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You Need Hands! February 11, 2010
I was captured by the following paragraph i read in Paco Underhill‘s “Why We Buy” book. Indeed a very good book especially if you want ideas but for a retail business, this is a must read. Let me recite the paragraph:
“A woman is carrying a handbag, and that she’s wearing a coat, which she’ll probably want to remove once she’s inside the store, meaning she’ll have to carry that, too. God gave here two good hands but she’s shopping with one. If she selects something, the free hand carries it. Now she’s down to no hands. Maybe, if it’s small and light, she can tuck the purchase under one arm. Perhaps she’ll sling the handbag over a shoulder or forearm. Then she’ll have….let’s call it a hand and a quarter. If she picks one more thing, though, she’ll run out of hands. Only an extremely motivated buyer will persevere. Human anatomy has just declared this shopping spree over.”
What do you get out of that? I said, “I need my hands!!”. And i want to relate that to strategy.
Strategy, in that story is our “business” hands. If we are too occupied or “full” with strategies we are going to get stucked. Just like that woman’s hands. There was one CEO i know that has his hands full of strategies until he can’t carry it anymore. In our hands, we can only carry certain things for a limited time only. then we have to unload.
With our strategies (hands!) also, business can pick and choose what they want and what they do not want. For example for a food retail business, they can choose to sell inside the mall or outside the mall. Both require different strategies. What if they want to sell both inside and outside the mall? Chaos! I have seen in Malaysia, whereby few retail brands try to have “captured both sides” of the mall but fail to do so because people are confuse. Customers are confuse on two things. Firstly, why do you need to have two outlets in the same mall? And which one should i go to? One thing about customers, when we are given options to choose most of the time we fail to choose. Customers go somewhere else to other outlet that has single message per outlet.
On the other hand, for business to business (B2B) businesses, having “hands” definitely very important and have to set it right from the start. i recently learned that large companies operation is very complex. A lot ogf stakeholders and usually steps taken are far too many and planning is on very long range too. Therefore, making sure the “hands” are picking up the right strategies are very crucial.
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Alternatively, business hands also can be extended. Say you want to expand to new market in new country, you definitely cannot do it alone. We need a helping hand. This is where friendly parties, partners, sponsors and networks play very important role. We need to talk to them, identify and select them accordingly to become our extended hands for our business.
I recently met one CEO of a growing global university and he shared me a story. he said that in some African countries, people are still don’t want to spend on education. people save money under their pillow because they are so worried and have low access to information. they don’t trust bank so much and they live a traditional life. he also added, to set up a global university there definitely a big challenge, but the moment the country wakes up (just like China!), it is going to give a handsome return. So how he plans to do it? Find strong local partners and support them. This is because local partners, most of them have less money and do small trading business. The idea of effective and efficient are definitely alien to them but they are hard working.
I personally found this approach is very interesting and unique. Nevertheless, a good example of extended hands are needed if you want to go beyond your home base. But what if your hands are still full?
One, is to pray to God for a stronger back and not a lighter loads! Two, you need to prioritize. Prioritization is easy said than done. Even i sometimes overlook prioritizing, especially during busy period. I remember someone said, “when the going gets up, everyone is very happy!’. This refers to stock market bullishness, when it’s up everyone starts to forget basic things. But it certainly helpful to get our priority right.
I normally write down and prioritize based on time, processes and outcome. Lastly i also measure ROI. Sometimes, certain things you do is very painful but it’s going to give the highest ROI, so i choose to do that first. But as for you, you need to decide what’s best.
I will discuss more on Maven marketing in my next post, how to use it as your extended hands for your business. Cheers!
Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)
TEN Tips for Successful Marketing Implementation January 31, 2010
How much do you spend on your marketing initiatives? How much is your ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment)? What is your sales right now? Does your sales increased? Why your sales team not in the field but in the office? When is your new product going to launch? When is the competition going to end? Who is your competitors? Check out the following TEN Tips for Successful Marketing Implementation:
1. Have a plan
- i’ve been emphasizing this for many years; in fact my book Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is addressing this issue; we need a marketing plan. Without plan, we are directionless and we lose money on daily basis. I recommend you to check out my book Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC for FREE Download the Summary.
2. Over communicate
- often when we implement marketing initiatives, only the marketing department busy with all the collaterals, strategies, PR, CSR, campaigns and they donned everywhere in the company as if they (the marketing deaprtment) is the most important department in the world! They are wrong! If you are a marketing manager or business owner, i suggest you to over communicate and start realizing that your job is to make champions from other departments, not the only champion!
