I’ve had many business questions about it, so I’d like to share some of my biggest lessons learned nearly 9 months into this new (ad)venture.

1. Photography and descriptive positioning are key for products.

In a service business, the names of my packages never really had an effect on their success – people really just wanted knowledge of their potential outcome.  In products, the names and descriptions of the products can make/break success!  On top of that, a good photo can make a product sell; last fall we had a cool pumpkin spice tea latte photo that ended up driving us to sell out of tea three times.

2. With products, invest in product quality/design as much as you invest in your marketing/sales channels.

In my experience, spending the time and money in product quality and design has actually driven more to the bottom line than just pushing our marketing and sales channels.  We’ve spent time lowering our per-unit costs and also making our products so good people can’t help but share them – that’s made our growth go faster than we could have done just trying to master an Adwords campaign, for example.

3. Customer service is marketing.

When you’re a service provider, customer service sort of seems to come with the territory since you are likely having regular interactions with your customer – you have to show up.  In the product business, customer service is marketing.  Good customer service can make even disappointed customers refer you to others.  Good customer service can drive up retention rates and repeat business.  It’s a skill you need to perfect – moreso than social media, I think.

4. Like services, product have their own business cycles.

For the service business I provided, I always found that everyone wanted time from me at the beginning of the year, and in the fall when the weather got cold.  Summer was dead.  In the product business, we’ve gotten swept away with the overall consumer marketing cycle – for example, we made 25x our typical monthly revenue during the holiday months.  Hard to look the other way on that!    We are also looking at things like valentine’s day, mother’s day, etc.  But – products are all different.  Services can be different too (think of plumbers in below zero days versus in the summer) so it’s critical that you learn the cycle of your customers and get in sync with that.   It doesn’t do you any good to have a 4th of July promotion that you launch 3 days before (unless your customers are super last-minute folks!).

5. Subscriptions are a beautiful thing… when done right.

Our organic tea of the month club is by far our most popular offering.  And people paying you ever month automatically, sounds great, right?  Well – it is – but you need to structure it correctly so that people feel like they are getting good value, and you need systems and processes in place to support it – all of which cost money.  I talk about on this podcast how I got it wrong the first time around, and had to re-do it.  Some businesses are natural fits for subscriptions/recurring billing, but make sure you plan ahead and get lots of feedback before diving into a monthly commitment with your customers.

 6. You should pick products you know and like, or at least don’t mind spending a lot of time with.

I see so many articles saying that products like electronics have the best margins and growth opportunities so start an ecommerce site with those.  What if you don’t like electronics?  Seems like a waste of time to me.  I really have encouraged folks to go with products they know and like, or want to get to know better.  Of course, good margins and repeat buyers is important, but I think you can make it work regardless if you have a product you’re enthusiastic about.

7. Products have their own unique challenges, namely: inventory and shipping.

Having enough product but not too much is a learned skill – learn it, especially if you carry seasonal or perishable product. Shipping is expensive and a pain in the ass – don’t forget to run tests and make sure you really understand your shipping costs and know how you will ship.  These things require diligent attention.

I’m in love with a product business after 15+ years in the services biz. But it’s not all rainbows and roses.  Do you have opinions about services vs product?  Questions? Share in the comments!

I love podcasts, both as a listener and as a guests – my intention is to launch one over at Plum Deluxe sometime in 2015. These recent interviews have a ton of useful business tips, so I wanted to share links so you can check them out.

• The Startup Sessions with Michael Knouse
  (talking about building an audience, mindfully)

• MCNG Marketing Pinterest Podcast with Vincent Ng
  (talking about Pinterest and updates on their new ad platform)

• The Engaging Brand with Anna Farmery
  (talking about authentic brand building)

Speaking of Pinterest…

I’ve had some rumblings of folks curious about my success with Pinterest and how they can better utilize Pinterest for their business. While of course you can just book a 1-hour intensive with me to talk about Pinterest, I would like to know if you would like more specialized support.

One of the questions I get asked all the time is, how often should I update my web design? The answer: there isn’t a set timeline. Your business needs and growth should drive website (re)design decisions, nothing else.

Here’s an example. With wine.

I work a lot with winemakers (lucky me!), and earlier this year I had a winery approach me whose website was build in 2009. 5 years old. Now, here was the thing. The site itself was fine! (I asked for permission & my client said I could tell this story, but no pictures. Sorry.) Up until now, they didn’t sell wine online, so the large pictures and perfunctory website functions was all they needed.

They did have troubles updating parts of the site, and they were tracking their analytics and many visitors were using iPads – and the site didn’t load well on a tablet. And, they’re ready to sell wine online. So, both their customer traffic and business needs were driving a big site upgrade.

