Category Archives: Marketing

Minimize Your Mistakes

We all make mistakes. It’s in our human nature to be fallible. My line is that if I were perfect there’d be no reason for me to be here. In business, however, mistakes can be costly and may even be fatal for the company.

If you are familiar with the Tylenol case, there are some who believe the problem was perpetrated by an outside influence and the company made no mistake. There had to be a failure somewhere, however, that enabled the perpetrator to infiltrate the system and contaminate product. In either case, the incident could have proved fatal for Tylenol had they chosen a different way to respond or not responded at all. Yes, it was costly to pull all of their potentially-contaminated products from the shelves and re-tool production to include protective seals, but those costs were made back up with the brand regaining its market share because of making the right decision. The right choices were made … and steps were taken to correct the failure in the system.

You will make mistakes in business. You can minimize those mistakes, though, with some preventative measures such as this limited list:

1. Internal Communication. Your corporate mission and the vision you have for your company must be consistently conveyed to your management and employees frequently. Supervisors should be talking to production people and dealing with issues the line identifies. Sustaining a positive, supportive attitude within your team is far more productive than standing by and waiting for something to break. I’ve always believed a pat on the back goes further than a kick in the pants.

2. Quality Control. The image your company portrays – through employees and your product’s packaging – creates the perception of your business to consumers. By controlling that image you can minimize negative perceptions about your products and/or services. It can be something as innocent as printing direct mail pieces when your printer is running out of ink that conveys the wrong impression. Keep an eye on your image and encourage your entire team to do the same.

3. Strategic Plan. Your corporate mission and the other aspects of having a plan for where you want your business to go serves as the guidebook to avoid mistakes. Take time to think things through. Evaluate where you are in accomplishing your strategies on a frequent basis. Spend time on the tasks that are important to the business for the long term and less time responding to urgent tasks. It’s the proverbial but true statement about spending more time on the business than in it.

4. Crisis Management. An often overlooked element in your business and marketing strategy is a response mechanism for when crises occur. Thinking through what might happen and devising methods for dealing with each of them can minimize risks, alleviate headaches, and keep your company in business when mistakes happen. Keep in mind that in certain situations, your best crisis response may be to let the crisis pass without a direct response. You must still be ready to act, however.

5. Learn. To keep from repeating errors that can prove costly, a great piece of advice is to learn from those mistakes you do make. You are doomed to failure if your company continues to make the same mistakes. Make sure your legal counsel knows the risks you face and does what he/she can to help you minimize them. Trust your non-staff team to help you gain from the lessons mistakes teach us. Stay positive and keep moving forward. Understand that this, too, will pass.

Detach yourself from the desire to make a rush (and often rash) decision. Distinguish the true from the false, the facts from the assumptions. Then choose the right path.

Game Plan

A good friend left one professional football team and ended up playing for a different one for a couple of years before he retired. The one he left had a consistent record of making the playoffs, winning championships, and having a waiting list for season tickets.

When he signed on with his new team, he found a locker room full of players more concerned about their paychecks than winning. The team rarely made the playoffs, usually had a losing record, and had a hard time filling the stands on game days. He had come from a totally different environment; a positive, winning environment he wanted to create with his new team, so he needed a game plan.

His approach involved helping his teammates understand that if they put forth the effort to be the best players they could be and concentrate on winning football games, they would fill the stands and generate the revenue necessary to more than compensate them for their efforts. He worked hard on conditioning, talked about the right fuel for the machine, and studied the playbook to perfection. His teammates started to understand, especially that with the right attitude they might even make the playoffs and win a championship, like he had done with his former team. He showed them his championship ring.

While his impact on the team was a small part of their success, they now contend for the division title every year and have made the playoffs consistently for four or five years. He had helped the players think things through, adjust their attitude, and play with a different winning mindset.

What’s the game plan for your business?

You can easily do the least possible and get by. That’s simple. You will own a business and take an occasional paycheck. Your company may be remembered one day for providing a product or service that people enjoyed while it lasted. You may even have an impact on some people’s lives. Is that your legacy and game strategy? Is that why you are in business? Is it enough for you to accomplish?