3. Price correctly
- this is exception when you are new in the business or launching a new product line that you never had before. For example if you all the while in IT business, suddenly you diverse into restaurant business, chances of getting wrong pricing entry is high. when you already in the business for quite sometimes, try few types and levels of pricing vs your offerings. Try price discrimination.
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4. Talk to your distributors
- having a network of distributors are really cool but if they are not performing why keep it silent? Most of the time, only 20% of your distributors work hard and sell your product. others are dormant or actively selling your competitor’s product. it is hard to have exclusive distributor nowadays unless you have lots of $$$$ incentives to offer. One way to make them love you is to talk to them. make them important and the secret is “give them target and incentify”.
5. It’s the customer, stupid!
- i’ve repeated this many many times. in fact other marketing gurus also said it. Moreover in my recent reading of Harvard Business Review that the role of Chief Marketing Officer is going to be obsolete because now there is a new trend of Chief Customer Officer especially in MNCs. This customer is KING not going to go away for at least the next 50 years! Unless you plan to do business to years from now, let’s focus on the customers!
6. Advertise Advertise Advertise
- i believe in advertising. advertisement allows you to promote, acknowledge, inform and sell about your products and services. for small business owners and entrepreneurs, advertising will make them a little more like celebrity and they rather shy away and be “the background person!”. I learned it from the hard way. I know a self-proclaimed internet marketing guru that set up a Facebook Fanpage on social media but he himself the only fan there! Advertise!
7. The experience
- let’s don’t even think of launching when your product is not ready. Experience lasts forever same as first impression! At least create the plan on how to approach your launch. I recommend you to read my Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC because i cover this section.
8. Budget wisely
- not having budget at all for promotion is sure way to fail. I realized that many small business owners and entrepreneurs too rigid on allocate some money for promotion. Did you ever wonder why a large pool of customers only go to large businesses or retailers? BEcause these large companies put aside $$$$ for promotion and campaigns. But i don’t think we should do the same, but at least we make and show presence in the market. And never accumulate what you spend on your marketing and business, and end up sum it up and said, “i can buy a new BMW with this $$$$ spent on my business!!” wrong thinking my friend!
9. Give time
- when you do something on your business, it takes some time for people to know you. I have set up this blog almost a year ago, coupled with Entreprenovator blog but only recently i got some traffic and have better presence. I also recently launched my book and i am not in a hurry to make money. Because my bigger goal is to democratize knowledge to the masses especially small business owners and entrepreneurs like you. After all my Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is only USD 24.50 (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!)
10. Corrective plan
- while usually the final point is more soft like “have faith!”, i rather be realistic. we all have faith but we don’t normally have corrective plan. plan down a lot of ‘what if’s” and ‘how about”. Sometimes what we plan don’t turn out to be as planned. But you can only have corrective plan once you started something. otherwise your corrective plan is counterproductive! You follow?
Honestly, the TEN Tips for Successful Marketing Implementation is just the tip of the iceberg of my book Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC, Download FREE Summary. I highly recommend you to spend just USD 24.50 (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT) to get your marketing right and at least manageable. What is USD 24.50 (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!)? sure way to manage and get results of your following $$$$ marketing initiatives!! Isn’t that worth the money? 
Buy Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC here. Only USD 19.90 (WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!)
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Why Do You Need A Marketing Plan? January 28, 2010
When i ask entrepreneurs and small business owners, it is not unusual for not having any marketing plan. I once read that Sir Richard Branson was never had any marketing plan when he started the 1st Virgin business many years ago. In fact in one study of entrepreneurship (i couldn’t recall the name of the study) was that as much as 50% of entrepreneurs and business owners don’t have a business plan and marketing plan when they first started the business. What was the outcome? As much as 90% businesses started by entrepreneurs and small business went busted or failed within a year. I experienced one of the many busts few years ago (with my cafe business) because i don’t really have a proper and “the few solid sheets” called a marketing plan.
Coming back to my questions to entrepreneurs and small business owners, many of their answers sounded like this, “I don’t really have one”, “It’s in my head coz i know the business so well” and worse, “I don’t know what is marketing plan”! If you happen to be in one of these categories, rest assured you are not the only one. And to perfectly honest, that’s the ultimate reason why i turned back to my writing board where i was actually in the middle of writing (rather perfecting!) a personal development programs. i dropped that program and quickly drafted and started Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC because many of you need it, seriously.
