& Random Writings…

You’re trying to decide: Homey, friendly image, vs. polished, more established image. You’re still the same people. The polished image does not have to mean you forget to be friendly. It could very well mean a lot fewer hassles, though. Homey = pushovers in a lot of people’s minds.

…

What if the people you like to think are your clients, don’t want you at all?

…

What if you use such crazy terms that they don’t even know you at all?

…

When working on your website, pretend the yellow pages are still relevant. Try to be that simple and easy to find.

…

How do you reward your best customers?

…

Being a big fish in a small pond may still be your very best bet. Now the pond can be geographic, or it can be by your field, or by characteristics of your Ideal Customer, or any of a dozen other ways to define your small pond. Build critical mass there, then you can break out—with the help of the devotees you met in the small pond.

…

The number-crunchers in the advertising world would croak if they saw the conversion rates (to paying customers) on the boatloads of free stuff on the ‘net that’s supposed to entice us all to buy the big upsell. Don’t know if that’s good or bad.

…

“Are we really so shallow?” says a client to me.

“Yes.”

“And is that okay?”

“It is what it is.”

…

Word of mouth is counting for less and less these days—except for real-life, person-to-person recommendations. Online, it seems like everyone’s got see-through motivations, so we’ve almost stopped listening.

…

In that real life—what’s the value of your network, and the network of your customers? Some aren’t worth very much. Number of contacts isn’t as relevant as whether those contacts would ever dicuss you with each other. (Imagine you’re an STD-specialist-doctor. How many people go around raving about the guy who cured them of their… oh, you get the point. You could have a pretty big network of former patients worth next to nothing.)

…

Metrics—really measuring success and failure rates—scares the dickens out of many of my clients. But how can we raise the bar if we haven’t measured where the bar is?

A peek inside my work this week. Please add your random thoughts on making the most of Customer Experience in the comments below!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Tweet This!

Staying Above the Fray, Part 3

Your one-and-only

It’s not you, it’s…

Well, yeah, it’s you.

I’ve been too nice for too long, because I was afraid of hurting your feelings. I like you, but…

You’re not my Ideal Customer.

If you want to stand alone as the Ideal Solution to Somebody, the big secret is that there’s a whole lot of nobodies you’re going to have to reject. A little overt exclusion is in order, so you can start talking directly to those people you want to feel included. It’s going to feel strange at first. You’re resisting the idea right now. I hear you on that.

We don’t want to dump our customers. Even the lousy ones. Even the ones who’ll waste all our time and hardly buy anything. Even the ones who are so disloyal they’re looking out our storefront window to see if the guy across the street’s having a sale. After all, a buck’s a buck, right?

You know I’m going to say wrong. Say it with me…

Wrong.

A dollar from a lousy customer is just that. A buck. May never see another from them, and they certainly have no need to tell anyone else to give you one. It might not even feel like a buck, if the hours and angst you have to put into making and keeping the sale eat all your profits—your time and stress are money!

So how does your Ideal Customer help you stay above the fray?

Your Ideal Customer knows you’re unique. Because you don’t have “everything for anybody,” you can talk straight to her, in her language, about what you do have, and she’ll be back just as soon as she can find an excuse. When she met you she was merely curious, but you’ve drawn her in. Now she’ll rave about you to her friends because she understands you clearly and knows exactly who else you can help. Heck, she feels a part of your success. She likes you, so obviously she wants you to succeed—your success is almost affirming to her ego!

Your incredibly focused innovations amaze your Ideal Customer. He needs this… this thing… and there you are. Danged if you don’t have the very thing he needs. How’d you do that? He doesn’t care how, because his problem is solved, and you did it. He can hardly wait to be the hero, solving other people’s problems by sending them to you to get their thing.

With your Ideal Customer, a buck is not a buck. It’s two, or three, or twenty, in repeat and referral business. Keep talking to them, and only them. Dump the rest, and regain your focus.

Sorry, we don’t seem to have that much in common. I tried, I really did. I just think you’d be happier someplace else.

And, well… I’ve found somebody who “gets” me. Someone whose needs I love fulfilling. It’s energizing, and it’s making me more money. It’s what being in business is supposed to be.

Good luck finding somebody cheaper, needier, more patient, and whatever else you want.

I’ve gotta go now.

Staying above the fray requires Vision, planning, and guts. The guts to focus on the Ideal Customer when it’s so tempting to be pulled in other directions. The guts to refer work elsewhere that’s wrong for you, or say no to brand “extensions” that muddy the waters. The guts to let the competition sway and bend, maybe picking up stray business that looks tempting, knowing that all that bending ultimately leads to a breakdown of Purpose that confuses customers and can take years to recover from.

