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Ok, I’m going to use the Highly Contagious Marketing Blog to track progress on the new program I’m developing to help small business owners create simple information products.

I’d also like to use this as a way to invite collaboration although I’m not certain just how much of the project makes sense to publicize. Some of it feels pretty sensitive.

Latest developments today:

Added “Guiding Philosophy” points which will help set some boundaries around the project
Added a “People” section to begin tracking people I’d like to involve in the project
Feeling pretty solid around using the metaphor of a “cookbook” to introduce the idea.

I’ll make a .pdf document of the mindmap available but password protected

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Words like “exceptional,” “superior,” and “best” are thrown around so often in marketing copy most of us have become immune to their meaning. I think it’s worth stopping to think and ask “what does this really mean to me and my business?”

“Do not think a man has done his full duty when he has performed the work assigned him. A man will never rise if he does only this. Promotion comes from exceptional work.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)
Scottish industrialist & philanthropist
founder, Carnegie Steel Company

This quote landed in my mail box this morning courtesy of the JustSell folks who publish Sales Quote of the Day. If I like the quote I save it to a “Good Quotes” file I keep (as a writer, I find good quotes often come in handy). This particular quote however, almost ended up in Outlook’s Delete file.

Why? I’ve developed an aversion to quotes and sayings that advise “working hard, going the extra 10%, and perseverance.” I’ve been hearing quotes like this since I was in Kindergarten and while they sound good “work really hard; get rewarded” the words now strike me as empty and overly simplistic. Yet so many of us read them and accept the mantra without asking what does this “really mean?”

In this case, it means more when viewed in the context of Carnegie’s life. Although Carnegie is remembered primarily for making a fortune from the new steel industry in the U.S., his real genius was in looking for better ways to accomplish whatever he set his sights on.

At the age of 16, Carnegie began working as a messenger for the Ohio Telegraph Company. He quickly distinguished himself by learning to translate Morse code by ear. This meant he could get messages simply by listening to them which was faster than writing the messages down.

During the Civil War Carnegie was appointed supervisor of military railways.  Building and repairing the rails and trains required large supplies of iron as well as steel which was used for the rail ties. Carnegie quickly grasped the potential of integrating iron works with steel production and set about creating what would later become U.S. Steel.

Carnegie’s philanthropy was also rooted in a desire to find a better way. Growing up poor in Scotland, Carnegie saw the English Monarchy as an impediment to social progress. He became an outspoken advocate of the Republican ideal in which the wealthiest and best educated citizens provided the means for those below to improve their situation through education and jobs which provided fair wages.

Although from today’s perspective, Carnegie’s social intentions seem naive and elitist, this was radical at a time when poverty was viewed as the fault of the individual and the result of laziness, poor discipline and other personal defects of character.

So, put in context, this quote is about pushing past mediocrity and complacently and finding ways to make a real difference. From my own perspective, this means creating a business that stands for what I value regardless of making some folks uncomfortable.

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I was talking with a client not so long ago and she said something to me that really stuck with me:

“Getting new clients always feels like such a struggle. It seems like I’m either trying to get in front of people who are too busy to talk or once I do get them interested, getting them to say ‘yes’ and pay me is another struggle.”

“Is there an easier way?”

Does this sound like something you’ve said?

First of all, I can relate. I’ve done more than my share of chasing after prospects feeling like Elmer Fudd running after Bugs Bunny shouting, “Get back heaw you wascally wabbit!”

It is so not fun.

Second, and more importantly, the answer is YES, there is an easier way. The keys are:

1. Know your customers’ pain really, really well.
2. Talk about their pain and the results your product or service deliver. In that order.
3. Don’t talk about how you do it in the most general terms.
4. Understand how your customers make purchase decisions, especially in terms of what they need to make a decision and how long it takes for them to make a decision.

My experience shows that making prospects aware of the problem and keeping them aware of the cost of the problem helps keep the need for your solution top of mind. It’s human nature to forget pain as quickly as possible or to put up with pain because “it’s not so bad.” In too many cases, it takes a full blown crisis to get people to take any kind of action.

If you get the pain factor down, the next point is to talk about results and stay the heck away from getting into how you get results. It’s so tempting to go on and on about your really cool, proprietary process but the truth is your prospect doesn’t care. They just want to know “do you understand my problem and have you helped people like me solve it.” You will also get the prospect bogged in minutia and give me lots of reasons to nitpick and object.

Finally, and probably most important. It takes time, sometimes a lot of time for people to be ready to buy. It takes repeated demonstrations over a period of time for them to feel confident enough to say “yes” and write the check.

If you work with the way your prospects go through the buying process, it will a lot less like a struggle and more like time and effort well spent.

