Last week I was in the market for new Golf Clubs. I was willing to buy, but I was not in a MUST HAVE mode. I also had just taken my kids to a driving range where they used my clubs and had a blast. I was pleasantly surprised when my 6 & 8 year-old could hit the ball GOOD with my clubs. So we set out on a mission to buy new clubs for the kids and if I found something or someone SOLD me, I’d buy new ones as well.
Our journey started at Play-It-Again Sports in Florence. We were in the store for 10-15 minutes sizing up clubs for the kids. Every few minutes I’d ask the guy working a question to which I would get a VERY generic answer like “Uh, yeah”….{Click Above To Read More}
Doug Smith - Cincinnati Radio Marketing Consultant
Do you market yourself or your business the way you do because “that’s the way it’s always been done”?
Truth be told, your answer is probably “Yes”. It’s a lot safer to follow the status quo, but can your business reach its full potential by doing business this way? If you’re happy with how things are going….great. But maybe, just maybe, there is a better way.
A classic example of someone who thought there was a better way was Henry Ford. Up until Ford’s assembly line concept, automobiles were constructed from the ground up in one location in the factory by one team of workers. Mr. Ford is often credited with the invention of the assembly line, which is incorrect, instead he took an idea from one industry and put it to use in his industry. The idea of building a car via an assembly line came to him during a visit to a sausage packing plant in 1908. The sausage company used an assembly line to package their product and when he saw it, Ford thought the idea could work for building cars. Over a period of 5 years he refined the concept and in October of 1913 Ford launched his moving assembly line and the rest, as they say, is history.
If Mr. Ford played it safe and stuck to the idea of “that’s the way it’s always been done”, the Ford motor company, and the automobile industry as a whole, would not be what it is today.
So take a look at how you market yourself or your business. When was the last time you tried a new idea? I would be willing to bet it’s been a long time. Maybe it’s investing in an electronic media you’ve never used (TV, Radio). Maybe it’s diving head first into the world of Social Media (if you are not using Social Media you are missing out). Maybe it’s changing the way you position your business in the mind of your potential customer. If you haven’t tried something new in a while, do it now.
Successful ideas are all around you and chances are there are some really good ones in places you would never imagine. (Who would have thought the sausage industry would forever change the automobile industry?)
Matt Plapp - Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky Marketing & Social Media Consultant
by Matt Plapp
The #s never lie and you’ve all heard it in your business “80% of our business comes from 20% of our customers.” In my past posts I’ve covered numerous topics on how marketing relates to sales. As a business owner, this topic is your best and worst friend…FOLLOW-UP. Over the past 12 years I’ve been astonished how many sales people and companies that I’ve bought large ticket items from and never heard from again. I’ll only focus on 1 category though, as I write this I’m 34 years old and I’ve purchased 24 cars. YES, 24 cars and I know that’s not a good thing (I’m in auto rehab though, I’ve had my current car for 18 months). I tell you this because to this day, I don’t have a SINGLE sales person from a car dealership who has EVER called on me or calls on me now. This number covers 16 dealerships, 13 local Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky car dealerships. So I’d say the numbers below have some validity as too a “Marketing Problem” most dealerships have.
Think about that for a minute. I’ve had closed deals with over 20 sales people on transactions ranging from $12,000-$65,000 in 1 industry, and I’ve NEVER had a sales person follow-up with me? No one calls me monthly, no one sends me or wife a personalized card, no one calls to see if I am in the market AGAIN or if I know anyone buying a car. What a novel idea, actually call someone and ask them?
I do get a computer generated Birthday card from a Cincinnati Toyota dealer where I bought 2 Toyota FJ Cruisers on the SAME DAY and never heard from the sales person or a manger after the sale. The worst part, I was referred to the GM who got me with his “Top Salesperson”, neither has ever followed-up.
