Pizza Anyone?
December 8, 2009
Some companies sell products that are so special and unique that they almost sell themselves. Other companies sell commodity items that are so commonplace as to be practically boring.
Pizza could be classified as one of these. Large pizza chains use a variety of advertising and marketing campaigns to distinguish themselves from the pack. Dominoes had a guaranteed delivery time. Little Caesar’s offered two pizzas for the price of one. Papa John’s claims that better ingredients make a better pizza.
Does this kind of branding help sell more pizzas? It’s kind of hard to answer that question definitively since there are many other factors that affect gross sales.
A client of ours told us about a small pizza shop in Holidaysburg, PA, that has a unique approach that has shown measurable success.
Once a week they show up at my client’s building at lunchtime with ten pizzas. Nobody ordered these pizzas; they just bring them. When word gets out throughout the building that there are pizzas for sale in the lobby, they are all sold. All ten pizzas. Every week.
I don’t know this for fact, but I would bet money that they do this on different days for different offices in the area.
They demonstrate extremely well that you can’t just wait for business to come to you, sometimes you have to go out and stir things up a bit. Their creative method for creating demand – bringing hot fresh pizzas into a building of hungry employees at lunchtime – yields measurable results, week after week.
Look at your own organization. Are there ways you could be creating demand for your products or services by making them more available to potential customers?
The Ball is Always Right
December 3, 2009
Life is always interesting because you can learn profound lessons in the most unlikely situations. In this case, it was from a tennis lesson during a corporate retreat.
My company offers a wide variety of programs to help organizations improve their performance and effectiveness. By far, my favorite is the “Learning to Fly” corporate retreat, where we introduce leadership and customer skills in the morning and reinforce them in the afternoon on the flying trapeze at Club Med.
During a program I held there a few weeks ago, I arrived a day early to make sure everything was set up properly for the attendees who would be arriving later in the day. When that was done, I headed over for the tennis workshop to try and resurrect a tennis game that has seen very limited action for the last few years.
As luck would have it, I was the only person there, so I got a 45-minute private lesson. As fate would have it, the instructor was a tyrant. No, really, he was! He ran me all over the court because he claimed that I wasn’t shuffling my feet enough when he hit the ball right to me; that I wasn’t shifting my weight properly; and that I was off balance when I hit the ball. (I can assure you that none of these claims were true.)
After a few minutes, I got with the program so he began hitting the balls closer to where I was standing so I could work on the mechanics of my stroke. By mistake, he hit one ball farther away then the others, and I watched it go right by me.
He got annoyed at this (remember, he was a tyrant) and asked me why I didn’t go after the ball. I told him that he didn’t hit the ball where he was supposed to. He laughed at this and said, “No matter where it’s hit, the ball is always in the right place. If it doesn’t come where you expect it to, then you need to move to the ball, otherwise you’ll lose the point!”
And although he was only talking about tennis, his statement had implications that reached far beyond the game.
How many times in life are we faced with a situation where things don’t go the way we expect them to? Where a situation at work unexpectedly complicates our jobs? Where we’re thrown a curve that dramatically impacts our personal lives?
And when this happens, our initial reaction is to just stand and watch, dumbstruck, as it happens, complaining that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to turn out, just as I stood and watched as the tennis ball passed by me just out of reach.
Mistake or not; intentional or not; fair or not; when the ball is hit out of reach you have two choices: you can stand there and do nothing, or you can adapt your strategy to the situation and move to where the ball is and give it your best shot.
Remember, the ball is always in the right place. Whether you win or lose depends on how you meet the ball.
It’s All About Choices……
December 2, 2009
It’s All About Choices……
Thanksgiving is a dangerous time, especially if you’re trying to stay in shape. There are simply too many opportunities to eat good food. And then there are too many opportunities to eat leftovers for the rest of the weekend!
With the kids both home from college, we had a full day: brunch at a friend’s house, final preparations for our own dinner, visiting some other friends, then off to see Phantom of the Opera at the Durham Performing Arts Center.
That makes for a very full day. And with all that ahead of us, we certainly would have been justified in sleeping in late that morning. But life is all about choices, and we chose instead to get up at around 6:30 am and participate in the Gobbler’s Run, a 5K (3.1 mile) race to raise funds for the local Boys and Girls Club in nearby Wake Forest.
