Quality v. Location

I have noticed recently that the quality of small business marketing material has increased dramatically. Whether through the printing and layout of menu's online, to business cards, to simple logo design - the overall quality is quite good, especially given the costs associated.

What remains poor, generally, is the location - where the marketing is targeted.

I have had more than one business owner tell me he is on Facebook, has his own Twitter feed, great logo and design, etc - but no clients!

Part of this is due to the quality being something you can purchase/obtain without much difficulty. There are hundreds of qualified web designers who could make you a website - just figure out what you want to spend!

But knowing where to locate that marketing can't be easily purchased. It falls back to simple leg-work and doing the market research to know who is the client, where is he located, what does he want to buy/learn/enjoy - and how are you going to reach him.

The good news though is that this research can be done without a large amount of money, just time and effort. Since most small business owners have an overabundance of effort, this means they have the capability to actively understand their market.

The bad news is that the ease of purchasing quality of marketing material gives the pretense of understanding the market.

Where are you spending your time?

Crossing the Rubicon: No Excuses

An interesting article regarding Steve Jobs and his management style notes that Steve uses a parable to describe the difference between a VP and underlings:

Jobs imagines his garbage regularly not being emptied in his office, and when he asks the janitor why, he gets an excuse: The locks have been changed, and the janitor doesn’t have a key. This is an acceptable excuse coming from someone who empties trash bins for a living. The janitor gets to explain why something went wrong. Senior people do not. “When you’re the janitor,” Jobs has repeatedly told incoming VPs, “reasons matter.” He continues: “Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering.” That “Rubicon,” he has said, “is crossed when you become a VP.

(Excerpt quoted from a MacStories report, accessed on May 11, 2011.)

Great story, great quote.

I'd like to turn this on its head a bit - and ask, "as an owner (manager/boss), are you giving your employees the circumstances, the opportunity, to make it so?"

Here is another story from Apple about Tim Cook.

Tim cook arrived at Apple in 1998 from Compaq Computer. He was a 16-year computer-industry veteran - he'd worked for IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) for 12 of those years - with a mandate to clean up the atrocious state of Apple's manufacturing, distribution, and supply apparatus. One day back then, he convened a meeting with his team, and the discussion turned to a particular problem in Asia.

"This is really bad," Cook told the group. "Someone should be in China driving this." Thirty minutes into that meeting Cook looked at Sabih Khan, a key operations executive, and abruptly asked, without a trace of emotion, "Why are you still here?"

Khan, who remains one of Cook's top lieutenants to this day, immediately stood up, drove to San Francisco International Airport, and, without a change of clothes, booked a flight to China with no return date, according to people familiar with the episode.

Now if Khan had to fill out 15 forms before he could leave, get preapproval from HR for being out of the office, use the 'corporate' carrier, and could not get any money to work from - how would he have been able to 'do whatever it takes' to make it so? For "no excuses" to mean something, the VP has to have some capability to make things happen.

You have to trust your employee (VP level or not) to get things done (and get out of the way). If you want them to 'cross the Rubicon' then just like Caesar they have to have their own legion (their own power) to do just that. And organizations are petrified of releasing that level of control.

Apple's advantage might be that they do a better job of clearing away those things that keep their VPs from being able to go out and act (without excuses). What about your company?

Customer Fatigue

You've probably noticed I haven't been writing as many blog posts lately. After running the site for a while, I became a bit fatigued; I have a new found respect for daily bloggers (and writers such as Seth Godin, who have good stuff every day, are residents of Olympus!)

But this fatigue can often strike a business owner dealing with customers. Growing up, I worked at the local Sears store. The department managers would be called again and again throughout the store during their shift to handle a problem or issue - usually with a customer who wanted 'satisfaction or your money back' from his Sears store. After a while, I noticed a certain bland resignation in each manager's eyes while handling any customer issue.

This Customer Fatigue strikes all of us working in our business day after day. Sears had many managers, so they could at least rotate out every once in a while. But a small business owner is there on the front line every day.

How do you mitigate your being tired of dealing with customers? One way would be to push whatever decisions you are making (returns/problem with product) down to the staff who work for you. You may have said that all returns have to be approved by you, because someone took something back from another store. Your simple idea has now forced you into being the person to work with every disgruntled customer.

