Everyone has a brand…

The problem is that most people do a terrible job of managing it because many small business people don’t think about in those terms. Brands aren’t the exclusive property of big companies like Google, Nike or Coca-Cola.  Your brand is a promise of how you will deliver on expectations.  In making a purchase decision, the first thing that a buyer will do is minimize risk.  Knowing exactly how a product or service will perform is ultimately the first, best way to take risk out of the equation.  That is what brands do and why it is one of your valuable assets.  That is why brand names out sell generics 4 to 1 – even though they can cost significantly more.  When clients and prospects see your logo or hear your name what springs to mind.  What should spring to mind?

These posts are a very quick primer to help anyone take simple and affordable steps to safeguard and strengthen your brand.  The first of these steps is clarity.

Rules of engagement

The first deals with the employee>
I pay your salary but only you are the boss of you. Take ownership of yourself and demonstrate the qualities that make you a good boss and you will succeed. Practice the qualities that make you a poor boss and you’ll be out of business. My business and every other you attempt.

The second deals with the boss>
As my own boss, I seek the opinions of others, I rely on the industry, skills and ingenuity of others but ultimately my decisions and actions are my own.
I owe you, my employee, the training, direction and resources you need to get the job done – correctly, on time and on budget. Then I need to leave you alone to do your job (or I’m doing your job for you). When something doesn’t happen it is because at least one of us dropped the ball.
Finding fault to criticize is foolish and wasteful.
Finding fault to avoid mistakes in the future is just good practice.

Third and last, for everybody>
Good relationships can only deal in the same currency.
If I want someone to be loyal – I must be loyal.
If I want someone to be dedicated – I must be dedicated.
If I want someone to be honest – I must be honest with them.
If someone returns industry with sloth or
trust with dishonesty – bad relationship.
and that having been said – money doesn’t buy loyalty to you,
money only buys loyaty to money.

The 100 Yard Marathon

I was the Director of Marketing for a biotech startup going into our second year when the company president remarked happily that he was finally “getting traction” with certain members the investment community who 12 months prior wouldn’t take his call – but he didn’t know why since “we had no major breakthrough to report”. I told him something was very different from a year before – we were still here, we had paying customers.  We were not just a “promising technology”.

A huge component of any marketing program is simply staying power. Consider, since the first consideration in a buying decision is risk reduction.   Familiarity is one of your greatest allies. The “Oh, I’ve seen you guys before” factor is invaluable and that simply doesn’t happen overnight.

It’s not a sprint – it’s a marathon.

Who Cares…

Consider for a moment all the myriad different ways that your company interfaces with your customers and prospects.  Your website, brochures, business cards, print ads, how you answer the phone, the letters you write, your vehicles, how a technician dresses, how well our product performs, how our product is packaged, the emails you send…

The list could go on and on.

Now of all these things – which of them doesn’t make any difference? 

If you hire the best engineers and designers, employ the best workmen, buy the best concrete and girders but use substandard bolts – the bridge still falls down.  What we do reflects on all that we do.  QED

Your Toughest Competitor

There is a great scene in the movie “Ben Hur” where the character Quintis Arrius addresses his galley slaves with the line,”We keep you alive to row this ship – Row well and live.”  That is what I call a motivational speaker.  It simply would not have had the same impact if he had said,”Row well or we’ll talk again.”

In business, how often do we leave things on autopilot?  Let me guess – too often.  In marketing (in every aspect of business for that matter) everything should be pulling its weight.  It something is not, why are we permitting it to drain valuable resources?  If you aren’t pulling an oar – you are dragging one.

Because of the nature of our business, we do a lot in the trade show universe.  It cannot understand people who say – we are going to the show because we’d be noticeably absent if we didn’t go.  To which I say – AT LEAST YOU”D GET NOTICED.  Complacency is the mortal enemy of excellence.

Our world is reinventing itself on a daily basis.  Question everything – Challange everything.  Become your own toughest competitor (before some one else does)

We Have Met The Enemy, and he is us…

When you slash your price “just to get the sale” two things occur.

You are saying your “everyday price” is too high AND you don’t get customers, you get buyers loyal only to price?

