Is “bigger” always better?

   If you haven’t visited Twitter,  you’ve probably no idea how extensive the ego destruction can be if your postings (“Tweets”) haven’t attracted 37,416,298 “Followers” in the last 24 hours.

     Oh, and there are at least 64 gazillion  other Twitterers out there who have the magic formula that will turn you into an overnight Most Highly Followed and Esteemed Twitterer sensation. Probably make you the hero of your whole office or neighborhood even!

     It makes me think about  how wasteful media advertising is if you’re not interested in attracting the entire world to your doorstep. I mean, let’s assume you’re selling Swiss Screw Precision Parts that are used in rocket ships. Should you run a series of network TV commercials on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN? (Insert sounds of regurgitation here.)

     How about full page ads  for your grass-cutting service in one of those idiotic national newspapers for bar graph fanatics? Gee, a direct mail campaign combined with Twitter and Facebook postings could put your hand-crafted pottery pieces on the map, don’t you think?

     Tell you what:  if you have that kind of money to throw away (and stupidity level to match), call me first. I’ll get you some great deals.

     If your target market  is comprised of specific individuals or specific industries or specific geographic areas, don’t waste a penny on advertising that goes to other people in other places.

     Yes, this includes refusing to do business  with the sleazy phonebook companies that go to great lengths to fragment the markets you want to reach so you’ll have to buy space in two or three or more books that slice up your market and, in the process, add another dozen markets you don’t need or care about.

     “Phone book ads  are a necessary evil” I’ve heard so many people complain over the years, especially professional services. The truth? They ARE evil, but they are NOT necessary.

     Your parents taught you  that where there’s a will, there’s a way, right? So when did you forget that? There are other ways to reach the prospects and customers you want without having to sell your sister and your dog (other jokes there that I’ll pass on!) just to pay for reaching people who cannot or would not be your customers anyway. 

     It’s one thing when the economy is booming  (let’s see, that was…uh…) and it’s a great thing to spread your name and message everywhere, with cost not a factor. It is, however, quite another mindset that’s needed when the economy is as bad as it is and VALUE needs to dictate expense.

     You don’t need to cave in to making media people rich with money that should be staying in your pocket because you are too lazy to look for other options. There ARE other options. You WILL find them when you put your mind to it. Or not.

     There’s always that one-time special deal package  — discounted from $1,297,000 to $1, 215,000 — to sponsor a major national show in 14 states even though you only provide service to three counties in one state, but it’s “such a deal!” 

     With advertising, bigger is not always better … and the bigger the impact, the bigger the bill.     

   # # #               

A business with no sign

is a sign of no business!

     Even if you’re running a business  out of your basement or garage or attic, and even if it’s illegal to have a sign outside, at least have one inside. If for no other reason than that the occasional visitor will be impressed, the IRS will give you less hassle about writing off a percentage of rent or mortgage and utilities, and –most important– it will make you feel good. 

     It doesn’t have to be a Times Square  smoke-blowing LED display spectacular. A piece of wood or cardboard will do just fine. The point is to give your business an identity. If you don’t who will? And when was the last time you had business dealings with, or rode through the desert on a horse with no name?  

     Okay, now let’s get to those eleven or so businesses  that are still not run out of the home. (That was a joke. My wife always urges me to announce a joke when I have a straight face like I did just then.)

Bottom line is that people judge

your business and you on first

impressions (and you’ll never

get a second one!)

     And many first impressions are at least formed in a large part by the sign on your building and/or in your window and or parking lot. 

     That sign needs to stand out.  It needs to communicate what you’re all about. It needs to be clean and attractive, visible and well-lit. Shrubs in the way? Trim them. Dirty frame? Wash or paint it. Bulbs out? Replace them. A sculpting studi0 I worked with uses lettering that is so thin and so fancy, it can’t be read when you’re parked next to it, never mind driving by.

A shabby sign tells people

you have a shabby business. 

     Replace or refresh it. A fish business has 20 signs on scrap wood that look like a 3 year-old spray-painted them. I drove past regularly for three years and refused to go there, thinking the fish couldn’t possibly be fresh.

     I finally stopped there one day out of curiosity  about they could still be in business. Now, I wouldn’t buy fish anywhere else. Aha!, you say, so lousy signs work. Actually, I think of it more that they lost my weekly business for three years; that’s a long time to court a prospective customer. 

     Your sign is your face. 

     How many days would you go without checking out your face in a mirror? Why would you not look at your own sign for weeks on end? In today’s economy, it’s not a good idea to have a less than perfect sign showing for even 24 hours! An ineffective sign is a sign of an ineffective business… yes, even in your basement, attic, or garage!           

