Category Archives: Marketing/Sales

Do You Meet with Your Staff Regularly? – make these meetings more productive

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A recent article in the New York Times business section, “You’re the Boss: the art of running a small business”, by Paul Downs, “The Comment That Changed My Business” spoke of this owner’s experience with holding weekly meetings with his employees. In the 24 year history of this company, they had never held regular employee meetings. Mr. Downs reported on how successful these now are for him.

His story reminded me of my own experiences with meetings. Here is one that is germane to Mr. Downs’ story.

I used Stand Up Meetings for staff. Continue reading →

A Silent Client Is Not Necessarily a Happy Client

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Are You Holding Silent Clients in Contempt?

Do you think that a client who patiently waits for you to get work done for them without complaining is a happy client? In a world with lots of squeaky wheels and more demands than can be met, we treat the silent client with some contempt. In practice we may let their work slip further and further behind. Our thought processes seem to say, “Well, if they think this is important or urgent, they will let me know.” But this is willfully ignoring the facts about silent clients.

Beware-Silent-CustomerMany people do not like confrontation or conflict. They avoid complaining, or even appearing to be demanding. But, they are not necessarily happy with your service and they do not forget. Few people are masochists. The next time they need your services they will very likely be off to another provider who they hope will be more responsive and honest with them.

Now You Have Lost a Client and Finding the Replacement is Ten Times the Cost of Keeping One You Have Continue reading →

Mastodons and Customer Relationship Management

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What might mastodons have to do with Customer Relationship Management?

In a recent discussion with the leadership team of a small engineering firm I listened as they reported on their progress working with a medium size firm on the second project they had worked on with a third coming down the tube. It struck me that they had progressed to a new phase in their marketing and sales work. They had finally reached the point where they are experiencing repeat business from larger firms. They occupy a fairly narrow niche in the engineering world, but they had found several customers for whom their services are now being called on with regularity.

mastodon and neolithic hunters borrowed from http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/07/men-of-north.htmlI asked more questions about how they were thinking about these customers. Continue reading →

Unhappy Prospects and Customers – a gold mine

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A client told me a story today that illustrates a principle that every business owner or manager needs to embrace and act on.

Unhappy prospects or customers are an opportunity to display your real value and win a fan for life.

Here is the story from the owner of a start up yoga studio in New York City.

A neighborhood person began to say negative things about the studio on Twitter. Challenges about the pricing being too high and a lack of community involvement in the new studio. A PR person working with the studio’s owner responded and engaged the disgruntled neighborhood person. This lead to the owner becoming engaged and an exchange of emails that clarified the concerns and the facts of what the studio was really doing. The neighborhood person also received feedback from others about the competitive pricing for yoga in NYC. All of this lead to an invitation from the owner for the neighborhood person to come by for tea and attend a Saturday evening potluck party at the studio. Continue reading →

Understanding Your Customers Comes Before “The Five P’s of Social Media”

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In his posting The Five P’s of Social Media–Where Do You Start? on the Fast Company site, Lon Safko writes about where to get started in social media that:  “The Five P’s are; Profiles, Propagate, Produce, Participate, and Progress”. His discussion is worth a review. ((Thanks to Brendan McLaughlin at Westglow Technology Consulting for pointing this article out to me.))

I might add a preface to to these “Five P’s” that is a fundamental precursor to success in web social media (as well as all other marketing).

Focus on your customers, clients, and prospects first – what is your value to them?

Focus on your customers, clients, and prospects first. What is it that they are interested in? What is the value they desire from you? What language do they use to talk and think about the problems you might solve for them? Use the proven tools of FABing to keep your focus on what your customers are actually interested in. Don’t fill up your web space with content that they are not interested in and which is not presented in their language.

FAB refers to Features and Benefits (some say Features, Advantages, and Benefits). This is a simple, powerful axiom of marketing (and sales) that proves elusive even to seasoned practitioners. Simply put: Customers buy Benefits not Features. Features are the physical, functional attributes of a product or service. Benefits are the values, as perceived by the customer, of using a product or service. Continue reading →

Podcast – Increase Your Value Through Customer Perception in Professional Services

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Increase customer perceived value by managing expectations, making services visible, and following up.

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This podcast is 12 minutes 41 seconds long.

A text version is available here