Customer Repellent - Get Yours Today!

Marketing your business is one of those things everyone thinks they can do, and most people fail miserably when attempting. I call bad marketing decisions "Customer Repellent". Here are the most common mistakes made when trying to market your own business:

1. DOING IT ON THE CHEAP
If you're starting a business or launching a new product, a significant portion of your cost will come from marketing. There's no way around it. No matter what you do or what you're promoting, you have competition. It's either the guy down the street, the big box store, or the Web. Whatever you think is an appropriate marketing budget, triple it. Your marketing budget should be anywhere from 30-65% of your total startup cost. This money will be spent doing both brand building and targeted marketing.

2. SELLING TO YOURSELF
Unless you have the ability to clone yourself in order to create a market for your product or service, what you like and what appeals to you is not likely what appeals to your potential customers. Know your customer - intimately. What motivates them? What else do they like to do? Who is your competition and what are they doing to target your customer?

3. BE THE SPOKESPERSON FOR YOUR COMPANY
Unless you are a trained voice actor or have a "voice for radio", don't do your own commercials. We've all heard them - the painful, uncomfortable local spots that make you cringe. Car dealers are especially guilty of this. You aren't the brand - you're damaging your business by insisting to be the voice. Radio stations offer their on-air talent free of charge. Use it.

4. I CAN'T SPELL - SO WHAT?
While especially true for social media, spelling and grammatical errors run rampant in small business promotion. Remember that most of the public can speak English properly. They are acutely aware of spelling and grammar errors. If you aren't a good speller or if grammar eludes you, don't attempt to sound it out. This holds true for signage, advertising copy, in-store printed flyers and anything else.

5. I NEED SOMETHING NOW
Marketing is often one of the last things a new business owner thinks about. Developing a strategy becomes secondary to getting the business open or the product launched. Keep in mind it will cost you much more money later to fix a slapped-together website and marketing campaign than to do it right the first time. Again, be prepared to spend money. Having a strong strategy out of the gate will increase your likelihood of success.

6. THE NEWSPAPER DESIGNS MY ADS FOR FREE, AND THE YELLOW PAGES IS BUILDING ME A WEBSITE - ALL FOR FREE!!!!
While many media venues will offer design services as a "loss leader" in order to get small businesses to spend money with them, your entire brand identity will be inconsistent if you use multiple designers who have no contact with each other. It's not always a question of bad design - it's about consistency. What is the customer experience you are providing? If it's all over the place, you're losing customers.

7. YEAH, WE'RE RUDE - SO WHAT?
Marketing isn't just an ad in the newspaper. From the moment a customer walks through your door, contracts for a service, or calls you on the phone, you have the ability to either keep them or turn them away. One of the most ignored pieces of the marketing puzzle is customer service. An attentive and friendly sales staff, a prompt reply to an email, a quick return phone call - all of it goes a long way. The customer is rarely right - we all know that. But the customer has the power in the relationship. It's much less expensive to keep a customer than to create one.

Customer repellent comes in many different shapes and sizes, and can be customized for your business. Its potency is only limited by your ability to ignore your customer, and ignore the basic rules of marketing. Get yours today - supplies are unlimited.

Back To Basics

We all know the saying, you can't see the forest for the trees. That adage applies to your marketing strategy. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the micro details, the bigger picture gets lost. Stripping down your marketing plan to its basics can help you see what's working, and where you're going wrong.

WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?
The single biggest mistake made by businesses in regards to their marketing strategy is marketing to themselves. Marketing is all about having a conversation with prospective customers. Look at it like a dinner party—if you're the person who spends the evening talking about what you like, what you're comfortable with, and what appeals to you, you will lose your audience. Who is your customer? Are there new customers out there you're not hitting? What do they want to talk about?

IT TAKES MONEY AND TIME
No matter what you do in regards to marketing, you will be spending money. Often lots of money. A large percentage of what you spend won't have a direct cost-value relationship. Brand building, the type of marketing that gets your name in front of your potential customers without selling a particular product or service, is long-term. You didn't build your reputation with your current customers overnight. You won't do it with new customers in that timeframe, either. This is called "top-of-mind recognition". You need to be the first company your potential customer thinks of.  Brand building  is measured in months and years. Targeted marketing, things like sales or events or promotions, have a more immediate return. Keep in mind, however, that a sale involves a loss-leader product or service. An event involves expenses you might not foresee. All businesses, markets and strategies are unique—however, a good ratio of branding versus targeted marketing is 5:1. You want to build your reputation at least 5 times more often than you want to have a sale.

