I loved this conversation. It is especially appropriate for clients, but go ahead and substitute for "client"... child, spouse, co-worker, boss, friend, etc -- you get the message. Respect and affection make all your relationships go better.
"Let me describe to you what a proper customer-focused attitude is. First, you love the customer, no matter how smelly, stupid, or demented he, she, or they might be. They are your customer. You venerate them. You know that without them, there would be nothing left of you. You dream of new ways to please him, her, or them. Second, when there is a problem with your customer, you are not filled with resentment. You wrack your brains day and night to think of new ways to solve the problem. Finally, you search within yourself constantly to find pockets of anger, condescension, and negativity toward your beloved client. You root them out and replace them with respect and affection.
"The way you feel about your client should not be all that different than the way you feel about your dog."
How to Suck up to Stupid Clients BNET Feb 17, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Keep on Truckin'
Keep in mind the basic keys to stability and success:
Focus on a long-term vision.
Combat fear with knowledge.
Resist emotional reactions and think logically.
And know that God's plan is bigger than yours, so trust Him.
Focus on a long-term vision.
Combat fear with knowledge.
Resist emotional reactions and think logically.
And know that God's plan is bigger than yours, so trust Him.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Financial Opportunity Amid the Chaos
Twice in the past week I was in meetings where there was actual optimism about the economic future in Texas. As the saying goes, "Fear overcomes greed, and certainty overcomes fear." Regardless of political persuasion, having a fixed political team in place in Washington who have passed economic legislation is having a positive affect on local industry. Little by little, the known is overcoming the unknown, and this is allowing people to plan and move forward - especially leaders in industry.
Right now, the refinance boom - though not a great thing usually for the housing industry - is getting money flowing through the economy. Interest rates are unbelievable right now for buying houses. Prices are very low for industrial goods like cement and steel.Producers, those who have traditionally moved the economy in a positive direction, are once again seeing the opportunities in the midst of crisis, and see a narrow window in which to move forward before inflation looms over us -- at which time their strategies will change, but not their initiative in finding opportunity.
BusinessWeek author Ben Steverman wrote, in A Changed World for Financial Advisers on February 11, 2009, about the lessons learned by financial advisers through the past couple of years. In the article, the ideas to better protect and plan for clients get tied up in the debate between actively managing portfolios versus "buy-and-hold" strategies, which are less expensive and acknowledge the difficulty of timing due to the unpredictability of markets.
The article's bottom line gets back to three basics:
• risk assessment,
• emphasizing cash flow, and
• a wholistic approach to nest-egg building.
Mr. Steverman says advisers have found they should spend much more time with each client to determine an appropriate level of risk, often in spite of clients who calculate their risk-tolerance level as being higher than it actually is, especially in a downturn in the markets. He says that investment advisers are also going to have to pay more than lip service to their responsibility for their clients' total financial outlook, rather than just investment returns. Regarding retirement dreams, Steverman says that, "advisers can help clients make sure they are earning enough, saving enough, not borrowing too much, have realistic retirement plans, and have enough insurance."
Right now, the refinance boom - though not a great thing usually for the housing industry - is getting money flowing through the economy. Interest rates are unbelievable right now for buying houses. Prices are very low for industrial goods like cement and steel.Producers, those who have traditionally moved the economy in a positive direction, are once again seeing the opportunities in the midst of crisis, and see a narrow window in which to move forward before inflation looms over us -- at which time their strategies will change, but not their initiative in finding opportunity.
BusinessWeek author Ben Steverman wrote, in A Changed World for Financial Advisers on February 11, 2009, about the lessons learned by financial advisers through the past couple of years. In the article, the ideas to better protect and plan for clients get tied up in the debate between actively managing portfolios versus "buy-and-hold" strategies, which are less expensive and acknowledge the difficulty of timing due to the unpredictability of markets.
The article's bottom line gets back to three basics:
• risk assessment,
• emphasizing cash flow, and
• a wholistic approach to nest-egg building.