Okay, three of us decided to get up; our daughter decided to sleep until around 11:00 – even the prospect of a great holiday brunch wasn’t enough to get her up that early!
But there was an added benefit to running: it “created some room” for all the food we were going to eat that day. And we weren’t alone, by the way. Over 1,250 people participated by running or walking in the event, including the 77-year-old father of one of our friends.
The results we get in life, whether about fitness, career, or personal issues, are directly related to the choices we make each and every day. What choices are you making today?
Six-Love
December 1, 2009
Several years ago, my family traveled to Florida to visit my in-laws. I remembered from a previous trip that there was a tennis court, so my wife and I both brought our tennis racquets hoping to find some time to play.
On Saturday morning, my wife decided to sleep in, so I took my racquet over to the tennis courts to see if anyone was there to play. I found three people playing a modified game of doubles and asked if they could use a fourth person to even it up. They said they were almost done, but invited me to play for a bit.
Now I have to point out that this was a retirement community and none of these three men was young. One of them was 86 and had just had a triple bypass operation a few months earlier. Another was in his mid-seventies, and the third one was 67 years old. They all played very well, considering their age.
When the game broke up, I mentioned in passing that I had hoped to play more. The “youngster” of the group approached me and said that he could play one more set of singles if I was interested.
I should point out that this was at a point in my life where I was playing a lot of tennis; and while I wasn’t headed to the US Open any time soon, I had a respectable game.
I smiled to myself and thought, “Sure, I’ll play a set – if he can even last that long!”
About twenty minutes later, the match was over and the score was 6-love (6 games to zero). And I was the one with the zero score. He couldn’t cover the court like I could; he wasn’t hitting the ball as hard as I was; and his serves weren’t as good as mine. But he always seemed to be where I hit the ball, and he always managed to hit the ball over or around me on practically every return.
I have never been so simultaneously humiliated and inspired in all my life!
Since then, when I meet a new colleague, customer, or vendor, I try not to immediately come up with a preconceived opinion of their abilities and strengths, but instead, wait and see what they are able to contribute to any given business situation.
Growing Strong Brands
November 25, 2009
People seem to be almost obsessed with the concept of “branding” – the idea that an identity and a logo are somehow all you need to achieve massive business success. And while new entrepreneurs with grand ideas might be forgiven for drinking this Kool-Aid, certainly large companies would understand the place of branding in the grand scheme of things. Wouldn’t they?
At least I assumed they would. That is, of course, until I heard an interview last week on NPR. It seems that General Motors has been making some progress in their efforts to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and to get some insight into this development, they were interviewing an executive, Susan Docherty, VP of Sales for GM.
When asked about the current state of affairs, Docherty said, “We’re not declaring victory yet but we’re certainly making progress towards growing strong brands and driving positive business results.”
I thought the order in which she listed the two goals was interesting: “growing strong brands” and “positive business results.”
Because if I’m a GM employee, a stockholder, or the owner of a GM vehicle, I could care less about the “strong brand.”
Oldsmobile used to be a strong brand, around for over 100 years. At one time, the Olds Cutlass, a car I proudly owned in my younger days, was the top-selling car in the world, an honor long since held by the Toyota Camry. The last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line on April 29, 2004.
Ironically, almost five years to the day later (April 27, 2009) GM announced that it would be phasing out Pontiac, another strong brand, by the end of 2010. Pontiac has been building cars since 1926, and was responsible for the famous Firebird Trans Am model, featured prominently in the movie “Smokey and the Bandit” and on the 1980s TV series, “Knight Rider.”
Two strong brands with long and amazing histories of innovation and popularity, both gone in the blink of an eye.
Now if they had been paying attention to changing consumer preferences; if they had taken more seriously the mass exodus of their loyal customers to foreign competitors; if they had focused on numbers instead of brands, then maybe GM wouldn’t find itself in the situation it does now.
And remember, this is a very large company that actually has the luxury (and the budget) to spend the huge amounts necessary to even attempt brand advertising. You do not. And that’s why it’s important that you measure, analyze, and make business decisions based on the direct return on investment of every marketing dollar you spend.
