The Tile Guy Goes to School
April 14, 2010
Most of us understand the importance of education. We encourage our children to do well in school, and learn everything that’s needed to become productive members of society, whether at college or by learning a trade.
Unfortunately, for many people, this commitment to education stops as soon as they get caught up in the day-to-day challenges of life.
It doesn’t have to be this way, of course; there are countless opportunities to continue learning in your personal and professional lives. Our Inner Circle Gold Coaching Members, for example, get a live webinar each month on a specific marketing topic, and an additional monthly “open critique” webinar where they can get their materials and web sites reviewed.
So I was both surprised and delighted when we started talking with the contractor who’s installing a tile back splash in our kitchen.
He asked what Lorie and I did for a living, and when we explained what we did, he said that he could sure use some help in that area, since his business has slowed considerably since the recession hit. Most of his work, it turns out, had been in new construction, where a single customer (a builder) could keep him busy for an entire year. (Please don’t miss the hidden warning here about having just one big customer…)
When I asked him what he was doing with all the down time, he shocked me by responding that he was taking electrical and plumbing courses so he could become proficient in those areas and become a one-stop-shopping source for his customers.
This is a great idea, and a fantastic use of “down time” that would otherwise be unproductive. In a time when many people use this time to complain about how bad the economy is, our tile guy is taking advantage of this time to increase the value he’s able to bring to his customers, which will, in turn increase his personal income.
What are you doing with your down time? A good friend of ours who commutes for several hours each day listens to books on tape. Another person is learning a language during her commute time.
There are always opportunities to further your education – are you taking advantage of yours?
Tell Your Friends!
April 8, 2010
In these challenging economic times, you need to do everything you can to generate new business, and referrals are one of the best ways to do this. Unfortunately, most people don’t have a clue how to do this properly, and I got to hear about an example of this just last week.
Erin, our Director of Operations, had just come back to the office from a doctor’s appointment. With a glint in her eye, she said, “Ron, you’re not going to believe this – my doctor’s office has a new-patient referral program.” This was a little exciting, since it’s actually the first time I’ve heard of a doctor being smart enough to try this out.
But then Erin gave me the rest of the details… “You’re not going to believe how much they pay for a referral: five dollars.”
Yes, you read that right: five dollars. That’s just plain wrong on so many levels. Let’s see why…
* So, you want me to go out of my way, remember to mention your office to all my friends when I see them next, and your incentive for me doing all this is…five dollars? Hey, you can barely buy a cup of Starbucks coffee for that these days! Not much of an incentive.
* Plus, they should be able to pay more. A lot more. Let’s say the average office visit costs $200, discounted down to $100 because of negotiated rates with insurance companies. Let’s further assume that we’re dealing with a family of four, who each visit the doctor three times a year. 4 people x 3 visits a year x $100 a visit = $1,200 – and that’s just the first year. Let’s say they stay in the area for five years. That makes the total value of that family a whopping $6,000. Seems to me it’s worth much more than $5 to get that family into the office.
* Finally, there was the method of helping the current patients to get the referrals. There was none. No brochures to hand out to friends, no offers for free visits, nothing at all. In fact, the only way Erin even knew there was a program at all was a small sign at the receptionist’s window. And when she pointed out how weak that offer was, the receptionist just shrugged, not wanting to get into any trouble, I guess.
Of course, if business is falling at that practice, they’ll surely blame it on the economy, and not on their sad, pathetic, imitation of what a real referral program should look like. No, in this case, the cure for their illness would be a good, strong dose of Outrageous Marketing!
What’s So Funny?
April 1, 2010
You may not know who Charles Douglass is, but if you’ve ever watched a TV sitcom, then you’re definitely familiar with his brainchild: the “laugh track.”
In the days before television, comedy was performed either in theatres or on the radio, and in both cases, there was a live audience present. The problem was that they couldn’t always be counted on to laugh at the right time, for the right length, or even to laugh at all. And many TV shows weren’t even filmed in front of studio audiences, so there wouldn’t be any laughter in the soundtrack.
So starting with The Hank McCune Show, a sitcom that aired in 1950, Charles Douglass was brought in to add canned laughter, a “laugh track” to most comedies, a process called “sweetening,” and he held a virtual monopoly on this process through the late ’60s, when shows like All in the Family started a trend of eliminating the process from post-production.
There is some anecdotal evidence that laugh tracks help improve ratings of many shows, and that producers who refuse to include them get disappointing results from – and even cancellation of – their shows.
The point is this: if a show is truly funny, you shouldn’t need a laugh track to let the audience know when to laugh, much like Frank Sinatra’s famous comment that, “Any singer who needs more than a microphone and a spotlight is a punk.”
That’s why we’re really enjoying the new ABC show Modern Family. The stories are detailed and clever, the casting is perfect, and the show is, well, funny!
And I mean laugh-out-loud funny. Really. Click here to see for yourself. (And if they’re available, watch the “Valentines Day” and “Kidney Stone” episodes!)
The key to the success of this show (it was recently renewed for a second season) is that the writing is brilliant. It’s not dumbed-down, childish, or puerile; it doesn’t play to a least-common-denominator level of intelligence; and because of this a laugh track would be a distraction if not an outright insult.
