Archive for the 'strategy' Category

Strategy Sanity Check

Published on August 28, 2009 in business, marketing and strategy. 0 Comments

Sun Tzu famously said, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

We often get caught up in the day-to-day noise of program activation and overlook the strategy behind each tactic. When you’re chasing one fire drill after another, it’s easy to overlook the strategy.

When developing marketing campaigns, we often jump right into the tactical details and skip the following three foundational questions faced by prospects:

1. Why do anything?

2. Why you?

3. Why now?

Sir Isaac Newton taught us that a body in motion stays in motion until affected by an external force. By answering the above questions we can get a prospect to stop what they’re doing, hear your message and take action. In short, ensure that your marketing messages quickly and clearly address these three simple, yet powerful, questions before you dig into details like booth space requirements, creative details and vanity URL’s.

Why do anything?
Prospects have their own glide path. They’re busy living life. With 30,000+ marketing messages thrust at us each day, we completely ignore most advertising. By answering “Why do anything,” you have a better chance of breaking through the clutter. You can get their attention by speaking to the ultimate beneficial outcome they will receive by using your services or buying your product.

Why you?
Your target audience has a lot of options on the horizon. Don’t assume that your prospects understand your value proposition. Don’t assume they know anything about your offerings. You have to convince them why you are the first choice; the preferred choice. We live in a world of abundance with too many options to pick from. Help your audience understand why they should pick you.

Why now?
Moments of opportunity are fleeting and we need our prospects to take immediate action or they’ll move on to the next shiny object in the room. The questions above address the benefits of changing course and why your company is the right choice. Interested prospects now need to be told what to do next. Your call-to-action and incentive answer “Why now.” Your campaign materials should clearly show the prospect what to do next—and what they will get in return. Providing an incentive is a powerful way to get a prospect to take the next logical step in your marketing & sales process.

Sanity Check your next campaign by filtering it through these three questions. If the answers are clear and convincing, your campaign has a solid chance at generating leads. A little bit of thought and planning can generate massive improvements in marketing ROI.

When Great Isn’t Enough

Published on July 2, 2009 in business, entrepreneur, management, marketing and strategy. 0 Comments Tags: age of conversation 2.

Most entrepreneurs and owners of professional service firms risk so much for their business; yet never realize how much they risk by not mastering marketing. They spend years learning about and perfecting their chosen field (engineering, consulting, legal, creative services, medical, architecture, financial services, etc…); and more often than not they are accidentally successful in their business ventures.

If you ask these owners how they get new clients on a consistent basis, they typically shrug their shoulders and say, “We’re a word of mouth business” or “I’ve built this firm entirely on referrals.” But then re-ask the question with a focus on getting new clients on a consistent basis and that’s when they realize that word of mouth and referrals are strategies based on hope.

Now, let me be clear, both referrals and word of mouth are critical to your success, but you cannot control new business generation from either. It’s going to happen (or not) based on the quality of your work and the service you provide. If you run a successful business based solely on referrals, chances are you have been accidentally successful. And I say accidentally because you don’t know what to do to generate new clients other than working hard and doing a good job. It’s not a repeatable system.

Marketing doesn’t have to mystery. In fact, marketing is not rocket science; it’s just that most business owners have never been trained to be effective marketers. The top three proven marketing strategies for growing a professional firm are:

Speaking
Writing
Networking

And here’s the best part; the future of the web is built to allow anyone to take advantage of these marketing strategies. Web technology like webinars and online video sites allow you to easily share your knowledge and expertise via speaking. Today, the barriers to publishing are virtually non-existent with blog platforms like Wordpress, Moveable Type and Typepad—not to mention online article distribution services like ezinearticles.com and isnare.com or self publishers like lulu.com if you want to pen a book. And it’s easy to expand your sphere of influence through social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s not enough to be great at what you do. To take your firm to the next level you must be recognized as an expert in your field. And to be recognized as an expert, you cannot be an accidental marketer.

NOTE: originally published as a chapter in Age of Conversation 2 – Why Don’t They Get It?