Mr. Steverman says advisers have found they should spend much more time with each client to determine an appropriate level of risk, often in spite of clients who calculate their risk-tolerance level as being higher than it actually is, especially in a downturn in the markets. He says that investment advisers are also going to have to pay more than lip service to their responsibility for their clients' total financial outlook, rather than just investment returns. Regarding retirement dreams, Steverman says that, "advisers can help clients make sure they are earning enough, saving enough, not borrowing too much, have realistic retirement plans, and have enough insurance."
I’d love to talk with you and help you navigate the options, so you can get on with the life you’d love to build. Send me a note about what you are looking for. Call me … 
214-440-2483.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
President Online - Managing Perceptions with Technology
Last November, Tom Hayes and Michael S Malone convicted traditional marketers in their challenge to retailers regarding the "profound changes" in marketing requiring the use of online communities. They said, "Marketing 3.0 is not only different from its predecessors, but actively undermines them. If your marketing program fails to adapt to this new world, it won't just become irrelevant -- it will actually work against you."
Though many before Barack Obama used new technology in politics to communicate and track and measure response, our new president has made using the latest communication technologies and online communities standard protocol - not only for his political campaign, but going forward in determining public policy.
As Hayes and Malone said in their November 29th WSJ article, "The online community concept is already becoming a powerful tool for everything from creating customer loyalty, to assistance in product design, to a sounding board for company strategy."
Over the next several years, we will get an opportunity to see how this methodology works in answering Obama's statement, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."
In his January 22, 2009, WSJ article on whether economics, like politics, can be accurately "explained and charted," Daniel Henninger observed that Obama's "economic team consists of a new generation of so-called data-driven intellectuals who insist on reasonably hard empirical support for their policies."
Henninger also remarked that, "the cost of mistakes is getting a bit high," which is another reason that Obama is pushing his team to use every means to continue to gather information before finalizing policy. This includes staging and tracking blog discussion on his administration's theories, such as the recent "Who is Nouriel Roubini?" by Alice C. Chen posted in a January 7 BNET Briefing. Responses to the blog ranged from critical analysis of the posed economic policy debate, to recommendations for other theories and financial experts.
Using technology in this way effectively gauges and gathers public opinion, but using online communities and blogs also SHAPE public opinion. Obama's team will need to continually be interfacing with these online communities in all of the media channels to effectively continue the swaying of public opinion toward his policies, as he was able to do during the campaign.
In the January 23 Business Week "What Data Crunchers Did for Obama", Stephen Baker indicates that however public opinion is gathered, quantified, segmented, the policy promises that were made will also be tracked and measured. "Even if Barn Raisers exist as a tribe only in a database, they take broken promises very seriously. And they probably won't object if data-mining politicians figure that out. "
Though many before Barack Obama used new technology in politics to communicate and track and measure response, our new president has made using the latest communication technologies and online communities standard protocol - not only for his political campaign, but going forward in determining public policy.
As Hayes and Malone said in their November 29th WSJ article, "The online community concept is already becoming a powerful tool for everything from creating customer loyalty, to assistance in product design, to a sounding board for company strategy."
Over the next several years, we will get an opportunity to see how this methodology works in answering Obama's statement, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."
In his January 22, 2009, WSJ article on whether economics, like politics, can be accurately "explained and charted," Daniel Henninger observed that Obama's "economic team consists of a new generation of so-called data-driven intellectuals who insist on reasonably hard empirical support for their policies."
Henninger also remarked that, "the cost of mistakes is getting a bit high," which is another reason that Obama is pushing his team to use every means to continue to gather information before finalizing policy. This includes staging and tracking blog discussion on his administration's theories, such as the recent "Who is Nouriel Roubini?" by Alice C. Chen posted in a January 7 BNET Briefing. Responses to the blog ranged from critical analysis of the posed economic policy debate, to recommendations for other theories and financial experts.
