My back tooth has been bothering me for at least a few months. It wasn’t so bad at first; sensitivity to cold now and then and a little painful if I bit into something hard. Perfectly tolerable. That is until a sharp pain started shooting up and down my spine if I bit into something that landed the wrong way on that tooth.
To make a long story short – I went to the dentist hoping that I didn’t need a root canal. He didn’t see anything wrong and sent me to a specialist. She did some tests and voila! It wasn’t the tooth at all! The problem came from the surrounding gum line. I knew it! I’d had this annoying problem of food getting stuck back there. Then I’d dig around and floss until it hurt. It figures it would be a matter of time before the poor gums just gave up.
Typical Sales and Marketing Symptoms, Problems and Solutions — Revealed
It’s been a long time since I’ve even thought about symptoms, problems and root causes. But this real-life experience got me to focus on how much time, effort and money we waste trying to fix symptoms when finding the root cause would solve our problems and save us some money.
- Customers orders start to decline: This little symptom often goes unnoticed for a while because the decline isn’t obvious. It’s easy to ignore because the decline is often a small one. The customer will usually say that their orders are down and the economy is bad. While that may be part of the reason — it’s not the whole reason. Don’t make the mistake of just going to your sales team and telling them to “Get in there and sell more.” Dig into which products or services are down and what end-use products they go into. Look into the growth of that industry and see if that’s so. Has you customer lost out to a competitor? Is the product that your product or service goes into being replaced by something else?
- Customers and your sales people say that your price is too high. The only reason that people complain about price is because they don’t have a good enough reason to choose you. If people willingly pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee that costs pennies per serving, you know that people are purchasing more than dark liquid and sugar in a cup. When you start hearing that your price is too high, then that customer has forgotten why they purchase from you in the first place. This is a pure marketing problem. It shows that there is a disconnect between what’s important to customers and what you are selling. When customers can’t match the dollars they are spending to the value of what you offer — you will hear them complain about price. The way to solve this problem is to start surveying your customers about what’s really important to them when they are thinking about your product or service. Don’t be afraid to ask about what other alternatives they consider. Then ask them to rate all their alternatives on performance. This will uncover where you need to tweak to better align your offer to what your customers value — and increase your price.
These two symptoms are the most common I run across that appear to be sales problems — but, in essence are marketing issues. Funny how the best way to solve them is to get closer to your customer and understand what’s important to them and what drives their decisions.
What are some common symptoms you come across that look like problems?
Related articles :
- The Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide (smallbiztrends.com)
- Customer Relationship Management With A Social Media Twist: BatchBook Review (smallbiztrends.com)
- How to Increase Your Revenues By Creating a Sales Funnel (diymarketers.com)
- 10 DIY Marketing Tips for 2010 (diymarketers.com)
- The Secret to Turning Your Business Into One You Can Sell (smallbiztrends.com)
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I’ve been trolling around the web looking for articles that make me stop and think. One of my saving grace tools has been Netvibes to organize all my web content. Just like iGoogle, Netvibes allows me to subscribe to all kinds of content and see what’s new at a glance.
Today, I’m sharing the latest posts from my Netvibes screen- the ones that make me stop and think.
Fantastic Facebook: AMEX Open Forum always has the smartest, most practical advice from all over the world of small business. Just when you thought there was nothing new that you could do for Facebook, Matt Silverman outlines 5 Fantastic Facebook strategies. He’s also got some great examples for you to follow, so check them out.
Heat Up Sales with Coffee: If you’re a fan of the book Neuromarking, you really should check out their blog. In this article we learn that the temperature of a beverage makes a difference in how we judge people. Read about their study that showed that people who held a warm beverage attributed “warm” qualities to the person they were dealing with. Hey – anything to increase the chances of a sale!
You Can’t Take Back a Tweet: David Meerman Scott as a terrific warning for all of us — You can’t take back a Tweet. As we all get more familiar with the speedy world of real-time marketing. David shows us that acting in haste is never a good idea. Read his lesson and learn.
The Role of Price in Love: I often say that pricing is the step child of marketing strategy because not a lot of marketing people like to play with the possibilities. Rafi Mohamed makes pricing fun. Here’s an article he wrote about love and money around Valentine’s Day. It seems that when single women were presented with the option of going to a high-end restaurant on February 13 for a less expensive meal – they saw that as cheap. Married women were more open to the offer because it was “our money” and we want to spend it wisely. Rafi preaches the importance of creating an offer for different segments with prices at a variety of levels. This is a great example of how restaurants can manage their profitability and please their clients at the same time.