Or …

Do you want to create, develop, and sustain a comprehensive strategy that builds your brand to have top-of-mind awareness among consumers and own the market for your product or service? You can work your brand to the point where it has phenomenal impact on whatever plane you wish to dominate, including net profit, market share, employee relations, customer service, and public perception. It can be done.

Your strategy starts with your attitude. Answer the question: Why are you in business? Then build on that response by surrounding yourself with the right coaches (consultants such as Brand Irons) and players (employees and vendors). Understand what you’re selling and who your target audience is so they’re willing to buy tickets (purchase your products or services) and come to the games (become repeat customers).

You choose whether your business is mediocre or exceptional.

I go to a certain grocery store for a reason; it’s my favorite. I could buy food at a store where the prices are cheaper, but I go where I do because the owner/manager will stop and talk to me whenever and wherever I am in the store. He and his staff understand the relationship with the customer is more important than stocking the shelves. It makes a difference.

A game plan is a fun way to look at your company’s business plan and market strategy. Contact Brand Irons to get help putting yours together.

Team Resource – Your Banker Or Investor

Bank Cash Bag When we think of a bank, some business owners think of it as a necessary evil. That sentiment is likely due to the feeling that the bank uses the funds it has on deposit to make more money loaning it to others, that they are stingy on lending money back to business owners, and charge fees for virtually every transaction they make.

While there may be an element of truth to some of those concerns, remember that banks are a business and also need to make money to stay in business. What business owners often overlook are the positive outcomes of having a good business relationship with a banker.

First on the list is reduced risk. Imagine a business where all the cash and payments are kept on site in a vault. Any guarantee against loss or theft is gone. Although it may seem like a viable way to conduct business and keep your cash close by, the scenario also means your business, by definition, relies on being conducted only through cash transactions. That also limits how your customers can pay for your goods or services.

Banks provide a means to process checks and credit card payments, although credit cards can be processed apart from a bank through a company such as Electronic Payments. These options for customers enable your business to accept more than cash. Even businesses (a few restaurants come to mind) that accept only cash have automated teller machines (ATMs) in the lobby or close by where customers can get the cash they need by swiping a debit or credit card.

The most important reason to have a banker or an investor as part of your non-staff management team, however, is to help you manage your business. A strong, professional relationship with a business-oriented banker enables you to control cash flow, keep abreast of banking regulations, and manage your financial assets.

Too often, business owners only approach or talk to their banker when they need money. People I know in the banking industry hate that as much as the business owner. Bankers want to help you but need to know how. If it’s merely depositing your revenue into a checking account and using that account to pay your invoices, just talk to your banker about the best options for that type of account.

To get more value from your relationship, however, you need to get your banker involved in your business. Obviously, the first step is to establish parameters regarding confidentiality and other concerns, especially if it involves sharing your financial statements on a regular basis. Next is to give them insight into your business, which can be done with a business plan, a tour of your facility, and perhaps even a spot on the board of directors. Then stay in touch with your banker on a regular basis. Keep them abreast of your situation so they can be prepared to extend a line of credit or help with a short term loan if finances are getting tight or cash flow becomes an issue.

Talk long-term strategies with your banker as well. Let them know what you have planned, when you anticipate any expansion efforts to take place, and besides what you expect the costs to be, when you plan on being able to pay off the capital improvement loan. The old saying that if you work with them, they’ll work with you is valid when it comes to your banker.

Keep in mind that since the economic crisis around 2007-2008, banks have come under much closer scrutiny from the federal government and all the regulatory agencies. That implies that banks are now required to be more careful in what loans they add to their portfolios, which may mean you need personal guarantees or stronger collateral to get the same kind of loan you used to get before that time … and they may turn you down.

The questions you need to ask your banker should cover interest rates, penalties, loan procedures and requirements, and how best to manage your relationship with them. Getting free business checks is less important than avoiding monthly account service fees, although both may be negotiable.

Your relationship is still what’s most important. You want a relationship with a banker who’s responsive and honest. You shouldn’t have to wait four weeks for an answer about a loan, and you want them to tell you up front what to expect, even if the loan possibilities look bleak. You want answers and want to know where you stand so you can make informed decisions.