Keep this in mind as you write your own copy: if you do it right, you’ll get the results you want. Get it wrong, and even Charles Douglass’s invention won’t help you!
Crop Rotation
March 25, 2010
Since I grew up in the Bronx, I’ll be the first to admit that I have very little first-hand knowledge about farming. But there is one aspect of farming that I am familiar with: the concept of crop rotation, where you grow different types of crops in the same area in different years to prevent the buildup of pests and pathogens that can occur when you plant the same crop every year.
It’s fundamentally the same reason you have to vary your workout because your body gets used to what you’re doing and doesn’t respond with the same level of performance and improvement.
And that’s why I was intrigued by an interview I recently read featuring Joni Mitchell. She is one of the most prolific and talented performers of her generation, and, along with Carole King and Carly Simon, basically defined the female “singer/songwriter” genre of the ’60s and ’70s.
What you may not know about Joni Mitchell, however, is that she’s also an accomplished artist, responsible for the art on several of her album covers.
When asked about the relationship between her music and her art, she replied, “Any time I make a record it’s followed by a painting period. It’s a good crop rotation.”
Meaning that if you do just one thing all the time, it becomes boring, routine, and stale. And that’s why it’s essential to mix things up in your work and in your life. It’s the reason teachers take sabbaticals, some college programs include co-op work programs, and most people take vacations.
It’s important to mix things up so you get exposed to a wide variety of inputs and influences that can help make you more productive, more effective, and more interesting.
Which of your “crops” can you rotate this year?
Please Call First
March 18, 2010
Listening to everyone moan and complain about the economy, you might expect that businesses are pulling out all the stops and doing everything they possibly can to attract new customers and keep the ones they already have. I certainly expected this to be the case. But some recent experiences have led me to believe that exactly the opposite is true.
We recently completed a project in our house: we converted our dining room into a “wine room.” Since many of you know that we enjoy wine, this probably doesn’t come as a big shock to you. What we had to go through to successfully complete the project might surprise you though.
Here is a quick summary of just some of the problems we encountered during the process:
1. We were supposed to be called by the delivery person bringing a coffee table and serving unit 30 minutes in advance so we could leave our office and meet him at the house. We got a call from the guy who said he had been waiting at the house for five minutes and wanted to know where we were.
2. The company we bought our wine-storage unit from entered the wrong e-mail address in the order so we didn’t get the message with the tracking number. They also entered our phone number incorrectly so the delivery person wasn’t able to call us to schedule the delivery. We only found out any of this because we finally called to get the tracking number. No link mind you, just a tracking number and the name of an obscure shipping company which we had to track down ourselves.
3. We couldn’t get a salesperson to tell us if a particular bistro table we were looking at was in stock, and, if it was, when we might expect it to be delivered.
Ultimately, we did get everything straightened out (except for the bistro table which we ended up buying elsewhere) and the room looks great.
But it might come as a surprise to you that sales impediments like these might be occurring in your own organization. Now may be just the right time to “mystery shop” yourself. Visit your web site and try to place an order. Call your main number and see what happens when you have questions. Call with a concern about a product or service you’ve purchased and find out how cleanly the situation is resolved.
Too many people blame their difficulties on ineffective marketing, when many times, it’s actually bad service that’s causing the problem.
Interesting People
March 10, 2010
There’s a finite amount of time in a given day, and as I enter my 50s, I’m becoming acutely aware that the “end of the line” is not some distant destination, but something that has more and more effect on the decisions I make.
And that means I have to be very deliberate in deciding where to spend every waking minute, and with whom. So let me offer you a suggestion on one characteristic you may want to consider.
We have very close friends we’ve known for about 20 years. We’ve traded stories and strategies about raising our kids as they’ve grown up, enjoyed many great home-cooked meals together, and been successful in getting together despite both moving from the “old neighborhood” to new homes nearly an hour apart.
Whenever we meet for dinner now, alternating between their house and ours, we spend hours getting caught up on what’s happened since the last time we were together. And it’s not like we haven’t seen them for years or even months – on average, we see them every seven or eight weeks.
So how is it we have so much to talk about? I think it all comes down to a comment our friend Dale made over one of these dinners: “I like hanging out with interesting people.”
He went on to say that interesting people visit different places, try different things, and interact with other interesting people, and that these experiences make for great stories.
Think about the people you hang out with – are they interesting to be around? Do they have stories to share about their adventures and experiences?
Do they have a positive upbeat outlook on life? Or do they just bitch and moan about how horrible everything is and how miserable their lives are?
The people you surround yourself with have an influence on your attitudes, on your disposition, and on your life in general. Why not surround yourself with interesting people?
The 24-Hour Rule
March 2, 2010
I get angry sometimes. I try not to get angry over the little stuff; but some days it just seems like there’s a global conspiracy of stupidity that somehow finds its way to my doorstep, complicating my business life and spilling over into my personal life.
If you’re looking for a specific example, I don’t have one in particular this week – but I’m sure if you think back over the last few days, you’ll almost certainly come up with an experience of your own that fits the bill.