Finally, Let’s check with the Renaissance Man, Bill Finlay: Bill is continuing his quest for “doing the improbable.” In his latest post, he talks about the challenges a physical limitation can bring up when you’re trying to be physically fit. Check into this site frequently for honest, heartfelt insights into the modern male.
What’s on YOUR blog roll that you think I should be reading?
I few months ago, I reviewed “Self-Promotion for Introverts®: The Quiet Guide for Getting Ahead.” And yesterday, I did a recorded interview with Nancy Ancowitz, the author, for my soon-to-be-launched book segment on DIYMarketers.com.
Even though I’m a flaming extrovert, the title of this book had me completely hooked. You see, while I may prefer to process information by interacting with others, I’m actually really shy. So the promise of having a “quiet guide to getting ahead” was appealing to me.
I picked up the book from Amazon and dug right in as soon as it came in the mail. I’m not going to give too much away, I’ll just say that there is a bigger message here than just tooting your own horn. Nancy has hit upon a market secret that every small business should get: Authentic marketing is cost effective, easy and might actually be fun.
Here’s what I learned about self-promotion that you can easily do for your business as well.
- Take an inventory of your accomplishments. If you’re an individual, make a list of your successes, skills and what you do well. If you’re a business — do the same. Did you solve a customer problem, do the impossible? Write it down and create a list. Challenge yourself to create as many as you can.
- Do what you like that’s comfortable and easy. Nancy calls it creating a marketing mix. And her suggestions are right on the money. Marketing doesn’t have to be this all out loud communication fest. There are many more subtle and quiet marketing activities that you may already be doing — just not calling them that. For example, writing blog posts, guest posting, speaking, meeting people one on one, connecting with people via phone and social media. Have conversations you love to have and look for opportunities to help people.
- Make a list of all the people you can talk to. In our recorded interview, Nancy’s number one suggestion to folks was to sit down and make a list of all the people you know that you can ultimately talk to about your strengths. Start with a top-of-mind list. Then when you can’t think of any more, get into your contact list. Either call them, send e-mail or get together face-to-face and just see how you can help.
Self-Promotion for Introverts also has wonderful forms in it to get your thoughts in order. And if you can’t wait to get the book, check out Nancy’s fantastic blog! It’s loaded with wonderful, wonderful communication tips.
So which are you, introvert or extrovert and what are your personal marketing tips?
When I checkout my latest Blockbuster videos they told me that my local store would be closing/moving. Either way, there wasn’t going to be a local store for me to visit any longer.
I wasn’t too upset. After all, I would just choose another video store. At least that’s what I thought.
When I went to the new video store, I was completely overwhelmed with the number of options and prices that they had going on. When the woman started going over all of them (they weren’t written down — she just had to know them) – my eyes literally glazed over out of confusion. Good thing she gave me this HUGE sheet of coupons with some of them outlined:
“We have a $1 favorites section filled with moves you’ll love. We guarantee it or your next one is FREE”
“You can build your own family video bundle! Add 2 select snack items for just $3 with any 2 paid rentals”
“With every new release rental Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, you get a $1 rental FREE”
“When you rent any 3 five-Nite new releases you get 1 FREE – look for the purple and yellow stickers”
“As a new member you get half-price rentals for your first 30 days”
This is just a sample. I haven’t listed them all – at least I don’t think I have. Honestly, my head spins just thinking about all the options.
You see, I had gotten spoiled by Blockbuster. I had joined this video “swap” program. I paid one monthly fee (don’t ask me what it was, I don’t remember) I only know that I would pay a flat fee for the privilege of walking in there, choosing any 2 new releases and swapping out the 2 I had with me. I was in and out in as long as it took me to choose.
There were due dates and no late fees. The monthly fee was its own incentive to swap your videos frequently. Because the more frequently you swapped them out – the cheaper they got at the end of the month. But if you suddenly got busy and didn’t watch them when you thought you would — no biggie. You just returned them when you were ready and got 2 more.
I hadn’t even realized the habit that had set it. Not to mention the fact that I no longer remembered what the monthly fee was. They had my money every month — guaranteed.
What I Learned When the Blockbuster Moved
- Subscription pricing tied to a product yields a habit that’s hard to break. In my Blockbuster experience after the initial value had been justified in paying the monthly fee – I was done thinking about it. My focus shifted to the repeat behavior of swapping videos. In what ways can you take the focus off the price and put it on having customers repeat behavior?
- Too many pricing options make customers angry. I’m already mad at having to pay a renewal fee for not having time to watch my video – and keeping it an extra day. Too many choices – I will have to think about which sticker the video has, can I keep it for 5 days, is it worth 50 cents more? Too many pricing options confuse and piss customers off.
