a whole year. As I’ve noted before, some people thought we were nuts and would give back tons of refunds on day 364, but that ignores the reason people bought business management software in the first place – to manage their business and save them time. Who in their right mind would invest a year into integrating software into their business (and vice versa) and then toss it out the door on a specific day? That’s nuts.

In our case, we knew that if they really *used* it for a year, they’d never ask for their money back. We were right and it made a huge difference in sales, despite seeming like an insane thing to do. Our upfront costs of sales and implementation were mostly buried by day 30 (and definitely by day 60), so it made no difference whether we gave back the software on day 60 or day 364.

We also implemented other things that got them moving right away – another guarantee. Do you have specific guarantees for different parts of your business?

Recessionary buybacks

Recently, you’ve seen a number of major car companies offer to buy your car back if you lose your job – and that’s after they make several months of payments for you.

Hyundai started it and several other manufacturers felt the pressure to follow suit.

As I hear it, one very dark economic area’s local Hyundai dealer had their best weekend *ever* after corporate started offering these deals.

Something else that tells you about people in a recession: They aren’t all broke. If the buyback changed car buying behavior of a large group of people – did it also put a bunch of money in their pocket?

Of course not. Clearly they had the ability (and desire) to buy, but their anxiety about the future kept them from buying.

Your turn

In my case, I guarantee my marketing / strategic planning work.

Some people suggest that I’m nuts to do that. I might be nuts, but that has little to do with the fact that I’ve never been asked for a refund.

Meanwhile, it’s a huge differentiating factor because almost no other consultant guarantees their work. They either don’t have the confidence in their work, or the gumption to hang that guarantee out there – likely for fear that someone will use it. Maybe that even tells you something about the work product they provide from a strategic perspective.

Someday, someone might ask for a refund. Even if they do, it’s a great anxiety reliever for every other client – regardless of the economy.

What are you doing to take your clients’ anxiety off the table (or reduce it substantially) and get them from thinking to taking action/buying?

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photo credit: freeparking

In today’s guest post from TED, Dan Ariely talks about why we make decisions and how we are influenced.

There are several pieces of this presentation that apply directly to traditional or online direct marketing of the stuff you do and sell, much less knowing a little more about what makes your internal decision tree tick.

Use what Dan discusses to analyze what kind of decisions you offer your customers and prospects. It’s all part of that “What do they buy the least of that they really need the most?” question. Part 2 of the question might be – “…and how do you get them to buy what they *really really* need?”

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photo credit: jurvetson

This piece by Paul Graham talks about a survey of startup founders, but it reminds me very much of my software company days.

Too much, perhaps.

It may not describe the business you’re in – since it’s mostly talking about software businesses – but the attitude, expectations, “reason why” and much more is certainly something that should be on your radar.

Not altogether different than the energy this country had when it was racing to the moon.

Where is your business racing off to?

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photo credit: matticgn

Yesterday, we talked about David Lee Roth’s M&Ms trick and how it acted somewhat like a canary in the coal mine.

It probably looked like a silly “diva clause” to everyone but Roth. A little, unimportant detail.

These little details that your competitors ignore or see as unimportant might be the one thing that customers view as an indicator of additional, more serious problems.

They’ll stick out even more when you take care of them, as if you pointed a laser beam at the very things they never wanted anyone to notice.

Don’t let those little things undermine your customer relationships. Use them.

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photo credit: jiazi

People often wet their fingertip and hold it up in a light breeze to see which direction the wind is coming from (at least for that instant in time). Golfers just grab a few blades of grass and toss it in the air.

Both tactics indicate current conditions, much like a weather rock.

Indicators are critical to your business just like the dashboard lights are to your car’s health.

That temperature indicator on your dash, in some circles called an “idiot light”, might light up to tell you the engine is overheating. It might not say that your antifreeze is way past its prime, your radiator is clogged, hoses are leaking, your air-cooled VW bug is out of oil , your head gasket is toast or any number of other things that make an engine overheat.

The Spandex Candyman

I read an article this week about a brilliant indicator used by Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth. Often perceived as a strutting, spandex-clad prettyboy with an amazing multi-octave voice, it turns out Roth was the operations whiz of the group.