Growth strategies for a tough economy

Published on January 27, 2009 in marketing and strategy. 0 Comments

Tough economies force businesses to reevaluate how they are spending their marketing dollars and efforts. When you can’t afford to waste time and money on random marketing tactics and inconsistent results, what do you do?

Recent research from Bain & Co. shows that a 5 percent increase in customer retention can increase profits by as 85-125 percent. That’s a pretty good return on investment (ROI) and should be your biggest area of focus. What are you doing to ensure that clients and customers keep coming back? It’s no longer a matter of simply doing a good job and working hard for the client. As consumers, we have too many options and very little time to make decisions. Therefore, we base decisions on trust – and trust is based on consistently positive experiences over time.

To a large degree, companies that sell products have it easier than businesses that sell services. Every time you walk past that little trinket you picked up at Artique or put on that little black dress you bought at Bella Rose, you are reminded of the store. When you’re on the golf course and crush a drive straight down the fairway with your new TaylorMade Burner driver, you know you made the right choice. A product can elicit wonderfully positive feelings that come when you use it.

Service firms are challenged to make the invisible tangible and valuable. For instance, what are you really buying from a financial planner? How do you know if the ad agency produced the absolute “best” advertisement? Would you have gotten a bigger settlement with another attorney? How much better is one consultant over the next? And is she really worth the fee?

The typical client can only evaluate whether the service was performed or not. It’s very difficult to judge the quality of a professional service; and who knows if another provider would have delivered the service any better? It’s hard to trust in things that you cannot see.

Ultimately, it’s the relationship that counts. I challenge you to think about how you will build deeper, stronger connections with your existing customers and clients. Most retail businesses have some form of loyalty program; unfortunately they rarely take into account the individual customer. Sure, Kroger gives me a discount when I use their ubiquitous Kroger Card, but saving a few bucks on groceries isn’t enough to build a relationship with me. Why aren’t they proactively recommending products that I might enjoy based on my buying habits? Why aren’t they letting me know when my daughter’s favorite snack is on sale?

One of the shining stars in customer loyalty is Amazon.com. They build customer relationships better than almost anyone does. And it works; they are the #1 American retailer on the web. They attract twice as many visitors as Walmart.com. On most Amazon product pages, there are 15 different elements that help to guide your buying decisions.

Here are just a few of the features through which Amazon.com acquires and leverages customer behavior:

Five star ranking
Customer reviews
Add to your wishlist
People who viewed this ended up buying…
Customers who purchased this item also bought…
Customer discussion forums

Amazon truly understands how to keep you on their site and how to keep you coming back for more. It costs you 5-7 times more to find a new customer than to retain an existing customer. This means that every dollar spent on marketing to your current client base will return 500 percent more profit than marketing to strangers.

Your customer list (and the knowledge contained within) is pure gold. One of the things that separate a loyalty-focused company from the pack is their ability to know and leverage customer information. I recently met with Executive Jet Management (EJM), a private jet charter company based in Cincinnati. For their VIP clients, EJM customizes each charter flight to the client’s preferences. They know if you prefer Diet Coke to Pepsi. They know if you like cashews over pretzels. If you’re an executive and your time is money, they know you’ll need Internet access while in air. While most private charters are experiencing slowing demand and higher operating expenses, EJM is doing pretty well.

We all love to feel appreciated, yet few companies do a good job of it. Trust and loyalty come from consistently positive experiences over time. It’s easy to fall into a rut when you see the same people come into your business every month. We’ve all been on the receiving end of poor customer service, long waits and unfulfilled promises from companies. We rarely complain, but we have lowered our expectations. Don’t be happy with “satisfied” customers. These are the ones that will happily go somewhere else when a better competitor comes along.

The best way to grow your business in a tough economy is by focusing on customer retention strategies. Start by taking better care of the people you’re already doing business with. Start by turning them into raving fans and they’ll take care of you.

Get More Clients In 90 Days

Published on January 14, 2009 in management, marketing and strategy. 0 Comments Tags: marketing bootcamp.

I wanted to make sure that you didn’t miss my Marketing Bootcamp announcement late last week. Today is the last day to get my 5 Day Early Bird price. The fee will go up at MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.

