The Trend of the Past and the Future

Last week I searched for a cover for a vent on the outside of my house. I had looked online and had seen many different options, none of which would work for this particular vent. My next stop was a chain home improvement store. The salesperson there was helpful and walked me over to the one item that the store stocked which might work. I had seen that item online and already knew that it was not my solution. I voiced my thoughts and asked for alternatives. She replied that was all they had.

Nearby was an independently-operated hardware store. Suspecting that the store stocked the same item as I had found online and at the chain store, I thought, “I am assuming what they stock. I want to know for sure.”

As I walked into the store, I was greeted by the owners’ sweet German shepherd. The husband of the husband and wife team who owned the store immediately asked me if he could be of assistance. I reiterated that I wanted to cover the vent.

He showed me the same solution as I had seen online and at the chain store.

“That won’t work,” I replied. “I want a cover with smaller holes and more flexibility in attachment. Any other ideas?”

He sat down on a stool, cupped his head in his hand, and looked down at the floor. “Let me think a minute.”

After a few seconds he had a solution. “I’ll cut you some flexible screening. You can lay the screening over the vent and cut it to size. Then double the screening over along the edges and attach it around the vent with these screws.”

I walked out of the store with the solution to my problem in hand.

The next time that I have a problem or want an item that the hardware store may stock, I will go there first. While online offers quick access and big chains proclaim cheap prices, neither one of these offers someone to help you solve a problem. Neither one offers someone to create a solution. The chain store’s salesperson did her best to be helpful, but she had not been taught to think of solutions. She had been taught to sell products.

On the other hand, the independent hardware store owner thrives on solutions. His solution resulted in a sale and a new customer.

As business people and as consumers, we can be lured into thinking that cheapness and bigness are everything. In truth, what really matters are solutions to problems. Those solutions come from one person to another. When a person is unavailable as happens online or the person to whom I am speaking has not been taught to think in solutions, as a customer, I become frustrated. Only knowledgeable solutions will ease my frustrations.

For years small business people have built their businesses by offering solutions to customers’ problems. They have taken the time to listen to their customers. They have stopped to mull over problems. They have created solutions and offered them for the customers’ benefit. This is the trend of the past and the future. To be successful, this requires thought from those working at the small business.

How are you solving your customers’ problems?

Ineffective Communication

A couple of days ago, I watched a commercial which I had seen several times. This commercial always gets my attention because it starts with a little girl sitting alone on a school bus. She is the last rider of the day. The bus driver asks her questions.

“How was school today?”

“All right,” the little girl replies.

“Do you like your teacher?”

“Yeah.”

At this point, the first time I saw the commercial I wondered just why the bus driver was quizzing the little girl. After the next question, I understood.

“Did you miss your mommy?”

The little girl gets out of her seat, scurries down the aisle, jumps into the bus driver’s lap, and wraps her arms around the driver‘s neck. “Yeah, I missed you, Mom.”

No matter how many times I have seen this commercial, I feel a swell of emotion during that scene.

Then I wonder, “Whose commercial is this, anyway?”

I tend to think that it is for a kid’s treat or food, something that Mom might give a child after school. Usually, I am so caught up in the emotion from the little girl hugging the bus driver that I forget to notice what business name is listed at the end of the commercial.

When I watched the commercial the other day, I made an effort mentally to register the business. As the little girl and her mom walked away from the buses hand-in-hand, the voiceover said, “For life’s important moments, Marshfield Clinic.”

Since I am suspicious that I am an unusual consumer of advertising, I turned to my roommate. “Did you just watch that commercial?”

“Yeah, I like it.”

“Who was it for?”

She gave me a perplexed look. “I don’t know. Some food company?”

“No,” I replied. “Marshfield Clinic.”

She was astonished. “Really? I never would have guessed that.”

This is a wonderfully-written, well-acted, attention-getting commercial that is woefully ineffective.