Deep in an inches-thick contract specifying everything from how many hotel rooms to reserve to the voltage and number of outlets on stage, Roth included a clause mandating that a bowl of M&M candy should be provided and that no brown M&Ms should be in the bowl.

For some bands, it might be just another silly request to see what they can get away with. In Roth’s case, the bowl was an indicator of the quality of the job the event producers were doing.

If the bowl was present and no brown candy was included, it was an indicator that someone had read the entire contract, took it seriously and paid attention to even the smallest details. If he found no bowl (or he found brown M&Ms), Roth had reason to suspect that the contract hadn’t been read and followed to the letter.

For him, that meant that the specification of a myriad of electrical supply lines and outlets needed in specific places at specific loads might also have been ignored. At best, a poor electrical setup might impact the quality of the show. As the severity increases, equipment damage or fires could result.

Either way, it would have been easy for Roth to view that as a risk to long-term music/ticket/gear sales, notwithstanding the danger issues.

The M&Ms were an idiot light to tell him that a careful concert facility setup check was required.

Balls of paper

I’ve told you before about the ball of paper I use at hiring time to indicate self-motivated, observant folks from those who might not be.

If you pick it up or ask me about it, cool. If not, I’ll start to wonder if you pick up your socks. The reality is, it indicates whether you’ll notice that the back door is unlocked at closing time, or that the register is open when it shouldn’t be.

Finally, that ball of paper and what happens to it tells me whether or not I need to take the conversation deeper where it comes to self-motivation.

Warm Caveman Fuzzies

Another indicator is lighting up all around me and it’s more worrisome than a dashboard light or a ball of paper on the floor: It’s the caveman thing.

At a time when creativity and innovation (much less shredding of the box you need to get outside of) are as in demand as ever, I see folks retreating to their cave to hunker down until someone comes by and tells them that it’s ok to come out.

I also see folks looking at things the same way they got looked at them 30 years ago.

An example: A firm needs a TON of funding to pull off a project. It’s a project that will grant them independence and perhaps a competitive edge that puts them 4-5 years ahead of everyone else, while protecting them from regulatory issues and commodity sourcing problems *for decades*.

So far, approaching a bank seems like the only choice.

Funding enterprise-class expenses is beyond going to the bank these days. Partnering with vendors and (oh my, dare you consider it) competitors, public-private orgs, local equity partners, angels, heck – even 10000 community members. If you look hard enough, there are many, many ways to build a pile of funds if you just gotta have them.

Ask yourself a few questions when pondering whatever is lighting up your dashboard:

• “Why not?” (instead of “Why?”)
• “How can we?” (instead of “We cant”)
• “Who else benefits?” (and will they invest?)

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photo credit: Robert Scoble

A while back, Robert Scoble wrote a terrific post on Scobleizer about the worst things that startups do.

I suggest you hop over there and check it out even if you aren’t in the technology business. When you’re done, come back so we can apply Robert’s comments to your not-a-startup small business. (Psst…While you’re over there, I suggest you subscribe to his blog, even if you aren’t in the tech world. You’ll be glad you did.)

Now that you’re back, let’s look a little closer at Robert’s list because it isnt just startups that make these mistakes. Here’s a small business angle on his list of mistakes:

1. Have plush offices in the most expensive part of town.

I haven’t managed to make this mistake as yet. Haven’t used someone else’s money for a startup though, maybe that’s why.

On the other hand, there have been times when I should’ve kept my office at home and didn’t. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes not. Think hard about the reasons why. Cash flow is always a concern, and more often than not, a critical strategic piece.

2. You can’t tell me what you do in a single Tweet.

For those who don’t use Twitter, that means: “Describe your business in 140 characters.”

For me, the Twitter version is “I help small businesses get more customers, become more productive and make more profit. Guaranteed.”

I find myself tinkering with that now and then, but it always seems to come back to the basics. If you aren’t interested in getting / keeping more customers, becoming more productive and more profitable, we don’t have a lot in common to build to a business relationship on.

3. If I look around and don’t see programmers.

Scoble’s talking about tech startups, but his point hits home for you as well – no matter what you do.