The Marketing Bootcamp is an 90 day (six session) client attraction program for independent professionals and business owners who want to radically improve their ability to attract new business—without wasting a lot of time, energy or money in the process.

Think about the following:

What’s the average yearly and lifetime value of ONE new client?
How much does it currently cost you to find and service each client?
How long does it take you to “close” a new client?
Why are some in your industry consistently more successful than you—when you know you are just as good, if not better?
Are you overly reliant on referrals for business?

If you’re ready to attract more clients and be more successful, yet don’t know where to start, the Marketing Bootcamp is purposefully built to set you on the path to success. I will help you implement the “greatest hits” marketing techniques that my clients have used to build their businesses.

So if you want more business, what will you do to make it happen?

P.S. I will not let price be an issue or excuse for you not enrolling in this workshop. UNTIL MIDNIGHT TONIGHT, I’m offering the Marketing Bootcamp at a price my mentors have said was crazy! But I’m doing it to help as many people as possible kick 2009 off with a bang. Check out the special price and enrollment options at www.nick-rice.com/bootcamp. Act now before the fee goes up!

P.P.S. Don’t forget that the Marketing Bootcamp is covered by my 100% Money Back Guarantee. If you don’t get at least one new client as a result of this program, I’ll give you your money back. With no risk, what do you have to lose?

If this program isn’t for you, please forward this email to your friends and colleagues that need to win more business in 2009. It’s a tough economy out there, and they’ll thank you for it.

Do this and your business will thrive…

Published on January 8, 2009 in Client Magnet Archives, marketing and strategy. 0 Comments Tags: clients, marketing bootcamp, profits, sales, seminar, workshop.

Einstein said that the definition of insanity was doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. So here’s my question for you…

What are you going to do differently in 2009?

I know that you are tired of guessing at how marketing works. I know it can be frustrating. I know that money is tight. I know that 98% of you need more business this year than you had in 2008–and I know you need it NOW.

And that’s exactly why I developed the Marketing Bootcamp.

The Marketing Bootcamp is an 90 day client attraction program for independent professionals and business owners that want to radically improve their ability to attract new business—without wasting a lot of time, energy or money in the process.

Take a minute to think about the following:

What’s the average yearly and lifetime value of ONE new client?
How much does it currently cost you to find and service each client?
How long does it take you to “close” a new client?
Why are some in your industry consistently more successful than you—when you know you are just as good, if not better?
Are you overly reliant on referrals for business?
How much time, energy and money have you invested in your own success?

Here are the direct benefits you’ll see as a result of participating in Marketing Bootcamp:

No More Guessing. This program will walk you though the proven steps you need to do to get more clients in your business.
Learn From The Guru. This Bootcamp is based on my 14+ years of experience advising companies like Adobe, The Salvation Army, Lexmark, Macromedia—not to mention all of the small businesses that I’ve helped. This is about the activities that I have used to build my business—and I had to learn them the hard way through trial and error.
Radical Improvement In 90 Days. There are no random tactics here. And this isn’t a soft & fuzzy coaching program. This is direct instruction on what works and how to do it.
“Feet To The Fire” Accountability. It can be lonely at the top of your organization or alone as an Independent Professional. I will personally hold your feet to the fire so that you will own the results for taking your business to new heights.

AND HERE’S THE BEST PART: The Marketing Bootcamp is backed by my 100% Money Back Guarantee. If you do not get at least one new client as a result of this program within 90 days of completion, I’ll give ALL of your money back—no questions asked. I simply ask that you participate fully and prove that you’ve implemented the steps.

Clients are out there. And they need your services. The Marketing Bootcamp is affordable, packed with valuable insider tips & tricks and will to show you the step-by-step quickest path to a full book of clients.

So, back to my question; what are you going to do to make 2009 your best year yet?

P.S. I will not let price be an issue or excuse for you not enrolling in this workshop. For the next FIVE BUSINESS DAYS, I’m offering the Marketing Bootcamp at a price my mentors have said was crazy! But I’m doing it to help as many people as possible kick 2009 off with a bang. Check out the special price and enrollment options at www.nick-rice.com/bootcamp. Act now because I’m raising the fee at midnight on January 14, 2009!