I’m consistently amazed in my travels how I hear the car dealers cry the blues because sales are down and no one is buying and you can’t get them financed, BLAH BLAH, BLAH. I’ve heard it all, my question to all of them is the same; “do you follow-up consistently with your customers.” Does the sales manager, GM or owner call every customer and say thank you afterwards? Does the sales person have a system of contacting the customer monthly via email, phone or mail? Of course most of them say they have a follow-up system in place, but most either don’t realize they don’t or they think follow-up is a generic letter from the service manager that’s generated by a computer and has a computer printed signature to be follow-up.
A number I hear around the industry is that car dealers can spend around $300 per sold car on advertising. So it seems to me that if you spend $300 on a customer, it would be a great idea to try to get their next purchase, their brothers, their neighbor, their parents, etc. But they never do follow-up.
Think about these numbers: Let’s say I’m a car dealer in Northern Kentucky who sells 3,000 cars per year. Imagine if I follow-up with my customers hard-core and we consistently get referrals from those customers, but at the end of the year it’s only 10% (WHICH WOULD BE REALLY LOW). So that’s 300 car sales we just made because we run a professional sales operation and properly treated our customers. At the $300 per customer, we just saved $90,000 in advertising expenses per year. Now the scary part is a GREAT follow-up program that involves everyone from the sales person to the business owner can get easily 30-40% in referrals. Your numbers are right, those dealerships are WASTING upwards of $200,000 per year in advertising because they don’t know how to take care of their customer.
As a retail business owner I realized at a young age the importance of follow-up. Our company not only sent our large-ticket customers 8 mailings per year that had a valid good offer and were personally signed by a department head, but we made sure our sales people called their customers and sent thank you notes consistently. We touched our customers upwards of 12 times per year and because of this we were able to only spend $35,000 per year in mass media for a business doing $15 Million in retail sales. We spent less than $50 per customer on advertising, compared to the industry norms of upwards of $300 per customer. Go figure, customer follow-up works.
Matt Plapp is a Marketing Consultant in the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky area specializing in small business marketing via grass-roots, events, guerilla, online and social media marketing. You can contact him at matt@mattplapp.wpengine.com or 859.743.2408.
In my newsletter coming out Tuesday I talk about pesistence and not taking no for an answer in the sales process. You’ll soon see why I posted this video.
Doug Smith - Cincinnati Radio Marketing Consultant
On The “Mark”eting…by Doug Smith
How often do you purchase a new car?
How often do you purchase laundry detergent?
How often do you buy a new pair of shoes? (For my wife, I think this is about every week)
The answers to those questions are your buying cycle for each category.
What is the buying cycle for your product/service? (If you don’t know it, I suggest you find out)
It is important to know the buying cycle of your product/service because it plays a big part in how your potential customers react to your advertising.
Take the target pictured above. Each red ring of the target represents a part of the typical buying cycle…..
– The outermost ring is when you are not in the market for a product/service. (You own a car you are happy with and buying a new one is the last thing on your mind.)
– The second ring is when you realize you may need that product/service. (Your car has been in the shop lately and you are wondering if it is time to get a new one)
– The third ring is when you’ve decided it’s time to purchase that product/service, but you want to shop around. (You hop online to do some research)
– The Bulls-Eye is when you are ready to buy. (You’ve had it with your car and it is time for some new wheels….NOW!)
The timing between each ring depends on the buying cycle of your business.
How often do your customers need to purchase your product/service? (For example…..the buying cycle for a new car is about 5 years. The buying cycle for gas for that car is about two weeks.)
The key to marketing success is how well you reach your potential customers BEFORE they get to the Bulls-Eye. If your marketing efforts are based exclusively on reaching the people in the market for your product/service RIGHT NOW, you better have the lowest price or you will lose out because you haven’t taken the time to differentiate yourself from your competition in the mind of your potential customer.
Cultivate a marketing message that creatively explains your businesses Unique Selling Proposition and then consistently hammer home that message.
If you consistently tell someone WHY YOU before they NEED YOU they will FIND YOU.
Paul D’Souza – The D’Souza Group – Award Winning Author – The Market Has Changed – Have You?