The funny part is the new site design isn’t dramatically different, because we wanted an experience similar to what people experience in the tasting room, or see on the wine bottle labels, neither of which were changing.

This particular client is probably A-OK on website design for another 5 years.

I’ve worked with other clients, particularly startups, whose business is changing rapidly and the site design tumbles along right behind.

If your clients are complaining about your website, if your analytics are telling you that your website is terrible, or your website isn’t supporting the functions your business needs, it’s time for an upgrade.

I suspect a lot of you are like me:  you need to take notes because you’re quite busy and will forget something if it is not written down.  But, you’re really too busy to take notes.

Ouch.  I feel your pain.

I’ve learned to cope and force myself to take better notes.  Here are my top 5 tips for you to do the same.

1. Do standardize your notes in ONE place.  I used to have several notebooks for different types of meetings, and then my notepad app on my phone, post it notes on my desk… #headdesk.  It’s no surprise I couldn’t find anything.    I force myself to use Evernote and put everything there – even if sometimes I do have written notes from a brainstorming session or collaborative document, I get them uploaded ASAP.

2. Don’t be apologetic about using your phone.  There’s something “classy” about a nice journal and pen, but if it doesn’t end up in my phone, I will probably forget to take action.  Sometimes I notice people in meetings looking at me as if I’m flipping through Pinterest boards or liking cat photos on Facebook, so I let people know at the beginning of a meeting that I’m taking notes digitally so I can access them when I get home.  Most people don’t have a problem with it, nor should they – you’re being more efficient.  Nothing to apologize about.  (But do be polite and ignore any notifications, and please, no using Facebook during a client meeting!)

3. Don’t overengineer your organizational system. All the digital notetaking systems offer a variety of ways to organize your notes.  I’m not here to tell you what way is best, because I am not you.  But I suspect that if you are having trouble getting organized, you’re overengineering it.  Keep it simple – you can always add more complexity later on, when you’ve actually got a lot of notes in there.  You don’t have to use all the features available, because you can simply search when you are looking for something.  I do suggest trying to pick a handful of standardized hashtags to use, which does make searching easier, and is a minimalist way to get started organizing.

4. When in a real hurry, cheat by using voice memos and photos.  Don’t have time to type on the go?  Leave yourself a voice message and type it in later.  Take pictures of important slides in presentations, copies of someone’s address/phone number.  Be sure to use clear descriptions as to what it is, otherwise you’ve missed the point, but this can be a timesaver and also perhaps useful when you come back for your action items to remember the details of what was discussed.

5.  Mark your calendar for a regular note check-in/check-up.  I make it a point on Sunday evenings to clear my desk for the new week.  It helps keep my head clear.  I also make it a point to check my notes and make sure there isn’t something that needs a deadline set to it, or perhaps just an errant note that should have been forwarded on to my assistant or a business partner.  Put it on your calendar to do this so it will only take 15 minutes to tidy up everything on a regular basis, instead of waiting until you miss a deadline.

Need a content boost for your blog?  My team over at Plum Deluxe has a great summer special for you – check it out here.

Last year I talked a bit about the role of bias in setting up and testing you website. I got emails with questions about this, and it’s an important topic, so I wanted to bring it up again for conversation.

Bias is where, as website owners, we fail to consider the perspective and experience of our customers before they arrive to our website. This often presents itself as making incorrect assumptions about our customers.

In my recent how to build an audience workshop, I talked about the idea of picturing your customer on a train. They’ve been to stations and stops long before they arrive at your virtual front door. It’s important to know what state of mind those folks are in, so you can show up for them in a way that meets their needs.

A Great (but Humorous) Example of Bias….

We all have to deal with the weather, and we’ve all complained about the weather at some point, so it makes for a useful teaching tool. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we had a pretty easy winter (apart from one dreadful weekend). But I’m well aware, from Facebook & most news outlets, that the rest of North America from here eastward had a downright terrible winter.

Then I saw a variety of maps playing off of this concept going around:

(I’m not sure who originally made this map – it appears to be originally by disalamanc but I may be mistaken.)

I laughed at this map, and then wrote it off as totally stupid and annoying. Why the knee jerk? It was obvious that whomever made the map was totally out of touch with the fact that our winter was not as depicted. In fact, the day I first saw this, I think it was almost 55 degrees outside, nearly 10 degrees above normal for that time of year.

So, they got the map wrong. It was a joke. What does this have to do with customer bias?

This is a silly example, but it illustrates a point that might be happening with your marketing materials and your website. All jokes aside, this map made a huge assumption about me that was wrong, which meant I disregarded the rest of the information as wrong or “not for me.”