In a tech startup, programmers mean product and service creation. Someone’s creating something. In your business, product and service creation are equally important.

For me, if I’m not marketing, creating products and services, or delivering them…you could say I’m wasting time.

4. You hire a PR firm. (4b: you don’t have a blog and a Twitter account)

Hilary will probably beat me up a little about this – but note Scoble’s criteria – *startups*. If you don’t have a product or service for sale yet, most companies don’t need a PR firm. There are exceptions, but your business likely isn’t one of them.

If you’re open for business, this one isn’t a mistake unless you’re doing it really badly.

Example mistake: Referring anyone and everyone with questions to sales or PR (or someone else) because they aren’t allowed to talk to the public, or the press, and so on.

I don’t mean questions about your top secret process, chemistry, electronics or whatever. I don’t want to know the “I could tell you but I’d have to kill you” stuff.

We want to know why we should care…and despite the secret sauce stuff that you can’t tell us, we also want to know why *you* care.

Every single person on your staff had better be able to tell your company’s story with passion (at least their part of it).

No one, including me, wants to be bored by you reading the 9 paragraph mission statement that no one – including the CEO – remembers.

Infect us with your enthusiasm for what you do, even if you’re a divorce or bankruptcy lawyer. Think about that for a minute.

I can tell you one thing – if you step into the room sometime when I’m speaking to a group, you’ll damned sure get infected with the idea that you can do better. Lots better.

5. They spend money on the wrong things.

In the programmer world, the bad chairs and lousy monitors Scoble talks about are right on the money. If you’re a programmer and you don’t have dual monitors (or more) on the computer where you write programs, you’re working with a dull axe.

In every business I’ve ever seen, there are resources that make people more productive, that make them feel valued, that make them happier to work harder.

No one likes being unproductive. Watching either the Windows hourglass or the little multicolored Mac spinning thing is *the most annoying thing in the world* to a computer user. How much of your staff’s day is spent doing that?

How’s that make them feel about the value and importance of their work?

Beyond that, what’s that time costing you?

6.  They don’t fire fast enough.

At almost every business, some of the best people leave because they aren’t being challenged or because others aren’t pulling their weight.

Just like Scoble said and it isn’t just startups.

Your best performers have little tolerance for those who aren’t performing, much less for poor tools. The situations that businesses put them in often are what force them to go out on their own. If you’d like to avoid competing against your best performer(s), provide your racehorses with the best possible environment and when you hire – hire the best possible folks to accompany them.

Don’t make Secretariat share a stall with Mister Ed, (no matter how cool he was).

7. You picked the wrong infrastructure.

Most of us have hitched our wagon to the wrong horse at one time or another.

Next time, choose better. Choose for the right reasons.

Is your web host critical? Is a steady supply of large amounts of electricity critical? If you start to grow, are there enough skilled employees available in the area?

We got lucky on this one – there was a call center nearby with *excellent*, well-trained people – and we hired some of the best folks in the valley.

8. You let VCs control your management team and strategy too early.

Most of you won’t ever deal with a venture capitalist, but the same kind of issues can hamper your growth and stability.

Does your ability to access capital control your strategy? Does the size of your American Express bill?

Cash flow is as strategic as any other aspect of your business, sometimes more so.

9. You have a too cool name and logo.

There’s nothing wrong with a great name and logo, but there had better be some meat on the bone.

10. You say yes too often, particularly in engineering decisions.

This is the one that used to get me, and it was a hard lesson to learn. One of my business partners used to ride me now and then about “building end tables when we needed coffee tables”.

In other words, “Give me the big stuff, the little stuff can wait”.

I’ll quote Jim Rohn as usual on this topic: “Saying no means you can say yes to something more important.”

This isn’t just about software. Everyone has decisions to make about what to do, not to do, whether you’re an attorney, a programmer, a car wash or a restaurant.

11. Startups pick old technology because it’s familiar.

In his post, Scoble said “…going with the same stuff your dad’s company used?”

Technology can be as strategically important as (almost) every hire you make.

Maybe not your choice of operating system or spreadsheet, but how you use technology to gain edge after edge.