WHAT ELSE DOES YOUR CUSTOMER DO?
Knowing your customer, and your prospective customer, allows you to speak to them on their terms, and in the places where they are. Things like social media, television, radio, movie theater advertising, gas station pump advertising, newspaper, magazine, bus sign advertising, etc., all have value only if your customer sees them. What does a typical day look like for your customer? A typical month? What are their habits? We paint with a broad brush in marketing. Each element of your strategy should work together. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, unless your customer dictates that. Follow your customer and you can't go wrong.

HAVE A ROAD MAP
If you don't know where you're going, you can't get there. If your goal is to increase sales of Product X by Y%, simply blasting your message out to the world without a plan and without measurable metrics is a waste of your time and money. Set your goals and build a map to get there.

STAY THE COURSE
When you've developed your plan, stick to it. Review it regularly, make necessary course changes, but don't scrap it without good reason. An effective, well-developed strategic plan will be a combination of quality customer intel and solid market knowledge. Make media buys that work for you and your customer, not what works for the media company. Newspaper advertising is ideal for certain demographics, a waste of money for others. The same goes for television, radio, and all other venues. If you've done your homework, your customer will tell you where to advertise.

Marketing is a marriage between the science nerd and the trendy art student. Understanding the strategy behind it, and building the creative element to support that strategy, will help your company grow.

Get A Second Opinion

When you get a diagnosis from a physician, it's always a good idea to get a second opinion. The same holds true for your business. In the vernacular of marketing, we call this a "marketing assessment".

A marketing assessment is a detailed report from an outside source looking in on your business. Think of it as an impartial opinion on what your business is doing right, doing wrong, and areas where you can improve. This blog's purpose is to help business owners see their business from their customer's perspective. A marketing assessment does the same thing.

Let's face it—you're too close to your business to give it an objective review. You know how things are supposed to work, and, being human, you have a blind spot to failings. Consequently, you can be hyper-critical of things that have little or no bearing on your overall success. You're in business for a reason. Your product or service is unique, desirable and appealing. If not, the free market would have taken care of closing your business already. The fact that you're still in business even after terrific struggles is testament to your success. But you can do better. Billy Joel said that sometimes just surviving is a noble fight, but you're probably not interested in just surviving.

A marketing assessment is akin to planning a trip. You have a destination in mind—perhaps a sales goal, perhaps a new product or service launch—but without a plan to promote it, you're heading out on the road with no direction. A marketing assessment is a little different than a true market assessment, although a complete marketing assessment will include information about the market at large and your place in it. A marketing assessment addresses how your business currently operates and how it's perceived from a customer's point of view. After all, isn't that the most important perspective?

Here are the things to look for in a useful marketing assessment:

1. CURRENT CLIMATE. What is the position of your business in your market? What is your current client base? Who is your competition? What marketing initiatives have you undertaken in the past 6 months? What has been the success of each? Where do you stand in sales volume from comparable months, either the previous year or previous months? What are your best selling products? Lowest selling products?  What does your web traffic look like? Do you regularly have repeat customers?

2. LOW-HANGING FRUIT. What are the top ten things your business isn't doing that it should be doing right now? What items have the lowest outlay of funds or time, with the highest potential return? How's your infrastructure? Are there any long-term investments you haven't made that can be made? Are there issues with order placement or fulfillment that need to be addressed? Are there quality control issues? Is your business operating past its capacity? Do you have personnel issues? Are there too many decision makers, or too few?

3. SHORT-TERM SOLUTIONS. With infrastructure, personnel, capacity, quality and low-hanging fruit addressed, what are the top ten things your business can do in the short-term to increase traffic? What is a reasonable traffic increase to expect, and how do you measure it? What are the best venues (traditional and non-traditional) to get your message out? Is your business prepared to handle a sudden increase? Does your current brand effectively tell your story? Is your brand too broad or too narrow? Are there any potential customers to whom you're not speaking?

4. LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS. Does your marketing strategy allow for new products or services to be added on a modular basis? Does your brand have staying power or is it transitory? How will you handle new competition, both locally and on the web? How well will your business handle another downturn in the economy? Or an upswing? What is your long-term marketing strategy? How will you continue to build your brand?

Each of these questions are tip-of-the-iceberg things. A marketing assessment will address each of these impartially and with market knowledge. This is certainly not a DIY project. It's important to get an outside opinion, and to listen to it.

When To Lawyer Up

The old joke goes; "What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start." That might give you some indication of my bias when it comes to the question of litigation. The way I run my business doesn't tend to lend itself well to suing people. If I sue my clients, they don't come back. The thought of it makes me uncomfortable, because I'm a firm believer in trying to work things out amicably.

I've discovered, as you likely have, that this doesn't always work out in business. There are times when something happens, either through no fault of your own or by some accident, that you come face-to-face with civil law. Maybe it's debt collection, maybe it's contract enforcement, maybe it's something you built or produced that didn't work as expected. Whatever the reason, there's a time and a place to lawyer up.

I've known some business people whose first reaction to any situation is to come with both barrels blazing. I've known others who just roll over at the first sign of confrontation. Both extremes don't solve the problem. Perhaps you're wondering why a marketing blog is talking about lawyers and litigation. Simple. All customer interaction is marketing. Any type of litigation usually means you've exhausted your other options, and the client in question will no longer be doing business with you. There are dangers in jumping the legal gun, just as there are dangers in doing nothing. There are certain key areas from a marketing perspective that demand litigation as a last resort.

DEBT COLLECTION
Marketing? Really? Look at it this way. If you don't have cash flow, you don't have anything to market. Your cash flow directly affects how you run your business, from payroll to inventory to whether or not you make a profit. Suing someone for uncollected debt is a process with multiple, time-consuming steps with no guarantee of success. It's also public. There are many ways to mitigate legal action, most of which start with a good plan at the beginning of the relationship. Like a prenuptial agreement, a strong contract with expectations clearly spelled out, timelines set and remedies specified will show a prospective client that you are a serious business person. Drafting a contract is one thing lawyers do very well. This is an expense that will pay for itself many times over. More often than not, tardy or aggressive clients will back down with a strong contract on your side. The more solid your footing, the more easily you'll be able to collect money or solve client misunderstanding. If there's a benefit to you, consider offering an early payment discount. Add penalties for late payment. As with everything in your initial pre-nup, state it clearly. When you are faced with a slow or non-paying client, consider first the amount, the reason, and the length of the relationship. What percentage of your business does this client represent? Is an invoice for $100 worth jeopardizing your $100,000 client? And remember that you get farther with a gentle nudge than a swift kick. Invoices get lost, payables get delayed. Sometimes being the persistent squeaky wheel will move something forward. Using the legal system to collect debt should be your last resort. If everything else fails, this is the second time to contact your lawyer. An overwhelming majority of a lawyer's work is drafting documents, not actually suing people. The threat of legal action will often prompt clients to pay. Keep in mind that this will likely sever your relationship with the client. Use it wisely.

SLANDER, LIBEL, DEFAMATION
We live in an age where anybody can say anything about anyone, anywhere at any time. The web makes these types of negative comments permanent and nearly impossible to get rid of. Most of us have to shrug off a lot of these types of negative comments. Where the line is drawn legally is when slander, libel, or defamation take place. The trick is proving these have taken place. In the broadest possible terms, defamation is something about you or your business that is untrue and has the potential to cause damage. Slander is telling someone, libel is writing it down. Now, as any good lawyer would advise me (and you), I'm not a lawyer. Consult with one if you believe you or your business are a victim of this. From a marketing point of view, defamation and its two cousins are potentially devastating. It's important to monitor any information shared about you or your company on a regular basis. Monitor your social media, as well as your competitors'. If you believe defamation of some sort has occurred,  and can pinpoint the source, this is time to lawyer up. The first step is usually a "cease and desist" letter. Most of the time, this does the trick. A letter from a lawyer can be scary. If it doesn't stop the offensive action, your lawyer will be able to recommend an appropriate course of action. From a marketing point of view, keep the end in mind. Will going after someone who is venting worth any sort of negative publicity your company will receive?

