Lahaina Strikes Again!
May 13, 2009
Most business owners and salespeople seem content to sit back, complain, and rattle off an endless stream of reasons why business is slow…while they continue to work in exactly the same manner they did when the economy was strong – or worse still, sit around and wait for business to come to them.
This second strategy is unreliable even in the best of circumstances, and downright foolish in today’s economy. And yet you see it in use constantly. We certainly do…with one notable and recent exception.
First a quick bit of background. Lorie and I like Asian art. In fact, we like Asian food, Asian culture, and, of course, Asian martial arts. We joke that if there’s such a thing as “previous lives” then we were both certainly Japanese during the samurai period.
One of our favorite artists is Hisashi Otsuka. Lorie bought me a framed poster of one of his pieces as a wedding present nearly 25 years ago. We’ve since bought two prints of his that grace our living room.
So it came as a pleasant surprise when Lorie got a call from Mike Summers last week. Mike works at Lahaina Galleries, the company that represents Otsuka and many other prominent artists. Based in Hawaii, Lahaina Galleries has locations in Maui and on the Big Island, in San Francisco and Newport Beach, California, and in Bend, Oregon.
Mike called to let us know about a new release by Otsuka we might be interested in, and to tell us about an October event they’re having at the San Francisco gallery called “I Found My Art in San Francisco” – a play on words on the classic Tony Bennett Song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
As a bonus, they’re hoping to have Otsuka at the gallery for the event, which would be a real treat since I’ve never met him before.
There are three extremely important things Mr. Summers did, and I’m hoping you’ve already picked up on at least two of them:
1. He contacted previous customers – We’re not big-time art collectors. In fact, the two Otsuka prints and one poster we own make up our entire collection. But we did buy two of them, the most recent one a little over a year ago. So in addition to sending us periodic e-mails and print newsletters (hey, there’s a bonus strategy for you!) he reached out and presented us with an additional opportunity to acquire a third piece from the artist.
When was the last time you got in touch with past customers?
2. He called – The personal touch of reaching out and talking to us personally is something that’s not done quite enough, particularly with people who’ve suddenly and mysteriously stopped buying from you.
Do you call regular or lost customers with special information and updates?
3. He took initiative – I’ve never met Mike Summers. He didn’t sell us the recent print we bought, and he certainly didn’t sell us the first one we bought back in 1995. For all I know, he could have been seven years old back then. What he did do was compile a list of the gallery’s customers, call to introduce himself, and offer something of interest (the October event) to get our attention. This took a lot of time and effort, and was certainly more difficult than sitting on his butt in an empty gallery, complaining about how bad the economy is, while waiting for buyers to walk in off the street.
What creative, innovative, and proactive strategies are you using to get new business?
With no clear end in sight to this economic downturn, you simply can’t rely on previously successful strategies or simple good fortune to see you through – you need to develop a new mindset and a different approach that will seem like a “work of art” to your customers, clients, and members.
“Look Out Below!”
May 12, 2009
Usually it is a good idea to let an expert take care of issues that arise that you are not qualified to handle yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask for help!
Many times we find ourselves overwhelmed by a huge project or a rapidly approaching deadline. Part of the reason for this can be our tendency to try and take on too much of the load ourselves and our inability to seek or accept help from others. As the following example illustrates, sometimes the solution to a complex problem can be as simple as getting help from the right people at the right time.
Having grown up in an apartment in New York City, I never had the opportunity to learn how to work with tools like most kids who lived in the suburbs or out in the country. In the city, we didn’t build decks or landscape the backyard. When something went wrong we called the “super” (short for superintendent) who took care of the building and who fixed any problems in our apartment.
Today, I live in a house in the suburbs. Unfortunately there is no super to call when something needs to be fixed so even with my limited mechanical ability I have to take care the problem or find someone who can.
After a hurricane had come through our town and had left behind a backyard full of fallen trees, I had phoned a friend to borrow his chainsaw so that I could clear away some of the wood and debris. Fortunately, knowing my limited skill with power tools, my friend quickly replied, “No, absolutely not” and instead came over and cut up most of the fallen trees for us.
