Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on December 15, 2009 under General, marketing | 
I can remember sitting around the executive table at Pearle Vision with the competition ads in front of us. We would scour over their wording and product focus and even their color scheme to see how we could position our message to stand out.
Then one time and gosh I wish I could remember who said this – we threw out the competition material and decided to look with a fresh, clean slate. “If we only compare ourselves to the competition then we force our thinking into a rigid box. We need to just compare our performance and company to ourselves and then begin to think outside the box.”
I just joined a gym. Yes – I’m paying good money for all the pain I am in. I look around the room at people 20 years older than I am lifting weights, working out on the machines going a mile a minute and it is hard not to be intimidated. But the trainer that helped me get started gave me some great advice.
“Don’t look at them. Don’t compare yourself to them. Don’t look and see what someone else is doing, just focus on your own progress.”
And I am making progress. I can see it in my clothes and on the scale, I can feel it in my knees and I am enjoying a greater sense of energy than I’ve had in the past, but it is hard not to compare yourself to others.
When we compare ourselves to others we do so without all of the information. We don’t know their strategy or what they have planned for the future – we can only see the tip of the iceburg and therefore in our comparison can make invalid assumptions. Whereas, when we only look at our own performance for comparison, we do have all of the information. We know about the great margin discounts we received from a supplier or we understand the unique needs of our customer or the fact that we just invested money in a customer service training program for our sales staff. We can see what the results are based on the effort and focus we put forth.
So rather than comparing yourself to the competition – hold the mirror up and ask yourself a few simple questions:
- How am I doing based on the customer’s expectations?
- Has my referral or repeat business increased?
- What percentage of my customers are returning customers?
- Has my average transaction increased?
- Have we improved relationships with our vendors?
- Has the number of complaints dwindled?
- Has the number of compliments increased?
- How is the employee morale versus last year at this time?
Just like Mom always said “keep your eyes on your own plate” when I’d complain that my brother didn’t have to eat as many peas as I did – we need to just focus our attention on improving business based on our own performance rather than that of the competition.
What benchmarks do you have for your business? How do you compare and measure success?
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on March 4, 2009 under Communication |
Last night I had the opportunity to sponsor the monthly NARI NEO dinner. What a wonderful collection of remodeling experts! A fun group but also clearly a talented collection of professionals.
One of the two speakers for the evening was Jeff Nischwitz of Think Again Coaching. He talked about being focused in your marketing message to a targeted audience. One of his strategies was finding a niche message. Certainly this is a common thought process – going big isn’t always the answer as we can’t be all to everyone. But Jeff had a memorable way of viewing our niche.
He asked us to raise our hands if we thought we were the best at what we did. Many in the room raised their hands. Including me.
“So then how many of you are just average at what you do?” No one responded.
“And how many of you truly stink at what you do?” We chuckled.
His point was – we view ourselves as being the best at what we do or at some component of what we do. If we don’t then we are either in the wrong line of work or just don’t care. His follow-up question got us to thinking:
“So if you tell me you are the best at what you do: prove it.”
Unless we are in possession of an award that labels us as the BEST DARN WIDGET MAKER then it is really just our word and if the prospect hasn’t had dealings with us, they have no reason to trust what we say.
“You can’t prove you are the best, but you can prove you are different.” Hmmm.
He suggested that we find something we can do or that we are that is different from the competition. He even suggested that it didn’t have to do with our product or service. For example, one of my Pearle Vision locations had an employee that spoke Portuguese. It didn’t have anything to do with eye exams or selling glasses, but it was different and in that community their difference had value.
Although we’d like to please everyone, that is impossible. I can’t even please both my kids at the same time. But we can find a small segment of the market place that requires our services delivered in our unique manner. For example, as a freelance writer, I specialize in website content. However, I don’t write all kinds of content; I specialize in retail, business-to-consumer content, written in a conversational tone.
So if you want technical writing…that’s not me.