But, i don’t specifically mean my own Marketing Plan S6PEC Framework because there are so many versions and gurus out there that can give you the benefit of a marketing plan. Of course i am going to say mine is a lot better because it’s a practical and practitioner’s guide. Other than being a consultant, i also have performed marketing manager role, entrepreneur role, business manager role, investor and student of entrepreneurship (during my MBA!). But that’s not my main point. My main point is for you to have a marketing plan to guide your business. which one? Well it is up to you!
So, to put things in perspective; why do you really need a marketing plan?
Guide
- in a marketing you will think, record and document all your ideas, products and services offering, price, distribution channel, programs, sales direction, customer segment and so on. i have experienced whereby i suddenly realized that my business is not going on the right direction because i didnt follow my marketing plan. have you experienced that? or perhaps you suddenly realized that the thing you do know supposed to be done many months ago because you forgot about it? And you forgot because you don’t jot it down and plan for it? This is what i mean that marketing plan as a guide. I cover this in my Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC.
Ideas
- people said the more you talk about your ideas the more refine it becomes. I think this is true. Did you ever experience when you talk to more people you generated a lot more ideas? When people give you feedback it triggers another dimension of your ideas? If you are, so where do you keep all these ideas? It should be in a marketing plan.
Resource Plan
- in marketing, there is only one thing that’s scarce: RESOURCES. some people have a lot of money but lacked ideas and another group is the other extreme; more ideas and less money. many of us probably the later than the former! In the marketing plan we will tackle things like people to hire, pricing, distribution plan, sales programs budget and so on.
Strategy
- Similar to business strategy, marketing plan will capture strategies required to support your business strategy. For example if your business goal is to achieve 20% increase in sales, your marketing strategy would be to 1) introduce new product, 2) increase price for premium offerings, 3) recruit more distributors and offer commission scheme and so on. Strategy is king. When you can see your business in totality, i can assure you that you will find it easier to manouvre. Marketing plan is the place to address all these issues.
Risk
- in our marketing plan we shouldn’t only concern about making money or positive points, we also should address the risk we are taking. for example it is common for a marketing plan to capture things like, “require additional staff to handle sales call”, “additional investment from the management budget will increase chances of increasing 10% sales target” and many more. Imagine if you can factor your risk earlier and think through it, wouldn’t it be better for you?
Pricing
- I once said in my Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC that, “Price is the key determinants of your profits”. I stand firm to keep it that way. In your marketing plan, you will address pricing plan for your distributors, customers, multiple segments (some business charge differently – price discrimination) and cost price i.e. your raw materials and things like that. Not many address price correctly and bear in my mind that we need to standby few pricing plan to respond to the market. Take for example during festive season, if everyone is lowering price and slashed their price or even ignited a price war, what do you do about that? Follow suit or wait? If you want to follow, how far? If you want to wait, how long? You capture all this in pricing plan.
Customer Segment
- this is talked about most of the time, but let’s accept the fact that today’s customers are fragmented to smaller niches. Your product and service will not be consumed by only one segment and at critical mass. it is likely to be consumed by smaller segment and multi. no more critical mass, but rather a solid spread of niches. For example, who buy iPod’s today? if Apple only think about yuppies they are making a big mistake because apparently iPod is also used by women and people with active lifestyle. Another example, who buys from hypermarket? if hypermarket only focus on households they may not survive or be successful like today. hypermarket main segment is actually small business restaurant operators that buy in larger quantity compare to households and on daily basis. i’ve been there, i know! LOL
Corrective Plan
- a marketing plan is a living document. trust me, the moment you have it and experience planning your marketing, you will realize this. therefore it is a plan that allows you to assess past strategies and results and at the same time allow you to make necessary corrective measures to fit your business growth. for example, who expected the 2008 financial crisis to hit us so badly? no one other than the few so called “economists” but how did responded to it? Severely. many businesses closed including many giants. but the good thing is, many have a solid marketing and business plans, therefore they make quick corrective actions and moved forward.
Innovation
- i once sat in a meeting of project and business updates and suddenly one of the directors said, actually with all that we have now we can be in the medical device market. Violaaa!!! this medical device company used to service government hospitals and they have all the equipments. it’s just that they never thought of going direct to the hospitals and take the lion share of the business. in that meeting, after going through the company yearly updates, this “innovation” came instantneously and the next year they are pitching about it to the government hospitals directly.
