Beyond B&C

PLAY WHAT IF!

Some people say that numbers are just for sales guys. I say to them that if you're in business then you're in sales. Cold, hard measurements are central to serious business growth and it's usually the winners that know this instinctively. Here's a game you can play that will show how focused you are on the numbers in your business. Play it now and keep playing it. Go into a room every three months with your team and play it. As games go, it will be either terrifying or reassuring. It depends how well you've got the numbers going for you.

Hope for the best plan for the worst

I learned this game many years ago from a man who was incredibly successful. He taught me to play What If? It's a scenario-planning activity. You're supposed to imagine all kinds of events, likely and unlikely, and think about how they would impact your business, your marketplace and your position in it.

For example,

• What if the price of oil went to $200 a barrel?
• What if the stock market went below 5,000?
• What if your industry started to die?
• What if a natural disaster caused your client base to shrink?

You can't avoid disaster but you can prepare for it

Take each scenario and spin it out to see how it would impact your business and whether your numbers stand up. Personally speaking, playing "What If?" could have saved me a lot of headaches and money. I might have asked: "What if my biggest client, got bought out by a company that decided to start paying their bills in 120 days instead of 30?" I might have realized that my cash flow situation wasn't robust enough and remedied it. I might have realized I was over-reliant on one client and remedied that.

Bury your head in the sand and bury your business

Play What If? and you might realize your numbers aren't as great as you think they are. If I'd had this knowledge ahead of time, if I had been more forward-thinking, I might not have gone to the brink of disaster with New England Printing. Frankly if it was not for some great suppliers, some wonderful employees and a very understanding wife, this scenario would have bankrupted me in the late 80's.

The 'Kick Our Own Butt' game

A variation on the "What If?" game is the Kick Our Own Butt game. Take your senior management team somewhere for half a day and say: "If we were a start-up company competing with us, knowing what we know, what would we do to kick our butt?". Because the truth is that someone out there is thinking that way, and they just might actually do it of you are not forward-thinking about the numbers!

If you take just one thing away from this post, this is it, PLAY WHAT IF!

Quality, Service, and Price...Pick two.

There are many areas in which companies can shine. Three, however, Quality, Service, and Price, have stood the test of time as being the fundamentals.

Conventional wisdom holds that a given company can only survive and thrive when offering no more than two of the three. It’s the “pick any two” mentality. Often, a company will stand on just one. True, some companies try to break the mold and shine in all three arenas. They may even appear successful for a time. But in the end, at least one will fold. In my experience, no company can consistently offer all three…the finest quality and the best service at the lowest cost.

And that’s understandable. Trying to maintain excellence or market leadership in all three areas is a tremendous drain on corporate resources. Further, there are natural “rivalries” that take place between the three titans of market success. Price and quality, for example, are often enemies…gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “mind your ps and qs” doesn’t it? You might challenge yourself in attempting to discover the model used by various businesses. Spotting the ones who operate on a single value is easiest. It’s not hard, for example, to spot the “low price leader.” By the same token, some companies are clearly driven by a singular mission of quality or stellar service. Spotting those walking on two legs is a bit more challenging. Often, I find that the company itself is not aware that it has settled into a two-pronged approach to its market. And then there’s the added complexity of companies who have identified their approach and are heading that way but not quite there yet.

How about your company? What’s your approach to business success? Us? That’s easy:

Quality has been a foundational principle at emediagroup. We are passionate about it. That’s not to say we’re perfect. But continual improvement is alive and well here. We have focused a good deal of attention on improving our service. We have the delivery component down pat. And we’ve put the professionals and practices in place to be attentive to other customer needs. Last but not least, we have proactively lowered our costs and increased our efficiencies in order to bring competitive pricing to the market. We know that this competitiveness is essential for your business success. Yet, we will never be the low-price leader. Doing so would place us on an irreversible path to unacceptable quality and service. That is not our model. Instead, we prefer to discuss “value.”