Anyway, we still had this huge poplar tree that had survived the storm but was all but dead. It was obvious to us that at some point in time, another hurricane or high wind would take down that tree. And since it was leaning towards the house, we thought it would be a good idea to take it down soon.
Needless to say, I wasn’t going to do it myself. But I knew right where to turn. We had worked with a father and son team earlier when we had landscaped our yard and knew they had the expertise to do the job.
You see, they couldn’t just cut the tree down, since there really was nowhere it could land without damaging some part of the house or yard. They would have to drop it in several large pieces.
I felt like a little kid the day this team of men took down the tree. I stood around with my hands in my pocket and my head cranked back watching in awe as one of the men strapped a belt around the tree and used special climbing spikes attached to his shoes to quickly scramble to the top. This he did with ease even while he had a heavy chainsaw dangling from his tool belt. When he got near the top, he shouted to one of the men to clear a spot about ten feet from the trunk of the tree. He then examined the tree for several seconds from a couple different angles and made two cuts.
The top section of the tree fell with a loud thud and landed precisely where he had indicated. He pointed to another spot on the ground about four feet away and dropped the next section there. This went on about a dozen times until all that was left was a stump in the ground.
I felt I was watching an artist at work. His weathered, worn face and hands made him look much older than he actually was (mid fifties) and gave the impression that he had been honing his craft for many, many years. In fact, his assistant told me that he had been cutting down trees since he was 15 years old. This was clearly someone who had the benefit of experience.
At the time, I remembered thinking that there were two valuable lessons to be learned here. First, no amount of book studying could provide you with the level of expertise needed to work as precisely as he did. And secondly, it is always best to have the most qualified person perform a job that demands specific expertise.
You see, as leaders, we tend to think we have to know how to do it all and that asking for assistance is a sign of weakness. In fact, it’s not necessary to know everything, only to know where to find the right people who have the knowledge or the information you seek.
As you begin to tackle a complicated problem, try not to take on the entire weight of the project yourself. Rather try to find the person with the expertise who can help you deal with it – one piece at a time.
The Best Investment
May 7, 2009
In this time of economic uncertainty, it’s hard to know what to do with your money. The stock market is shaky; interest rates are falling; and no one really knows if we’ve hit bottom yet. So where should you invest your money? Let me offer a suggestion…
I just got back from one of the two annual conferences I attend each year (not to be confused with the 30 or so I speak at myself) and came away with lots of actions to implement and one profound observation.
Most of the nearly 1,000 participants were not seeing any negative impact from the current recession. If anything, they were actually doing better because they know how to market effectively in a less competitive environment.
The one thing they all had in common, aside from an interest in “our style” of marketing, was a willingness to invest in the one place they have some control over the results: their education.
Investing time, effort, and yes, money in your own personal and professional education is the only sure bet you can ever have, because the return on that investment is entirely up to you. If you pay attention, think through, and implement what you learn from newsletters, CDs, and training programs, you’ll stand a far better chance of getting an acceptable return on investment than if you hand control over to someone else.
Consider how you spend every minute…and every dollar, and make absolutely certain that you’re getting as much as possible in return.
Only Three Ways…
May 7, 2009
The most common topic of conversation on my one-on-one coaching calls is how to counteract the falling revenues that come as a result of the current economic situation. Fortunately, the solutions are relatively straightforward, even if implementing them can be a bit tricky.
They generally fall into one of three broad categories:
* Find something that makes you truly unique in the marketplace
* Make yourself indispensible to a specific market segment
* Deliver a value proposition that amounts more or less to “selling money at a discount”
We explore these three approaches – and literally hundreds of others – in our Business Self-Defense™ 90-Day Success Program. (Watch for a special one-time-only offer coming soon!)