# # #

STOP HIRING CONSULTANTS

(for the wrong reasons!)

Dear Business Owners and Managers: Stop with the knee-jerk decisions to hire consultants. They will not help you through the economy unless they are specialists at bringing sales in your door!

Until at least a couple of years down the road,  there is no need for “communication consultants” or “management trainers” or “personal growth and development consultants” or people to write your mission statement, your vision statement, your annual reports or your “white papers.”

How do I know? Because I’ve done all of the above (and made a successful career of it), but I also have run my own business for 35 years, and helped to start hundreds of others. I’ve run management and communication and personal growth and development training programs for 20,000 people. And I’ll be the first to tell you not to waste your time and money on these services, in this economy.

There is only one thing you need consultant support for these days, and that is for services that bring you sales. Period.

That having also been said,  I will be so bold as to suggest that communications and marketing generalists are also not the kinds of “sales consultants” to trust. Find a specialist. Do not EVER hire a marketing or communications consulting firm to do your website. Get a website specialist. Do not EVER hire a website specialist to write your website content. Get a writer who understands sales.

A good, proven commercial / marketing / advertising / website writer can do more for your business than all the ad agencies, marketing and communication consultants and non-sales trainers you can find put together! You need writing help? Hire a writer!

There is a growing temptation to panic at the financial strangulation your cutbacks have created, and grasp at any outside service that –like the frustrated wife whose husband  was a marketing executive and could only ever sit on the edge of the bed and talk about how great it would be– you simply cannot afford right now.

Promises do not perform. Providers with track-records for creating and delivering sales perform, and are worth paying! Look for a successful writer who is a quick study and who shows you she or he can learn your business promptly, who has a customer benefit focus instead of a chest-beating, “how great your business is” and product / service features focus.

You want someone who can help you develop sales strategies and and create the tactics that support that thinking. You want someone who is not afraid to work weekends or evenings to get the job done.

You want someone who will take the extra step, go the extra mile, and give you more than what you expect … someone who is both a talented writer and an example of what you want and expect from a sales pro.

Anyone who fits this profile,  by the way, should also be receptive to at least partial compensation based on performance. I know a lot of consultants will hate me for this post, but –down deep– they’ll have to admit that I speak the truth.

# # #

If You’re Thinking

Fireworks,

Think Again!

     If you’re one of those theatrical entrepreneur types,  and you’re not getting the sales you deserve, you might want to consider trading in the Broadway-belt-it-out and marching band music, the 3-D glasses, dogs and ponies, and PowerPoint specials for a much higher-impact (and, btw, much less expensive) presentation tool. It’s called truth.

The times have changed.

The economy has changed.

The marketplace has changed.

Buying motives

have changed

(though they’re still emotionally-triggered, not rationally evaluated).

And sales prospects and repeat sales customers

are rapidly retreating from RAZZMATAZZ!

     Out- of-touch-with-reality car dealers and furniture dealers  are still tangled up in their underwear shooting 0ff desperation-anchored messages, thinking that s~o~m~e~h~o~w they will manage to come up with the magic super sensational presentation ingredient that will send hoards of people charging into the parking lots and showrooms. Those days are over.

     People want to buy products and services that speak the truth  to them about value and performance and potential. They want every sales presentation to tell them what’s in it for them, and they want it to be the truth. Smoke and mirrors are out. The truth is in.

     I don’t care if the truck I want is a gas guzzler  as long as I know that it is going in, and as long as it’s a reasonable gas guzzler in my mind, and as long as the sales rep is being honest about it with me . . . but don’t give me a big come-on and a spielful of exaggerations. I’m not interested in how it compares with a hybrid; I don’t want a hybrid. Just the truth will do.

     Oh, and you could have the best furniture price deal in 57 states,  or since the earth died from global warming, and give me fat rebates and 20 years to pay. You can plunk me in a lounge chair, give me a pino colada and have six beautiful women fan me and feed me grapes while I watch a 3-D revolving stage of perfect room settings.

     Each setting can be in perfect lighting  with perfect background music and perfect chocolate chip cookie smells wafting around perfect flower arrangements, and not only will it get you nowhere and cost you untold expenses, it will make me walk out . . . because all I wanted was a pair of nightstands that will look nice next to my bed.

     Sure I’ll drink the drink,  smile at the help and grab a flower on my way to the door, but I only wanted something I can put my glasses, alarm clock and a lamp on. The whole bedroom I don’t need. The time-wasting presentation I don’t want. Good-bye, Yellow Brick Road!      