One telltale sign that you’re doing it right may be that you’re ticking someone off. There are as many people who are appalled at Abercrombie & Fitch as are attracted to them for their advertising; as many folks who want to punch someone at Apple as who want to stand in line for their next gadget; as many folks who run screaming from the golf game when a Viagra commercial comes on, as who quietly dial up their doctor the morning after the U.S. Open.

Can you name a company that’s doing fine, even though they’re not that into you?

Never mind the competition, here comes Maximum Customer Experience! If you’re ready to ditch the time-wasters, the bargain-hunters, and the stress-creators who’re never going to be your loyal fans, how can you key in to serving only your Ideal Customer?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

P.S. If you enjoyed the Above the Fray series, I hope you’ll subscribe by email or by RSS to receive more free tips on creating Maximum Customer Experience, marketing, and growing your small business, and link to today’s post, Stumble it, or otherwise bookmark using the “Share” button below. Thanks, as always!

Tweet This!

Don’t compete on price.

Don’t compete on price. You can’t.

What did you say?

Don’t compete on price.

What?

Don’t compete on…

Don’t compete on price.

Maybe, big businesses shouldn’t. But small businesses can’t.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Tweet This!

What Do You Do for a Living?

I’m a dentist

I own a bakery

I manage the parts department

I run a daycare

I’m a writer

I design yachts

It’s not much, is it? And I don’t care. I know plenty of others, just like you.

Should you think Broader…

I give you the confidence to LOL in RL

I make your wedding reception the talk of the town

We get your car running fast

We draw smiles on kids’ faces all day (and yours!)

I transport you to other worlds

I create drool-worthy summer vacations

Or Narrower…

I specialize in adult patients with dentist-phobia

We’ve done traditional cakes for the Polish community for over fifty years

We carry the hard-to-find part you need for your classic import muscle car

We’re the only daycare in town with specially-staffed newborn rooms

I write custom songs for proposing to your special someone

I design affordable yachts from recycled materials so you can live your dreams without mortgaging your future

Either way: One in a million, not one of a million.

Paint a picture of the big dreams that you’ll fulfill, or grab the customer who’s been wishing for someone to speak right to their very special needs. There are very successful businesses who define their Vision in each way, but very few who succeed wildly without choosing one path or the other. “I’m a dentist” just doesn’t create the raving fans you need to grow your business.

Let me ask you this—When you hear about a new business (or hear a new message from an old business), which method one grabs you? Why?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Tweet This!

And He Doesn’t Even Call It “Networking”

Charlie owns a restaurant.

Charlie’s new restaurant opened two months ago, in the office complex where a friend works north of Wilmington, Delaware. I’d previously declared the site bad restaurant magic, because in two years my friend has watched three cafés tank there. If you’ve ever worked in the restaurant business, you may know that belief in restaurant voodoo is strong—many professionals won’t move in to a location that’s had more than one or two failures in it. It’s not voodoo, of course, it’s a combination of location, which may be bad to begin with, and the lasting image in potential customers’ minds of the horrors of past restaurants that were located there.

That’s a discussion for another day.

I first heard about Charlie on his opening day, when he came by personally to introduce himself to my friend, and hand out a menu from his new place just hours before he was scheduled to open. A restaurateur who is so confident that he can walk away for an hour on opening day is my kind of guy. The story stuck with me.

I’d nearly forgotten about Charlie when he came by my friend’s office with a fresh menu, to say hello and let them know it was his one-month anniversary. Naturally, friend reported this event to me, because he saw there was a story in it. Now they look forward to chatting with Charlie.

Has Charlie been reading the Maximum Customer Experience Blog? 

How Charlie gets customers jazzed

1. He visits frequently enough but not too often: Right about when they might have forgotten him otherwise

2. He comes by with a relevant, positive, non-pushy message: “Brought you a new menu, just a reminder that it’s our one-month anniversary”

3. He comes at the perfect time to capture hungry office workers: After they’ve settled in, but well before lunch so they have time to think about trying out Charlie’s (since he’s such a nice guy and all)

What’s the ROI of all this great effort?

Have you eaten at Charlie’s? I ask. Um, no, he says sheepishly. I try to go home for lunch most of the time.

But…

Yes?

Nearly everyone I work with, and almost every person I’ve told about meeting Charlie (and I’ve told quite a few), has. I’ve heard back from them. Trust me, the word-of-mouth has been way better than if I’d wandered over for a turkey sandwich myself, he tells me.

So Charlie—I’m pulling for you, man. You’re doing a lot of things right. And the funny thing is, now that I’m writing about it, I can feel good magic working on me. I’m gonna have to drag my friend out of his home-for-lunch routine and we’ll both go try it out.