Are you making an erroneous assumption about your customers? Here are some recent examples I’ve seen:

• A seamstress, who was failing to sell any alteration services because she assumed everyone knew a seamstress did alterations – she didn’t put it in her services menu.
• A podcaster, who had trouble selling advertising on her podcast because she assumed the pricing was too high and kept lowering it, only to later find out advertisers were afraid to tell her they hated all the swearing on the show. Even worse, the bargain basement price frightened away the few clients who were interested and didn’t mind the language issue.
• A health coach, who was frustrated that nobody was buying her high-quality recipe packs, because she assumed this was the tool they were missing for healthy eating – in fact, many of her best clients needed taught how to cook; they were all too embarrassed to tell her they didn’t know how to get started, so they just silently unsubscribed.

You might look at these examples and say, “well, those business owners are idiots – these things are obvious.” It’s obvious when you’re the customer who arrives on the website or at the business front door with biases and perspectives etched deep into you. Of course, you say… But if you’re running a website, it’s probably for a group of people who are different than you, who don’t have the knowledge/information/experience you have. You really have to get in your customer’s head and walk a mile in their shoes to market to them effectively.

Take a good look at your website and marketing materials. Better yet, observe your clients taking a good look at your website and marketing materials (easier said than done). Are you making silly assumptions that are killing your business?

FYI: I’m running another mastermind class for Portland, Oregon based businesses – signups end TODAY. RSVP here.

When I started my business nearly 7 years ago, I never thought of myself as a teacher – and yet, when I look back, that’s what I’ve been doing the entire time.

My first paying gig was teaching small businesses in tourism and hospitality how the web was changing and they need to react, because their customers were all online already.

Many of those businesses then hired my team to help them build websites and teach them how to drive their own digital presence, something that we still do today.

Then I launched Plum Deluxe, which teaches people all sorts of skills, from how to enjoy wine to how to host a dinner party.

Teaching, teaching, and yes, teaching. And if you want the summary version of this article, here you go:

teaching is really hard.

Stating the obvious, of course. Below you’ll find 3 more practical insights I’ve learned being a teacher.

1. Even the most successful teachers have trouble mastering student engagement & course completion.

I said teaching was hard, and for years I thought I was the only one who had a hard time keeping students engaged and sending them back out into the world successful.  You’re not alone!   The course that opened my eyes to this was Engaging E-Courses, a class sadly no longer offered by my good friends Pace Smith & Kelly Kingman.  Their course revealed the completion rates of some very well known classes and online teachers, and I was shocked to see many of them struggled to get 50% of their students to finish a class.

Key lessons learned for me here?  Keep materials sharp and focused, plan lots of DOING time into your classes instead of incessantly talking at people, and, make sure when you are enrolling students it’s super clear what your expectations are and what they’re going to get out of it, so you’ll get the right kind of people.

2. Sometimes people don’t want to be taught – they want you to do it for them.

This is a very important lesson for many business owners. I’ve seen many businesses fail because they’ve been hammering their heads into a wall trying to get people to signup for their social media courses or photography classes. Sometimes, your customer doesn’t really want to learn – they’re too busy, they don’t care – and when they say they need help, they really mean “I want you to do it for me.”

The only way to know whether people want to be taught or just want it to be taken care of is to ask. You might then ask again just to double check, because sometimes people aren’t really sure what they want!

3. The medium  is an important factor to learning success/retention.

Last, but not least.  I’ve found in my experience, the format and medium in which you teach is very relevant to how successful you will be.  We now have so many mediums for our educational content, it’s hard to choose – in person, video, audio, and books are all affordable and accessible.   You must choose a medium appropriate for both your ideal student and the content you are presenting.

This is one reason why the upcoming website mastermind group I am hosting (more details & RSVP info here), I am hosting the sessions in person.  I find that my content is best received live, and also my students also get more done when working live.

Of course, this is where I started, so I’m coming full circle, but you need to research and decide what’s best for you. For example, at Plum Deluxe we’re rolling out quite a lot of educational content this year in the form of worksheets and books, because our food and entertainment topics are better suited for that medium (think printable recipes, shopping lists, how to instructional docs) and our ideal student is a busy professional that needs very easy access to the materials.

For more on being a better teacher, I strongly encourage you to visit www.mynameisbreanne.com.  Her free PDF, 6 Learning Activities to Use in Your Next Workshop, is a must read for any educator!

My talk was on how to build an audience – based on my learnings on how Plum Deluxe has exploded in the past few months; this year, we’re launching our own product line, entertaining guides, and a nationwide event program.  Holy carp, how did that happen?

(HINT: Want to stay apprised of all our awesome new stuff? signup for our weekly Plum Deluxe newsletter – it is award-winning (no, really, it is!).

Many attendees asked me to share the slides from the presentation, so I’m posting them here so everyone can benefit.

To my pioneers – you have got this.  You have GOT this.  Stay focused, remember WHY you’re on this journey, and take one step at a time.