Imagine if you can do all these and manage all these in a marketing plan? Systematic, organized, well thought, innovative and captured all your pertinent business information, don’t you find having a marketing plan is useful for your business?
One thing about my business, i don’t sell templates. I only sell actual content. I believe that template is only to give you the general overview of direction but not how-to do it. That’s why i highly not recommended you choose to download or purchase marketing templates because i have seen them i personally think it won’t help you much. let me share you a recent story about template.
I have childhood friend who wanted to open a small business. i offered him my service at $$$ which is so much below market rate because we have been friends for 20 years. he said no, because he think there is another cheaper way to do it or in other words “resourceful is my middle name” kinda thing. so i let him do that. I offered him five days later that, if he needs me to view the marketing plan i will do it for free over tea. he showed me a marketing template he bought for USD 25 and all he got was a template!!! i scolded him and cursed the site that provided such thing. it was just boxes everywhere and not even a paragraph on how to fill those boxes. well, this is what i mean and i defy to be in that business because that’s cheating. By the way i got to do my friend’s job after that.
What i offered is much simpler, richer and with all the things you need. firstly this blog is to help you enhance and as a source to guide you on the marketing plan you purchase. Well, let’s dont talk about purchase yet. would you want to view the actual content or maybe download the Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC Introduction first? Don’t be shy. I think i am one of the the few publishers that allow my customer to read the actual content before purchasing it. I suggest you to download it before you buy it. get some feel and send it around.
to drive home the point, i highly recommend you to have a marketing plan and the better way is to be able to write yourself. this is because to hire a marketing consultant that don’t know your business is very costly. you end up spend longer time to expand and grow your business. or maybe at least when you know, you can start write your own marketing plan then you get the marketing consultant to touch up and give you more ideas.
If you ever need a to know how to develop and use a marketing plan, i will recommend my own product because from my knowledge there is no such guide yet in the market whereby with all the benefits you get in a marketing plan plus the gaps of “the templates” been giving you, my Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is only USD 24.50 (NOW ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!). Seriously, please consider of having a proper marketing plan for your business because it is not easy to take your business to where it is now and you don’t to see it wither, do you?
Inquiry: entreprenovators@gmail.com
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Marketing Plan Breakthrough_S6PEC_An Introduction January 26, 2010
Having a plan let you see the interaction that is taking place and about to take place. It gives you the freedom to choose and the given time.
Should you consider of purchasing the full version of the Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC, Buy it HERE
You Saw This on Facebook? January 25, 2010
Hi Entrepreneurs and Business Owners,
Welcome!
You probably have clicked the side ads on Facebook. Well now you are here. Thank you for clicking and i shall begin and end this note quickly. If you want to buy the full version of Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC HERE! Now ONLY USD 19.90 with LAUNCHING DISOCUNT.
The More than 10 (TEN) Benefits of Marketing Plan Breakthrough:
1) It is SIMPLIFIED!
2) Portable format that you can print, read in laptop and even compose your own slides for presentation to your partners, bosses, directors etc..
3) Cover all the bases you need in a marketing plan.
4) Affordable source of knowledge! Very cheap!
5) Information provided based on real case studies, happened before, practical approach and honest.
6) One time download, shareable slides for all your business units and staffs.
7) Extra resources on the blog http://marketingplanbook.com
Another resource blog http://entreprenovator.wordpress.com
9) Written not by academia or journalist but by practitioners!
10) Combined marketing knowledge from all around the world.
11) Nicely presented with diagrams, colors and highlights.
12) Save lots of $$$ for a marketing consultant or anyone so called consultant!
13) Save lots of $$$ on marketing software, licensing and applications!!
14) Step by step approach.
15) Post worldwide-crisis marketing approach which focus on what-works and profit centric!
Click this link so you can go straight to view the Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC Framework content. I think you should at least view before you make any commitment and i think having the knowledge is very important too, so you can prosper and bring your business further.
Buy the full version of Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC HERE!!
I am ending this soon. If you find the content useful and would like to own it, well that’s the whole idea so you can make reference and continue upgrading yourself. The content is priced at USD 19.90 ONLY, WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT. While stocks last! Haha..actually i am putting this price only for Facebook Ads visitors.
What you need to do after this?