This is one of the reasons why I bought a Mac last year. Most of my tech-related work is still on Windows, but for me to help myself and clients reach even higher, I needed to be able to explore custom iPhone/iTouch apps. That requires a Mac.

How have you stretched your technology-related capabilities lately?

12. You don’t change direction fast enough.

You’re either setting the tone or singing along.

If you’re echoing the moves of someone else, you’ll always be behind unless they misstep badly, not to mention that it’s pretty hard to lead a market in wait and see.

If that new thing is *the* next big thing or the next big flop, wouldn’t you rather know before everyone else? Wouldn’t you want to be the one taking your clients that direction first – or knowing first not to take your clients there?

Going to the moon isn’t about planting a flag and taking a picture. It’s about the challenges you face and the lessons you learn on the way to liftoff.

Think about Robert’s list. Where can you improve?

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photo credit: Dave Hogg

Today’s guest post is from bnet, where they profile a Boxing-Day-style reality show where the CEO works on the ground floor.

What would you find if you worked the bottom floor for a few days?

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photo credit: powerbooktrance

It must be all those trees we have. They’re so full of customers that businesses just don’t need any more.

As you know, I strongly encourage folks to buy local.

The flip side of that is that locals have to EARN the business. Not just because you’re here, but because you kick butt at what you do.

Jeepers

I called a couple of stores about getting a sound bar for my son’s Jeep as a gift to acknowledge a major accomplishment he recently completed.

One said: “We don’t have them but we have the speakers for them.”

The Department of Obviousness requires that I inform you that the holes in these sound bars are designed to fit common speaker sizes so that retailers don’t have to stock custom speakers.

After checking the store, another said: “I don’t think we can get anything like that.”

No one said “We don’t carry that, but I can get it here tomorrow and install it for you. When would you like to bring the Jeep in?”

The last answer is what keeps people from buying car audio gear on the internet.

The point

While I’m only talking about a $200 purchase plus installation, the big picture was missed.

The size of this purchase isn’t the point.

What you *must* get across to your staff (no matter what you do) is that the real long-term reason to make a sale is to *get a new customer*. 
After that, it’s their challenge to keep us as customers.

I suspect car audio industry research tallies the average annual spending of customers. If that figure is only $100, at one new customer per week, you’d add an average of $5200 to your gross sales per year.

Your market is no different.

Has dealing with your store become so unremarkable that customers would rather pay for shipping and wait a few days?

Walking to Missoula

I was in a cloth store recently, buying some material so a local business owner could make some custom neckerchiefs for my Scouts.

They had less material than I needed. They offered to order more, advising me that it could take 3 to 6 weeks.

They didn’t mention their corporate-run online store. I checked it myself, finding an in-stock quantity of only three yards. That wasn’t how much the local store had, it indicated (incorrectly, I suspect) the corporate’s in-stock quantity.

Meanwhile, the Missoula store had plenty. I know this because the local store is advanced enough to be able to check this from their handheld terminals (nice!). When I asked them about getting it from Missoula, they said it would take “about 3 weeks”.

I can *walk* to and from Missoula in three weeks.

Trucking in the wrong direction

Recently I was outside of Missoula at a truck stop and bought a small toolkit for a task that had me sidelined on the road. As the cashier finished ringing it up, I realized I’d bought the wrong thing. Yes, my fault.

While standing at the counter, before the salesperson walked away, before picking the item up from the counter, while putting my wallet back in my pocket, I asked to return it, unopened.

Without a second’s delay, they said “We have a strict corporate return policy. No returns.” 
Even if the unopened item has never left the store, much less the cash register.

It’s early on Saturday evening and there is no weekend on-premises manager. She won’t be back until Monday and no one else is allowed to take responsibility.

Stunningly “customer-friendly”.

Earl Nightingale once said something like “To be successful, observe what the majority in your market are doing, then do the opposite”.

These are good examples of his advice.

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photo credit: timparkinson

Ever notice that some businesses have a sale every other week? (or worse, even more often than that)

I guess they think they have to.

They’re the ones who have sales so often that *everyone* seems to wait until the next sale before they buy. Hey, it’s right around the corner, why not?

It starts to look a little cheesy before long. Why is that?

Aside from the “smell of desperation”, people see credibility if given “a reason why” even if the reason is silly.

