Are You Approachable?

I recently watched a great little video about how managers can be more approachable for their employees.   As I considered these “how to” tips, it occurred to me that this is not just good for an individual manager’s success, but also for your business success.

Think about it.  No matter what type of business you have, you need customers.  Customers are people and people tend to be attracted to people (and businesses) who are warm and inviting (dare I say approachable).  Just seems like good marketing.

Here are some quick ideas to consider for your business:

1. Be Inviting – Is your business and your team inviting?  If you walked by your business would you want to walk in?  Clear some space so customers can easily get in and get around your business.  Maybe you could even leave the door open!
2. Stop & Look – When someone comes to your place of business do you (or your team) stop what you are doing and make eye contact?  It’s not easy stopping when you are busy, but don’t make your customers get uncomfortable and have to interrupt you.  Try just walking more slowly and making eye contact with everyone.
3. Respond – When your customer needs help, be there and be responsive.  Have a patient tone and attitude.  You could even ask them if they have any questions or need help first!

So, there are some practical ways to become more approachable and it seems like they just make good business sense.  So, why not make sure your business is approachable.

Until next time… Here’s to you making better marketing and sales decisions.

Link to referenced video: http://www.bnet.com/2422-13722_23-181085.html?tag=content;col1

Are You Safe?

For any of you who are wrestling with getting prospects to buy your product or service for the first time or trying to get your current customers to try a new product or service, here’s some discouragement and encouragement all in one post.  Let’s start the discussion with this question… Are you a safe choice for your prospects?

Tough economic times lead to people running for safety.  No one is taking too many risks with their time or money right now.  It seems that any potential expenditure of time or money is being heavily scrutinized – even when talking about where to go out to eat.  I don’t even want to think about the calories and brain cells being burned by someone who has to replace a failing water heater, which they know nothing about!  They just can’t afford to make a bad purchase – there is very little tolerance for risk right now. 

Guess what?  Businesses are acting the same way – only making purchases that will have a safe and very certain payback.  So, no matter what you offer your target customers, you have a bit of a challenge… they are not willing to take a risk. 

Now, if you are old enough, you might remember the last recession – back in the 80’s – when the aversion to risk was similar (even if the economic situation wasn’t exactly the same) especially in corporate America where down-sizing was all the rage and everyone was worried about losing their job.

At about that same time, IBM was the dominant computer supplier to businesses and they knew what was going on in the minds of their target customers, so they created an ad campaign that focused on that fear of risk.  The ad went something like this… two IT managers are talking about needing to upgrade or fix their computer systems and have clearly been struggling with what to do for a while.  One manager says he is going with IBM.  The other manager pauses for a moment, gives a confirming nod and then says something like “yeah, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”.   The general message was clear – IBM was the safest choice.  In fact, even if it wasn’t the most economical or the most efficient, it didn’t matter.  They were safe.

So, even though our prospects’ budgets may be tight and even though we are tempted to simply lower our prices. It is likely their aversion to risk that is driving their purchase decisions and not their tight budget.  So, stop and ask yourself…  Are you safe?  Are you doing things to make yourself safe?  How can your prospects feel safe with choosing your product or service?

Guess what your prospects and customers are asking themselves about your product or service… 

Until next time… Here’s to you making better marketing and sales decisions.

Do More With Less. What?!

Are you kidding me?  Do more with less?  Amidst all the cutbacks in this economy, this has likely become one of the most overused clichés in corporate America.  And, I think it perpetuates a mode of thinking that can be bad for your business.  Here’s why… 

The reality is most often the “do more with less” thinking leads to less people just working more hours and doing the same things, the same old way.  Rarely does this thinking actually lead to doing something better.  I would like to offer an alternative to this accepted wisdom.  How about “do better with less”.  How about doing better instead of more?  Wouldn’t that make more sense? 

I would encourage you to apply this philosophy to your business, especially when you think about your marketing and sales efforts.  If you adopt this approach it means you need to know how you are doing now and based on my observations of many businesses, most just don’t have a handle on how they are performing when it comes to marketing and sales.   

To get a handle on how your marketing is performing start by getting a handle on two measures – response and engagement.  We’ll take a little deeper look at both.

Response simply provides a gauge on how many prospects are reacting to your marketing.  It is typically measured as a % of the audience who were potentially exposed to your marketing effort that actually responds and contacts your business – whether they pick up the phone, visit your website, etc.  This can tell you about how effective your effort was in finding your target market and how relevant your message was to the audience.