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
This one is potentially the most damaging to your business. If you produce something unique, it's in your best interest to ensure no one copies it. Lawyers can help with copyright and patent registration, which is preventative medicine. Trademark your logo and your tagline. Place copyright notices on key marketing pieces such as your website, print collateral and signage. And don't be afraid of suing on this one. This is the only such infringement I would suggest running, not walking to a courtroom. Your business depends on your proprietary information. Defend it vigorously.

TRADE SECRETS
The same holds true for business processes, trade secrets and any type of information or documents unique to your business, that are essential for your business to remain competitive. Keep this type of information as close to the chest as you can. If employees need to know this information, having a confidentiality agreement (created by a lawyer) is your best prevention should someone become disgruntled and spill the beans.

Your business is sometimes like a battle. You have an arsenal of weaponry at your disposal. Using the appropriate weapon at the appropriate time will ensure the public's perception of you remains positive. If you have the reputation of throwing lawsuits around like a petulant child, you'll likely scare off potential customers. If you roll over and play dead, your business will tend to attract bottom feeders. A good lawyer is like a homeowners insurance policy - you'll likely never need it, but when you do, you'll be really glad you had it.

Help! I've Got A Negative Review

A question I often hear is how do I eliminate negative information about my company on the Internet? That's one of those questions that has many answers, but there a few general concepts we can address here.

There are usually 3 types of negative information that appear on the Web about companies.

The first is a legitimate complaint. No one's perfect. No matter how hard you try, sometimes you or your staff mess up. Maybe your product or service didn't work properly. People are more likely to complain online than to you directly. It's human nature - anonymity emboldens us. Road rage is a great example of this.

Legitimate complaints can actually be the most beneficial for your company. These are things you can act on. If someone has a complaint, solve it. Go above and beyond. And make it public. For instance, let's say you own a restaurant. Your staff was having an off day, the service wasn't up to par, and someone wrote a negative review. Instead of letting it go, follow up with this customer through the same online venue they complained through. Give them a gift certificate, or offer to buy their next meal. Take a specific action to rectify the situation. Don't make excuses - make it right. And do it in the public square. Many people now rely exclusively on online reviews to make a buying decision. If they see a complaint and a solution, they'll know you are a business owner who actually cares and listens. You're willing to do the right thing. And don't argue. A free meal to a disgruntled client is going to cost you a lot less than proving your point. The customer, after all, is always right. Especially when they're wrong.

Don't let legitimate complaints fester. The faster you solve them, the better the outcome. Consider posting your Facebook or Twitter address in your business and encouraging customers to share their experience, positive or negative. This can seem counterintuitive to a business owner, but airing your dirty laundry in public can allow you to take situations that would otherwise fester and turn them into positive, customer-building opportunities.

The second type of negative information that appears is the dreaded anonymous complaint. Someone has a bad experience with your company, or has an axe to grind with you personally (or one of your employees) and writes terrible things. The dark side of the Internet is that everything is essentially permanent. There are exceptions, and it's possible to remove derogatory comments, but it's a difficult and lengthy process. It's similar in scope to identity fraud. There are companies that promote reputation fixing services, but there are limits to these processes, and the cost can be quite high.

In these cases, the best defense is a good offense. Most reviews that have any meaning to potential customers are weighted. Negative reviews can be overwhelmed by positive reviews. People are more likely to take action when they're complaining rather than when they've had a positive experience. Anger is a more actionable emotion than happiness. However, many people will write positive reviews if you ask them. Use your social media venues, signs in your physical location(s), printed notes on receipts and invoices, etc. to ask people to create positive reviews. You can incentivize this, as well, by offering something for your customers to do this. Depending on your industry, you will need to be aware of any restrictions that exists (health care, government, etc.), but giving people who write positive reviews a small reward will often motivate them. Keep in mind that people will usually do a great deal for very little - you don't have to give them a car. Something small, something they'll use, will motivate them to take the ten minutes they'll need to write a review. Enough of these will, over time, virtually eliminate negative reviews. It's a time consuming process, but it is effective.