In our indusry and particular market there is always this price-value tug of war going on. We prefer to lend our hands to the value side. While the “how much does it cost” question is always valid, others become important when considering value. For instance: “How many complaints am I going to get from that clearly inferior product?” Or, “How much more can I make as a result of higher turns due to more reliable delivery?”

So you don't  think that I’m trying to pull a fast one on you, let’s conclude by reverting to our original three: Quality, Service, and Price. The only question remaining is this one: In the long run, which two are most important to you?

Sorry Tater...You Can Fix Stupid!

There can be a lot to learn from mistakes made by other marketers, I learn something every day just by observing. Come on people…this is not rocket science!

Of the three marketing mistakes (in my opinion) I will share with you, one came from a trip to Florida. I want you to imagine you own a Starbucks located inside a large hotel that caters to seminars and conventions. There is a huge three day seminar with over 800 people happening only feet away from your establishment. These people are there from 6:30 am to about 10:00 pm for two of the three days. Naturally you take into consideration that this crowd will need ample supplies of goodies and caffeine to fuel their way through the day. So what do you do with this opportunity? Close up shop at 2:00 pm! These seminars and conventions are booked several months in advance. Would it not make sense to know when a thirsty crowd will be coming and prepare for it? Would you not want to offer some form of premium so that most of the crowd will come to you at least once during the day? I found them only because I was looking for a secondary washroom.

Another questionable marketing incident happened earlier this year. In the mail I received a calendar from a service provider I met a few years ago. While I appreciate the calendar as a promotional tool I question the wisdom of sending it to me at the end of January. My needs for a calendar for 2010 have long since been taken care of. Sending it late tells me that it was not organized to go out before the new year began. Unfortunately the sender lost the opportunity to make a good impression by providing me with a useful tool. Instead I now have to choose between finding yet another place to hang a calendar or pitch it in the dumpster. Neither will positively affect his ROI on his marketing dollar.

The third marketing mistake arrived via email just last week. The marketer was trying to increase my urge to buy using a combination of social proof and fear of loss. Unfortunately the result was a strange message. He attempted to amp up my interest by saying that because there was an unprecedented interest in his program that he was throwing in another thousand dollars in bonuses. That flies right in the face of the law of supply and demand. Why would you need to give me more for the same price if there is already a crowd of eager customers ahead of me for a limited number of product? In his case it would have paid to have someone else read over the marketing piece before it went out.

Each of these mistakes was a result of not having an effective marketing strategy to guide them. Do you have your marketing strategy in place for 2010? Is it designed to maximize your marketing opportunities? Or are planning to make it up as you go along?

I Get It...Do You?

The last thing you want to hear when your target clients read your brochure copy is that "you do not know what you are talking about."

No matter how great your design is, if your copy reads like the person who wrote has a lack of understating on the subject, then the time and energy you put towards printing brochures will be wasted. Laziness is often the cause of marketing copy that is insufficient to describe what you really do. If the writer did not do any research to understand both the technicalities of the product, as well as the needs and interests of your target market, the result would only disappoint and convince them that your message does not have any value at all.

Another problem with writing marketing copy is that the one writing it usually seeks to be clever - more than what is really needed. Being creative is a good thing for any marketing message. However, having to do it too much often turns off rather than engage the target readers. How does it benefit you to tell a joke if the reader does not get it? Then there is the problem where the writer assumes that the reader knows what he's talking about. Technical people often make this mistake with their marketing copy. These people usually have a solid understanding of their product. Hence, they can very well describe their product fully. However, they also take it for granted that the reader speaks the same jargon, has the same level of understanding and interest, and the same technical expertise. This then leads to your printing output not getting the message across the way you want it to.

The key then is to plan well and carefully study the product or service that you have. Be able to write copy that your customers will surely appreciate. Your marketing copy should then be about having a balance between the technical and creativity. If you do that, then your brochure printing will definitely improve and your customers will someday say that they read your entire brochure and they got your message loud and clear.

Stimulus Plan...Where is the Money?