Engagement is a more intriguing measure as it captures how deeply involved the prospects become with your business as a result of your marketing (and sales) effort.  Obviously, having someone contact you is a good thing.  But, having them contact you and then walk through a product demonstration with a sales person is even better.  So, by picking some key milestones like contact, product demonstration and price quotation and monitoring the number of prospects that reach each of those can tell you more about how qualified the prospects are that you are attracting with your marketing efforts.  Most engagement metrics are expressed as a % of the total prospects that move to a given engagement milestone.

In addition to indicating the quality of the prospects being attracted, engagement measures can also point to areas of improvement in your overall marketing and sales process.  If, for example, plenty of prospects (let’s say 100) are contacting you and several (let’s say 90) are sitting through a demonstration but not many (only 10) are receiving a quote it might direct you to a problem with your sales team or some gap with your product offering.  Typically, these measurements are expressed as a % of the prospects that move from one engagement milestone to the next one.   So, in our quick example, 90% (90 / 100) of our contacts converted to a demonstration but only 11% (10 / 90) of our demonstrations converted to a quote.

Now, with these two areas of measurement in place, your business is in a position to understand where your marketing and sales efforts are most productive and where they have the greatest opportunity for improvement.  You are actually in a position to continuously improve, not just do more with less, but actually do better with less.

Until next time… Here’s to you making better marketing and sales decisions.

Put Some Spring In Your Business

I was watching an NBA game the other night and noticed something peculiar.  Now, I have probably watched hundreds of professional basketball games on TV in my life but, just hadn’t noticed this before.  For the first time, I saw a real difference in how the players were playing the game and I couldn’t immediately figure out what it was.

 As I watched just a little more action I realized what it was.  The players were playing with such a high energy level.  They had a spring in their step and they were so active – diving for the ball and trying to block every shot.  Even Shaquille O’Neal (certainly not noted for his high energy level on the court) had an incredible bounce in his game – he even played some defense!  This was so different from what I typically see when I watch professional basketball.  But, why? 

 It hit me.  It must be the freshness of the new basketball season that was the reason for this “springiness”.  There’s something different at the beginning of the year, especially when compared to late in the year.   The team is ready to get started.  No one is tired, worn out or injured.  They are just ready to go.

 Is it the same with your business?  It gets to be late in the year and the plan and goals just aren’t quite as inspiring anymore.  Things didn’t go as well as you wanted.  Maybe it would be easier to just muddle your way through the rest of the year and take your lumps.  Just go into survival mode and try to maintain the status quo.  Wait until next year to do something different.

 Wouldn’t it be better if you could put that spring back into your business this time of the year?  Like the beginning of a new year – new goals, new opportunities, etc.  It seems easy to start the year off with that bounce.   So, wouldn’t it be nice to do that now?

Here are some ways to put that spring in your business late in the year…

• Build your plan for next year – you should be doing this anyway but, you can get the energy and the inspiring feeling of the new year now
• Set some short term goals – lay out some key activities that you know need to be done that can help drive some positive results for your business and start working on them
• Rejuvenate your team –  give your team something unexpected… a simple gift or card of appreciation or maybe a couple of tickets to a movie 

 It’s definitely late in the year but it’s also time to put that spring back into your step.  I would encourage you to generate some energy for your business now.

 Until next time… here’s to you making better marketing and sales decisions.

Now that you have one – Use it

We have talked about how to create a strong customer value proposition for your business before and many experts agree that it’s essential to have one.  But why?  How will it help your business?  How can you use it in your marketing efforts?

While there is a lot of value in going through the process of creating a positioning statement or value proposition it is most valuable when you actually use it.  There are many ways that your value proposition can be used to help you grow and manage your business and we’ll briefly touch on few here.

• Marketing strategy foundation – your value proposition clearly defines who your customer is, the problems they might have and what benefits you provide for them which then allows you to focus on the best ways to market to them
• Clarify value for your team  – an open discussion and examination of your value proposition with your whole team is a great way to make sure everyone is on the same page and has a clear understanding of how they provide value to your customers
• Building ad messages – while some may feel compelled to use their entire positioning statement in a single ad, most businesses find that they can create multiple messages and ads
• Rethink and re-package your product/service – periodically it’s good to simply walk through the benefits you claim to provide your customers with your team and see if you are truly addressing the most important issues your customers have, it can help you to keep your offering on target and relevant to your customer

Once you get started, you might be surprised how this one statement can help keep you more focused on your customer and how you can best serve them.  No matter how you chose to use your value proposition you will quickly realize that its real value to your business is in using it.  So… use it.

Until next time… here’s to you making better marketing and sales decisions.