Keep in mind, too, that if you face rejection for a loan from one or more banks, there are other options, such as private equity and angel investors. These may be long shots as well and require a higher rate of return, but they are options for your business to continue to flourish and serve your customers.

Ready For A Crisis?

This week shifts to a topic that may be timely for some of you – handling a crisis – and serve as a wake-up call for those who have yet to establish strategies for dealing with the unexpected.

Let’s start with this question: What’s the worst thing that could happen to your business? ship_sailing_off_edge_of_world

Would it be that your “trusted” bookkeeper embezzles a few hundred thousand dollars from your corporate treasury?

Would it be a significant manufacturing defect that causes customers to get hurt or sick because of your product?

Would it be a system malfunction that destroys your electronic customer database and financial records, including the back-up versions?

Those, to most of us, would be major catastrophes. A crisis of any size can catch you unprepared. You have no way of knowing when the unexpected will happen, but you can take the time now to think those eventualities through and develop a strategy for dealing with the unanticipated events that can have an impact on your business.

While there are people who insist you should only focus on the positive and ignore any negative impact on your business, that is a naïve approach. Stuff happens! If you are caught with your proverbial pants down, you are forced to scramble to come up with a way to brush off or embrace the embarrassment and get your pants back up again. If anyone has ever “pants’d” you in gym class, you know the feeling.

Coming up with strategies for dealing with crises in your business can be simple or a complicated process that takes time and, in many situations, suggests that you bring in a professional to help you strategize and then implement the plans should the occasion arise.

Here is an example: When I was going to take over management of a chamber of commerce, I received a call from a member of the board of directors. She wondered what they should do since the chairman had just been indicted on child pornography charges. Holy cow! The potential for a black eye for the chamber was significant. My advice was simple: Distance the organization from the individual and go low profile … immediately but temporarily.

The chairman wisely resigned from the board and by going low profile, the chamber was rarely mentioned in any media coverage about the allegations and subsequent trial. Low profile also meant the chamber had time to get its house in order and be prepared to come out stronger than ever when the wind blew over.

This type of incident may never happen to your business, but some other potentially disastrous event could cripple your business short, or long-term. There are steps you can take to deal with everything from active shooters to negative publicity from a competitor, but going through every scenario is only important if your business may be susceptible to the situation.

There are numerous solutions to the myriad scenarios that can occur – far too many to deal with in this limited space. Seek professional help to come up with the most viable and sensible strategies for addressing the highest potential threats to your operations, whether they seem insignificant or are potentially devastating.

You will rest easier knowing that, in the event disaster strikes, you have a plan to follow and steps to take in managing the crisis or, if nothing else, you know who you can call to help you out. Make sure your strategy is customer and employee friendly because people are what’s most important. Buildings and machines can be replaced.

It all starts by asking the basic question: What is the worst thing that could happen to your business?

If you initially answered fewer sales, there’s an answer for that crisis, too.

Brand Irons can help you create the solutions to sustain and protect your brand and your business.

Team Resource – Your Business Consultant

You may be thinking you know everything you need to know to operate your business, so you can get by without a business or marketing consultant. You probably could, if you truly do know everything you need to know about your business and feel an independent, third party perspective is unnecessary.

Let’s do a little test of your understanding up front:

What is your operating profit margin?
What systems are in place to avoid employee theft?
How many of your customers made repeat purchases in the last year?
What kind of impact will the federal health care system have on your business?
How current is your unemployment insurance coverage?

These are questions you should be able to answer without much thought, although the larger concern is how well you are able to stay on top of this information and the related implications … and keep all your other tasks under control, too.

Your profit margin is a bellwether of how well you are doing. Grocery stores operate on a much smaller margin than jewelry stores. Your accountant can help you figure out your margins if you’re unsure how to calculate cost of goods sold and other variables.

A five here or a twenty that fails to make it into the cash drawer may seem inconsequential in the big picture, but nickels and dimes add up over time. Tills should balance at the end of shifts, and since cash is a measure of your success, you need controls in place to monitor your capital, even if you trust your employees completely.