Many billions of dollars have been spent as part of the multi-billion dollar stimulus plan enacted by Congress last year. There have been countless news articles about projects the money was spent on, but my observation was that a lot of those were projects that were started before the economic meltdown occurred and getting information about new projects that may offer new jobs is difficult to impossible. Aside from a few road signs that "This project funded by..." there have been few indicators that the stimulus plan is actually working. General Motors and Chrysler still declared bankruptcy, unemployment is still high, big banks are still sitting on tax dollars they were bailed out with. So, the question is "Where has all that money gone?" A search for stimulus fund projects on the internet returns very little information other than wishes and a search in a state's website does not return any usable information about where new jobs may be.

One thing that has become clear is that most of the people we elected to Congress are not interested in the best interest of our country. The deficit continues to grow, and our congressional leaders continue to blame somebody else, usually the last administration of the other party. There is no bipartisan support for programs that will end the recession, improve the quality of life or eliminate the deficit. Our elected leaders are too busy telling us what we need to listen to instead of our opinions about what we need. If the country were run like a corporation, most of our leaders would have been fired for incompetence by now. Our Congress is made up of people who are not our good friends, not our good neighbors and we are not in good hands. We are gradually losing the freedoms this country was founded upon to our own government. This mess is probably the fault of the average voter because we can see where the problems lie, but we continue to vote for the same people over and over again. But in our own defense, most of us are too busy trying to survive to be able to pay close attention to the people running our country.

While the problems with the economy are too big and cost too much for a lot of us to even comprehend, a common sense approach might reveal some solutions that are workable. The real problem is that some of them may take more guts than are available in the congressional offices. The most important thing that could happen in Congress is for the blame game to stop. We have serious problems with the economy. Foreign investors are taking over a lot of major industries and buying up a lot of real estate. Our congressional leaders must stop blaming past administrations and come up with some real solutions. These problems did not happen overnight or in the last four years. They have been around for at least a generation, regardless of which party controls the white house or congress.

The second most important thing that needs to happen is probably an attitude change. We don't need more economic programs. We need to fix the programs we already have and Congress needs to stop raiding the entitlement programs to fund new programs and stop loading up new programs with special interest amendments and set asides that add billions to otherwise good programs. We don't need to fix a neighborhood pool or build a multi-million dollar bridge to nowhere. We have serious problems and we need serious people to work on those problems. Our elected officials at all levels of government are put in office because we believe they are serious people. Sometimes they need prodding to get things done in an acceptable manner.

As the taxpayers, we have a responsibility to make sure that the people we elect to govern us know that they are elected and should pay attention to our opinions. I encourage everyone to stay in touch with your local congressional offices, attend city or county council meetings and get involved. Only through involvement will any real meaningful change take place.

KISS...Keep It Simple Stupid

Have you ever noticed how many times the simplest small business marketing ideas end up working the best?

Who ever said small business marketing has to be hard? I'm constantly amazed at just how powerful some of the simplest concepts are. There are many small business marketing ideas that cost next to nothing and really require little to no additional extra work to begin bringing in more business every month. Unfortunately, the problem with simple marketing ideas is that many small businesses are so quick to excuse them. Intelligent business owners and independent professionals just like you mistakenly believe a marketing idea has to be sophisticated and intricate to be really valuable. WRONG! In fact, it's completely the opposite that's true. The more complicated the idea, the less chance you have of making it work. Simple doesn't mean well thought out. It just means not complicated.

One of the simplest small business marketing ideas I've ever come across is also one of the most powerful. Many successful professionals have shared that this one technique has been primarily responsible for completely filling their business pipeline. Even though most people know about this powerful method, it's surprising how few people actually use it consistently. Perhaps because it's just too simple and business owners are always looking for fresh, new, and more sophisticated marketing ideas. After all, if the simple, easy ideas really worked then wouldn't everyone be using them? Well you would think, but even the simple solutions take some work on your part to be successful. And too often, people want the results without having to do the work. Simple does not mean you don't have to do the work. It just means not complicated. So what is this simple yet incredibly powerful idea that can help you generate significantly more business? Commit to sending out personal hand-written notes - Thank You notes or Cards.