Another is to try and discover the underlying reason driving the customer to speak with you. Could your staff need some customer service training? Could your return policy be vague or too liberal? Is your employee Mary causing problems time and again? By acknowledging the causes behind customer fatigue, you can perhaps handle it better.

Finally, try to avoid viewing customer interactions as a battle of wills - you v. them (either in selling or in handling disputes). I know this is harder for some of us (drive is what makes us successful!), but if you view an interaction as something to win (or lose), you will lose perspective.

Likewise, my fatigue in writing for this blog could be overcome by having another writer help, or not try to compare my writing to much better bloggers. Instead what are my goals for the site and keep those in mind as I think of topics to write about.

Seasonality - taking advantage of Spring

We are having a beautiful spring day here in Stillwater. If your business can take advantage of the season - do so.

Of course lawn and garden stores put out their flowers and new plants, but automotive businesses can sell wash and wax ("Get rid of Winter's dirt"), or painters can point out the peeling paint around the garage.

When we get to spring, customer's thoughts turn to activities they've put off through winter. Add to your marketing pieces a bit of spring color and the same message take on stronger meaning.

Take advantage of the seasons in your business!

Technology Ventures Summit, Feb 15-16

The Technology Ventures Summit is going on February 15th and 16th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The first day is devoted to helping new Angel investors learn how to invest in technology startups. The second day has technology company presentations.

Three of the Center for Business Development client companies are presenting their businesses on Wednesday the 16th:

• XploSafe, LLC
• Secure Analtics
• Bluewater

If you are attending the Venture Summit and see their presentations, please let me know how they did! It is very helpful to have different people hear the presentation.

Email me at Bradr (at) Meridiantech.edu.

The value of individual data

I received the latest weekly memo from the Guthrie Chamber of Commerce this morning. In it, they described how they were at a travel show selling Guthrie as a tourist destination. During the show, they remarked "A couple of people commented they tried coming into Guthrie at the first exit by all of the car sales and salvage yards but was discouraged and turned around and went back to the highway. (that is good to know)"

Guthrie has two entrances off the main highway - the southern entrance takes a long curve up into town, the northern entrance cuts perpendicular to the town. And some people had gotten off at the southern entrance and gave up trying to get into town (which is about 3 miles max) because it did not seem as though they were getting to their destination.

The issue I want to raise about this is: "what should you do with a piece of information like this?"

You might -

• discount it, assuming most people wouldn't give up like that
• acknowledge it, but do nothing as it would cost too much
• acknowledge it, and buy a bunch of signage, get a committee together, etc

or do any number of a myriad of other solutions.

The point is: every day you will receive information like this at your location, store, business - but if every day you get information, how can you possibly act on any of it in a timely manner? You will end up being whipped from one item to the next.

A means for helping with this is for items that are not of immediate issue (there is ice in front of the door and it is slippery!) - instead of acting on the information right away, write it down in a list. At the end of the month, set aside one hour to review all the pieces of data, and sort/review according to need or importance. Then try for the next month to resolve one of the items on the list.

Returning to Guthrie - it might be easier for them to have a sign on the highway before the southern entrance that says "Downtown - take #" than to add a bunch of signs after the people get off at the southern entrance.

There is value in the data you gather for your business, but the value can only be taken advantage of if you can act on it (and then evaluate its effectiveness). Too often business owners come in to me and say "here are 17 items I need to work on in my business" - who can possibly get that many things done? Collate the data - and solve one item.

Marketing after the sale

My wife and I had the opportunity to purchase a car over the holidays. Once you have bought a car, you always have the stuff that fills the old car interior you have to move over to the new car.

If you've ever done this, you know there can be quite a bit of stuff to move. And the dealerships never seem to have any boxes around to fill.

Simple marketing opportunity: boxes printed with the dealership name. Have a stack of them in an empty office, and whenever someone comes in and buys a car, you fold them together, and help the new customer. Make the boxes white, with a cover. Or buy a stack of plastic bins like are sold for Christmas decorations. Make up labels and stick them on the side. Anything to get the dealership name out there, and make the new customer feel they were well cared for.

You could even have a local restaurant include a coupon for a meal up to $25 in the box. If people are like me, they have a pit in their stomach every time they have to sign all that paperwork - at least a nice meal will help me leave a bit less queasy.

The dealership loves you until you buy the car, then the relationship really begins. Why not keep the warmth for a bit longer.

Marketing continues even after the sale.