I have recently connected with a group of people that belong to the Business Network International (BNI) organization. Ironically, I did not have any interaction with them as a group before these last few weeks and I say ironically – because when looking in and observing how them operate, I believe we can learn a great deal from them.
Check out these metrics of success …
In 2009, Business Network Int’l passed over 6.2 million referrals in 5500+ chapters with over 118,000 members in 43 countries resulting in more than $2.6 billion in business!
One of their basic tenants is that – referral marketing is one of the strongest ways to grow your business. And I agree. This is true for many reasons – for years, I have been talking about “The way we have done things for generations” and this is just one of them. Let me illustrate;
Imagine a nice summer day 5000 years ago in a small African village in the area we now call Mozambique; a 12 year old boy starts having feelings for a young girl in his village and has this stirring in his heart where he wants to feel and be known as a man. In his culture, that is typically demonstrated by bringing down and bringing home a large animal. He decides that bringing home a large buffalo would be too much, be decides to learn how to hunt a Gazelle. Where does he start!??
As would be logical then and now … he finds an expert; someone with a reputation of being a good hunter. But not just any hunter. He is looking for the best Gazelle hunter. So he asks his friends and family … people he trusts. He gets a name from his best friends father and since he is a bit nervous; asks if the dad could take him over to the hunters hut and introduce him. The friend’s dad agrees and the introduction is made. He now has an expert hunter who will show him how to bring down a Gazelle and he is happy. But before they leave, the hunter asks the boy two simple questions;
1. Why does he want a Gazelle? he is curious about what are they celebrating? and
2. How many people does he have in his hunting party?
These are important questions, because it will help him select the right Gazelle. But the boy is confused. Hunting party? there is only one girl involved! There is no event to celebrate and there is no hunting party? What is he talking about? its just me and nobody else! The hunter replies … can’t be done.
What? Can’t be done! the boy is confused and so the hunter talks to him about the “practices” related to hunting ….
First – you have to have a good reason to hunt a Gazelle, like celebrating a special event with your family or the village itself. That will determine the size of the Gazelle and based on the event, sometimes determine your need for female or a calf. Secondly, Gazelles are very fast animals and one individual cannot catch one; you need a team of people to help you. Each person has got a task, the main hunter will coordinate them, helping them work together and position himself in the right position to make the kill, but you need 6 or 7 people.
The hunter went on to talk about what each person would do and that some of them would have to be good runners while others would have to be able to sneak up on the Gazelle and be very quiet and experienced in being quiet in the jungle. He talked about the equipment and the tools they would need and then talked about the different hunting spots they would have to go to, to try to make the kill. Finally, the hunter talked to him about the dangers involved; from the cuts and bruises one could get from running through the jungle and the open plains to being attacked or bit by other animals and snakes to the Gazelles themselves. They could do real damage with their horns.
The boy began to understand the complexity and the level of structure and organization one needed to bring down a Gazelle. There was no way he could do this alone. He needed to get a few of his friends together to help him out and he needed to coincide his hunt with a ceremony; an event that would have bigger impact than just feeding his ego. He needed a bigger “Why”. By Golly!! there were rules!
This my friends is what BNI does for you; the small business owner. They have developed a systematic body of knowledge and business practice that help you understand the basics of Referral Marketing and they not only show you, but they also create the space for you to access and leverage “Your Team”; these are people who will actively help you bring bring down the Gazelles you need. And just like in the African village 5000 years ago; they want to know your “Why” and you better have a good one. They will also hold you accountable and will seek to have you earn their trust. Which you need to earn and keep … to stay on the team.
Join the Business Network Internation if you think you could use a team of trained people to help you access more customers.
Paul D’Souza is an award winning author and Professional Business Consultant, to reach Paul visit his website. http://www.pauldsouza.com/wordpress/
The outermost ring is when you are not in the market for a product/service. (You own a car you are happy with and buying a new one is the last thing on your mind.)
