As the U.S. economy continues to remain soft, many companies have turned their focus on expanding globally. This is primarily due to the fact that off shore business is an untapped market for many companies.  According to Forester Research, 25% of U.S. web traffic comes from international shoppers, but the actual orders from these shoppers are only 4% of total U.S. web sales. Global expansion can often be a complex and challenging project for companies, which is why they focus on solidifying their domestic business first before they look to expand overseas.   Here are four key areas to think about as you focus on expanding globally and improving the off shore shopping experience for your customers:

Fully-landed cost for shoppers- This allows the off shore shopper to see the “total” cost—including retail price of the product, customs duties, local taxes and transportation charges—prior to submitting the order. It ensures a better customer experience and increases customer loyalty.

Purchasing in the consumers’ own currency- This also ensures a better customer experience as the company instead of the end consumer assumes the risk of currency exchange and the fraud risk.

Export and Import Regulatory Compliance- One of the complexities of Global business is dealing with Customs Compliance and all the rules and regulations that exist. The regulations change depending on what country you are exporting to as well as the type of products you are exporting. Companies normally outsource compliance to a 3rd party company or slowly build their own compliance department.

Global Returns Management- Something to think about is how you will handle return as it can be very costly when you return products back into the U.S? Again, there are some rules and regulations enforced by customs depending on the country and product being returned.

If you've been on this planet for any length of time, you’ve had ample opportunity I'm sure to say the words, I’m sorry.  In the business world, when is the last time you heard a CEO use those very same words? It can be difficult for executive to let down the curtain and show vulnerability but it’s often even hard to admit their decision or product missed the mark or that it just wasn’t the right time.  Listed below is an apology letter crafted by the Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix regarding their recent announcement to raise their subscription rates.  Now many cynical people will smirk and say the timing of this is just to protect their shareholder value or try to win back the customers they lost.  Regardless of the motivation, I don’t believe you can ever go wrong admitting your mistakes, especially to your customer base. In business, it’s not always about which company never makes mistakes but rather how the company responds to the mistakes that truly counts. 

Dear Dennis,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

p.s. I have a slightly longer explanation along with a video posted on our blog, where you can also post comments.

I received this little bag of goodness from one of my customers who knows what I am passionate about. Do you know what YOUR customers are passionate about? When is the last time you surpised THEM with a token of appreciation?

It may be surprising to those who still think Social Media is all fun and games but Social Media is revolutionizing both the business world and the world in general.  Naysayers continually look at Social Media as a fad and only for the younger generation but they are ignoring its ability to make the world smaller by connecting with other people, companies, and brands.   If you need further proof, look no further than the following great story about how a company connected with its customer in an extraordinary way:

http://shankman.com/the-best-customer-service-story-ever-told-starring-mortons-steakhouse/

There are many other great stories that are being told on a daily basis on how companies are using Social Media to connect with their current and future customer base and also to help drive top line revenues.  However, as mentioned earlier Social Media is also changing the world as we know it.  There are many stories about how people have reconnected with long lost friends and family they have never met. In other words it makes this world we live in a much smaller place. Just recently a story made national news of a young man that went missing in Asia while on a trip with a group of people.  His family and friends used Facebook and Twitter as a way to communicate with anyone who might have seen or heard from him.  This is just one of a growing number of stories of how Social Media has revolutionized our current culture.

The question then is how are you harnessing the power of Social Media in your business?

We’re all looking for the competitive edge. That little nugget of information that could help you secure an appointment with the decision maker or possibly even win the prospects trust, and then their business.  The issue is not the lack of information available today; in fact the opposite is true. There is so much available at our fingertips at an instant that it can sometimes be overwhelming and can make it difficult to swim through the sea of web sites, newsletters, books and magazines.  At the same time our daily to-do lists and schedules have only increased which makes it difficult to squeeze in this additional task which we know is vitally important to our success, but often gets placed on the back burner due to other pressing needs.