Why? First, it does not deliver a message, unless you maintain that the closeness of the mother and daughter is a message. Second, this commercial does not make any reference to Marshfield Clinic until the end of the commercial, which is not enough. Third, nothing in the commercial has anything to do with healthcare. A consumer’s mind must make many flips and somersaults to connect what is shown in this commercial with Marshfield Clinic. Who was sick and got well, the child or the mother? How sick was she? How recently did she recover? No one will think this far. Viewers will mentally turn off the commercial because Marshfield Clinic’s connection to it does not make sense.

As evidenced by me and my roommate, the viewer not connecting the commercial with the business is the most devastating result to Marshfield Clinic. I am certain that we are not alone nor unusual in our responses.

While creating an attention-getting commercial is important, sacrificing effective communication to achieve attention makes the marketing effort a waste of time and money. Your message is more important than creativity. Make certain that your message is clear and that your business is easily connected to your message.

That is effective communication.

Brevity

“This is John Smith at 652-3400. Call me back, please.”

I received this message on my voice mail today from a person unknown to me. Although I immediately deleted the message, I have been mulling over its positive and negative aspects.

On the positive side, I am intrigued. Who is John Smith? Why did he call? What did he want? Should I have called him back?

This, of course, was precisely what Mr. Smith wanted me to think. He wanted me to be intrigued. He wanted my curiosity to prompt me to return his call. I have had to restrain myself from calling back. By telling me little, he piqued my interest.

That’s a good lesson to remember; less is more.

On the negative side, this person’s unwillingness to tell me why he called makes me very suspicious. My he’s-trying-to-sell-me-something antenna are waving crazily. Questions plague me. Why wouldn’t he tell me the purpose of his call? Was he calling me in particular or am I merely on his calling list? (I suspect the latter.) Why did he decide to call me?

These thoughts led me to remember a billboard that I drove past recently. The billboard’s message was short: Because stuff happens. In addition to being brief, the message was written upside down and backwards. That grabbed my attention!

Both the billboard and the caller delivered their message with brevity. That’s not easy to do. Distilling your message into a few words is tough. Having those words actually get attention is tougher. Assuring that the words communicate your message is the toughest.

While the caller accomplished two of out of three with a short message that got attention, the billboard achieved all three. Even more, the billboard’s message did not destroy credibility; the caller’s message did.

Do you communicate your message with brevity? If not, doing so will require thought. Brevity is not just a few words. Brevity is a few words that communicate your message well. Sit down and think through your message before you attempt to abbreviate it. Then, run your abbreviated message past a few customers to find out how well the words that you have chosen communicate your message. Apply your customers’ input to tweak and finalize your brief message.

Then use it on everything.

Bandwagon Effect

“Thompsons have butterfingers!” A kid screamed into the camera.

After that pronouncement, he turned and ran toward the lighted house behind him. Framed in the house doorway, a lady was patiently holding a bowl of Butterfingers. As the kid rushed toward the lady, he was joined by lots of other kids in costumes swarming from every direction. The message was clear: trick-or-treaters prefer Butterfingers.

I was riveted by this commercial. I wanted to share with you the lessons that it offers in communicating with your customers.

First, openings are critical. You only have a few seconds to get your audience’s attention. With the Internet, people’s brief attention span has grown even more brief. Beginning the commercial with a close up of a kid screaming into the camera with a short, to-the-point message gets attention. It got mine.

Second, talk to your audience. Show or use the voice of a situation or person with whom your target market will readily identify. Those who are concerned about kids trick-or-treaters will quickly find this commercial interesting because the topic is on their minds. Another idea would have been to present the commercial from Mrs. Thompson’s point of view and show the Butterfingers disappearing rapidly from her dish as she greets trick-or-treaters. Either way, the audience for this commercial gets the message because they feel addressed. The “Mrs. Thompsons” are the audience. When they identify with the commercial, they receive the commercial’s message.

Third, create a bandwagon effect. Everyone wants one so you should, too. In this commercial, all the kids wanted Butterfingers. If that’s what they want, why buy any other candy? That thought establishes itself in the minds of the “Mrs. Thompsons,” those serving the candy, and also in the minds of the kids who see the commercial. While I would not suggest that a thirty-second commercial can change kids’ tastes to like Butterfingers if they do not, it can stimulate those who do like Butterfingers to want some.