Knowing your customers and their buying habits is market research, and it’s customer relations. You and your staff should be able to greet returning customers by name when they come back to your store. Their return is an indication you’re doing things the right way … for them. Or else they’ve got complaints, which means you need to get on top of those and solve them promptly or they could have a negative impact.

The new federal health care regulations and your unemployment compensation insurance are difficult matters to monitor on a consistent basis. Your insurance agent is trained to stay abreast of changes in laws and can be an asset to your business, managing your risk, saving you money, and covering your assets.

You have employee issues, inventory concerns, sales numbers and projections, customer service situations, payroll, taxes, marketing, production, and whatever else you have to deal with every day. Oh, yes, how much time do you take for yourself every week?

Your business consultant is a resource that is valuable to your business in many ways, from helping you manage potential threats and viable risks to staying focused on your mission and key objectives and guiding you in growing the business. If you avoid using a consultant because of the cost factor, demolish that thought process and look at it, instead, in terms of how that expense should manifest itself in double, triple, or even larger growth for your business. Round out your team with strong, professional advice. Your consultant should also become an advocate for your business and hold you accountable for prioritizing the work you must do to make the right decisions.

Team Resource – Your Legal Counsel

If you have thought that the only time you need an attorney for your business is when you get in trouble, it’s time to eliminate that mindset. Professional legal counsel should be viewed as an essential member of your management team, especially if your firm lacks the size to have full-time corporate counsel on staff.

Scales of Justice

The problem is that most business owners wait until they are sued to seek out and use legal counsel, instead of preventing lawsuits by the wise and judicious use of a lawyer.

The first step is finding an attorney you trust. Talk to one you already know for advice and a referral to the correct barrister to fit your needs. Keep in mind it might be the lawyer you ask for the reference from who becomes your counsel. Knowing whether you can afford their services is less important than knowing they are able to protect your assets and save you money by avoiding legal action.

The second step is understanding what you need your legal counsel to do for your business. They can draft and review employee agreements and assist in handling employee grievances and complaints. They should draft and monitor your non-compete, non-disclosure, and confidentiality documents and insist that you use them diligently to maintain your intellectual property rights. Any contracts, leases, or other obligations you are considering should be reviewed by your legal counsel. Add in corporate by-laws, employee manual review, incorporation, operating agreements, and other legal advice and it becomes quite clear how essential your lawyer is to your management team.

Third, be clear on the role you want an attorney to play on your team. Discover their areas of expertise and their willingness to learn. If you plan on franchising your business, look for counsel with franchise experience or allow them time to study up on what is required. Their knowledge and experience obviously comes with a price, so that clarity is important and has value to your checkbook.

As you get to know your lawyer, make sure you tell them to let you know when you’re on the clock since most of them bill by the hour. Find out when the clock is ticking for such things as a 10-minute phone call or if they are responding to your E-mail so there are few surprises when the invoice arrives.

Fourth, talk to your lawyer about the steps you can take to avoid litigation in the first place, including proper treatment of employees, return policies, guarantees, product liability, vendor agreements, and any other aspect of your business that exposes your company to legal action.

Remember, your legal counsel is a vital member of your team and can be, must be, trusted to protect your assets. Take the time to interview several to find the right one to take care of you and your business. It could be the most important decision you make.

Ride for the Brand

There’s a lot of sense in James Owen’s Cowboy Ethics that relates tomodern business ownership, such as living each day with courage, taking pride in your work, and always finishing what you start. Make sense?

Your entrepreneurial spirit and drive to succeed gives you the courage to greet each day, and that belief in your product or service imbues that sense of pride. Napoleon Hill writes about winners never quitting and quitters never winning, so finish what you start. A half-hearted effort is just that, half-hearted and hardly worth doing at all.

Other aspects of the cowboy code were/are to do what has to be done. If a fire has to be put out before you leave for the day, put it out. If you’re in the food service business, you clean up the garbage whether you want to or not. It has to get done.