We can learn a lot from Charlie.

Does reaching out like Charlie sound like a lot of work, or a way to be friendly and see beyond your own front door? How could you benefit from extending your reach so naturally?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Tweet This!

Should You Be in the Business of Changing Minds?

Is it worth trying to capture a market that’s already having their needs met adequately?

Just adequate? Maybe not such a huge hurdle to overcome.

What’s the difference between adequately served and content?

Between not looking, and loyal?

Could be hard to spot.

I’d rather look for

underserved
discontent
searching
waiting to bail

Or unserved. And have the field to myself.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Tweet This!

A Simple Lesson From One of the Big Boys

What’d you get?”

“What’d you get?”

“What’d you get?”

Everyone who walked by and peeked under my desk asked it.

Asked with a smile, wanting to share my joy.

Because they saw a box, and assumed there was a bit of joy inside it.

Can your logo do that to folks who aren’t current customers?

No, neither does mine, yet. (Maybe it works on you, just a bit!) We’re working on it.

It’s the holy grail of logo design—memorable, positive, and uniquely theirs—and witnessing its power today, I’m in awe of Amazon all over again.

What logos instantly get a smile and a positive memory out of you? Is your own company’s logo on the list?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Tweet This!

Bugs, Hiccoughs, Flaws, and Foibles

At least 25% of my day today was spent dealing with things that don’t work. From buggy computer programs to inane telephone service to flawed websites, this day was filled with This Is Broken signs. I can’t begin to tell you all the truly bad Customer Experience I had to deal with today. It was painful.

At some point I started musing on this trauma. What I wouldn’t give to have someone deal with this for me….

Well, come to think of it, there probably are several ways I could pay someone to deal with this stuff for me, including handing piddly work off to someone else, or if it’s a constant issue, adding staff or outsourcing. There may even be small businesses hoping to catch some of the “don’t you wish your life were easier” crowd.

Would I pay money to have these problems whisked away?

No, probably not. Why not?

I think I’m awesome enough to handle these situations

I don’t see how many problems there will be at the start

By the time the scope of today’s issues is obvious, I feel I’ve invested too much of my time to let go of control

Though my time is worth a good amount of money, I find it easier and quicker to part with the time than to explain to someone else how to solve my problems

I see today’s issues as temporary and attached to today (when in reality I may spend 5% or more of my time every single week dealing with similar problems I could have someone else fix)

I’m cheap (in terms of business expenses)

So some problems, I solve by messing around until I find the solution. Some, I solve by searching the Internet for answers. Some, I solve by politely, painstakingly, making my case again and again on the phone until I am speaking with the person who can make things right. Some, I decide aren’t that important and I let them go unsolved.

What’s the Maximum Customer Experience lesson here?

If you’re in business, you need people in pain like I was today, whether the pain is “I need to drive this nail into my wall” (solution: hammer) or “I can’t get UPS to listen to me” (solution: hammer for my head? or FedEx?).

You need people in pain.

The problem is, a lot of people in pain don’t want to need you. They’ll muddle and suffer and give up. I’m not talking about losing out after a presentation, I’m talking about never getting asked. Maybe you’ll flit through their mind, maybe you aren’t yet top-of-the-mind and they won’t think of you until after the problem is solved (or ever!). It’s a dilemma for people in every type of business.

Your goal is to create and promote a Solution that addresses the reluctant customer. That guy with the “why not” bullet points, (s)he’s your classic reluctant customer.

Two ways to talk to the reluctant customer:

Show that the pain is greater, more acute, longer lasting than the prospect believes;

Make your Ideal Solution seem smaller, easier, quicker, cheaper than existing solutions.

Turning those “why not”s upside-down is how you do it. Can you show me I’m not awesome enough? That fixing one problem on my own may uncover a dozen more serious problems? That D-I-Y won’t fix the long-term issues? That you’re easy, quick, not as expensive as using my time and limited expertise to deal with things myself?

Ever get stuck fixing a time-suck problem, and wish you could pay someone to deal with it?

Think about it now—if you really wished that, you could have.

So if you chose to fight it out yourself, what were your reasons? What can you add to our “why not” list?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Tweet This!

Time to Get Off Your A**, It’s a Commitment Post

Why is everyone more excited to get customers from around the globe than from around the bend?

I’m not objecting to far-flung clients, for me or for you. Of course not. Especially not if you were just about to shoot me an email.  

I’ve got a thought, though. Is “global” the new word for “not ready to commit fully”? The way “home business” used to mean “not committed to job-hunting”?

