Silence isn’t Golden

Published on February 4, 2012 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Remember when your mum used to tell you “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything”? It was more than just your mum who preached that. Alot of people are shy to complain, so if you can’t hear customer praise or complaints; think about what they’re saying when you’re not looking.

Social media might make it easier to listen to your customers, but if you’re an SME, it might be hard to find anything (positive or negative). Don’t just sit around. Ask. Speak to your clients. Get objective feedback. Don’t wait till it’s too late.

Understand their opinion & engage them so you can improve & grow (use different words when talking to them).

Silence isn’t golden, it’s a good indication something’s wrong.

Being Market Driven

Published on February 1, 2012 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I recently answered this question on LinkedIN Answers, regarding how to take an idea from inception to monetisation.

We go through lots of new ideas regularly. Usually, for anything that seems promising we create a one page business plan to see if it holds together through some basic analysis. If it still looks good, then we market test it.

We don’t develop, or source or anything till we’ve got concrete market feedback – and maybe even a prospective buyer that someone would actually buy it. This forces us to be business led, and helps us avoid getting caught up in the excitement that surrounds new ideas. Be ready for a good number of ideas to crash & burn at this stage – HBR calls this failure by design.

I’d strongly recommend that any prospective entrepreneur start by answering the question “Who will buy this?”, and then get that person to commit to buying it (discuss a rate!) before they do anything else.Yes, this is hard. That’s why you need to do it first. Product design and development is usually the easy & fun part.

If you’re a developer, think of this as a weird beta test.
If you can’t sell it, don’t build it.

Impressive Technology

Published on January 20, 2012 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I recently walked into a meeting with carrying an Acer Iconia tablet, on which I loaded up a copy of a proposal and some designs we were discussing. The project designs aside, the client was impressed that I’d turned up with a tablet! One of the guys commented that as a technology company it’s what he would expect, and noted to one of his colleagues that meetings at some tech companies made you feel like you’d stepped into the future.

It was interesting to note what they were expecting to see in the meeting. Our clients have the expectation that we (as people) match/represent the high-tech nature of the solutions we provide. No different to a fashion designer turning up badly dressed to a meeting, or an interior designer having an unappealing office design.

This is a great example of why image is important, and what goes to completing that image!
Make sure you’re technologically dressed to suit :-)

Pick up the phone

Published on January 15, 2012 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I read this article on HBR and it really resonated with me. Not from a conflict perspective though, more from a communication & personality point of view.  At some point to many businesses, people became customers, customers became statistics.

But there’s lots of place left for making phone calls and developing real relationships. I was investigating using cloud storage, wrote box.net an email and very surprisingly got a phone call. It really impressed me. The fact that they cared enough about a random, potential, customer enough to call back (long distance). I didn’t buy the product, but just based on my initial experience with them, I’ve recommend box.net alot.

Most companies would have sent an automated reply, a template email, or an email signed off by a generic “Care Team”. The box response had real personality and sincerity. It demonstrated that they cared about my business and it made me feel important. You can’t buy the goodwill that creates with any amount of Internet advertising.

 

Negative Marketing

Published on January 12, 2012 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to negatively market yourself. Take for instance the JetAirways 50% off Companion Coupon, available with the Jet-Citi Platinum Card.You can’t use it if you’re booking online, calling the Jetairways booking line, or even via a travel agent. The only way is to visit their office on JC road or at the airport! I think they designed this coupon to be hard to redeem. Which had the unsurprising effect of making me & my business – feel unwanted.

If you’re going to incent people to use your service, make it easy for them. Don’t forget you actually want people to use your service, even if its on-the-cheap. Making it unnecassarily hard isn’t going to win you any brownie points, if anything it’ll make your customer realise the actual value of the coupon – nil, because they can’t or (worse) won’t redeem it.

Update: just visited the JC Rd JetAirways office, these are the fares for a one way blr-bom ticket at 6pm Monday:
Counter fare: 6034 Rs
Using the discount coupon: 8276 Rs (2200 rs more!!)
The girl at the counter was kind enough to advise me that the internet fares on jetairways.com would be a least 5% cheaper than the counter fare.

 

Progress & Paperwork

Published on January 3, 2012 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Hopefully you’ve got big plans for 2012, and there’s lots of work waiting for you to get tucked into. Normally whenever I have lots of work, I find that it becomes very difficult to keep an eye on what actual progress is being made. There’s usually so much to do, that I spend most of my time getting-on-with-it. I have to literally stop and force myself to track progress, it’s something I’ve only started a few months ago, but it’s been incredibly handy.