Otherwise they get the idea you’re having a sale every week because you don’t know what else to do. Once they figure that out, your sale prices *are* your regular prices. Not a good thing.

Find a reason

Why are you having a sale / promotion / event?

• Because the Saints won.
• Because the Colts lost.
• Because Obama won.
• Because McCain lost.
• Because I’m a grandpa.
• Because we had a monster snowstorm.
• Because it hasn’t snowed in 2 months+.
• Because Valentine’s Day is approaching and you wanna be a good significant other
• Because Valentine’s Day is over and you don’t want to keep all this red stuff till next year.
• Because your kid just scored his first goal.
• Because your kid’s never scored a goal.
• To send a message to someone.
• To thank a certain group of people or an entire community.
• To educate your customers (ie: “because TED2010 is going on this week, all our natural foods are specially priced”, or whatever)
• And so on.

But NOT because “I need some cash flow and having a sale is the only way I know how to close sales.”

Reasons are all around you

Legitimate is in the eye of the beholder, so have a little fun with it.

Papa John’s Pizza has a heart-shaped pizza special this week. Not difficult to do, but so far, I’ve seen no other restaurants offering something like this.

Yesterday I received an email from Dan Kennedy’s company that offered a 24.8% discount off any of their information products.

Why 24.8%? Because they got 24.8″ of snow in Baltimore this week. Almost everyone knows about snowpocalypse.

Associating your sale or promotion with stuff like this is easy. Taking an extra step to tie the discount to the event (like the depth of the newly fallen snow) is even better – as long as the discount/promo/sale doesn’t last forever, or come back again with the same reason every other week.

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photo credit: Sabbath Photography

So far it’s been an incredible year for snow in the Northwest.

Two feet in the Washington DC area is a Snowpocalypse?

That’s nothing.

We have 8 feet of fresh pow* in Montana, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. It’s so deep, we’re carving mad turns in our driveways and carrying avalanche beacons when we go out to get the mail.

Come out and join us and ski and ride your brains out!

Oh wait. Maybe not that much snow, but come on out anyhow.

Which truth is real?

As with other markets where misinformation can lead a customer astray, the internet has a way of finding the truth, even about mad pow*.

When skiers and snowboarders hop off the lift expecting to find the foot of fresh powder mentioned in the snow report and instead, find a couple inches of popcorn**, it doesn’t excite them.

When skiers and snowboard riders find a few feet of waist-deep powdery goodness, they can now use their cell phones to report snow conditions via Facebook, Twitter and this killer skier/snowboarder snow report app.

This app has forced resorts to come clean on their snow reports.

Thing is, it isn’t just snow conditions that are available in (close to) real-time from a source that’s cutting turns in it right now. Whatever you do, there is likely an enthusiast community talking about it

Whether we’re talking about stream flows, fish and wildlife migration, trail conditions, road conditions, whiter whites and brighter brights, parking availability, meal quality, service quality and more…it’s out there on the net for the savvy customer who wants to check you out before buying.

Help them find it – and don’t claim to be shredding pow in your driveway unless you really are

* Translation: Fresh, deep, powdery snow, often blamed for high levels of absenteeism at work and/or school.

** Translation: smallish, hard popcorn-looking snow that looks like that stuff sprayed on ceilings in office buildings and homes. Not really what you want to ski/ride on, but still better than a good day at work.

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photo credit: Dennis Wong

What transforms an experience from “acceptable” to “cant wait to tell my friends”?

To me, “acceptable” service starts with a smile, an effort to make sure the customer received what they came for, eye contact and a thank you.

“Can’t wait to tell my friends” service doesn’t come *before* you do little inexpensive things, it comes *because of* little inexpensive things.

That’s right – the things that transform your service to “cant wait to tell my friends” are often simple, inexpensive little things.

By themselves they might not seem like such a big deal. Below, a few examples. In each case, consider the perception of the customer.

The birthday card

• A birthday postcard sent via an automated postcard service during your customers’ birthday month vs. no card at all.
• A birthday postcard sent via an automated postcard service vs a hand written birthday card signed by the owner or manager.
• A voice mail from the business owner wishing you a happy birthday, vs. a brief call to invite you into their establishment that required 4 callbacks to get you in person.