What is “I’ll take customers from anywhere”? Is there something wrong with taking customers from your home town, state, or region? Is it a fear of coming in contact with customers face-to-face? Is it fear of specializing?

Because if it is, then commit. Shout out loud, in your own backyard, about your business. Local is the new global, and we small business owners are poised to re-take our communities if we’d just stop shying away from f2f.

Get people you know (I mean “know,” as in “are acquainted with in the real world”) to sound the trumpets for you. They’ll do it best, because they care. And you? Get out. Especially you work-from-home entrepreneurs who are always saying how isolating your work is. Find local clients—take a meeting with them—and get out of the house!

Let the mega-companies fight over global business in this lurching and wrenching economy. Do what they can’t do, my small-business-owner friends, and do it well.

Shake hands.

Can you think of one move you could make this week to promote your business locally? Please share in the comments, so others can use our ideas in their own home towns!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Tweet This!

Undercapitalization is NOT the biggest reason startups fail

Starting a small business, but you haven’t got a year or two of working capital saved up?

Join the crowd. Many small businesses don’t have a financial cushion, and we hear repeatedly that not being ready to finance several months of losses (or more) is why they fail. Don’t you believe it!

Truth Hurts:

Just because people are always telling you, “You should do this for a living,” does not mean you should.

Has anyone ever said, “… and I’d like to be your first paying client”? No? Then don’t listen to your friends, coworkers, or your brother. These people are admiring your talents, but not offering to get you off the ground.

I do want to sound harsh here, because you want to know the truth now, before you sink your cash in to float the losses. The biggest reason why startups fail is… Nobody wants what they are selling.

Ouch!

There is a bit more to it than that.

Nobody wants what they are selling…

• In the current location
• In the atmosphere created
• In this style, size, package
• From the particular salespeople
• At this time (or with really bad luck, in this era)
• At this price
• With their expectations

Any or all of these elements (and many more) can contribute. Bottom line: Right now, nobody wants the widget, nobody wants the service.

Help!

If it’s your startup, how can you save the business?

1. Decide what YOU want: until you know your own mind, don’t be surprised if customers won’t come along for the ride

2. Determine what the customer is trying to tell you about what he or she wants (better yet—needs)

3. Look at the list above: which elements can you change to bring your vision together with the customer’s? Can you:

Change locations?

Reconsider your firm’s name?

Update the look of your place? Change the look of your logo, your printed materials or Internet presence?

Vary the offering? Fancier? Simpler? More? Less?

Bring your staff along on this journey? Is it their attire or their attitude that needs changing?

Is your timing off in a simple way, such as needing to serve breakfast and lunch in an urban-office area instead of dinner, or in a big way, like no one seems ready for what you offer? Can customer education bridge the time warp and bring customers forward?

Raise or lower prices?

Bring expectations in line with offerings, by continuing to fine-tune each element?

4. Bring it all together: your Vision, their needs, your execution of each aspect of the business, until the customer wants what you are selling.

So simple? Not quite. This is hard work. An investment of time, money, and oh, yes, really hard work. Get help with this if you can. C’mon, did you think you could save your business in an afternoon?

It’s Never About You. It’s About Them.

Whoever first called quitting your full-time job with a happy, auto-deposited salary to become an entrepreneur “working for yourself” was full of baloney. Yes, folks, baloney.

Are you a small business owner or a wannabe? Let me introduce you to your new boss—the customer.

If you think your old boss was demanding, unpredictable, and never around when you needed her, boy, is owning your own small business gonna open your eyes.

The business of doing business is not as simple as having a talent or a skill that some folks admire. If it were, I’d be a woodworker, a genealogist, a (full-time) writer, a comic, a therapist, a miniaturist, a masseuse, and a restaurateur. I’ve worked in some of those industries, but most have been suggested to me by folks who admire a skill I use in my off-time (I LOVE my hobbies).

You CAN put what you love together into a business that fulfills others’ needs, but the focus really has to be on those “others.” I can’t emphasize that enough!

Love using your talents, in a way that others need and can relate to? Then you won’t be digging nearly so far into your “working capital” to get your business working.

How does a great new business hook you? What do they have to do, to get you to want what they’re selling—when you managed fine without them before?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

P.S. It’s never about me, it’s about you. If you’ve been around since the beginning of the MCE Blog, I’d just like to tell you that you are reading your 200th post. Congratulations on your tenacity, and thank you for creating an amazing community here. I’m blessed with the most wonderful readers on the web. I’m so glad you want what I’m selling! Do continue to share MCE with others, and together we’ll fuel even more ideas to grow your business in the next 200.

Tweet This!