The reasons to send personal notes including "thank you" notes are practically endless.

* When you make a new contact at a networking event
* When you get a new clients
* When a client takes your advice
* When a client recommends you
* When a business contact recommends a new resource.

Taking time to hand write notes is a lost art in the world of business. Even though personal attention is always more effective, email and voice mail are just so much quicker and therefore make it ineffective in some peoples' minds.

Consider how to put this small business marketing idea to work for your business...it works for mine.

This is the End....No Really!

Have you ever noticed how us humans love to live in mortal fear of the "end", yet can never ever stop concocting fictitious ways in which the "end" is always just around the corner? It seems to be a need, like watching horror movies or car crashes, that we as a species constantly obsess about the "end of the world" that never seems to come. Depending on which scientist you talk to, the beat has been going on pretty steady now for over 4 billion years on earth.

Yes, 4 billion. Years. This figure is also roughly equal to each person's share of the national debt in the US…just kidding, sort of. Our ancesters were running around killing animals 1 million years ago, and the Egyptians built some very sturdy structures in Egypt about 5000 years ago…maybe they were worried about this end of the world business as well. The world has been going now for awhile, like Elvis tribut shows.

However, we wouldn't want to let an annoying thing like facts and history get in they way of mania, marketing, and that oh so fun past time of fear mongering to the masses. In the interest of gallows humor, I am going to run down some of my favorite "end is at your doorstep" scenarios that I have lived through in my life

1. The Cold War - This one seemed real, because, well, it was. There is nothing like walking to school in the morning and wondering if you'll be incinerated by the Russkis. There was always some reason during the evening news that somebody was about to launch the missiles. The screwed up part is that most of the time it was a flock of birds or some German teenager flying a plane into Red Square.

2. The Late Great Planet Earth - This was a popular book when I was young. I include it here because it was my first experience with this whole "end of the world" business. Needless to say, none of it came true.

3. Global Warming - A supposedly real phenomenon. However, it has all the excitement of watching paint dry. If I am going to get stark raving mad over the world ending, I need a specific date and time, not this "we better stop or we'll be sorry in a few decades". Perhaps they didn't get the memo that peoples attention spans are getting shorter, not longer. We can barely remember who we texted 30 seconds ago, let alone worry about it being 4 degrees hotter on average on July 1, 2025. Besides, I think we'll all have enough time to evacuate the "coastal areas". It only takes a few months at most to build a boat.

4. Dec 21st, 2012 - Now, like my cousin Fredo says, this one has some "legs". My friends who go to 2001 say the same thing. Anyway, we got a date, we got a time. If we only had a location, like the Starbucks on Ocean Boulavard, this one would be the creme de la creme of end 'o the world predictions. Apparently the Mayans, the Chinese and the Hopi Indians all settled on this date as the real deal. They must have compared notes using prehistoric Skype. They are serious this time man, no really. Anyway, I have already got my T-shirts ready to go for the day after sales. You know, the ones' that say "I survived Dec 21st...." Come on down to emediagroup coastal, we'll have a tent out front.

5. Y2K - This was probably the most amusing of them so far. Thinking back, it was either a marketing campaign for The Matrix, or an attempt by the Tech industry to build a huge tech spending bubble and....oh yeah, that actually happened. Anyway, the theory went that we had all become dependent upon computers and machines and that they would one day turn us. The reason why was that all the old computer code that current systems were built on was not equipped for the millennium date change…yeah, yeah, that's the ticket! This prompted huge spending to fix the "problem" and much fake hand ringing. Predictions ranged from complete shutdown of air traffic, computer networks, power grids and that annoying backing alarm on delivery trucks. However, when Dick Clark dropped the ball that year, none of it happened. Bill Gates was laughing all the way to the bank. As inventor of the Internet, Al Gore knew the whole time there was no problem, he just kept it to himself while he worked on An Inconvenient Truth

6. Nostradamus - This old hack from 500 years ago had so many predictions, that some of them were bound to come true. Like an astrologer, if you say things vague enough, and repeat them often enough, people will want to believe you. Some of the predictions may also seem sorta, kinda right. He also reminds me of the broken clock on the wall....its still right at least twice a day.