- Going to a video store for me – is like going to a book store. Visiting a video store is a completely different, more tactile experience than ordering something online. When Blockbuster simplified their pricing – I felt free to focus on what I wanted to see. If your business is being effected negatively by online orders – re-think the purchasing experience at the store. In what ways can you make it an experience and not a transaction?
I’m curious about what you think? In what ways has a product’s or services pricing effected how you feel about the brand?
My friend Doug Peters sent me this little clip. And since February is often the month where people get a little “down”, I thought it might be appropriate to share this with you.
If you’re feeling a little down, it will give you that little extra push you need to do what needs to get done. After all, if all of these people could overcome the challenges placed on their plates – certainly we can do the same with ours.
Are You Fearless?
I’m thinking about how powerful fear is; whether fear of success or fear of failure – it’s paralyzing.
The people in this video are fearless. Today, I’m going to be fearless too. How about you?
Bill Finlay is an old friend and an old boss of mine. He’s been a scientist, a storyteller, a plant manager, a marketing director, a CEO and this month he’s launched something new — a web site and a blog.
Bill is launching the “Renaissance Project” where he will coach people to do the improbable. I’m writing about this today because watching him blog and grow this site will give you something you won’t find these days — the opportunity to watch a real guy go through the process of transforming their passion into a business.
What You’ll See
The Renaissance Project blog is so much fun to read. Bill has chosen to use the blog to fill you in on how his web site is coming. He’ll share the tools he’s using, what he likes and what he doesn’t. Another fun backstory that you’ll get to hear is his own personal Renaissance Journey.
I expect to read about personal and professional victories as well as defeats. I’m already fully engaged and interested in his progress. I wonder how his Renaissance Diet is going to be going. I especially can’t wait to hear how he overcame Super Bowl party temptations.
He’s exploring with what he’s going to offer to his subscribers on his site. I’m looking forward to reading about what he’s thinking and trying. If you join me in the reading, you might even get to contribute your own ideas.
This is a Rare Opportunity
I’m telling you about this because it’s an opportunity to participate in a business creation journey and follow it through a blog. We don’t get to see too many of these kinds of blogs – so you’ll want to follow this one just to see where it goes.
So join me in welcoming my friend Bill to the business blogging community – stop by Renaissance Project Blog - give it a read and leave Bill a comment!
Used to be that simply getting your blog listed on another “popular” blog’s blogroll was enough to build traffic to your site. These days, that doesn’t seem to be as popular as guest posting.
At a time when good content is hard to come by – guest posting is a wonderful way to get your brand and expertise noticed by others. Think of it as an “advertorial”; an educational ad that you post for FREE on a related blog or site.
You may have noticed that I’ve been using guest posts recently to feature services and tools that my readers might find interesting. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved. The guest writer gets some added visibility to a new audience and I get interesting content written by an expert in a particular area.
If you’re a new blogger or have recently gone into business, try reaching out to other bloggers in a related industry and ask if you can post articles on their site.
Hints for Great Guest Posts
- Educate – Don’t Sell. This is an opportunity to educate a new audience about your expertise. You are selling by virtue of being included in the blog. There is no need to over-do it.
- Keep it Conversational. Keep your tone friendly and conversational. Pretend that you are sitting at a bar with a friend and just sharing information that they will find helpful.
- Offer links and examples. Show examples of what you are talking about so that the audience can get a sense of context. In other words – help them choose.
- Provide an “About the author” bio. Create a super-short About the Author bio to include with your article. It should contain no more than two sentences about who you are and what you do as well as a link. It’s best to provide a link to a blog where they can read other articles – but a web site will do.
Now you’re ready to start promoting yourself, your company and your brand. Reach out to your favorite blogs and contribute content – you’ll be surprised at how open people are to learn about what you offer.
Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching and whether you personally view it as the most romantic day of the year or an annual, tacky ordeal there’s no question it can have a positive effect on many small businesses.
One of the best ways to take advantage of this potential bump in profitability is through email marketing. Email is a very effective way to bring highly-tailored messages to specific audiences. And since many people are prone to read into the gifts they receive from a significant other, it gives you an opportunity to use Cupid’s arrows to target your customers and prospects.
Following are 10 things you should do, beginning today, to make sure your Valentine’s Day doesn’t pass with a lot of empty promises and wilted dreams.
1. Start now! It’s less than a month out from the big day so best to start compiling your copy, imagery, offers, etc. now. You don’t want to inundate your recipients by email, but a rough schedule could entail:
a. Email 1: Friday, Jan 29th: Initial offer
b. Email 2: Friday, Feb 5th: Offer Reminder
c. Email 3: Thursday, February 11th: Reminder 2 – “Three days left `till Valentine’s Day!”
d. Email 4: Wednesday, Feb 17th: Thank you follow-up email to all customers who took advantage of the offer. Say thank you and extend another offer to these loyal customers.