In 5 of 6 cases, a happy birthday message arrives. What’s the difference in the perception of the message?

A cup of coffee

• A tasty cup of latte made from freshly ground, freshly roasted beans vs. a cup of latte made from coffee ground 2 weeks ago and roasted who knows when (matters to those who can tell, doesn’t matter to those who cannot).
• A tasty cup of latte made from freshly ground, freshly roasted beans vs. a tasty cup of latte made from freshly-ground, freshly-roasted beans that is topped with latte art such as the cat you see above.
• A tasty cup of latte made from freshly-ground, freshly-roasted beans that is topped with latte art in the shape of a fleur-de-lis to celebrate the Saints’ Super Bowl win.
• A tasty cup of latte made from freshly-ground, freshly-roasted beans that is topped with latte art in the shape of a heart for the runup to Valentine’s Day

Doesn’t make the coffee taste better, but it does provoke someone to talk about what transformed a mundane cup of coffee (no matter how good) into something you tell everyone about, that you take a picture of with your phone and post on Facebook or Twitter, and that causes you to bring your best friend the cat lover to this place as a little surprise. Next thing you know, she’s bringing all her cat lover friends.

In the latter case, something to create a little free buzz (pun intended). Perhaps you do so before the game and give your customers a choice of the Colts’ horseshoe or the Saints’ fleur-de-lis. You can do this year-round for holidays, sports events, you name it.

The letter

• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with the Senator’s signature signed by the Senator’s personal assistant.
• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with the signature rubber stamped onto the letter.
• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with the signature printed as part of the letter.
• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with a handwritten signature.
• A letter from your Senator congratulating you on an achievement, with a handwritten signature , and a brief handwritten PS from the Senator.

Which of these would you show to your friends? Which would you frame and hang on your office wall? Which would you keep in your scrapbook for the rest of your life? Which would you show your grandkids 30-40 years from now?

Little, inexpensive things mean a lot.  They create relationships that few competitors can hope to break.

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photo credit: shoothead

You’ve probably seen people on Twitter or Facebook yammering about “Wow, I only need 17 more followers or fans to hit 2000″ (or  10000 or whatever).

If you’ve used Twitter, you know that there’s a curve there and when you round it, it’s like drinking from a firehose.

Stowe Boyd talks a little about the social media scoreboard in today’s guest post, stating that quality rather than quantity is the important factor.

Remember that each of those fans or followers are people. They have needs, wants and presumably they followed/fan’d you because they thought you had something to say. “I’m having a waffle” just isn’t it.

@BillGates doesn’t have 400-500k people following him on Twitter after just a few weeks because they want to hear him talk about Windows or MS Office. Bill is engaging to follow nowadays because he talks about poverty, disease and education – and then puts his money where his mouth is. Lots of it. Almost $300 million for polio, for example.

Engage. Have a *meaningful* conversation.

Think about the folks on Twitter or Facebook whose posts you look forward to. How are they different from yours?

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photo credit: mark sebastian

Did January sneak up and run out the door on you?

2010 is 1/12th GONE.

So, with a 1/12 of your year gone, how’s your 2010 going?

If you got a slow start, maybe a simple exercise will get you back on track.

Simple doesn’t mean ineffective, simple means uncluttered. Down to the bare metal, if you wish.

The goal is not to make this the best planning session ever, it’s to get you back on track and moving toward the right goal so that your next planning session has you standing there with a success in your holster, fired up to kick some butt.

In other words, we’re making accomplishment and planning into a habit, and we’re doing it by starting simple.

It’s a process

Put a one hour appointment/meeting on your calendar. I don’t care when you do it, but it needs to be a part of the day when you are good at focusing on your big thing.

If you work in an office, make sure you have this meeting elsewhere. Maybe try a new coffee shop where there’s no chance anyone you know will walk up and want to discuss the Super Bowl, Signing Day, General Hospital, the weather or heaven forbid – Farmville.

The goal is to get as close to zero distractions as is possible.

Ready to start?

Turn off your cell phone. Yes, I said *turn it off*. I know you’re irreplaceable and all that, but trust them to be able to stay reasonably sane if they can’t reach you immediately for just one hour.

