Humor is a great way to ensure your customers remember your products and brand. You don't have to only use serious advertisements to get your point across.
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A great example of what happens when you focus on gimmicks instead of focusing on the customer! The good news is at least the sales person had the guts to ask for the business. Lessons in business and marketing come from all kinds of places and sources. A recent goldmine I discovered came in the form of a TV show, The Shark Tank. Although The Shark Tank is considered a Reality Show it shouldn’t and in my opinion doesn’t have the same negative connotation that so many of the Reality shows have. The reason is what is real in this REALity show is the many business lessons that come out of each and every episode. What I realized after watching just a couple of episodes is the magic of the show is the “light bulbs” that each business owner receives from feedback they receive from the Shark panel. For those who haven’t seen it, the premise of the show is that each participant (business owner) gets a chance to pitch their product or company to the panel of Sharks which consist of 5 very successful business experts in a variety of industries. Their goal is to take their business to the next level by selling their product/company to one or more of these sharks for money and more importantly additional resources including their expertise and the business relationships/partnerships these experts’ posses. Along the way here are some business lessons that can be learned.
The good lessons: 1. The passion or drive these owners have for their product or company. You can’t expect your customers to have passion for what you are selling if you first don’t have it yourself. It is no coincidence that many of the most successful business owners posses the most passion. 2 Where their business idea originated. It is amazing how many business owners have capitalized by turning their own personal experience into a product or business. 3. New Ideas. Contrary to the popular saying, there are new ideas under the sun. It is amazing to see the ideas that people continue to come up with and how it can change or enhance our everyday lives. 4. A dream realized. How motivating it is to see someone who has crawled, scratched and clawed their way into making a dream a reality. The bad lessons: 1. Not being willing or open to constructive criticism. These business owners are coming to these experts because they need help to get to the next level but sadly many of them are not willing to take what the experts tell them to heart and admit they have either made mistakes or are not on the right path. Are you open to feedback even if it’s something you don’t want to hear or admit? 2. Spending more time talking than listening. Sometimes you just need to shut up and listen to those who are trying to help you. 3. Being inflexible or not willing to step outside the box. These business owners have reached a certain level of success but are often not willing to change to get to the next level. 4. Not diversifying. Having a single idea and being unwilling to diversify how it came be used or promoted. It’s hard to imagine what the business landscape would look like these days without the ability to utilize email. It can be a very useful tool while at the same time leave you completely frustrated when you don’t get a response. The reality is that most inbox’s are being inundated on a daily basis, making your chances of getting through the “email barrier” to a new contact or customer, a delicate dance. This dance is constantly changing so you need to be creative if you want to keep your emails from going directly into the trash.
To truly understand how to bust through the email barrier it is helpful to first understand what a recipient is thinking when he or she receives a new email. The four main questions are: 1. Do I have to respond right now? 2. Can I delete it? 3. Do I need to hold onto it? 4. What am I being asked to do? The goal then is to get the recipient to take action on your email now, not later. We all know how easy it is to hit the delete button or throw it into a folder, which often ends up in the same fatal destination. The next question becomes then how can we compose our emails to get the recipient to act right away? Here are a few suggestions you might try: 1. Compose an email that feels like a quick read. Avoid composing an email that would rival a War and Peace novel. 2. Draw the recipient in with compelling info (The goal of the subject line is to try to hook them) 3. Make the email easy to act on 4. Keep the email less than 200 words 5. Vary the paragraph lengths 6. Use a compelling first sentence 7. Make sure the email is not about you 8. Get conversational (instead of merely focused on the proper grammar) 9. Use a triggering event to catch the recipient’s attention The use of email is a communication cornerstone in today’s business world but if you hope to break through the email barrier, you must avoid sending mundane or monotonous emails. Take one or more of the suggestions mentioned above and see if you can bust through. Happy composing! It is no secret that mobile shopping is the newest ecommerce trend. According to a recent stat by Forrester Research, 16% of consumers purchased via their mobile device over last year’s Thanksgiving Weekend. What you may not know is how companies are capitalizing on this latest trend. It wasn’t very long ago that most people would never think of shopping, doing their taxes, etc with their mobile device. The sheer amount of information now available at your fingertips or should I say on your smart phone is truly amazing. Now there are mobile companies out there that can not only tell you where to get the lowest price but when you should make the purchase! Yes, you heard that right. Don’t ask me how this technology works but let’s just say there are companies out there that have built some incredible algorithms.
Decide (decide.com) is one of those companies that are taking Mobile shopping to the next level. Their company mission is to be a service dedicated to helping consumers buy electronics with no regrets. Their mission sounds simple but the technology behind it is anything but. The free app that is available for both the iPhone and Android phones helps you decide when to buy. Decide advises you to buy or wait depending on their proprietary price and model predictions. They state that their predictions are right 77% of the time. Here is how it operates on your smart phone: when you are in a store, you would scan the UPC barcode on the product and the Decide App will then give you a green “thumbs up” saying you should buy or it will give you a red “hand” telling you to wait and purchase later. They also have the ability to send you alerts on future product purchases so you can be alerted about price changes, product releases or even rumors! In this economy more than ever consumers are looking for ways of saving money and this is just one potential ways companies are helping consumers do just that. Go here to download their free app: http://www.decide.com/mobile A few minutes a day is all it will take. Yet most of us will use the excuse that we just don’t have any more time to cram into our daily schedules or we have other pressing issues that need our “immediate” attention. The problem is that we have made every issue a pressing issue and of the utmost important that as a result, we spend too much time working in our business instead of on our business. The downside to the instant flow of information in the business world we now live and work in have giving us the perception that the busier we are the more effective and successful our business will become.
When is the last time you silenced your phone, closed your email, sat with a pen and paper (or Word doc if you so choose) and really thought about your business. What is going well and what needs improvement? Where do you want your business to be in the next 3-5 years? It can be a daunting task to say the least if you are trying to cram all of your thinking and planning into one brainstorming session. Instead, why not try the following exercise: Take 10 uninterrupted minutes (no email, phone) every day to focus on your present and future business by doing one or more of the following exercises: 1. Analyze your web site to see if there are any areas that can be altered to be more attractive to both your potential customers and search engines. 2. Focus on your social media presence by sending out one quality Tweet, Facebook post or YouTube video each and every day. The goal is to use the social media platform to expand your brand. 3. Research your competitors to find out how they are attracting and keeping their customers. What is their go to market strategy? 4. Spend the time reading an industry specific article or book to gain further insight on your industry. Even if you are not the industry leader, the goal is to be a resource for your customers to turn to. 5. Focus on personal development by reading an article or book on leadership, sales or marketing. The reality is there will always be more work that needs to be done, issues that come up and the pressure to squeeze more activities into the work day. We often fool ourselves by letting every issue, task, and deadline blow up and become a “hair on fire” crisis. We need to always remember, our goal each and every day is to work on our business and not just in our business. |
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