Using technology in this way effectively gauges and gathers public opinion, but using online communities and blogs also SHAPE public opinion. Obama's team will need to continually be interfacing with these online communities in all of the media channels to effectively continue the swaying of public opinion toward his policies, as he was able to do during the campaign.
In the January 23 Business Week "What Data Crunchers Did for Obama", Stephen Baker indicates that however public opinion is gathered, quantified, segmented, the policy promises that were made will also be tracked and measured. "Even if Barn Raisers exist as a tribe only in a database, they take broken promises very seriously. And they probably won't object if data-mining politicians figure that out. "
This week the DFW Interactive Marketing Association is holding a forum regarding the role of social networking, mobile marketing, video, and other emerging media in the recent Presidential election, and the discussion will continue...
Friday, October 10, 2008
Become a Toothache Marketer
When you have a toothache, it's all you think about. If it's not the pain, it's the fear.
When your target audience is being bombarded with messages about and/or experiencing the effects of a financial crisis, that is all they think about.
Under these conditions, how can you get your prospects to hear and focus on your message? How can you continue to grow prospects into converted buyers?
1. Sell solutions.
Focus on the customer, not the economy.
Everyone is looking for solutions - ways to increase value - and take away the pain. Right now, toothache marketers are in the money - people are looking for solutions to minimize the effects of the crisis. Just make sure your "crisis message" isn't going to make you invisible when there is no crisis.
As described in My Tooth Doesn't Hurt, Seth Godin's Blog, July 31, 2008, toothaches are a double-edged sword for "toothache" marketers...when someone has a toothache, they have no trouble getting conversions, but when there are no toothaches, dentists and other toothache marketers are invisible.
Become the obvious choice, whether or not there is a toothache.
2. Be innovative.
Everyone gets better in a down market.
As Seth Godin said in "My Tooth Doesn't Hurt", "create new products and services that build engagement and revenue among members of the population that aren't in pain...such as teeth whitening."
But be truly creative. "There are only two things riskier than being innovative: being gimmicky and doing nothing." Online Marketers Can Weather the Financial Crisis, FutureNow, October 10, 2008.
"Creative merchandising, creative buying, creative offers, creative marketing, creative cost-cutting, and creative customer-relationship-building will make a difference between who thrives and who dives...I'm talking about offering customers more perceived value at less cost to them and you. I'm talking about finding innovative ways to cut through the clutter of our media-crazy environment and the pain people are feeling from this crisis by increasing message relevance and spending less...that involves much more than screaming louder, telling a funnier joke, or changing the color of the "buy now" button."
3. Become efficient.
Don't think you are immune. Become bulletproof.
Bryan Eisenberg continues in the October 10, 2008 FutureNow blog, "Your customers are already acting more efficiently. You should too."
"The more you master the craft of doing more for less, the more secure you'll be in the coming months. Don't try to do three jobs with one person until that person begs for mercy. Instead, make marketing dollars go much, much further. That includes cutting fat from marketing budgets and creating a culture of marketing optimization that leaves no penny unturned. It takes work, but it will bulletproof you internally with the bosses and externally with the customers."
4. Become a leader.
Regardless of whether you are in charge.
From an Interview with Seth Godin regarding his new book "Tribes" at http://www.gapingvoid.com/, October 8, 2008, "Everyone isn't going to be a leader. But everyone isn't going to be successful, either."
"Success is now the domain of people who lead. That doesn't mean they're in charge, it doesn't mean they are the CEO, it merely means that for a group, even a small group, they show the way, they spread ideas, they make change. Those people are the only successful people."
When your target audience is being bombarded with messages about and/or experiencing the effects of a financial crisis, that is all they think about.
Under these conditions, how can you get your prospects to hear and focus on your message? How can you continue to grow prospects into converted buyers?
1. Sell solutions.
Focus on the customer, not the economy.