1. Visit the content and view it. Its the full content. You can view and don’t have to pay!
2. Click here to go direct to the content (Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC Framework)
3. Click here to go to business blog http://entreprenovator.wordpress.com
4. Check us out on SlideShare.com/Entreprenovator (i have a copy of this book here too!)
5. Make decision to purchase by email to entreprenovators@gmail.com
“Marketing is the Business” – Anonymous.
What You Really Need in A Marketing Plan? Quick Run January 20, 2010
Just a few sheets of paper and rigorous implementation. That’s all. Sound easy? It is supposed to be easy, but many fails in both planning (or writing) the few sheets of paper and rigorous implementation. I may not be able to help you with the rigorous implementation because it requires resources such as many and people to hire to “rigour” it, but i can surely assist you in fighting the other half; the solid few sheets of paper. Which i refer as “marketing plan” for small business owners and entrepreneurs. i am fully confident that small business is going to thrive in the next century and going to become “d” business not far from now. So you still want to know about the “few solid sheets of paper”? You should be because it’s going to save your business, not to mention other than that.
Few months ago i gathered substantial amount of information (both in theory and practical application) from various sources. Sources are from books like philip kotler, malcolm mcdonald, sergio zyman, levitt, jack welch, fenwick (digital marketer) and many more. other sources like harvard business review, MIT Sloan Management Review magazine, mckinsey, boston consulting group, gartner reports, tns and so on. I also chat with few local and international marketing practitioners, and lastly my own experience as marketing and strategy consultant. What i gathered? You only need to have a few solid sheets of paper to plan and make your marketing work.
1. Your customer
This is key in any marketing plan and business. You don’t equate your customer with other business customers. For example if you are selling Japanese car, you can’t equate the need of your customer with the one that going for European car. They are just different. Always look at your customer and write down every single thing about them. Ask the 5W 1H questions to yourself, people around you and the customers.
2. About You
As business owner, i know sometimes we get too deep into our own idea and we were blinded by the beauty and joy it brings but guys, when something going too sweet, you got to be careful. It is like when you first dating a girl and you like her so much; that whatever your friend tell you was ignored. That is the same feeling when we are too engrossed with our own ideas. We need to open up and look for other angle and ready to accept criticism of that idea. I have been there and i have lost quite a bit just because i fondle the “business” and drown together! 
3. What is your business
You need to ask this question from the practical side in terms of its capability and capacity. Capability is skills set and capacity is ‘engine size” – how much can you do. For example as a new restaurant you have the capability to cook nice food but you don’t have the capacity to do food delivery yet. You follow? And when you ask this question, do not ask and answer intellectually because you end up confuse yourself. Plan for 6 months first before looking at how the business should be in 6 years.
4. Distribution
In distribution principle, the bigger your network and distribution channel the better your business is. this is fact and true. Check how else can you distribute. If non-perishable and dry product, you will find it easier but can you afford to buy bulk and warehouse it? If food or perishable item, you will find a bit challenging. if you are in service, can you duplicate your service using network or join venture with other similar service provider but in a different market? Think of this.
5. Promotion
If you don’t announce it, people don’t know. Put aside some budget to spend on marketing campaigns, and please try using online marketing as one of your strategy. Global business is not so global anymore, transportation is getting cheaper and if you are in knowledge business, you can do it online now. If physical product, make sure you tap sources like social media (Facebook, MySpace and Ning), blogs, websites, online banners and search engines. big billboards, tv ads and print ads are traditional media and exorbitantly expensive. The ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) also very low. I recently with a client and compare to Phase 1 and Phase 2 marketing spending, they shaved almost 50% spending in Phase 2 and getting better results!
6. Employee
If your business is labour intensive like restaurant, service counters or manufacturing then you need to look for competent people that can run machine, understand operation and willing to work with haphazard processes (unless you run a franchise business). Simply because as a new business and small, or new product, we dont know how the product or business perform in the market. It can be a bomb or doom. But what i learn is we need to give some time to let it grow.
7. Fliers
For a new business, fliers is a must. don’t start the business without it because you are risking a lot of eyeballs especially if you have a physical shop. You want to attract people to come to your fish shop, trading shop, saloon, data centre and so on. While eyeballs don’t give direct business, eyeballs can develop trust, reach and build confidence. my experience in restaurant and service business, the moment i put in fliers, i can safely sure i will get the next 2 months business. Yes, it is that powerful but there will be a lot of wastage too. Especially if your business is on green product, you gotta think again!