Close any other distracting programs you have on your computer – including but not limited to: your email program, your web browser, your Twitter client, your Facebook page (yes, even *Farmville*), and your instant messenger client software.

Brain Dump

Write down the 10 most important things your business needs to accomplish over the next two years. One year isn’t usually enough time, or you just aren’t thinking big enough or far enough out.

Make absolutely sure those 10 things are seriously part of achieving the big picture vision you have for your business – whatever that might be.

Now the hard part. Pick the item that is *the most important* thing to accomplish.

What moves your business more strongly toward accomplishing your mission than *anything* else on that list?

That’s the thing.

Write down every task that has to be completed to make it happen. If you have to, put on your Covey hat and “Begin with the End in mind”, working backwards from “I’ve done it!” to today.

Now…Get to work, one bite at a time, just like that Scout I talked about a couple of days ago.

Once that’s done, repeat the process.

PS: Revisit this planning process monthly to make sure you’re staying on track.

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photo credit: Alex E. Proimos

A combination of events over the last couple of months has had me thinking more about the expectations we have for ourselves, our kids, our employees and holy moly, even our politicians.

First, Jim Rohn passed away.

Jim talked a lot about expectations and how delivery of them is on one person – you. I highly recommend Rohn’s stuff. While you can buy his books, videos, audio etc online, quite a lot can be found at no cost on his site and on YouTube.

Next, four of my Scouts attained the rank of Eagle on the same day, after progressing together in Scouting since the second grade.

Three of them had been Life Scouts (the last rank prior to Eagle) for over three years. They needed a little prodding to finish the last item or two on their checklist, but they all assumed they’d get it done. If nothing else, they figured their parents would pressure them to get it done. Note: They were right.

A tall, steep mountain

But a year ago, one of them just didn’t think he could get there. Not because he isn’t confident (he is), but because the mountain in front of him was so very tall.

A year ago, he was a Star Scout (and had been for some time). That means that he needed several merit badges in addition to finishing the requirements for the Life Scout rank, then he needed to spend six months actively providing senior leadership to the troop,  and finally had to come up with and complete an Eagle Scout service project.

All of that had to happen in about a year, and with a dose of reality, it had to happen in an environment that includes a job, his senior year of high school, cars, girls, school, skiing, hunting, a summer of fun (including traveling for a team sport) and everything else teenagers do these days.

The size of the mountain doesn’t matter much

One thing that I’ve found with folks young and not so young is that the size of the mountain in front of them rarely has anything to do with their ability to climb it.

What’s far more important is whether or not they THINK they can climb it.

Yeah, I know…I’m teetering into the land of the touchy-feely. However, what folks think they can make happen clearly has a huge impact on what they accomplish.

For that one young man, it was easy to seem like Eagle wasn’t reachable because it was so far away.

All he needed was to see that *I* completely believed he could do it if he applied himself. I didn’t do the work, I didn’t give him any shortcuts, and I sure don’t deserve the credit, but that little tiny bump in the road could have kept him from getting there.

Once he believed he could get over it, he simply had to chip away at it till he was done.

You can’t do that

I wonder how many of those little bumps and “You can’t do that” comments employees, business owners and entrepreneurs run into and what accomplishments they prevent.

Some people would see a comment like that as a challenge. They’ll swing for the fences and complete the task with a flourish (think “Ricky Henderson“) as a way to say “Oh yeah? Take THAT. I *could* do it.”

Most business owners and entrepreneurs probably steamroll past that stuff or they wouldn’t be in those positions.

But… not everyone is built that way. It might take a success or two to show some that they really can kick butt and take names.

I spend a lot of time with kids due to Scouts, swim team and other things I’m involved in. I sometimes see kids who are told they *are* great (whether they are or not) rather than encouraging them to *be* great (or even better) and accomplish great things.

More kids need to be encouraged to BE great, whether they want to be a rocket scientist, a millwright or a statesman (“statesperson” sounds a little weird for me). We could use a few (hundred) *great* statesmen of both genders, in fact.

Just telling them they are great isn’t enough. They need mentors, like anyone else.

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