Everyone is looking for solutions - ways to increase value - and take away the pain. Right now, toothache marketers are in the money - people are looking for solutions to minimize the effects of the crisis. Just make sure your "crisis message" isn't going to make you invisible when there is no crisis.
As described in My Tooth Doesn't Hurt, Seth Godin's Blog, July 31, 2008, toothaches are a double-edged sword for "toothache" marketers...when someone has a toothache, they have no trouble getting conversions, but when there are no toothaches, dentists and other toothache marketers are invisible.
Become the obvious choice, whether or not there is a toothache.
2. Be innovative.
Everyone gets better in a down market.
As Seth Godin said in "My Tooth Doesn't Hurt", "create new products and services that build engagement and revenue among members of the population that aren't in pain...such as teeth whitening."
But be truly creative. "There are only two things riskier than being innovative: being gimmicky and doing nothing." Online Marketers Can Weather the Financial Crisis, FutureNow, October 10, 2008.
"Creative merchandising, creative buying, creative offers, creative marketing, creative cost-cutting, and creative customer-relationship-building will make a difference between who thrives and who dives...I'm talking about offering customers more perceived value at less cost to them and you. I'm talking about finding innovative ways to cut through the clutter of our media-crazy environment and the pain people are feeling from this crisis by increasing message relevance and spending less...that involves much more than screaming louder, telling a funnier joke, or changing the color of the "buy now" button."
3. Become efficient.
Don't think you are immune. Become bulletproof.
Bryan Eisenberg continues in the October 10, 2008 FutureNow blog, "Your customers are already acting more efficiently. You should too."
"The more you master the craft of doing more for less, the more secure you'll be in the coming months. Don't try to do three jobs with one person until that person begs for mercy. Instead, make marketing dollars go much, much further. That includes cutting fat from marketing budgets and creating a culture of marketing optimization that leaves no penny unturned. It takes work, but it will bulletproof you internally with the bosses and externally with the customers."
4. Become a leader.
Regardless of whether you are in charge.
From an Interview with Seth Godin regarding his new book "Tribes" at http://www.gapingvoid.com/, October 8, 2008, "Everyone isn't going to be a leader. But everyone isn't going to be successful, either."
"Success is now the domain of people who lead. That doesn't mean they're in charge, it doesn't mean they are the CEO, it merely means that for a group, even a small group, they show the way, they spread ideas, they make change. Those people are the only successful people."
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Cold Calling and the Elevator Pitch
Knowing your market's interests, opinions, and behaviors - much more than knowing age and location - and communicating a message that engages your audience relative to their persona, is still key to succeeding, even in an entrepreneur economy.
Since the turn of the millenium, people have been moving to self-employment in huge numbers. Driven by new technologies and a series of economic downturns - leaders who are underemployed, unemployed, or are, as discussed in a 2006 USA Today article, simply fed up with the cost of labor, are starting their own businesses. Over the past decade this emerging "entrepreneur economy" has been changing the paradigms and protocols for doing business. However, much of what it takes to succeed remains the same.
These business start-ups are most often a micro-business made up of one self-employed sole proprietor with a dream. Yet, starting up a business takes more than a great idea, as all of these entrepreneurs have learned. High on the list are "guts" and perseverance. It also takes soul-searching and self-evaluation to identify strengths and skills that provide a sustainable competitive advantage. This is called "market research" and "business planning" - which many skip over until they are floundering and need to get back to basics.
In books like Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (1991, revised 1999), by Geoffrey A. Moore, and Stage-Gate method books by Robert G. Cooper, including Winning at New Products: Accelerating the Process from Idea to Launch, Third Edition, strategists describe many keys to success, but all say that producing specific to the interests of your market is fundamental to succeeding in business. This goes for companies of any size, including a small organization made up of one.