2. Use a Valentine’s Day template with a nice balance of valentine-specific copy and imagery to get people in the mood and thinking about the event.
3. Segment your list. Split out your list by gender. Send female oriented offers to the guys and male oriented offers to the ladies.
4. Make sure your offer is compelling. Most people are still paying off their bills from the Christmas holiday season, so make sure the offer is affordable and is compelling enough to encourage them to act.
5. Partner with companies who offer complementary services or products for an offer that can’t be ignored. Example: Spa services and floral shop (walk away from your spa treatment with a dozen red roses), Restaurant and flower shop (have a bouquet of flowers ready at the table when you arrive), etc. Get creative as the possibilities are endless!
6. Target a special email to people who bought from you last year around Valentine’s Day with an even better offer for this loyal audience.
7. Make it easy for people to take advantage of your offer. If fulfillment is to come to the store, give clear directions or a store finder link, if by phone, make phone numbers prominent, or if online, make the button or text link stand out in the email. Printable coupons or promo codes always work well.
8. Help spread your message to more people by using forward-to-a-friend functionality.
9. Use email to promote a special Valentine’s Day draw to win a prize – to collect emails and grow your email subscriber list.
10. Send a Happy Valentine’s Day email postcard to show customer appreciation – thank loyal customers by providing complimentary redeemable points (if you have a points program) or a free gift for Valentine’s Day.
The Valentine’s Day colors may officially be red and pink. But follow the tips above and you’re sure to be seeing green by the end of the day.
About the Author: Wendy Lowe is director of product marketing for Campaigner (www.campaigner.com), the email marketing solution that enables organizations to have highly personalized one-to-one email dialogues with their customers, measure how they respond, and analyze those responses to interact in a more intelligent, automated way – resulting in more profitable relationships. Campaigner is provided by Protus, provider of the highest quality Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) communication tools for small-to-medium businesses (SMB) and enterprise organizations, including my1voice, the cost-effective, feature-rich virtual phone service, and award-winning MyFax, the fastest growing Internet fax service. Wendy can be reached at wlowe@protus.com.
I’ve already done a post telling you all about Tungle - THE coolest new scheduling tool on the planet! Today, I want to tell you about a new feature — Tungle Me.
I’m not exactly sure how “new” it is. But I discovered it yesterday and it’s new to me.
The number one feature and benefit of Tungle (to me) is it’s ability to whittle down the endless time, frustration and e-mail back-and-forth that goes on in scheduling a meeting. It’s bad enough with two people — but each additional person exponentially increases the complexity and e-mail proliferation around a simple meeting. If you think about it – you’re probably spending more time coordinating everyone than you will at the meeting.
Tungle solves all this with just one e-mail from the meeting originator. As the meeting originator, you simply invite everyone to the meeting using the e-mail invite in Tungle. The address book is seamless with whatever address book you’re using — so there’s no cutting and pasting. Then Tungle connects with your calendar and shows you exactly what you have scheduled and where you have free time. Just select the ranges of dates and times when you can meet, send your folks an invitation and you’re all set.
But Now There’s MORE
Tungle’s NEW and fabulous “Tungle Me” feature makes this even easier. Because once you’re a Tungle user — you want EVERYONE to be a Tungle user. And Tungle makes it easy with this new personalized calendar page that give you your very own URL — mine is http://tungle.me/IvanaTaylor. You’ve got your picture and all your contact info on this page. Then you’ve got your calendar with only your free time showing.
Do you know what this MEANS? Now you just give people your Personalized Tungle Page and tell them to “Tungle Me” when you want to meet.
I’ve already put this in my e-mail signature and have already used it. This eliminates ONE more step because I no longer have to be the meeting originator – AND I can use Tungle.
Thank You Tungle!
Leave it to my new friend Bob Cassin (Entrepreneur and Mobile Marketing Guru Guy — more on that later) to come up with the most logical, common sense rule on mobile call ettiquette!
Are you ready? Here is the new rule on how to deal with a dropped call — PASS this one on!!!
Dropped Call Rule:
If you’re on a call and the call drops — the person who INITIATED the call is the one responsible for calling back.
There you go – it’s that simple.
How often have you been on a call and it drops. Then two of you waste valuable time trying to call each other back and get voice mail. Then each of you waits thinking the other person is going to call you back.
STOP THE INSANITY – follow the rule!
Pass on this wonderful rule of cell phone etiquette!
What about YOU? Do you have any mobile mobile phone etiquette tips? Leave them in the comments below!