If any of you have some others, feel free to let me know. I'd love to hear what you think. Until next time, stay loose, breathe deep.... and....be careful out there.

Fair Play...Let's Bring it Back

Fair Play ruled in my upbringing in everything from marbles to baseball to life itself. It's a simple principle promoting that how you play the game is more important than winning. Well, the rules have changed. We have cheating bankers getting federal bailout money while honest people are losing their homes. Then there are companies out there who ignored the markets and followed their own egos all the way to bankruptcy and then they are bailed out.

I won't keep going, we all know the examples, in business, government, sports and our own personal lives. We all know that Fair Play is becoming more rare every day in certain circles. I wonder if we've let Fair Play slide because life is easier without that rule. Fair Play means that we have to be better than others to succeed. When we deliver a quality product and service to our customers, we have a significantly better chance of winning than the guys who do shoddy work. Fair Play also means we take responsibility for our actions. We step up and deliver focusing all our energy on doing our best, rather than on who has the power and how we can get more. Fair Play means we focus our efforts to get better and better at what we do. Our skill and knowledge, our performance, becomes our path to accomplishment. We can't use other forms of manipulation to get ahead anymore, they won't work.

Think what the return of Fair Play could do for life as we know it.

In business we'd return to the premise that when we deliver quality…we get the rewards. When we deliver crap,  we go out of business. Now that would solve a lot of problems, wouldn't it? In our personal lives we'd learn to trust again, knowing that everyone we encountered was playing according to the rules. Wouldn't that be a great step. I believe we Fair Players are the majority in this world. So why do those who break the rules get by so often…and for so long?

I don't have the answer to that question. Nor do I know how to bring Fair Play back as the name of the game. What I do know is that I don't like it when others get to play by a different set of rules, actually break the rules, and still survive. Luckily I have patience…it won't be long.

Can You Smell the Stench of Fear?

Have you ever gone to a local networking event? If you have you have probably noticed at least one sales guy there who was desperate. No one had to tell you this guy was desperate for a sale. The facial expression and the body language said it all. Heck, you could almost smell the stench of fear across the room. If you think about it I'll bet you noticed something else too. The harder this sales dude tried to interact with other people in the room and make a good impression the more people moved away from him. In fact, people did everything they could to get away from this guy as fast as possible. Every person he cornered had that deer in headlights look. Their eyes darted around the room searching for someone..anyone to rescue them. When it happens to me, I just continue smiling and nodding while inside my head I am screaming....shut up..shut..shut up!!

I want you to vividly remember what this felt like and looked like. There's an important reason I want you to imprint this memory on the inside of your forehead so you never forget it. If you want people to buy your services you can't be that sales guy. The fear of desperation is as potent as spraying someone in the face with mace. The one thing you must never do is allow fear about how you will pay your bills, how you will get another client, how you will explain your failure to your family to become an overriding emotion.

Fear is the hand-in-glove partner to helplessness and helplessness isn't going to solve anything. Even if all your concerns are valid if you want to get clients you have to set your fears aside. There's a very effective way to do that. Helplessness and fear feed off of indecision, inaction, and a lack of plans. When things aren't working doing what you are doing now you simply need to develop a plan defining how you will get the results you want. Realize a plan is worthless without action though. So make sure your plans are based on the actions you will take. These actions need to adapt the actions you are currently taking. Or perhaps your plan needs to include learning how to take actions you've never taken before. Either way the key to more clients is actions. Not just the actions you take but the actions you help the people you want to work with to take. The actions of your potential clients are the most important actions. These actions you help them take must follow a natural thought process that makes it easy to take those actions.