As data pours in from new communication technologies, marketers are finding that demographics hardly matter in defining buying behaviors. Yesterday, Bryan Eisenberg, said that demographics "are only loosely correlated to behavior and often horrible in predicting marketing response" in The Case for Persona-Based Lead Generation,
So, how does this tie in with cold calling and your elevator pitch? Knowing your customer's psychographics well enough to empathetically tell them how you can make a difference is critical to moving forward in business.
Robert Gerrish, Aug 5, 2008, BNET makes this connection more specifically - "The need for cold calling frequently accompanies the launch of a new business, or the launch of a new offering" and "trying to sell a product or service to an unknown and unqualified prospect can be so confronting that it’s easy to get frozen into a state of inaction."
This brings us to the "so what" - what actions you personally can take as an entrepreneur.
Since the turn of the millenium, people have been moving to self-employment in huge numbers. Driven by new technologies and a series of economic downturns - leaders who are underemployed, unemployed, or are, as discussed in a 2006 USA Today article, simply fed up with the cost of labor, are starting their own businesses. Over the past decade this emerging "entrepreneur economy" has been changing the paradigms and protocols for doing business. However, much of what it takes to succeed remains the same.
These business start-ups are most often a micro-business made up of one self-employed sole proprietor with a dream. Yet, starting up a business takes more than a great idea, as all of these entrepreneurs have learned. High on the list are "guts" and perseverance. It also takes soul-searching and self-evaluation to identify strengths and skills that provide a sustainable competitive advantage. This is called "market research" and "business planning" - which many skip over until they are floundering and need to get back to basics.
In books like Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (1991, revised 1999), by Geoffrey A. Moore, and Stage-Gate method books by Robert G. Cooper, including Winning at New Products: Accelerating the Process from Idea to Launch, Third Edition, strategists describe many keys to success, but all say that producing specific to the interests of your market is fundamental to succeeding in business. This goes for companies of any size, including a small organization made up of one.
As data pours in from new communication technologies, marketers are finding that demographics hardly matter in defining buying behaviors. Yesterday, Bryan Eisenberg, said that demographics "are only loosely correlated to behavior and often horrible in predicting marketing response" in The Case for Persona-Based Lead Generation,
So, how does this tie in with cold calling and your elevator pitch? Knowing your customer's psychographics well enough to empathetically tell them how you can make a difference is critical to moving forward in business.
Robert Gerrish, Aug 5, 2008, BNET makes this connection more specifically - "The need for cold calling frequently accompanies the launch of a new business, or the launch of a new offering" and "trying to sell a product or service to an unknown and unqualified prospect can be so confronting that it’s easy to get frozen into a state of inaction."
This brings us to the "so what" - what actions you personally can take as an entrepreneur.
- First, use the technology to know your prospects. Use the multitude of outsourcing resources developed in this "entrepreneur economy" to compile and test your message. Some examples are listed in an earlier Finding the Upside blog post.
- Second, tool your message down to a very few words that are "designed to pull the prospect into the story" as described in How to Rewrite an Elevator Pitch
Friday, August 22, 2008
Focusing Resources
This is a pretty good video clip, if you have 30 seconds.
Focusing - Something I really find particularly difficult.
Seth Godin on knowing when to quit...
Focusing - Something I really find particularly difficult.
Seth Godin on knowing when to quit...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Marketing to 21st Century Buyers
I just read a WSJ commentary on another book that "discovers" what marketing is about.
"The most powerful sales campaigns, Mr. Walker says, get their hooks into the consumer's "interpreter," a term he borrows from psychologists to describe the rationalizing corner of the brain. And the stimuli to which 21st-century interpreters respond, it seems, are those that signal authenticity, identity and community."
My question is, how new or different is this discovery? Is what consumer's respond to these days really that unique from any other decade?
Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, By Rob Walker, (Random House, 291 pages, $25)
In the WSJ article (which also relates stats and discoveries about the new marketing successes written about in the book, which discusses whether buyers can be "bought" by a brand), a buried comment says...