And if you really want to get to a solution to this problem even more quickly and directly, there are actually only three ways to increase revenue:
1. Get more customers
2. Get them to buy more frequently
3. Get them to spend more each time they buy
That’s it – there are no other ways; anything that seems to be is just a variation or combination of one or more of these three. If you truly want to increase your revenues, start applying the Outrageous Marketing strategies we teach here every week, and be bold in how you use them instead of running scared and hiding in dark corners like most of your competitors.
Despite what the media would have you think, this is actually one of the best environments for growing your business that we’ve had in a long time. The competition for attention is dwindling; media and design costs are dropping as vendors panic and lower prices to try and hold on to business (the wrong decision in most cases); and people are looking for value.
If you can provide it, they will respond.
“Made Ya Smile!”
May 7, 2009
If you can find a way to add a little excitement to your job, it can make all the difference in the world.
Some jobs offer a variety of challenges that make the day pass quickly, while others are very routine and monotonous so that the day seems to drag on forever. If you can find a way to add a little excitement to your job, it can make all the difference in the world.
A few weeks ago, I had to make a trip to the airport to exchange some tickets. The reason for their exchange is a long story, but suffice it to say that the trip was the culmination of a series of very frustrating phone calls and a trip to the city ticket office that unfortunately was closed that weekend.
I know I need to remain calm with all of life’s little frustrations. But having just wasted an incredible amount of time exchanging some tickets, needless to say, I was in a bad mood as I left the airport.
I stopped at the parking lot toll window and handed the clerk my ticket. She put it in the slot to be read; and in a perfectly normal tone of voice said, “That will be $75 and you’ll have to give me your credit card too.”
As I was just about to grab my credit card out of my wallet, her words finally registered. “What?” my mind screamed. “The fee should only be 75 cents!” I got a puzzled look on my face, and as I turned back to look at her, I noticed that she had a huge grin on her face. I started to smile too as she chuckled and said, “Made ya smile!”
This had the pleasant effect of making me forget about the problems that had brought me to the airport in the first place.
Here was a woman in a very tedious and somewhat boring job and yet, in the middle of her shift, she was still upbeat enough to joke with people leaving the parking lot.
It really is essential to keep a positive attitude during work. When you enjoy your work, this task is much, much easier. With all the time you spend on the job and the time you spend driving to and from work, it is important that you bring some passion to what you do. When you don’t, not only does your own attitude suffer, but your attitude will spread to your co-workers and eventually to your customers.
Try to follow the example of the parking lot attendant who found a way to make a boring job more interesting and managed to transfer her positive attitude to her customers. If you incorporate this idea in your own work, you’ll see the enormous impact you can have on others around you.
Good Judgment Comes from Experience…
May 5, 2009
A statement from a participant at a presentation showed how failure can provide a unique opportunity for learning.
This May I had the opportunity to speak to about 400 people at the American Society for Quality’s annual convention in Anaheim, CA. When I speak to a diverse group of individuals such as this, I gain a wide variety of useful ideas and experiences that I share with my audiences.
At the end of one session in particular, one of the participants handed me his card, on the back of which he had written the following saying:
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
These two statements illustrate an important point: that failure can provide a unique opportunity for learning.
In the first of the two statements, the message is rather straightforward. To possess good judgment, you need knowledge from a variety of experiences.
The second statement goes against our usual way thinking. Typically, when a situation is successful, we celebrate the “success” with parties, celebrations, bonuses, and commemorative items. But how do we react to “failure?” Usually, we try to sweep it under the rug and hope that no one notices.
What these statements say is that failure is always a much better teacher than success. This is as true in our personal lives as it is in our professional lives. If you think back over most of your major “life-changing” decisions, you will find that they usually occurred at a difficult time in your life.
It may be during a personal tragedy, an unsuccessful business venture, or a failed product introduction when the real learning happens. And how you handle these difficult situations today can influence how you will deal with them in the future.
The next time you are faced with a situation where you believe you have somehow failed, don’t ignore it and hope that it goes away, embrace it as the price of experience. Celebrating failure from time to time can lead to success, just as experience can lead to good judgment.