     The truth.  The truth is that evasive, unfancy bit of product and service (and sales rep) authenticity that caters to me the customer and the evidence of performance that I’m looking for. It does mean, of course, that the sales rep IS going to have to listen to me and deal with my interests, instead of telling me about hers or his.

     I would never admit it, but I will probably still buy that truck because I think I look good driving it.  Of course I’m going to want to like the sales rep too for being honest with me, and I will certainly need some good list of features to wave in my green family’s faces to justify my purchase.

     The nightstands?  Give me good honest quality for a good price and make sure they look okay with the rest of my room. Please don’t waste my time or my brain with B.S. and a ton and a half of RAZZMATAZZ. It’ll cost you the sale. Besides, RAZZMATAZZ is dead!

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US     302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

 Make today a GREAT day for someone!

HOW you show what you show

can win or lose sales!

     No, one picture is NOT worth a thousand words.  Absolutely nothing sells better than the right words. But, the right words need a visual payoff, and that all comes down to HOW you show your wares, people, services, vision and ideas… websites, ads, news releases, promotional materials, videos and commercials.

     When your advertising spokesperson  is saying or doing one thing and whatever’s in the background is saying or doing something different, you lose sales. A professional service video produced in a trashy, cluttered office leaves viewers believing the business is trashy and cluttered no matter what is said.

     When a news release  is accompanied by a (yawn!) yearbook-looking head shot photo of the person featured, and the contact person sending it is even fortunate enough to have the editor actually give it print space, readers will yawn and turn the page.

     When a news release  is accompanied by an action-based candid-looking photo, it will get inted more often and it will gain reader attention more often. HOW you show what you show in a news release attachment must be as “newsworthy” as the text of the release.

     Remember you’re not paying  for this space so give the editor something to get excited about or laugh at or learn from or be mesmerized by.

     Websites? I’ve seen an awful lot of websites with photos of things that have little if anything to do with the text. If your photos and illustrations are not providing a payoff, a punchline, to what the words say, fold up your site and go home.

     The world is smarter today.  You no longer need to spell out every tiny detail of what the benefits are to customers and clients, but you sure as hell better make sure that you’re not leaving out the essentials. Leave out enough to not bore people, but include enough to make sure you get your message in their faces quickly and without prompting puzzled looks.

     Photos need captions.  Captions need to include exact names and exact titles and exact descriptions. People will read them or not, but photos should NEVER go unexplained. Don’t assume others will get your message because it’s a spectacular graphic. They won’t.

     Trade shows?  Determine your single (yes, SINGLE) mission ahead of time and stick to it. You are either there to sell or to get leads or to attract investors or to strut your stuff to the industry r whatever, but NEVER more than one of those objectives, or you might as well throw the booth rental money out the window!

     Once you’ve defined what you’re doing  there, make sure your display shows what you want others to understand about what their benefits are for doing business with you! The right words will do the deed, but your visual experiences must serve as the cornerstone to your message, and must strongly reinforce what you say. Always and everywhere.            

# # #               

Don’t give away the store!

     As bureaucratic nooses tighten  around small business necks, it’s natural for feelings of desperation to begin setting in, and to respond by reducing prices in order to make sales. It doesn’t take long to be traveling on this road before you’re giving away the store!

     Resist the temptation to undercut your value  by offering “more competitive pricing.” Easy to say, you may say, but when the guy down the street is selling comparable products and services for lower prices, and is getting more people in his door, reality dictates lower prices!”

     Bull! You’ll only be worsening the economic stress on your business.

     Reality dictates  that you will be more successful than the price-slasher down the street by sticking to the prices you have and offering instead more value. Are you being innovative enough to offer product and service line extensions that help customers economize?

[This is not the same as lowering prices. This means offering a high-end mattress cover that zips on and extends old mattress life for a fraction of the price of a new mattress. This means adding the availability of inexpensive payroll services to the lineup of accounting practice offerings. It means adding energy-efficiency, fuel-economy, etc.]

     Do you and 100% of your staff  have a “kill ’em with kindness” attitude 100%  of the time with 100%  of your prospects and customers? Not 99%.  100%.  Truth? What needs to happen to get to 100% of the time with 100% of your prospects and customers? 

Is getting to that point going to cost you more or less in real

dollars and real stress than increased sales at lower prices?

     Like giving a salary raise  to someone instead of a one-time bonus or other reward, and ending up with a permanent long-term financial drain, when you lower prices, you run the big-time risk of never being able to raise them back up again.

     Your customers  will expect your low prices to stay low and when you try to raise them, they’ll head for competitors who offer more value.