"The most powerful sales campaigns, Mr. Walker says, get their hooks into the consumer's "interpreter," a term he borrows from psychologists to describe the rationalizing corner of the brain. And the stimuli to which 21st-century interpreters respond, it seems, are those that signal authenticity, identity and community."
My question is, how new or different is this discovery? Is what consumer's respond to these days really that unique from any other decade?
Friday, June 13, 2008
Meetup Tore Up the Rule Book
I love Meetup.com. It is where the virtual world intersects with the real world. It is where, with absolutely anything you are interested in, you can find others also interested - and actually get together - meet up!
When I first started into the recent BusinessWeek article about Meetup, the news was contrary to my paradigm of Meetup. There was a management revolt - how can that happen in what I saw as a small, flexible, virtual organization? I didn't fathom how big - and structured - the company was.
I couldn't see Meetup as a "corporation" - as a structured organization. Apparently, neither could the managers. One of the managers stormed into the CEO's office and wrote on the whiteboard, "I hate the org chart!"
"Meetup is a company built on organization. Through its Web site, people can set up local groups for everything from sharing organic gardening tips online to marshaling volunteers for political campaigns. But as the company grew to 52 employees and 5 million members, Meetup's own organization buckled. It was failing at the very thing that was supposed to be its expertise."
As a result of that whiteboard messaging (interesting visual, considering the digital nature of Meetup) the company is in the process of implementing chaos. Inspired by the customer, no less!! Meetup is implementing a strategy where workers pick their projects and set their own priorities.
And here is the bottom line - or so far the bottom line...
"We got more done in six weeks than in six months last year," says CEO Scott Heiferman, who expects the projects to boost revenues tenfold, to $100 million, by 2010.
"Meetup's approach isn't for everyone. But for managers, especially those responsible for younger workers with attitudes and expectations so different from those of earlier generations, the experiment holds lessons: Giving up control can lead to better results. Your workers may have better ideas than you. Gary Hamel, who wrote The Future of Management, predicts more companies will adopt flexible organizations to accommodate Internet Age workers and profit from their skills. "With information so broadly shared now, the sources of influence and power are eroding," he says. Companies already using such approaches include Whole Foods Market (WFMI), and W.L. Gore & Associates, the $2 billion maker of Gore-Tex."
Friday, May 16, 2008
B2B Blogging - Yes!
Incredible! Businesses want the same thing as any other customer out there! In Business Blogging, David Bullock describes how, in the SOBCon08–Business School For Bloggers conference with the major influential bloggers of the world, he discovered that, "Businesses want community. Businesses want relationships. Businesses want to instill trust so that people can and will transact with them.
The word businesses seems like an oxymoron here - businesses want trust and profit??!!!
Mr. Bullock goes on to reiterate all the marketing principles that the B2C marketer has been using - only it applies to the B2B marketer as well! "Segmentation is key" - what do you know! Marketers need to know and characterize and target business groups just like individual customer groups!
Here are the ideas he pulled from going to the conference...
Business Blogging Idea#1: People love to buy but don't like to be sold to. This is an age-old concept.
Business Blogging Idea#2: Make your intentions known.
Business Blogging Idea#3: Build the community, the relationships, and trust first.
It seems that businesses -- American businesses -- are finally learning that relationships matter -- with their partners and business customers.
The word businesses seems like an oxymoron here - businesses want trust and profit??!!!
Mr. Bullock goes on to reiterate all the marketing principles that the B2C marketer has been using - only it applies to the B2B marketer as well! "Segmentation is key" - what do you know! Marketers need to know and characterize and target business groups just like individual customer groups!
Here are the ideas he pulled from going to the conference...
Business Blogging Idea#1: People love to buy but don't like to be sold to. This is an age-old concept.
Business Blogging Idea#2: Make your intentions known.
Business Blogging Idea#3: Build the community, the relationships, and trust first.
It seems that businesses -- American businesses -- are finally learning that relationships matter -- with their partners and business customers.
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