If there’s anything I can do to help you, drop me a line: andy @ plumdeluxe . com.

I do have an interesting assessment for you to do with yourself and your team.  I simply call it What would be easy?

When talking with a lot of my peers about what’s next in the evolution of Plum Deluxe, a lot of the conversations centered around a simple principle:  ease.

Forgive me for sounding too meta, but my initial thoughts were that figuring out what is easy would be… too easy?  Too simple?

I should have known – in my experience, the simplest plan is the best.

How to Give Your Team an “Easy” Assessment

Here’s what I did.  First, I sent out an email to everyone (individually) asking them what parts of their job were the easiest.  The stuff that they could do all day long, with ease and enjoyment.

Important:  you have to take this too!  I almost forgot.

Then I printed out all the ease and put it into a pile, if for no other reason than I liked looking at a pile of ease.  It’s a nice thought, isn’t it?

Anyway, I looked for lines, connections, synergies.  I compared it with what we spend a lot of our time on, what we make most of our money on, what we asked about the most.

For example, the most popular offering we have is web design – but I never talk about that publicly! What would happen if we did?   And our strongest skillset is in content and publishing – why haven’t we been talking to our clients about custom publishing?

I’m looking forward to 2014 and seeing the results of this “easy” assessment going into full affect.  My theme for 2014 is ease.  Because I’m here to tell you:  there isn’t anything better than easy.

(Clarifying note:  just because something is easy, doesn’t mean it isn’t hard work.  It also doesn’t meant you can’t fail.  It just improves your odds for success.  YMMV.)

Unless you’re a pure retail brand, this time of year is a good time to reflect and look at where you’re headed.  I wanted to share some personal insight on a big decision I made recently; it relates to something all of us have said at one time or another:

“I’m tired of _______________”

Have you ever declared your tiredness for X, Y, or Z?  It’s a sign.   Life on its own can be tiring, we don’t need to encourage it – so if something is tiring you, I suggest you think about when is a good time to make a change.

• Tired of your killer commute?  Time to ask for a reprieve – or find something new.
• Tired of not making progress on a project after months and months?  Time to try a new approach, or a new project altogether.
• Tired of being frustrated with a software program or a application? Time to get some training or outsource.
• Tired of getting asked the same questions over and over again? Time to setup an FAQ.
• Tired of always chasing for new customers?  Time to improve the relationship you have with existing ones.
• Tired of a professional (or even personal) relationship, colleague, or client that’s rubbing you the wrong way?  Time to communicate.
• Tired of your website feeling like a treadmill? Shameless plug:  Time to hire my team.

Maybe not Now, but Soon…

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard those words out of a client’s mouth over the years – when I’ve been training, when doing one-on-one coaching, on the strategic stuff and when sweating the small stuff.  Your brain only has capacity for so much, and when your day is full of tiny little stressors, those add up to be a big ball of distraction that hovers somewhere right behind your eyelids – not always painful enough, but always presence, ever watchful.

If you’re thinking about making some tweaks to your business/career in 2014, I suggest you start with the tired-of’s.   Big or small, turn them off, they don’t deserve your attention.

Do you have end-of-year reflection/resolution tips?  I’d love to hear what you look out for in the comments below.

In the past few months, I’ve been feeling really frustrated and experiencing a lot of unnecessary stress as the biggest part of my portfolio, Plum Deluxe, continues to grow. The problem is a lack of flow between the different projects I work on – and oddly enough, many of the projects were the same basic kinds of projects, but when kicked off here at andyhayes.com, it was just me, whereas Plum Deluxe we have lots of nice people who are experts on all sorts of things.

Tired of always doing everything, we’ve reorganized project-based work under a single umbrella, Plum Deluxe Productions (and a pretty page with illustrations – click and check it out!).  Doing this makes us more efficient, more focused, and means we can give better customer service (ooh!).

I’ve decided to discontinue the website critiques after all these years, because frankly: people don’t do the work.  I didn’t want to charge more for them as I think I had the pricing right, but at that sub-$1k price point, people wouldn’t action the advice.  I’ll still be offering my live website critique workshop (in fact, I am fully booked for that consistently about 2 months out, and I’ve improved my packaged offerings).

The thing that really excites me right now is the future of content, and focusing on Plum Deluxe means I can spend more time focused on that work, both on our own content and clients’ content.  We’ve had the opportunity to revamp the content strategy for a variety of clients, and the opportunity to work more on in-depth, long-term content projects for businesses making a big difference in the world feels great.  And anytime a business decision feels great, it is the right decision.

Don’t you worry, I’ll still be penning my musing here intermittently.  Until then, I would love for you to see what we are up at Plum Deluxe (hint: we just launched our new eCommerce portal, Plum Deluxe Collections) and if there are any projects we can collaborate with you on, please – email me.