Because I’d hate to read in the paper that your brand was being discontinued.
Take a Marketing Shower!
October 23, 2009
I always say that great marketing examples are all around…if you pay attention, and hotel showers are no exception.
I was getting ready for a program I was doing that morning and happened to notice something odd about the shampoo: instead of being completely round like these small bottles are, it was round most of the way…with a flat part on the back. This prevented it from rolling off the little shelf in the shower as usually is the case.
Then I noticed that the shower seemed a bit larger than the usual hotel shower. The reason? The shower curtain, instead of being straight had a “bowed” curtain rod, that pushed the top of the actual curtain farther out, making the shower seem larger.
Both of these were very clever design modifications that make the customer’s experience better. This is the kind of thinking you should employ in your own business, and, just in case you’re in need of more examples, you’re in luck: this kind of creativity isn’t limited to hotel bathrooms!
In the post-9/11 era, when airlines started cutting back and downsizing, planes became more crowded as the number of flights was slashed, creating a severe lack of space in the overhead storage bins.
Most airlines started strictly enforcing carry-on limits, but a few smart ones did something different: they reconfigured the overhead bins so standard carry-on “rollaboards” would fit lengthwise instead of having to be put in sideways.
And in keeping with our theme of asking the right questions, here’s one you should ask yourself:
What can you do to enhance the customer experience in every part of your business?
It doesn’t take a lot of effort to consider this, and the long-term results can be incredible. Plus, people genuinely appreciate it when you try to make their lives easier.
Good Question!
October 23, 2009
People spend a great deal of time, money, and effort trying to find “answers” to the questions that are keeping them awake at night. But that’s not necessarily the best way to get results.
As you know, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for at least four months, we belong to a high-level marketing group that meets three times a year in Baltimore. One of the highlights of the two days we spend there is the open Q&A session that takes place on the evening of the first night.
And, after being in this group for three years now, I’ve noticed something interesting: the best questions get the best answers. It’s a pattern I’ve seen repeated time and time again in a variety of situations.
People who think out their questions and send them to me in advance of our monthly Gold Coaching webinars, teleseminars, and one-on-one coaching calls, solicit better – and more useful – information from these sessions than people who are more or less unprepared.
One of our key success principles is that if you don’t ask the right questions then the answers are meaningless. Make sure you’re asking the right questions of your customers, your staff…and yourself.
Shoo Fly
September 28, 2009
There was an old song that had the lyrics:
Shoo fly, don’t bother me
Shoo fly, don’t bother me
Shoo fly, don’t bother me
‘Cause I belong to somebody
And this week we’ll be talking about flies for a bit. It always seems to happen – you’re having a nice picnic somewhere, when a fly shows up and lands right on your plate. You shoo it away, but he just keeps coming back, a constant reminder that you’re in his territory.
Well, something similar happened to me, but it wasn’t at a picnic. It actually happened on a bike ride.
We were out on a short mid-week ride – around 20 or so miles on a nice stretch of gently rolling terrain. We were riding in a tight paceline – one bike very close to the one ahead of it to get the same “drafting” effect ducks and geese get when they fly in “V” formation.
So we’re tooling along, around 19 mph and then I spot it out of the corner of my eye: a large deerfly. And I don’t just mean I had to dodge my head to avoid being hit in the face – I mean he was flying right alongside of us, weaving in and out of the different bicyclists’ heads like he was looking for someone in particular.
And the most amazing part was that he kept this up for nearly three miles.
I don’t know if anyone else noticed this or even cared if they did; but I was most spellbound by this spectacle – a deerfly keeping pace with a pack of cyclists going 19 mph for three miles!
Thinking I might have been hallucinating, I checked online when I got back home. Turns out deerflies can actually move that fast. They can’t keep it up indefinitely, but when they decide they need to, they crank it up a notch.
Are you the same way? When you have a great opportunity or an urgent deadline, can you put on a burst of speed that can get you to the finish line? It’s not something you want to do constantly – because you’ll end up burning out if you do – but when you need to, a quick, intense, and focused effort can make the difference between failure and success.
Hot Tuna
August 26, 2009
It’s always a struggle to know when to keep working and when to move on. Similarly, what’s the right balance between learning and application – how much do you need to know about something before you start actually applying what you learn?