8. Pricing
Price determines your profit. I just got to know my client today (a new Head of a Food Division) just told me that the previous Head screwed up on the pricing for their newly operated food court. Now after 3 months operation, they are heavily debted and this is because the food court was well received and jammed-packed daily and it runs 24 hours. the problem is, with every customer they sell they are losing money. You follow me? So, the more they sell while they have the volume but because the pricing is at below cost price (for some internal reasons and overly subsidied), the food court makes losses in 3 months! be careful about pricing my friend. Have a pricing plan and pricing points. it is ok to give discount and promotions, but you need to plan it.
9. Risk
Starting a new business or new product always come with risk factors. I am not going to brag about risk management just like some investment banker, typical consultant (that never run real business) and academician (intellects that never be in the real market!) because they don’t really know what we are facing down (or is it up!) there. Risk comes and goes on daily basis but we need to identify what type of risk. is it bearable? are they harmful? how long you expect to last i.e. crisis? how do you plan to recover? what is the cut-off point? what is the business impact? who is involved and get affected? how you want to compensate or recover? what is your nett risk/loses? These questions, are brushed aside or “simplistically” not important by those 3 categories of people. When in risky situation i have only one advice: search for information and data aggresively. dig dig dig!
10. Strategy
What you really need is a few great strategies. in fact i currently practice, at maximum is three solid strategies. enough to make a difference, even a small step but it is still superior than not moving at all right? it is better to own and run a slum laundry but with solid strategy rather than an exclusive laundry without strategy. you lose money greatly without strategy. but from my observation, good strategy need some time to get effect, so give it time to flourish. nonetheless, it shouldnt take too long because if it is too long and persist, consult your doctor!!
I am sharing more of these findings, views, knowledge, experiences or “whatchaever” you call it in my Marketing Plan E-book which is in the 2nd final process of editing and polishing. it should be released in a couple week time. READY!! You can BUY it NOW ONLY USD 19.90 with LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!
I highly recommend you to purchase it, and i guarantee you it is going to be very cheap and worth money spend. it is so low that you will not believe it. i shall put the content to be viewed on SlideShare/Entreprenovator so you can know what are you buying. Like i said, in marketing you just need a few solid sheets of paper and you are ready to go guys. Forget about marketing software and all those bombastic name gadgets/technology for marketing, as small business owners and entrepreneurs we have our guts, instinct and balls to keep the business afloat and running. So, let’s just do that first and make your money and more profits.
Cheers! Should you require any further information please email to entreprenovators@gmail.com
Customer Service in Marketing January 18, 2010
I was invited as a member of a professional marketing organization, to a seminar facilitated by Scott Friedman. The seminar titled was “Connecting with Customers and Employees” and it was held at Legend Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. Heck it was fun but i learned one thing; “fun can be shared to more people and more often and funnier, if only you want to and allowed to”. As for Scott seminar, it was fine (could be better) but i was there to learn and i came with empty cup so i gathered quite a bit (almost half empty after that).
Perhaps i can add on what i have learned from the program and more on my personal experiences as a restaurateur, waiter, service man, consultant and also a human being. Since i’ll be launching a Marketing e-Book real soon, i thought maybe i would like to touch a little bit on customer service as a marketing tool for small business owners and entrepreneurs.
I always approach my thinking as a customer except when i do consulting because in my consulting practice (where i deal with strategic issues and high level), there are aplenty of customers. If we only focus on the customer (as in client), they are most likely not the user of the product/service and we focus only to the user of the product/service, we might overlook the policies and business governance of the client. Therefore a good mix, suppored by data and abreast with both or multiple customers are very crucial. That aside, what do exactly small business owners and entrepreneurs can do for their customer service? Here are some pointers.
1. Speed
As Scott Friedman pointed out, that speed is the currency of today’s business. If you can deliver faster, better, sooner and so on, you are likely to be the favorite of your customer. Nevertheless, to make sure you are speedier or at least speedy enough, the use of technology is a must. For example, during my seminar with Scott, my client called and wanted some data for her top management presentation, should i say “i can’t attend to you customer because i am busy attending a customer service seminar??” Funny? That exactly what went to my mind just now. Customer 1st i said, so i rushed out and attended to her data she wanted and emailed to her. I saved my day!