Here are some web sites I have found to be very valuable in gaining the business intelligence or competitive edge that we are all looking for:

http://www.zibb.com/   The Global business search engine- you can search by industry or specific company and includes the latest business to business news.

http://seekingalpha.com/  Although this is an investor site, it allows you to read companies earnings transcripts which often contain very valuable information as to their corporate objectives and new initiatives.

http://multichannelmerchant.com/  Provides targeted compelling content for multichannel merchants. Provides valuable information on latest happening is the catalog, ecommerce, BTB, Retail and Social Media channels.

http://socialmention.com/  A great search engine for social media content.  Give you the ability to find out if the person or company you are interested in is active in the social media environment.

http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en  You can set up emails alerts where you will receive emails anytime the company or person you are following is mentioned in the media or has a press release.

http://www.linkedin.com  This is much more than just a business connecting site.  This site gives you the ability to follow a company which will give you company updates as well as tell you when there are changes with personnel.  Linkedin is also a very valuable tool in obtaining information about the person you are trying to get a meeting with. It will not only tell who they are connected to but where they use to work which can be just the edge you are looking for.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list but hopefully you will find one or more of these useful in gaining the competitive edge you are looking for.

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.  The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have; the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. A company like Apple and even people like the Wright Brothers and Martin Luther King are great examples of this. Check out this great video that challenges you to ask yourself “What’s your why?”

As a parent it seems I am constantly saying to my kids something to the extent that “it’s not the words that you are using but rather how you are saying them that’s wrong.”  It would be wrong to assume this only pertains to personal relationships with family and friends.  Unfortunately, the business world is not immune to this issue. We often mistakenly believe that it is our words that really influence others, whether positively or negatively.  In the business world so much time is spent focusing on making sure we use the right words to our customers, employees or co-workers that we end up focusing on only 7% of our total influence.  Think about how much time the average person puts into crafting the right speech or sales pitch. This 7% is part of what is known as “The 7%-38% -55% Rule of Influence.”  In other words the influence we have on others can be broken in the following manner:
·  7% of our influence comes from the words we share
·  38% from our tonal quality while saying it
·  55% by what our body is doing while were saying it
As you can see we are missing the mark by spending so much time and energy crafting what we want to say which only makes up a small amount of the overall influence we have on others.  By focusing on the 7% or the words we say, we are truly missing out on the opportunity to really influence others. 

Influence is about getting others to either do something we want them to do or not do something they want to do. Obviously, influence plays a large role in the sales arena and is quite visible in the normal interaction between a seller and a buyer. However, it’s not something that should only be left up to those who interact with customers on a regular basis.  It is also evident in daily interactions that managers have with their employees and in interactions that employees have with one another.   By looking further at “The 7%-38%-55% Rule of Influence” we also see that perception is a large part of influence.  How do others perceive you?  You may be surprised not only with how the tone of what you say is perceived but the perception that your body language gives off.    It is very naïve to think that others can’t tell from our actions and mannerisms how we really feel. Your words might be saying one thing but your tone and body language might be very well telling a very different story.

The next time you are in the position to influence someone, try focusing on the 93% and you might be surprised at the difference in how you are perceived!

For those of you who wondered whether you clicked on the right web site or if I have lost my mind; no, this is not a post on cooking.  Rather, this is part of a marketing theory that author Francis Cole Jones refers to as “The Duncan Hines Cake Mike Marketing Theory.”  You see when Duncan Hines was first putting their café mix together, the decision was made by their marketing department to have the egg put in at home by the customer, rather than putting a powdered egg in the box.  At first glance, you might think this decision had more to do with how the cake might taste or for convenience sake but if you take a closer look, you will see the true reason they made this decision.  Duncan Hines realized that by having the customer put the egg in at home, their customers are taking ownership of making a cake by simply being able to say they baked the cake.  This lead their customers to truly connect to their cake mix instead of simply saying they bought the mix. Having your customers take ownership of your product or service makes them feel better about your idea or solution.  

You can bet that if your product or service makes your customers feel better, they will buy from you rather than your competition more often.  Having customer connect to your brand is an important marketing strategy but having your customers feel better about your products is the true icing on the cake. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the cake reference)  The next time you are marketing a new product or working on how you can better position your products or services in the market ask yourself this, “what’s their egg?”

When is the last time you told your customers?