People curb spending in bad economic times because fear makes them reconsider whether or not they “really need a NEW one”. Limited sales and discounts are designed to take people on the fence and nudge them into making an impulse buy – but in this climate there is no impulse buy.

Revisit value. Example: a company bought one of our systems and told us it cost about $700 less to buy new from us than to use a display they already owned. They could amortise acquisition on their first show and over the life of our product, save many times the purchase price.  But to make the purchase, they first had to get over the idea of “buying New” and see what the existing costs to use what they already had were doing to them. 

Having a “Big Sale” refocuses attention on the price not the package and when you do that, you become your own worst competitor.

Moreover, special sales and discounts train people NOT to buy.  Look at Dell or GM – if I don’t like this month’s special, I’ll just wait.  Christmas shopping used to start the day after Thanksgiving.  Now people wait until Christmas Eve, buy gift cards and use them after the the holiday when retailers are gasping for air.

In my humble opinion the only thing “Special Sales” close – is businesses.

What do you think?

It Won’t Do Any Good Part Two

How many billboards did you drive past going to work this morning?  How many ads did you hear on the radio?  Do you remember any of them?  Probably only a small percentage.  Not because they were bad ads, they were probably good ads – but you didn’t have an immediate need for that product or service, so they became “white noise”.  The point is until you are ready for the message, you will not see or hear it. 

In Part one of this entry – I said the purpose of this blog was not to get into the nuances of different marketing activities – but rather to plow the field.   Oddly, perhaps because we are close to the process we engage in marketing activities without necessarily remembering WHY?

It is the job of Sales to increase sales.  It is the job of Finance to watch the money.  That’s all pretty straight forward BUT what is the job of marketing?

IT IS TO INCREASE PROFIT.  When you view marketing from that perspective and not as a collection of different activities it takes on a whole new significance (particularly in a down economy).

Consider, it is easy to get sales if you are willing to lose money on everything that goes out the door.  The job of sound marketing is to husband profit by putting the right products in front of the right people at the right time such that their perceived value will make customers more anxious to buy from you than you are to sell to them. 

Isn’t that what you really want?

Searching for Myth Right

Is the customer always right?  No, but they are always the customer.

The REAL question is – how do you deal with a customer that makes unreasonable demands?

Legitimate feedback is invaluable.  I recall one instance at a tradeshow where a customer walked up and showed us the single most valuable benefit of one of our products.  We had missed it.  Thank goodness he came along and we had the sense to listen.

But the other end of the spectrum is where it gets interesting – what do you do when they just want what they want when they want it!

As a rule, I try to appeal to logic, reason and fairness.  It usually works (quite well) but when it does not, I suggest they may wish to take their business elsewhere if we can’t make them happy.  Not everyone is my customer and that’s okay.

I am not in business to help everyone or fix everything.  We strive to be the very best at what we do but doesn’t mean we are the best at everything.  You may be the greatest web developer, welder or financial analyst of all time – but that doesn’t mean that I’d let you cut my hair or fix my roof.

Did I myth something?

It Won’t Do Any Good

People ask, “If this a blog about marketing, why don’t you write about subjects like direct mail, search engine optimazation or print advertising – everyone else does?”

The answer is simple (and you just answered it).

There are a host of “experts” writing on every subject under the sun.  Without very great difficulty you could probably assemble enough material on any particular marketing activity to write a doctorial dissertation.  Who cares?  It probably won’t do any good unless you do something else first.

Before farmers plant a field, they plow the earth, they make the ground ready.  Because they knows their yield will be dramtically better if they do.

A cathedral is more than just a collection of beams, blocks and bricks – it is the end result of what ingenuity, industry and imagination can do with these things.  Marketing is not just a collection of activities – it is a mindset that is all encompassing.

The purpose of this blog is to help you plow your field.

On Lawns and Lipstick

Nobody buys a lawn mower – they buy short grass.

I don’t care about quick change bag attachments or turbo mulching action.  I just want to get the lawn cut so I can go play golf.  Tell me how I’ll get to go play golf sooner…

Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon said,”In the factory we make cosmetics – we sell hope.”

You know what your products and services are  BUT what are your customers buying?

What is your “Short Grass”?