The most important thing about taking a few moments out to write your reports, is that it gives you visibility on the less-exciting but critical elements that you otherwise might miss. For instance, bottom line vs. the number of clients – if everything is coming from one client, it’ll look great on your balance sheet but does your product have a wider appeal? Is the risk of having only one real client appetising?

Action 1. Define your key result areas, e.g. number of leads, lead-sale conversion ratio, bottom line, number of clients, geographic diversity of clients, number of dealers, number of retailers, rate of stock turnover, etc. Only pick the ones that are relevant, but whatever you pick, don’t remove – this isn’t a flavour of the month system.

Action 2. Define a frequency of reporting & stick to it. Weekly/Monthly, keep it short enough for you to react to the information, but not so short it’s useless.

Action 3. Don’t get bogged down or put it off. Yes it’s paperwork, but it needs to be done on-time for it to be useful. Don’t turn it into a mission either, it should be simple enough for you to do quickly (but accurately).

Action 4. React. Collecting information is useless if you don’t respond to it. Understand what it means, use it, change direction if required – but not every week.

What has the Internet done for you in 2011?

Published on December 31, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

As 2011 closes, aside from being a great opportunity for introspection, it’s a great opportunity to examine what the Internet has done for YOU. Facebook, twitter, youtube, all brilliant. Were they of any use to you? What technologies & online trends have you benefited from?

Has your SEO converted into leads or new business? Did any of your twitter followers buy, or have you been able to provide better responses to your customers? Did you get any offers via LinkedIN?

I’m confident 2012 will bring new technology and opportunities. Similar to an SEO campaign; with a little planning and regular monitoring, hopefully in 2012 we’ll see these opportunities translating into real business.

Wishing you a Happy & Prosperous New Year!

Upgrades. Self Promotion.

Published on December 15, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

We all remember to upgrade our mobile phones, laptops and cars. We regularly improve our houses. How many of us remember to improve ourselves though? The world has become so busy that we often forget that we need to constantly upgrade. There are only a few limited professions, like IT, law, accounts and medicine – where staying on top of new developments & certifications is part of the job.

Think about the next big promotion or job, what can you do to maximise your chances of getting that? Industry certifications, indendantly published papers, maybe a few big gigs to your name? Build on your strengths, use certifications/publications/etc. to demonstrate them.

You need to plume your feathers, and be ready with your achivements and a one line summary of who-you-are.

When it comes to work, you’re always on display. You never know when, or from whom, an opportunity to promote yourself might arise. So practice your one-liners and stay up-to-date.

Loyalty Campaigns

Published on December 10, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

It seems that everyone has a loyalty programme these days. Airlines, hotels, coffee shop chains, even Domino’s pizza! Does it really work? Hell yeah.
Its not enough to just copy a random scheme though. You need to know what you want to achieve, what your customer wants, and you need to consider carefully how you’re going to change their purchasing habits.

Loyalty schemes are not just about discounts. You should be discountng to attract new customers, but not to your loyal customers. They’re coming for a different reason. It should be the way you do business with them. Nobody stays loyal because of price.

I fly alot, usually jetairways. The loyalty programme provides a few small perks, extra baggage allowance, priority baggage tags, lounge access, free flights after a set number of miles. Nothing that KingFisher doesn’t do better to be honest. My last flight was with KingFisher, they treat me better, they have more lounges, better lounges, but their customer telephone response team is terrible, and the online booking is glitchy. The free stuff isn’t enough to overcome the way their core business is conducted.

Understanding your customer is important, it enables you to value add through your loyalty scheme in ways that make their experience better, not just cheaper. I found that this article provides a decent overview of how to assemble a campaign. The are plenty of others, but remember that nobody knows your business and your customers like you. Your campaign must consider your customer, their needs, it must directly enhance their experience whilst subtly influencing their purchasing in ways you need.

Have you done your homework?

Published on December 3, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

There’s no question that first impressions count. What’s horrifying about it is the fact that you’re constantly meeting people, which means that you’ve got dozens (or possibly hundreds) of first impressions being made every day.

If you want to make a solid first impression you need to do your homework. It’s not unlike preparing for an interview or a (really hot) first date. You need to anticipate a few questions and polish your answers.

Specifically do some prep work for questions like “What do you do?”, “Who’re your customers?” & “Is ABC your competitor?”. They may seem trivial, but the slickness & interestingness of your responses to this sort of question is what will form first impressions.

I recently spoke to someone who described his customer as “Anyone that owns a laptop.”, instead of sounding like a product with an enormous potential market, it sounded more like he wasn’t really sure who his customer was. Though it is actually an awesome product that I’ve read alot about, his answer didn’t do wonders for my opinion of the business.

Think about all the people in your company, specifically non-sales people, and how they may be casually introducing your business to the world. You may even want to consider this as your offline social media effort?