When I grow up, I want to be Tom Fishburne

Published on January 7, 2009 in advertising, design and strategy. 1 Comment Tags: brand camp, tom fishburne.

Once again, Tom pegs what I’m thinking and where I’m at.

Blending into the herd has never really been my style. And this is my year to spread the message far and wide.

Here’s his way to kick off the New Year…

Thanks Tom.

Golden Nugget or Lead Balloon

Published on November 4, 2008 in Client Magnet Archives, business, marketing and strategy. 2 Comments

Golden Nuggets

One of the biggest mistakes I see consultative professionals make is to offer a solution during an initial conversation with a prospective client. You may not be aware of the damage you’re doing to your ability to be hired when you offer these “golden nuggets” of advice.

Let me explain. By a consultative professional I mean someone who offers customized advice, direction and solutions to a specific problem. Here are a few examples of consultative professionals: designer, physician, architect, engineer, business coach, consultant, ad agency, chiropractor, attorney, financial adviser, accountant, etc…

They people are very knowledgeable about their given trade. They typically have years of education and experience and often a few initials behind their name. They don’t just sell “what’s in their briefcase,” they uncover problems and issues for their clients and prescribe customized solutions to those problems. And they are very comfortable talking about their solutions. Herein lies the problem.

When asked to offer advice, a consultative professional often jumps right to their solution. They mentally cull through years of experience and similar situations and offer an amazing nugget of insight. Most of the time, their advice is spot on. But often that amazing advice is never acted upon by the recipient.

One of two things usually happens; if the other party acts upon your advice they are typically missing a few key ingredients to make the solution a success on their own because they do not possess your wealth of experience and knowledge. If they DO succeed, they often wonder why people would pay you if the solution was so simple that it came out of a 20 minute conversation.

But most of the time, they will not take action on your advice. And when you check on their progress the next time you meet, there’s often an awkward moment where they feel like they have to explain why they sat on your golden nugget of wisdom. Here’s why; you never took the time to fully understand the problem behind their request for advice. Solutions, unto themselves, are devoid of value without a problem to fix.

I talk to consultative professionals every week that feel like they give away golden nuggets of information only see them turn into lead balloons, because the prospective client’s problem was never truly analyzed.

As a consultative professional, it feels good to offer advice. It’s comfortable. It feels valuable. In fact, it’s what we do best. But advice not tethered to a problem often causes more harm than good.

Offering solutions is an easy trap to fall into. In fact, almost everything a client asks of us begs for a solution. “Help us do…; We need a…; We want a better…” Most professionals respond to these questions by offering a solution. And we wouldn’t just offer any solution; we offer a golden nugget because we perceive this as our chance to shine.

Most clients would like to believe that there is a magic bullet solution to their problem; but in reality it’s often much more complicated than that. It’s easy to jump right in with a solution (even one that would work); but you must dig to uncover the real issues behind the request. If you let the client get away with the original question, it puts all the pressure on you to come up with the magic bullet. As a consultative professional, you must get the client to fully describe the issue and its implications on their business.

Here are a few questions that I use to uncover & quantify the real issue:

How do you know this a problem?
Why hasn’t this issue been addressed yet?
How much is this challenge currently costing you in both hard dollars & soft dollars?
What kind of results would occur after fixing this problem?
Why is the future state better for you? What’s it worth to you?

It’s been proven that people (and organizations) move away from pain faster than they move towards a gain. Forget about your experience and solutions for a minute and take the time to fully understand the pain caused by the issue; or at least what type of gain they are expecting to see by engaging you.

If you continue immediately offer a solution,you’ll continue to see your golden nuggets sink like lead balloons. In these initial conversations, you will garner more respect by uncovering the pain behind the request before offering a solution. I know it’s difficult to put your knowledge and experience on the back burner for a little while, but if you’re able to do so, you will move into bigger projects and bigger fees; and you’ll be able to make a bigger impact–which is ultimately what we all want.

Keep digging to find gold

Published on September 9, 2008 in management and strategy. 0 Comments

Every day I get an email from the Institute for Management Consultants (IMC) and I must say, they worth reading–everyday. Today’s email focused on keeping people on track without letting them ramble down a tangent during the conversation.