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My 12/07 Contagious Marketing ezine went out last week.

Click here to read the latest article on how to create revenue streams that come in even when you’re lying on the beach sipping a cold drink.

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Last Thursday I had coffee with Joan Schlaefer of Gift to It!. Joan refers to her business as offering “client appreciation services” and that resonates with me because I think one of the most important marketing activities we can do as business owners is to let clients know what their business means to us.

It’s also something that falls through the cracks for most business owners. It does for me.

Joan knows this and it’s the reason she started Gift to It. She told me most smart business owners understand the importance of saying “thank you” but rarely follow through. And if they do follow through, they are inconsistent.

Another issue for a lot of business owners is the expense of giving gifts. They balk at the idea of sending customers a $25 gift saying that “they can’t afford that.” Joan looks at it differently:

“Let’s say you divide your clients up into 3 groups: A, B, and C in order of importance to your business. Now, if you send your “A” clients four $25 gifts a year, that’s $100 a year. That’s less than $1 a day. If you think about repeat business from your best customers as well as referrals, isn’t it worth $100 per year to say “thank you” so that these folks feel appreciated?”

“Now some people will argue that they would get the business regardless of whether they send a gift or not and that may be true. But, when you send someone a gift that shows you truly thought about them as human beings, nothing has a more positive effect. I hear recipients say things like, ‘they didn’t have to do that,’ but the fact that they did, makes a huge positive impression.”

I often view marketing as activities you do to improve the odds of getting selected. I don’t mean this in a cold or manipulative way. But marketing consists of doing a lot of small, positive things that have a cumulative effect in the mind of your prospect. Add enough relevant value over the course of a year, and if the propect truly needs what you offer, they will buy from you.

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In May, 2006, our very feeble and elderly cat Spike peed on our queen sized down comforter. Needless to say, we took the comforter off our bed vowing to bring it to the dry cleaners “soon.”

The problem is that no one wanted to lug the comforter to the dry cleaners.

So it sat…and sat…and sat some more up in the attic. Unused and unwashed.

Finally, I got so sick and tired of using our red acrylic blanket that sheds little pills of red fluff on everything, I buckled down and looked in the yellow pages for a dry cleaners that not only cleaned down items but offered pick up and delivery.

The first cleaner I called sounded so competent that I nearly wept for joy. This was until he asked me where I was located and seemed puzzled by the cross streets. It turned out he was located in Boulder, CO which is a good 30-minute drive from Denver. He apologized and said he couldn’t figure out why he kept getting listed in the Denver yellow pages.

The next cleaner I called looked promising. Their advertisement said they had been in business for over 30-years, were family owned, and best of all, offered free pick up and delivery. When I called them, the woman on the other end confirmed that yes, they cleaned down comforters and yes, they would be happy to pick up our comforter. The driver would call me the next morning.

The next day, Tuesday, I lugged the comforter downstairs so it would be near the front door. Then I waited to hear from the driver. By noon, I decided the driver probably wasn’t going to call and decided it wasn’t urgent enough to make a fuss about.

On Wednesday, the lady I spoke with called and asked whether the driver had ever called. When I said no, she told me he could pick it up on Friday and asked when someone would be around. I told her he could pick it up anytime between 8:00 am and noon.

So I intentionally stuck around until noon. The driver never called or showed up. So I called the dry cleaners to find out what was going on. The lady told me that he was doing something with “draperies” and got so busy he couldn’t call.

I’m always amused in an annoyed way when someone tells me why they didn’t follow through. Especially people I don’t know. I didn’t say this but I didn’t give a crap why they delivery guy was late. As far as I was concerned he could have been orbiting the Earth repairing the International Space Station. I didn’t care so long as he showed up when he said he would and took my comforter.

We scheduled, again, for him to pick up the comforter early Saturday morning. This, time he did, in fact show up to pick up the comforter. However, he didn’t give us a ticket or tell us when the comforter would be ready and delivered.

Later that day, I called the dry cleaners to ask what the deal was. The lady (same one I’d been talking to over the last week or so) told me “it takes at least a week.” “So, I asked, could I expect to have the comforter back by the follow Saturday?” “Well,” she said, “it will be clean but he’ll drop it off when he can schedule it in.”

Meaning? This dry cleaner may advertise they offer pick up and delivery but don’t count on any set day or time.

Just writing this spikes my blood pressure.

In seems extraordinary to me that, with a dry cleaner on every corner in the city of Denver, that this dry cleaner would just suck so much. Possibly they have all the business they can possibly handle. Possibly they work primarily with businesses not residences.

It doesn’t matter.