     In the end, the smart response  to economic stress is to build and boost and promote value, and not give away the store.    

# # # 

I, Me, My, We, and Our

Lose To You and Your!

     Unless by some miracle,  you’ve managed to uncover an exception, I believe it’s safe to say that You and Your win 100% of the time!

    So howcum  the vast majority (MUCH more than 50%) of small business advertising and marketing consistently takes the loser position of emphasizing I, Me, My, We, and Our? 

     The answer no doubt  has to do with the fact that entrepreneurs tend to be more self-centered than corporate types, and may lack certain psychological-impact-of-word-usage awarenesses. That tendency is not necessarily a bad thing, it simply is.

     Most entrepreneurs  probably skipped through, over, or around English, creative writing, and psychology coursework in school as they marched to different drummers on paths less traveled to innovate and create and pursue their business ideas. 

     The only problem  with this is that when small businesses beat their chests and tell everyone how great they are and why they’re better than their competition: NOBODY CARES!

     Let’s put the fact that you own  and/or operate or manage a business off to the side burner for a minute, and examine this paradox from your own personal perspective. Surely, YOU purchase products and services for yourself and your family and your business because you believe there are benefits in what you choose for yourself and your family and your business.

     So why would you think  that what you have to sell would be any different? Why would you think that others would spend their money on your products or services for any reason other than that they believe them to offer,have, or promise a benefit to them?

Customers really don’t

                                          

care about how great

                                             

you think you are! 

                                                                                          

     So why does the wording you use  in your brochure, on your website, and in yours ads and commercials emphasize your reputation, your company history, your mission and vision statements? Credibility can be worded to be a benefit instead of a boast. Why does what you say focus on ANYthing besides what the benefits are?

     Cars, parts, appliances, homes, vegetables,  personal and professional services, healthcare, boots, lightbulbs, newspapers, cruise ships, circus acts, roofing and flooring, ice cream, software, fish, septic systems (which may require upgrading if you eat too much ice cream and fish together!)

     Nobody gives a flying frog  about the features of any of these, or any products or services, except tp be able to tick off a bullet list to impress friends, justify expense, or appease parents or bosses. Customers ONLY care about what’s in it for them (to purchase your offerings). What specific benefits will someone gain by buying your product or service?

     This all translates to  removing I, Me, My, We, and Our from your marketing, advertising, sales, PR, and promotional language. Replace them (and the emphasis) with You and Your. Watch your sales rise.

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US     302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open   Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Does “Boardwalk Mentality”

Dominate Your Business?

     In a diner, I might expect it,  but I visited a doctor’s office today where a beautiful, large, flatscreen TV was broadcasting full volume coverage of the funeral of a man with a track-record of highly-questionable morals, who almost single-handedly was responsible for influencing  Federal Government leadership to wreck havoc on the entire US healthcare system.

     It seemed a strange backdrop  for a medical doctor… over-the-top accolades for a leading advocate of virtually dispensing with the entire spectrum of quality physician care. Are you so out of touch, doctor, that you think it just doesn’t matter what impressions you foster in your own waiting room?

     You surely never supported  the fanatical radical ideas that man nurtured, or you wouldn’t even be in practice, yet you choose to promote them to your patients? And don’t make the excuses that your receptionist picked the station. It’s your practice.

__________________________

     As a favor to a friend,  I recently gave a retailer a sample product to consider stocking. This product performed twice as effectively, lasted twice as long, and was twice as efficient, environmentally, as the product he presently sold. Oh, and it was half the price! He refused it.

     Did I mention that this product  also had no shipping costs because it was produced in the next town and that a percentage of the proceeds was kicked back to a community program that the retailer’s wife was engaged with? “No,” he said, “I don’t want it because it lasts too long, and I need repeat sales here so it’s better that the things people buy break down; then they have to come back for more!”

     Are YOU this out of touch?

__________________________

     When I taught business  at Ocean County College, near the famous boardwalks of Point Pleasant, Belmar, Seaside Heights, Asbury Park and Atlantic City, I used to refer to this out-of-touch kind of thinking as having a “Boardwalk Mentality.”

     Boardwalk stand owners  and operators fostered the attitude for years (and some, unfortunately, still do) that it’s okay to rip people off to get their money because –first of all, they’re on vacation and don’t really care how much they spend and –second, because those people will never be back again anyway, and even if they are, they won’t remember getting bilked.

     Obviously this kind of “screw the customer” thinking  doesn’t cut it anymore… neither does the suggestion of support for the antithesis of quality patient-care standards and your professional career, doctor!

# # #  

“It’s not the economy, stupid!”