The first two lessons are relatively easy to achieve. Keep them in mind whenever you are communicating with your customers. Remember to grab attention with your opening and to talk to your audience.

The third lesson can be more challenging. You may have to think longer to figure out how to achieve a bandwagon effect for your product, service, or information. As you think, realize that the bandwagon effect that you show or state does not necessarily have to be true for every person who has ever used your product or service. It only needs to be correct for whatever group you are referencing. The kid in the commercial did not say “Everyone loves Butterfingers.” No, he said “Thompsons have Butterfingers.” His statement implied that everyone wanted Butterfingers, but he did not say it directly. After making the statement, he had lots of kids follow him to Thompsons' house. However, we don’t know that every kid in the neighborhood followed.

How do you create a bandwagon effect? Similar to Thompson, reference a well-known customer who uses this product, service, or information from your business. Do this with the customer’s permission, of course. Use a number or percentage. 8 out of 10 or 90% of our customers use this product, service, or information. State a desire that you know your customers want and that your product, service, or information offers. Instead of stating a product such as Butterfingers, say the “What’s in it for me” for the customer from using the product. “Mouth-watering candy at Thompsons” is intriguing to all, whether they like Butterfingers or not.

The bandwagon effect seeds the thought in your customers’ minds that they ought to have this product, service, or information, too.

How can you use the bandwagon effect in your communications with customers?

Give Them What They Want for Less

In this economy, I hear business people more than ever agonize over price.

“My clients can’t afford it.”
“Customers just aren’t spending.”
“The only way that I will get business is to drop my price.”

While I maintain that price is never the number one reason that people buy, I agree that everyone has limited financial resources. Customers’ perception of tough economic times prompts them to delay or completely withhold purchases. They still have the same wants, but they may choose to act on those wants differently than they would in a vibrant economy.

The guitar company, C. F. Martin, faced this dilemma. For over a hundred and seventy-five years, C. F. Martin has been crafting guitars which have been played by hall of fame musicians as well as ordinary people who love to play a good guitar. These guitars were not cheap. The lowest-priced one was two thousand dollars. In this economy, that was a hefty sum for the average person to pay for a luxury item. Consequently, Martin’s sales were down.

With the option of closing a plant and/or laying off hundreds of their skilled craftsmen, Martin turned to what the current Martin’s grandfather had done during the Great Depression when he encountered a similar situation. They made a new guitar. This guitar is a stripped-down, plain, simple model with no lacquers, no inlaids, and no laminates, but it is still a very well-made Martin guitar, crafted with skill. Named the One Series, these guitars sell for hundreds, not thousands, of dollars. So far this year nine thousand of these guitars have been sold.

By creating this new guitar, C. F. Martin reacted to customers’ wants and the current economic conditions. Customers still want a C. F. Martin guitar. However, in these economic conditions, customers have difficulty justifying a two thousand dollar guitar purchase.

C.F. Martin could not drop the price of the two thousand dollar guitar to accommodate its customers. Instead, Martin created an entirely new guitar which filled the bill.

This action is vastly different than what most businesses do in similar situations. Most business people think that they must drop price, even if that means that the business does not make money, just to prompt the customer to buy. The business focuses on revenue instead of cash flow. If the price does not cover the cost of the good or service and include some sort of profit, the sale does not cash flow. Sure, cash is flowing, but it is flowing in a negative direction because the business is taking in less than the cost of the good or service. Eventually, this negative cash flow leaves the business without enough revenue to cover its costs. What is the point of that?

The point of having a business is to make profit so that the business can survive and thrive. In order to do that, a business must have cash flow. To achieve cash flow, a business must sell the goods or services for more than they cost. Selling goods and services for more than they cost may require creating a good or service that the customer wants and will buy. Offering this good or service may require some thought. This thought takes more effort than slashing a price.

This thought gives customers what they want for less and maintains cash flow for the business.

What new offer can you make which gives your customer what he wants and cash flows for your business?