1. If they advertise that they offer pick up and delivery and feature it prominantly in their Yellow Pages ad, I expect them to cheerfully offer pick up and delivery.

2. I think most reasonable customers would expect that pick up and delivery would be at their convenience and could be dependably scheduled.

3. If #1 and 2 are no longer the case, I would expect the dry cleaners to tell me.

4. After the delays I experienced, I would expect the dry cleaners to give me a nice big discount for the hassles.

Obviously, they won’t be seeing me again. I’m still thinking about how to best make my point so that there is a shadow of a chance they will understand why I’m unhappy.

There’s a lot of crappy service, that doesn’t mean I have to put up with it. Still have the dilemma of finding a good dry cleaner that picks up and delivers in Denver.

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My 11/07 Contagious Marketing ezine went out last week.

Click here to read the latest article on how to create a win-win money-back guarantee.

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The other day I visited a website that was recommended to me by a good friend.

It’s a website for working moms and I’m a working mom so I checked it out.

But I didn’t get too far past the home page because I was so turned off by the image they used. The image, an illustration, showed a skinny, sleek, couture-clad woman who is ready to conquor the world.

I have never looked like this. Ever. Maybe 1/2 of 1% of all working moms look something like this.

The minute I saw that image I had an immediate disconnect and I didn’t want to go any further into the web site. The content might be fabulous but the image spoke very loudly to me. Here is what it said to me:

• We’re a “me too” organization. All the other websites that are trying to attract upscale, professional women use illustrations like this so we will too.
• We don’t have a very good understanding of who we want to reach. So we’re using a rather bland “catch all” piece of clip art.
• We’re not going to get too deep. We’re not going to raise sensitive issues or make our audience uncomfortable.
• We’re going to give you the same pre-digested, bland mush that every other website aimed at our demographic offers their customers

I’m not saying the creators of this website are dull, unoriginal, and superficial. They may be amazing people that I really ought to get to know. The problem is that the image they chose for the home page of their website communicated something very different to me.

The same holds true for those awful photographs that so many websites use.

You know the ones I’m talking about right? The well scrubbed, cheerful gal with the headset on who’s waiting to take your call?

Or the hip young go getter talking on his cell phone in with a glass skyscraper in the background.

The issue is this: people do business with real human beings. Not stereotypes. I don’t care how many websites use stock images and stock photos. It tells your customers and audience next to nothing about who you are and what your business is about. And what it does tell your prospects about you may be the exact wrong thing.

Love stock images? Hate ‘em? Click here to tell me.

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Not all referrals are created equal.

Some referrals will grow your bottom line and help take your business to the next level.

Some will waste your precious time and energy.

That’s why I advise my clients to accept only “5-star” referrals.

So what is a 5-star referral you may ask? Signs of that a referral are 5-stars are:

• The referral fits your ideal customer profile (willing/able to pay, industry/profession, growth opportunities, excellent potential source of referrals, likely to become a core customer, and do on)
• Your referral source has given you a glowing recommendation
• They are genuinely excited about the prospect of working with you
• They demonstrate their willingness and desire to work with you through their actions (they contact you, show up for meetings on time and prepared, etc.)

Even if you aren’t getting as many referrals as you want, I urge you to be discerning about whether or not you pursue referrals that are anything less than five-star.

Why Only 5-Star Referrals?

• Opportunity Cost. Some business owners ask me, “Why shouldn’t I pursue a referral that isn’t a great fit? It’s not like my phone is ringing off the hook”

Even if you don’t spend a penny pursuing a less than ideal referral, there is always a trade off in your time and energy. I can guarantee that there are better, more profitable things you could be doing for your business.

• Less than ideal referrals that become customers are a business liability.

Take a moment or two and think about a previous or current customer who was a bad fit for your business. How much time did you spend trying to fit your products, processes, and style to the customer’s needs? How many 5-star customers could you have served with that time and energy?

• You risk losing your source of referrals. Let’s say a customer who is a raving fan of yours sends you a less than perfect referral and that referral becomes a less than perfect customer. Do you think the referred customer will thank the person who referred them and tell them how much they appreciate learning about your business? Probably not. In fact, they may complain to the referrer “How could you send me to Joe? He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

The main reason people give referrals is to look good. They look good when the person they refer is a great fit for your business and that person comes back to them full of appreciation for the referral.

When a referral works out badly your referral source feels like their credibility is on they line. They don’t feel like they look good to their peers and they may avoid sending you additional referrals no matter how well qualified simply because they don’t want to risk further damage to their reputation.

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What kind of experience have you had with referrals? If you ended up with a referral who became a problem client or customer how did you handle it? Click here to share your comment. 

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