Most importantly don't waste valuable time on indecision. You are better off doing something... anything that you are doing is better than nothing because doing nothing just keeps you stuck and fearful.

Online Copyright Facts

As the year comes to a close, I find myself trying to tie up loose ends and close unresolved business issues. Copyright infringement is one albatross I have with a former associate that is sure to linger on well into 2010. Because of this I have done extensive research on the matter. Here is what I discovered:

Copyright law is one of the most important and relevant aspects of the legal system when it comes to doing business online. Most webmasters will at some stage encounter copyright law problems which must be addressed, whether that's an alleged violation of someone else's rights on their part, or someone else is violating their rights on another website or in an offline publication. Generally speaking, the principles behind copyright law are straightforward, however understanding how they work in practice is critical to ensure success in any legal claim.

At a general level, original works are the property of their creator or anyone subsequently licensed to use, reproduce or modify those works by the creator. The same is true online as it is in the publishing world - the author of content owns that content, unless some other arrangements have been made with other parties. That then gives rise to potential legal claims in circumstances where those rights have been unlawfully breached, such as content being used against advertising that doesn't belong to the publisher, or unauthorized reproduction of a particular part of work elsewhere than where permitted.

Commonly, approaching copyright problems is a straightforward issue. As the legal aggressor, it's best to approach a violation firstly with an email notifying the publisher of the breach and asking for removal of offending content. This usually works and is the most reasonable way to go about achieving your end goal - to protect your lawful rights over that content. If that proves ineffectual, it may be wise to opt for a more formal approach. An attorney will be able to write legal letters for around $200-$500, depending on how well respected they are and how experienced they are within the profession. This should help sort out any remaining issues with copyright infringement, and prompt the other party to deal with offending content.

Also, under US law, it's possible to serve what is known as a 'takedown notice' under recent copyright legislation. In a prescribed form, the takedown notice can be served on the hosting company of the offending publisher, and content so offending copyright must be removed in response to the presentation of the notice. If all else fails, there are legal remedies through the courts which can provide you with damages and expenses in respect of the abuse of your proprietary rights.

On the other side of the fence, it's best to deal with copyright disputes by simply removing content that appears to be owned by someone else. This is the quickest and most sure fire way of preventing the situation from escalating. While only 3% of legal disputes ever end up in court, it's still nonetheless worthwhile to ensure you're fully covered by simply removing any content that is alleged to be breaching another's rights.

Robots Don't Start Fires

Primitive man learned to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, add some dry grass, some extra oxygen and then begin to repeat the process with grass and oxygen. With the right resources and by following the correct process, securing the desired result of fire was achieved.

I thought of this analogy after receiving another cold call. The gentleman on the other end started his very well memorized almost robotic sounding canned sales script. His goal was to start a fire inside of me so that I would want to buy.

Beyond the lack of any emotion in the voice mail he left, he spewed what I have dubbed the 3Ps Virus of price, product and proposal. Now bear in mind, I have at least one qualifying criteria as a potential customer because I visited his website and asked for more information. I could tell  he had not done any research about my company or even myself. Never did he make a connection with me as a person because he was all about telling. Here is a tip: If you are telling, you ain't selling.

If this individual was starting a fire, he would have failed miserably because he did not have the right tools, the right resources or the right process. He was working blind and the results speak for themselves. So what could he have done differently?

First, he should have had the right resources. My sense is he was reading off some website form without any additional information.

Second, the tools he was using were quite ineffective. The sales script was not engaging at all and neither was his voice. A robot might have actually sounded better.

Third, the process was obviously ineffective. I know this to be true because he started no fire in me, no desire to call him back or learn more. Additionally, he promised to send me an email that he did not.

People have been starting cold fires for years by utilizing the best resources, applying the right tools and incorporating a proven process. Cold calling is no different because the desired end result is to spark a hot flame of emotional desire to take action. So if you wish to increase sales and are engaged in semi-hot, warm or even cold calling, then make sure you have everything you need to ignite the potential customer to take action.