Along the same line, a solid principle is to ride for the brand. As the business owner, you live, eat, and breathe your brand – your business, products, and services. You represent your brand. You are selling it, even when you don’t think you are. The vision you create for your employees and customers should convince them to ride (act and be loyal) for your brand as well.

Think of Harley-Davidson as an example. Harley owners ride their motorcycles because they love the bikes, and they are extremely loyal to the H-D brand. Dealers and employees perpetuate the concept of riding for the brand. It’s the brand loyalty every business owner aspires to, or should want for their products and services.

Cowboys were hired on by the trail boss to ride for the owner of the cattle they were herding; the brand. Their life, in many ways, depended on their loyalty to riding for the brand.

The cowboy way of life and sense of ethics may seem archaic in a high-tech world, but the values these pioneers in the expansion of our country held still have merit. What follows is Owens’ entire list:

Live each day with courage
Take pride in your work
Always finish what you start
Do what has to be done
Be tough, but fair
When you make a promise, keep it
Ride for the brand
Talk less, say more
Remember that some things aren’t for sale
Know where to draw the line.

Happy Trails!

What’s In A Brand Name?

Okay, here we go with the marketing analysis of what constitutes a successful brand name. Is it the identity or the product behind it?

Allow me to start out with a professional football team that has made a least one Super Bowl appearance. For many years after that early appearance, the team compiled an unenviable losing record. A former client who played for the team provided some insight that relates to the team’s brand. When he signed with the team, the attitude of the players was more about when they were collecting their paychecks than if the team was winning. The end result was the team rarely won and was losing its fan base.

When the attitude began to change that if they played well, fielded a competitive team, and won more games, there would be more fan support and their pay would be greater, lo and behold, they started making the playoffs. They are now a serious contender consistently in their AFC division.

In this case, the product behind it was influential in the success of the brand.

Changing to a different product and a current client situation, there are many people who like to drink strong alcohol. In a lion’s share of cases today, the identity carries more influence in consumer patterns than the product. Significant advertising dollars are spent to create an image of the product that attracts consumers to drink and purchase the product. Think of the pirate concept behind a certain brand of rum. If you like, drink, and purchase that brand, are you buying the marketing concept or the rum? A discerning palate with an acquired appreciation of rum is less likely to consume that product when there are better rum products out there.

In these two examples, one is more about the product and the other more about the identity, or brand. The more closely these two can be married for your product or service, the greater likelihood you are to successfully market it and build your brand to the level it is capable of achieving.

How do you do that?

First, you must know your product or service from a different perspective; the viewpoint of your end user, the customer. You might think you sell camouflage hunting clothes, but in reality you are selling the ability of a hunter to blend into the surroundings where they hunt to increase their odds of bagging their prey. Your customer, therefore, is looking for a pattern similar to their hunting ground in a garment that is comfortable, quiet, and offers them the best chance of success in the woods.

Second, the better you know your customers, the more you can motivate them to use your product or service. Once they’ve bought, you want to keep them as customers and build loyalty to your brand. You want them to identify with your brand name and recommend it to others because of what they love about it! Even though it may not be the healthiest fast food restaurant on the planet, consumers flock to McDonald’s because they a) recognize the brand; and, b) know the products will be fairly consistent in quality and price wherever they see the golden arches. Brand loyalty strengthened by an identity that is reinforced by the product quality; you know what you’re going to get when you order at McDonald’s.

Third, build your brand. If you have started a business and sales are lagging, it may be your identity – the perception consumers have of you – that needs to be adjusted. Make the adjustment, but only after you’ve had someone help you with viable consumer research. Talking to a couple of friends is market research, but comprehensive research and analysis goes a bit deeper. Do some test marketing. Get people’s perceptions of your product and the identity you put forth; it may reveal you simply need to change the color scheme to increase sales. Get feedback from your customers. What do they like or dislike about what you provide? Some answers may enlighten you – what I refer to as a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) – while other suggestions may be of little merit. You have to make the ultimate decisions. Your brand is your ticket to adding revenue to your bottom line.

Does Social Media Work?

If you’ve wondered whether you should engage social media for your business, the April 17th edition of USA Today shared the results of a study you might find interesting.