Anonymous paraphrase of some political statement

     From organizational development studies,  we know that the solution to every group problem lies within the group. From business success and failure analytics, we know the solution to every business problem lies within the business.

     Stop looking out the window for answers.  It’s NOT the economy that’s the problem. And the answer isn’t outside. The problem and the solution are HOW YOU DEAL with the economy!

Get this “throwing in the towel” and “folding up the tent” and “boarding up the windows” and “closing on Fridays” and “cutting back hours” mindset out of your mind.

You are not the Post Office!

You are not the government!

You are an entrepreneur.

YOU are better than that!

ANYone can quit when the going gets tough.

Success takes courage.

     Show some gumption, you!

     You were full of spunk  when you started your business. Did you lose your spunk when you lost your marbles when you lost you mind thinking that “too much other stuff was to blame?

     Have you chosen  for the economy, the market, the competition, the cost of raw materials, the overpriced goods and services, the disastrous fuel prices and cost of shipping, the lack of customers, incompetent employees, and overkill regulatory compliances to de-rail your business onto a failure track?

     Well? Did you?  Are you STILL using all this nonsense as an excuse for not working your sales pipeline? For not training your employees? For raising your own prices to keep from absorbing supplier cost increases? For not getting on-the-job as early as you used to? For delegating sales functions? For cutting back to “no-frills” customer service?

     PSSSSSSST:  No one else can sell your business products/services as well as YOU can! And no one else can appreciate and serve your customers as well as you. It’s your business; it’s your baby! Get back out there and start talking it up!

     PSSSSSSST:  SALES is the ONLY activity that brings in money! Turning off lights, doing your own books and taking out your own trash are nice economical and ecological things to do, but THEY DON’T BRING IN MONEY! 

     When you can cut out  the excuses, and realize that making your business successful in spite of what everyone around you may seem to be saying (because THEY haven’t learned to cut out the excuses) IS A CHOICE. You CHOOSE your behavior. And you CHOOSE your business’s behavior. It is just as easy (in fact easier) to choose success as it is to choose failure.

     Get your glove and get in the game, and step up to the plate when it’s time to make things happen. PSSSSSSST: Like…NOW?! 

# # #  

Sometimes

Smaller Is Better!

Stop trying to jam  big-budget marketing into today’s low-budget economy! You’ll lose time, money, energy, and respect! (Maybe even your business!)

Having helped to start  hundreds of successful businesses, I’m rarely wrong when it comes to predicting business failure. And I’ll tell you right now that I can name a doctor, a manufacturer, a furniture retailer, a trucking business, a bank, a college, and two car dealerships that are positively headed South. The worst part is they don’t even know it. (Or perhaps they do and just don’t want to admit it!)

They’re all caught up  in trying to beat the economy by overwhelming it, like the poor schlemiel with a gambling addiction, throwing good money after bad. Each of these incipient failures have undertaken paths of reckless endangerment, thinking they are some kinds of hot-shot entrepreneurs. Sadly, they are not likely to survive long enough to see the economy turn.

     SOMETIMES  

(contrary to all the “enlargement” spam emails),

 SMALLER

(as the little Beetle automaker has proven time and again)

  IS BETTER!

     Marketing  doesn’t have to be exorbitantly expensive and splashy to be effective. There are some enormously successful direct mail campaigns out there that use postcards. Some of the world’s greatest print space advertisers have discovered they can be equally effective with great (tiny and infinitely less expensive) front page classified ads.

     Baseball managers  who lack big-time sluggers resort to winning games by playing “small ball” …focusing on the basics like not swinging at first pitches, drawing walks, bunting, base-stealing, catching with two hands (!) and playing “heads up” on each pitch. It works.

     Professionally-written  email campaigns can be hugely successful for no cost beyond a writer and a technician (and maybe a list rental). I am presently preparing a frugal campaign for one client that calls for strategically-placed highly-specialized business cards instead of the elaborate and expensive brochures he originally planned.

For another client,  I am preparing an inexpensive customer attitude survey that will get the business significant sales simply by virtue of asking for opinions (and might even collect some valuable ideas and feedback as well!) Bumper stickers are making a comeback.

Bartering  website banners and, of course, the much-talked-about use of social media also represent free and often very effective marketing tools. And, done right, not enough can be said about the value of professionally-done (and again, free) public relations news release and BUZZ (word-of-mouth) programs.

Before you dig  into your pocket to bet on yet another roll of the dice, stop and think about other effective, less-expensive ways to get your message across. The ways are there waiting for you. When smaller is better, open minds open doors!

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US    302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!