If you want Harvard Law Review content…that’s not me.
If you want boring writing…again, not me.
Here’s the beauty of Jeff’s advice:
- If you identify what makes you different and clearly communicate that message to the people who care (your target prospect), you’ll be more inclined to find a customer
- If you understand the value of your difference and communicate that message to the population at large (networking events, in line at the grocery store, in church or at the ball park) people will have a clearer understanding of what you do and who you do it to so they can refer you to potential prospects.
So what makes you different? Is it what you do? Is it how you do it? Is it your background?
Another example: most freelance writers are journalists or have communication degrees. Not me. I come from the corporate world. It wasn’t until I spent almost 25 years climbing the corporate ladder that I started my writing business which means I understand the corporate environment. It helps me communicate on a peer-to-peer level with “C” level executives.
How about you? What makes you different?
Once you figure that out, the next step will be to start telling people.
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on February 12, 2009 under Customer Moments, Missed Moments |
There are two kinds of hair cut people:
Those who meticulously schedule their salon visits every 4-6 weeks, always with the same stylist and usually at the same time and day of the week.
And then there’s me: I wake up one morning, look in the mirror and scream “I need a hair cut RIGHT NOW!’
That day was today. I was out and about running errands and drove by a salon. I noticed the sign in the window “We Welcome Walk-Ins.” It is a local salon, not a chain and I’ve been there on occasion. They are reasonably priced and have skilled stylists.
I walked in at 10:42 this morning. They opened at 10am. I could see that the salon seats were empty and the only customer was paying after having received his cut. (Before he left, he pre-scheduled his appointment for next month – clearly the first type of hair cut person.)
I was greeted pleasantly and I asked if I could have my hair cut. She smiled and said “All of our stylist are going into a meeting. We’ll be happy to take you this afternoon.”
I said no thank-you and as I turned I heard her snigger “WELL!”
When I was a store manager with Pearle Vision we also had meetings with our entire staff – Saturday morning BEFORE the store opened. Team meetings are a great opportunity for:
- Communicating current goals
- Motivating employees
- Sharing recent successes
- Asking for feedback and suggestions for how to make the customer experience better
- Training on new products and services
- Discussing challenging customer situations and how they might have been handled differently
I would bring doughnuts and coffee and by the end of the meeting we’d be pumped for our busiest day of the week and all be on the same page – a great outcome of staff meetings.
But during the work day? Choosing a meeting over paying customers?
Let me ask you – do you think this is the only salon in town? Of course not. There are six pages of beauty salons in the local phone directory.
Will I wait until they are available to get my hair cut? Not me, remember I woke up screaming at my reflection. I’m going to one of the other myriad of salons in the area.
So what is the learn?
Tell me – do you have staff meetings? When do you have them? Which would you chose: a meeting or a customer?
Here’s an article about conducting effective staff meetings by Susan Heathfield.
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on November 26, 2008 under Connecting Moments, Customer Moments, Internet Connections |
Early Bloomer, a fellow twitterer, asked the question “What is a make or break moment for an online store.”
That’s a great question. We may think of customer connections as only happening in person or over the phone but it today’s technology age, the Internet is a key way that our customers find us/do business with us.
So how do we ensure our customers have a make or break moment on our website?
Yesterday I talked about the fact that customers come to us with historical moments they draw on for comparison and so we need to take that into consideration when viewing our website from the customer’s perspective:
- What experiences do they have at our competitor’s site?
- What is the customer looking for?
- Is it easy to find on our site?
- is our homepage inviting with content that addresses their needs?
- Do the links work?
- Is it easy to find our contact information on every page?
- Do we offer a variety a contact vehicles?
- Do we provide something unexpected: information, free white papers, additional resources, coupons, humor?
- Do we make it easy to do business?
View your site from the CUSTOMER’S PERCEPTIVE and ask the question “is this a site that appeals to me and makes it easy to do business?”