2. Honest
The big mistake that many marketing people and customer service do is to lie to their customer on their state as if “this problem is beyond my control and i cant do anything about it and i have done enough to mitigate it”. In the seminar a guy said that he was expecting his newly-bought furniture to arrive 24 hours earlier but all he gotten was “natural disaster seemed to attack his transporter to deliver the furniture on time”. You follow? He called them up a few times, but the transporter said “traffic jam, lorry breakdown, tire punctured, furniture was heavy and so on”. What they could have done is tell him the truth, that “we’ll be late and we can only reach you 24hours from now”.
3. Genuine
This is difficult to do, really. Most of the time i find myself feel awkward because whenever we meet new people, sometimes for business reason and we meet them at a seminar like what i attended. I tend to give away my card without or less talk about my business or trying to convince them what i do. i prefer to ask them about what they do because i am interested in their background and how they do their work. I once being stalked by a salesman and he said he wanted to show he is very interested to do business with me!! That’s ridiculous and i almost call the police station for that.
4. Be Innovative
I agreed with innovation and it has to be something that the customer wants. As small business, we have limitations of resources such as money. We dont have much to spend (or rather invest!) in lavish dinner or golf set or expensive tour for our clients. Therefore we need to use creativity. With constraints, creativity will flourish. I remember one of my close friends said, ‘When you dont have enough money, use creativity”. He is from zubedy. And because of that zubedy over the years has come up with numerous creative stuffs.
5. Talk to your customers
When i ran my restaurant i like to talk to my customers, what i realized was there are things that i like but they don’t like. and vice versa. I found this disturbing because as the owner, i want to craft it the way i want it right? Wrong! So i changed a lot of things to meet my customer needs, but alas my restaurant was shortlived because i dont have enough money to sustain it. I remember one day i was at a small cafe and i happened to be their 1st customer. I was very early and had a fried rice. Then a guy approached me and asked whether the curry taste good, i said yes and it’s yummy!! he thanked because he said he usually ask that to all 1st customer of the day.
6. Give Give Give
i dont see any reason why we shouldnt give to customers that buy from us. i mean give give give service. i despise businesses that are too cost-centric to the extent they are overly calculative to their customers. For example, i like businesses that give trial and stop the service for easily after the trial period with no string attached. I love restaurant that give a side portion to my daughter like potato wedges or chips because the kid’s portion is rather too big or maybe a half scoop of ice cream. i admire transport company that send in furniture earlier than expected.
from my experience, customer service must come from the heart and it needs a lot of examples so it can be followed. I still remember a business owner that sells 2nd hand car. He approached and tried so hard to convince me to buy his car, but later he realized that the model i wanted is not in his list. What did he do? Instead of saying “bye-bye” he asked my phone number because he is confident he could find a friend or someone who might have the car that i wanted and he does it freely; he offered the service. isn’t that a real wow?? he just called me and i said “big thank you bro!!!”
he just make my day! God bless him!
Watch out for my Marketing Plan e-Book release soon! The Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy HERE! ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT! For any further inquiry on the e-book or you have any question about business (strategy and marketing), please email me at entreprenovators@gmail.com
Marketing Plan E-Book Is Going to Launch Real Soon! January 17, 2010
Guess what? The Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC has arrived. You can BUY HERE ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT! Wait no more, milk you marketing budget. Let’s get back to basic!
I know some may questioned why it is taking too long to launch, my answer is “because of you!”. I don’t want to give you something that is worth less than what you paid for (yes i am going to charge you! haha!), but i rather feed the content to what is going to be useful and worth much more.
Besides, i also done some editing, designing, and beefing up the content a bit. i also is getting ready to give you a FREE e-book (on something special!) but you need to answer a simple (real simple) question. Well, this is not a trick mind you, it is just to reward you with a FREE e-book because you answer a simple question for me to focus on.
I shall upload the final draft (preview) in less than 2weeks on SlideShare/bitesconsulting and i shall launch it on Faceboook/Mike Entreprenovator 2weeks after that. Its going to be dirt cheap with especially i spent 6 months writing it and referring to almost major books of marketing and talking to many friends and colleagues and entrepreneurs on what inspire, what works, what don’t work and so on.
here is the cover page to make you peek and i can tell you from my colleagues preview, they say i am nuts for pricing it so low. But like i said, my goal is to democratize knowledge to the max so small business owners and entrepreneurs can better their business. So long and shall i see you agaiin soon? Watch out my sister blog post on How to Hire a Marketing Manager at http://entreprenovator.wordpress.com
Watch out this blog post after this on Marketing on Facebook (a Slide Show from Slide Share)!