They suggest using a technique called the “5 Why’s.”

Here’s an excerpt from their email that I felt needed to be passed along:

One tactic that comes to mind is to introduce a process in your discussions to keep focus in a solution space. This is known as the “five whys.” When you start with a solution to an identified problem, accept the first solution and then ask a series of “why” questions.

For example, someone suggests they should sell more products in the marine market (which is one of your strongest markets). Why? Because the marine market is underserved. Why? Because the market is growing and no new suppliers are entering. Why? Because the margins are poor for this highest growth segment of the market. Why? Because the new segment cares about price more than quality, which is your company’s strength. Why? Because these new customers are young consumers early in their earning careers.

What started out as a “good idea” to expand into a market area your company is already in, then swerved into a potentially bad idea (poor margins), then back into a good idea (future potential) but for different reasons. Before you asked the “whys” you might have entered the market quickly, but now you know to pace yourself and cultivate this customer base as their spending abilities grow.

Tip: It may take more or less than five “whys” to get to the bottom of an issue, but you will get your client into the habit of becoming very precise with their suggestions.

Copyright (c) 2008, Institute for Management Consultants

We need people to halt, cease, anything but stop…

Published on July 27, 2008 in advertising, branding and strategy. 0 Comments

Saw this great video below on a Facebook post by my friend, Jason Parmer, owner of design firm, Apparel Studios.

If this video wasn’t so spot on, it’d be funnier. Unfortunately, since I’ve lived on the client side of the fence more than the agency side, I’ve been part of meetings just like these. The group think that comes from everyone trying to cover their own a$$ and make it look like the winning idea was their own kills simple effective marketing.

It will never cease to amaze me that organizations bring in the “expert” outside marketing firm only to second guess and outright direct the final product. If they were capable of producing the deliverable on their own, why go outside in the first place? You don’t tell an architect how to design a stable, functional and attractive structure; you don’t tell the oncologist how to treat cancer; you don’t tell the attorney how to best win your case. Yet everyone thinks they are a designer; everyone thinks they are a world class copy writer.

Now, I cannot put all the blame on the client. A large percentage of the design profession suffers from self esteem issues and cannot seem to stand up for what’s right. They quickly forget that their ability to solve problems is valuable. Too many designers cut their own throat just to get an assignment only to cuss the client all the way through the process–while crossing their fingers for a referral. They’ve never taken the time to understand what makes business work and therefore have a hard time truly communicating with their own client. They complain that “good design is not magic;” then fail to ask enough–or the right–questions to get the answers required to create an exact solution.

Clients respect marketing firms that can prove their point. And designers need enough balls to stand up to the client and say, “This is wrong for these reasons…,”and be willing to walk away if the client won’t listen. Let another schmuck handle it. Go out, proactively market yourself and find clients that value what you bring to the table.

Enough ranting. On with the show… “What if there were no Stop Signs and a Major Corporation was tasked with inventing one.”

I’m loving the Volume Fairy

Published on July 16, 2008 in management, marketing and strategy. 0 Comments

Tom Fishburne is a genius. His cartoons are always spot on.

I see this all too often with clients that are overly dependent on referrals & word of mouth. I’m beginning to believe that the old business adage, “feast or famine,” is simply a signal that the business is poor at marketing their services/product. I know there are seasonal/circular patterns to some businesses, but good marketing helps to offset these normal variances. And marketing done properly (ie. planned, tied to measurements, evaluated, tweaked and relaunched) can become a system to generate predictable results.

For instance, I know that everytime I publish a blog article on Fast Company I’ll get a spike in web traffic. Google Analytics shows me that ~10% of those people sign up for my email newsletter, Client Magnet. Once they are on my newsletter, it typically takes six to eight months for them to call/email me about working together. Publishing articles has become a system for me.

If you’re still counting on the volume fairy, you need to know that generating consistent sales isn’t rocket science. Consistent sales comes from consistent proactive marketing. Pure and simple. You cannot leave it solely up to your word of mouth stream which is too unpredictable from month to month. You may be great at what you (and probably are), but you need to become a better marketer to grow your business.