And that’s actually sufficient for our purposes, since what I really want to talk about is not the frustrating situations themselves, but rather our reactions to these experiences. Our tendency is to respond with a knee-jerk reaction, lashing out at the source of the irritation with the full force of our disappointment, dismay, and outrage, and doing so immediately.
I’d like to suggest an alternate approach that has proven successful – if not always in resolving the situation, then at least in helping me relax a bit in the face of the problem, and, as often as not, get a better resolution.
It’s a simple strategy I call “The 24-Hour Rule” and it’s as simple as the name implies: when something has you so angry and upset that you feel the need to do something about it right now, stop, take a deep breath, and wait 24 hours. Here are a few examples:
A friend reveals to others something you told her in confidence? Wait 24 hours.
A client completely rewrites an agreement you sent for approval? Wait 24 hours.
Lines at the airport security checkpoint almost make you miss your flight? Wait 24 hours.
Sometimes it’s difficult to allow yourself that cooling-down period, but there are three reasons you should at least try:
1. You’ll be thinking more clearly when you’re not in a blind rage
2. The time will let your brain come up with more creative solutions to the problem
3. You won’t get yourself so wound up with consuming rage that you damage your health
Of course, not all situations need this kind of deliberate approach, and, in fact, some situations do require immediate action. But in most cases you’ll find this a good strategy that delivers surprisingly positive results.
Let’s Give it to the Agency
February 24, 2010
It’s important to seek out and utilize resources that have more experience in a particular field than you do. But what happens when their expertise is…well, wrong?
Yesterday, I was on a consulting webinar call with one of our Business Self-Defense Gold Coaching members. He had sent in some of the various marketing pieces he was working on so I could make some suggestions that would help improve their effectiveness and response.
While we were both viewing one of the samples on our respective screens, I pointed to an entire section at the bottom of the page where there were logos of the various organizations and associations his company belonged to.
I suggested that these were not necessary, since they added nothing to the message that would encourage the desired response from the reader.
I heard laughter on the other end of the call, followed by, “Yeah, I didn’t even put them there. I had someone helping out with the design, and he actually tracked down the logos and added to the page without checking with me first.”
The person helping him was, by all accounts, a “design professional,” trained to produce attractive, pleasing ads. Here’s the problem: nowhere in that description did I use the words, “Trained to produce ads that will get people to jump out of their seats, visit a web site to request information; pick up the phone to call; or pull out their credit cards to buy something.”
Oh, the ad looked nice, but the logos and several other “design elements” took up valuable space that could have been much better utilized with testimonials, descriptions of value, and calls to action.
Unfortunately, most staffers at ad agencies are nothing more than artists pretending to be business people. Who do you want handling your marketing materials? Make sure anyone you entrust with even the smallest piece of your budget can deliver tangible, measurable results.
Federer’s Record
February 18, 2010
My wife and I enjoy watching tennis, so when the Australian Open was on a few weeks ago, we taped a lot of the matches and watched the men’s final with some friends.
It was going to be an exciting match, with Andy Murray from Scotland going for his first Grand Slam win. Unfortunately, he was playing Roger Federer who is arguably the best ever to play the game on the men’s side – and he’s not done yet.
At one point in the match, when Murray was in danger of losing the second set in the best-of-five match, the statisticians fed this bit of information to the on-air announcers:
Roger Federer’s record when leading 2-0 in Grand Slam matches is 151-0.
That’s right, when he’s up two sets to none, he’s won 151 of those matches and never lost a single one. And this is just one of the amazing statistics he’s racked up over the years.
So what does this mean to Andy Murray on the other side of the net? It means that if he doesn’t hold on and win that second set, his chances of coming from behind to win the match are virtually nonexistent.
In fact, he lost both the second and the following set to lose the match. To listen to Federer, the outcome was never in doubt after the second set. His confidence borders on cockiness, but he does back it up.
What this means for you is that you have to do everything you can to amass a collection of successes – small ones at first, and then bigger and more significant ones. It will help give you a level of confidence that will inspire trust to help you get and keep new customers, clients, and members.
Backup Recording
February 11, 2010
There’s a lot to keep track of when you run a business or manage one. Details upon details upon details. Being organized can help. Having processes can help. Having a backup plan is essential. Let me explain…
As part of our Business Self-Defense™ Inner Circle Gold Coaching Program , we include a monthly live webinar on a specific marketing or business growth topic. We record these interviews and then have them edited so we can make them available on our web site.
The process involves making a recording of the screen, a separate recording of the audio portion of the call, and then merging them together.
Normally, we use a Skype add-on called “Pamela” to record, but just to be sure, I also use the recording feature of our conference-call provider to make a second recording. And good thing: a few weeks ago, my A/V guy e-mailed me to let me know that the audio I had sent was actually from a different month’s program.
At first, I got a little scared. Then I remembered the backup recordings. With just a little apprehension, I went to the conference-call web site and… there it was – a clean copy of the webinar audio.
Crisis averted!
It’s not possible to have built-in redundancy for every single thing you do, but it’s a really good idea to have backups for your important processes.