Make It Fun

Yesterday I watched a fascinating report about a redesign of subway stairs into musical stairs. Innovative designers and Volkswagen teamed up to turn a flight of stairs at the subway in Stockholm into a keyboard. They placed electronics on the stairs which made each stair when stepped on play a distinct musical note. Then they covered the electronics with floor coverings that turned each stair into a key, either black or white, on the keyboard. This resulted in the entire flight of stairs appearing to be a gigantic keyboard. Volkswagen did not disclose why this was done. However, since the stairs were next to an escalator, many speculate that the motive was to encourage people to take the stairs instead of the escalator.

Whatever their reason, their idea was a big hit.

The number of people taking the stairs as compared to those taking the escalator has done a 180. Now everyone wants to take the stairs, even those who have difficulty doing so. Some people go up and down several times on their ascent or descent just to step on more stairs and make more music. No one takes the escalator anymore.

Why was this so successful?

People love to have fun, and taking these stairs is fun. Rather than telling people that for their health they ought to take the stairs, Volkswagen made taking the stairs a blast. In fact, Volkswagen made people want to take the stairs and touch extra steps in the process, giving them additional exercise. Rather than leaving signs instructing people to take the stairs, they created a desire within the customer to take the stairs. Rather than preaching to the customer, they involved the customer.

They showed the customer “What’s in it for me.”

“What’s in it for me” was making noise, stepping on something cool, and having fun.

We can all take a lesson from this innovation. We can learn to involve our customers. We can learn to lighten up on how we present change. We can learn to bring fun into our interaction with our customers.

Today we have ample opportunities to do this. With boundless technical innovations, we can offer our customers involvement and fun very easily and at a small cost. Volkswagen proved that.

How can you make your customer’s interaction with your business fun?

To watch a video of these stairs, go here.

A New Twist

“I am furious that I get treated differently as a regular customer than a new customer does,” complained my client. “I thought that my business meant more to that firm. I guess that I am just another number to them.”

Looking me in the eye, he spit out, “A new customer gets a lower price than me, and I have been doing business with that firm for several years! I can’t believe it!”

His outburst reminded me of my days selling radio and television. As salespeople, we were given incentives to find new customers. In fact, doing so was an important part of our compensation and evaluation. Our incentives to the new customers were a variety of price drops, including production freebies.

Occasionally, a regular customer would find out about these incentives and have a similar reaction to that of my client. “Why can’t I get that package? I’ve done a great deal of business with your station.”

I never could come up with a good explanation, probably because I didn’t think that one existed. “That’s how station management set it up,” I usually mumbled, not liking to blame management but feeling that the truth was my only option.

We were never given incentives to retain customers. Station management expected that once a customer had spent money on a schedule the customer would repeat spending at that level year after year. The customer’s spending became a baseline from which to build more business with the customer. There was never a consideration that the customer would not spend or would spend less. Management seemed to think that the customer’s past level of spending was “due” the station. Any reduction was met with management’s distain and censure for the salesperson.

Many times regular customers did not get the attention that a new customer received because the new customer took more time. Since a salesperson only had so many hours to get a job done, we salespeople often compressed taking care of regular customers because our knowledge of them hastened the task.

In other words, familiarity bred neglect.

Our familiarity with a regular customer took that customer and his or her business for granted. Intentionally or not, we were forced to juggle our time, and the result hurt our regular customers. Most regular customers were not consciously aware of this neglect. Even those who discovered the special packages to new customers never understood the extent of our neglect. They did not know what they missed. They did not know what we could have offered them, what we could have done for them, and what more business they could have done with our station.

Neither did management.

Two of the most profitable ways to grow your business are to increase the frequency and amount of business that regular customers transact with your company. Getting new customers is the least profitable way to grow your business. Unfortunately, as my client at the beginning of this piece explained, the least profitable way to grow your business is the preferred method of most businesses.

I recommend a new twist on familiarity. Make familiarity breed profitability. Rather than taking regular customers for granted, see them as the way to grow your business profitably.

Do it today.