In one of my regular attempts to resurrect my long-dormant and very rusty guitar playing, I happened to come across the web site for the Fur Peace Ranch in Southeast Ohio.
Founded by legendary guitarist Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna) and his wife Vanessa, it offers a variety of intensive guitar-study weekends, along with a host of concerts featuring many of Jorma’s old friends from “back in the day.” (In case you don’t know – or can’t remember who Jorma is, click here for a quick video with an instantly recognizable song he originally recorded way back in 1966.)
He’s truly one of the masters of what’s now known as “fingerstyle” guitar. When asked in an interview a few years back how he described himself as a guitar player, he said, “I consider myself an intermediate-level guitar player with a lot of experience.”
Now part of that was genuine humility, but part of it was a somewhat accurate assessment of the level of his technical expertise on his instrument. I’m not saying he’s not a good guitarist – he’s outstanding, and his acoustic album, “Quah” with Tom Hobson is an absolute masterpiece. But he’s not lightning fast like, say, Spanish guitar legend Paco de Lucia, or Tommy Emmanuel from Australia.
The point is you really can’t just pick up a guitar with no training whatsoever and be truly successful. On the other hand, though, you can’t study theory your whole life and never actually play the instrument.
In business, people fall into these two traps all the time: either starting a business without a clue of what’s involved, or spending so much time on business plans that they never start the business at all, falling victim to “analysis paralysis.”
By all means, take advantage of the opportunities you have to sharpen your skills. But there’s no better classroom than the real world. Find the right balance, and you’ll make beautiful music in your business.
You Can Do Something…
August 5, 2009
Life and experience are always the best teachers, and this last weekend was no exception.
Always looking for a greater challenge, I’ve moved up from the shorter sprint distance triathlons to the longer and more demanding Olympic-distance races.
The distances for the race this weekend were:
Swim: 1500 meters (.93 miles)
Bike: 28 miles
Run: 6.2 miles
A few comments on the distances. Even though the swim is 1500 meters, because it’s an “open-water” swim (on a lake, ocean,or in this case, a river) you always end up actually swimming more than the posted distance. That’s because you’re seldom swimming in a straight line like you do in a pool with lane dividers and a solid line that you can see on the bottom of the pool.
Second, you’re doing these events one immediately following the next, so there’s not much chance to catch your breath.
And third, preparing for three very different events requires a rigorous and disciplined training regimen. And that’s the one that got me this time. You see, between work, travel, and a nagging knee injury, I had to sit out the run. And since Lorie had been even busier with our daughter’s graduation events, she wasn’t really up to doing the complete race either.
So we decided to compete as a relay team. Normally, three people participate in the relay, each one completing one of the events. We had done this at a recent Half-Ironman event with our friend Lisabeth doing the 1.2-mile swim, Lorie doing the 56-mile bike leg, and me doing the 13.1-mile half-marathon segment.
This time, there were just the two of us, so Lorie did the swim; I did the bike; and Lorie finished up with the run.
Now let’s get down to business and see what this all means for you. (I figured you might be wondering that by now…)
First, either one of us could have decided to drop out of the race entirely. Certainly we both had enough going on to justify that decision. But in our minds, that would have been simply giving up, and that’s not really our style. Instead, we found a solution that took our circumstances into consideration, but still let us compete.
Too many people hit a major roadblock – or even a minor bump in the road – and simply give up. Then they blame an incompetent boss, the bad economy, or an unhappy childhood for their lack of success. In all but the most horrific situations, there’s usually a solution. Not always an ideal solution, but a solution nonetheless.
More importantly, sometimes these “alternate solutions” provide an unexpected opportunity to excel. And that was true in this case: because I didn’t do the swim (my weakest event) and didn’t have to hold anything in reserve to do the run, so I basically went all-out on the bike ride, turning in an average speed of 20.5 MPH – by far my fastest time ever.
Sometimes having just one task to focus on lets you perform extremely well in that area. Similarly, eliminating unnecessary distractions in your work and in your life may be just the thing you need to excel at what’s truly important to you.
And even if there’s no one timing you and no finish line to cross, you can still experience the personal victory of a job well done.