The third type of negative information found on the Web are comments from former and current employees. These can range from ridiculous comments that are essentially blowing off steam, to the divulging of company trade secrets. It's important to weigh the severity of information being shared. If the comments are coming from a disgruntled worker, it might be best to let the comments go. If you've fired this person, they'll likely want to vent. You fired them for a reason, and this will only reinforce why you did. The more dangerous types of former employee comments come when they share private company information online. There are specific laws that govern this type of information and, depending on the data and the implications, you have the option of taking legal action. Keep in mind that the punishment should match the crime - there will often be repercussions beyond the scope of a simple web post if you decide to pursue legal action. Social media postings as they relate to current or former employers is an emerging area of the law and, although several cases have sided with employers recently, you should weigh the fact that you'll be helping set legal precedent, and can receive more negative attention via the news media than you ever would by letting the online comment(s) go. Every situation is unique, and only you as the business owner know what's at stake. Keep in mind it's not personal, it's business.

There isn't a magic bullet for eliminating negative comments online. And this information is the tip of the iceberg. Keep in mind that some people are complainers. That's their nature, that's how they find pleasure in their lives. No matter what you do, you won't make them happy. But if the negative comments are legitimate, act on them. You can use these negatives to grow as a business. They may also give you insight into how your company is perceived in the public. That kind of wake-up call can be a game-changer, if you look at it honestly.

Change Is Good

For many businesses, change can be a four-letter word. If you're a business owner, you had a clear idea of what you wanted to do when you started your business. You had a vision and you expected potential clients would beat down your door as soon as you started. No matter how much preparation went into your business plan, however, there are always factors that don't play nicely. Things like the economic climate, competition, public awareness, outdated technology and even staffing issues can potentially derail the best laid plans. As a business owner or the manager of a business division, you need to be able to turn on a dime. And you need to be able to keep the core values and business focus in mind when you make these turns.

There's a time when sticking to your guns no matter what is effective - and there's a time when it's necessary to throw the whole works up in the air. Embracing change is often the determining factor in the success of any business. So where do you start? Change for change sake is reckless - change that is dictated by quality intel is what will set your business apart. Start with processes. These are things that you control and are designed to make your entire business run smoothly. If your answer to the question, "why do we do this" is "because we've always done it that way", that's the first thing to target. Don't hold on to outdated processes simply because they've always been there. Consequently, don't abandon processes that actually work. The point with the "because we've always done it that way" question is to actively understand why your business does what it does. There can be a perfectly valid reason why process X is done - process Y and Z may depend on it. If so, that's a good process. But if process X exists simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time, try something else. Start by eliminating this process. Does work still get done? Does it get done better?

An important exercise many businesses engage in is what's called a "process walk". If it's done properly, it's a time consuming thing. But the value to your business can be monumental. Start with the beginning of your business process - is it manufacturing? Retail delivery? Client order? Using Post-It notes and a wall, document each step of your business process. For complex areas, break it down into simple, single line descriptions. If you can't describe the process in a single line, that means it's a complex process and has steps you'll need to document. Color code like items - is there a decision point? A client interaction point? A vendor contact point? Walk through your entire business process. Involve as many members of your team as is necessary. The more robust the organization, the more compartmentalized it can become. The process walk can serve also to illuminate and educate your staff on what actually goes on. Remember that you hired the staff you did because you wanted their input. The more brains you have involved, the more likely you are to start thinking outside the box. And that's what the process walk is all about.

When you stand back and look at your wall of Post-It notes, take a look for duplication. That's the low-hanging fruit you can eliminate. Then look for other ways to streamline. Does the physical location of staff isolate them from each other? Can different departments merge? Can functions from one department migrate to another?

Look at the Post-It notes in another way. Where does your product or service get bogged down? Is it slow vendors? Are you waiting on customer approvals? External sources of delay are harder to address, but not impossible. Consider incentivizing early approvals. Offering a small discount if a project is moved forward more quickly may initially cut into your bottom line, but the idea is you'll be able to move more projects forward faster. A minimal discount can allow you to produce and invoice more within a shorter period of time.

The process walk is a commitment. It will take time and it will take staff away from their specific duties. The impact of this, however, can be a game changer. By simply knowing each step of your business process, you can clearly see opportunities to tighten and, in some cases, eliminate processes altogether. A week of your staff's time could save your company a ridiculous amount of money, and can eliminate huge amounts of waste.

Change is good. Smart change is the difference between growth and stagnation.