Here are some of the key elements of the article by Oliver St. John for you to consider as a business owner:

The CEO of Manta, Pam Springer, is quoted as saying the negative impression business owners have about using social media is “…probably because they don’t know how to launch a successful social-media campaign…” She recommends connecting with other business owners to get advice, but only 36% of businesses do this.

There are resources available for business owners to connect with other owners and discuss topics such as social media. In Green Bay, there’s a networking group consisting of only business owners that meets the 1st Wednesday of every month at the Green Bay Yachting Club. There are other networking organizations for business owners as well.

The CEO of Crackerjack Marketing, Stephanie Schwab, is cited in the article as saying many small businesses “…just don’t have a place in social media.” She’s right in the sense you need not put your business in the social media environment because of peer or media pressure to be there. What she adds is that you need to know what you’re trying to get out of a social media campaign.

That’s common sense when it comes to marketing your business. Far too many business owners lack a strategy for marketing their products and services. If the only reason you advertise on TV is because the sales representative talked you into buying the time, you will either stumble into success or endure costly failure. You need to strategize and, as Schwab adds, use “…marketing techniques already proved to work, such as having a website.”

One of the business owners covered near the end of the article said social media hasn’t helped her business, which sells $5,000 to $40,000 pool jobs. She added, however, that out of the 200-300 jobs she does every year, three or four come from people online. Even at the low ($5,000 level) end, that could be as much as $20,000!

She gets most of her customers through referrals. That is the preferred way to get new business for most of us, and what business owners fail to realize is that they should have a strategy for that aspect of marketing their business as well.

I always find articles such as this one fascinating, especially when 61% of small businesses fail to see any return on their investment in social media. A similar article in Advertising Age, a marketing trade publication, a few years ago cited a study that showed roughly the same percentage (62%) of advertisers were dissatisfied with their agencies. What I’ve discovered and believe strongly in is that, as a business owner, you must take the time to think through what your business is all about; less about where you’ve been and more on where you want to be.

When that picture is clear, how you need to market your business also becomes clear. The proprietary process used at Brand Irons can walk you through the process, save you money over the long run, and add to your bottom line if you’re willing to change the way you’ve always done things.

To answer the question posed in the headline: Yes, if you have a strategy that is designed to reach your target demographic.

Fresh Perspectives

head-scratcher Stop and think about this for a minute: How has the market for your industry changed in the last five years?

Did your target demographic age out of being able to use your products or services? Has the target audience gotten younger without you realizing it because you’ve been mired in “the way we’ve always done things”?

Every six months, and maybe more often depending on your business, you should take a step back from your business and get a fresh perspective on it. Take a good, hard, long look at it. Consider how well your marketing efforts have been doing. Your sales should be driving production and keeping inventory low or at a level you can fill orders for 15 or 30 days, depending on demand. Advertising should be introducing you to new customers and, at least, hitting the break-even mark on the return for your investment.

Remember to take a look at your products and services. Have they remained relevant to your customers and appealing to your prospects? Crunch the numbers for which of those products and services generate the highest profit margins for your bottom line. Think about whether one of your products has reached the end of its life cycle.

The idea here is to avoid change merely for the sake of change, but if the offering has served its purpose and the profit margin continues to shrink, it may be time to shift your corporate emphasis to other products to meet emerging markets.

Ah, emerging markets! This is probably the most prolific reason to take the time to get a fresh perspective and think things through. A recent meeting with a professional in the HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning) business drove this point home. The market for HVAC services amongst the 55 and older demographic had become stagnant. The audience had, in essence, become arthritic and uninterested in change when they’ve had the same HVAC company for their entire home-owning life.

This professional sought a new perspective and did some market research. Lo and behold, it was discovered there was an emerging market being woefully underserved. You may be able to guess the demographic, but out of deference to my friend’s research and marketing efforts, I will abstain from divulging secrets that would aid the competition.

The more I see business owners searching for answers to keeping their company alive or expanding their culture and growing the business, the more obvious it becomes that a fresh perspective is essential. When you engage a consulting firm such as Brand Irons, you get a different, customer-oriented viewpoint backed by research that can be critical to your long-term survival.