Marketing For Power Packed Business Growth

I received a letter from a telecoms company this morning.

I think they got what they paid for from the copywriter.

It smacked of someone who doesn't know how to write a direct response letter.

I'm willing to guess their response will be zero, or minimal. And because of it they'll join everyone else in saying "direct mail doesn't work".

I took the time to email them to explain some of what they did wrong.

I know, I know. I could have let them stew wondering why they got no response. But they're a start-up and I get a kick out of helping people.

I wont quote what I put in the email. Instead I'll explain a bit more about the different (wrong/bad) aspects they, and us, can learn from.

• They used an address label on a manilla envelope. That just screams "business post", "junk mail" and "Bin me now!"
  
• My company and address were correct but they'd sent it to someone I'd never heard of. Nil points  for building a credible relationship.
  
• When I opened it I found an A4 folder with a flyer and one page letter. So full marks for at least using a letter. Then all marks taken off again for using the dreaded "Dear Prospective Customer". Never do that, ever. They're a telecoms company so at worst they should have used "Dear Business Mobile User". But best of all if they had my name they should have used it in the letter. OK it would have been the wrong name in this case but at least it shows they're going a little extra in building a personal relationship.
  
• There was no headline. Nothing that actually made me want to read further. Where was the "Attention" from our old friend the AIDA formula?
  
• The next thing I know I'm reading the sentence "we may have already spoken to you via the telephone and you have registered your interested, we may not". Please! If you're going to write to me regardless of my wishing to hear from you make your first sentence interesting. Something like "Do you suffer from overcharging on your business mobile?" Yes I do. Let me find out more!
  
• The rest of the letter is all about them. Nothing to do with my situation.They even include some of their own perceived "unique selling points". Points that I don't believe are unique anyway.
  
• They had no testimonials. As you know testimonials are gold dust to credibility
  
• They had a weak to non-existent offer. I didn't really want them to visit my premises to "create a profile" so they can "prepare a proposal". That sounds just like a salescall rather than a valuable offer.
  
• Finally no signature or PS. So it wasn't a personal letter. So no relationship built there at all.

The good news for them is that if they check the email I sent them. And also this blog as I've expanded on a couple of the points they could improve the letter. Then they could send it out again, without the flyer or folder.

But if they use the same person who wrote it again it will totally lack lustre. I won't say I fell asleep but I found myself hitting my head (metaphorically) on my wine cupboard.

I thought I'd check their web site to see if that was any better. But it's been reserved by an ISP and not built yet.

what I've written is intended as a positive criticism and has been put bluntly so they don't waste their time.

If you'd like your direct email/mail critiqued send it to me at crit AT acornservice DOT com and I'll give you some pointers. Who knows maybe you've the best pulling letter of all time and I can learn from you. If so I'd like to share it with my other loyal reader.

PS If you're wondering where my next post on "why blogging is set to explode onto the corporate scene" is bear with me I just had to get that one off my chest.

Or at least if you believe it's an easy part of your marketing campaign it is.

Ann Handley at MarketingProfs: Daily Fix asks a great question. "What's the Biggest Lie About Blogging?"

The great thing about this post are the comments as people note what they think is the biggest lie. One comment from Jeremy Wright author of Blog Marketing (Amazon link) lists 37 lies about blogging, I'm just going to highlight a couple of his "lies", the rest are at "What's the Biggest Lie About Blogging?"

2. Always maintain a hostile relationship with your audience.
4. It's just a PR channel.
5. Don't have a personality if you're blogging for business.
11. I don't have time to blog.
16. Blogs are basically just Web sites.
17. Only cranks with too much time on their hands read blogs.
18. Blogs are a great marketing gimmick, so I should catch the buzz wave and contrive one.
22. Competitors will steal your ideas.
23. You need to be able to write to blog.
30. Blogs are unique.

Ok, that's maybe more than a couple!

In fact looking at the comments and there are now over 50 lies people can think of.

It's fascinating...

I can think of a few more UK-oriented blog lies:

1. Blogs are way too an American an idea
   
2. Businesses don't understand or want blogs in the UK
   
3. Businesses will not recruit bloggers to write for them like they do in the USA
   
4. There are too many USA blogs for the UK ones to be noticed

All serious bloggers know the lies about blogging.

BUT...

It is all about perception. They may be lies to us but if we can't convince readers or prospective readers or future bloggers that the blogging lies are just lies blogging could remain a nice little sidewater...except.

Except...

Read my next post on why blogging is set to explode onto the corporate scene.

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Blog marketing, marketing, blogger, blogging, Ann Handley, MarketingProfs

You are unique aren't you? There is nobody else like you in the entire world.

So how you go to where you are now is different to how I did.

Let me tell you a story about my own background...

Firstly I'm one of seven children. Which having 4 children myself never ceases to amaze me that my mum and dad could handle that many! I've always liked writing, even way back before I was at school. I even started my first novel several times when I lived in Singapore.

The whole family lived in Sinagapore for nearly 2 and a half years because my dad was in the RAF and was stationed there during the sixties. It was definitely a time of flower power but Singapore was buttoned down tight and I don't think I ever saw a hippy there.

We all loved Singapore and our lives in Singapore very much. It gave me a hankering to return to it to see whether it was still a great place to be. Did I return? That's something I'll talk about another time.

The thing about Singapore was that it gave me immense freedom. I'd always had asthma before arriving in Singapore but when I arrived it went. My lungs which had been barely able to expel a small breath burst into life and I felt as though I could do anything.

So I crammed lots of experiences into my time there.

My attempting to write novels began purely because I was bursting with energy and felt fantastic all the time. Before I'd simply read books reading in bed as something to while the hours away as I waited to recover from my latest asthma bout. Now I could run around, swim, walk, be in Scouts. Anything, including writing.

And that's where I got my love of the written word. Singapore started my interest in writing and all my life since then I've been writing in one form or another.

I've created presentations, proposals, specifications, adverts, direct mail, web sites, blogs, leaflets and posters.

Has it ever been a bind?

Well, yes sometimes. But that has been a rare occassion.

When I discovered Jay Abraham, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, Claude Hopkins, David Olgivy and the other great copywriters I just loved to see how they wrote. Of course the only problem is that there are so many good copywriters around. And so little time to read them all!

As my little brother Roddy said recently, "you need your own voice when you're writing your blog".  Certainly I've learnt and applied many, many copywriting lessons and now I write exactly how I feel.

Do that in your own copy. Get your story down. Why did you start the business? What made your product a "must have?"  And if your product is truly excellent it's going to sell like hotcakes.

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Copywriting, Tell your story, story telling, copywriter, Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Claude Hopkins, David Olgivy, Gary Halbert

There are times when I'm baffled that companies subscribe to being bamboozled by their consultants.

Dan Kennedy notes in his blog that ""Timken Company has adopted a new slogan, "Where You Turn." The new tag line replaces 'Worldwide Leader in Bearings And Steel.'"

I did try and comment on Dan's blog but couldn't see the captchas in my browser.

My comment?

Simply this...

Give me strength! Please let it be a spoof.

They must have employed several consultants to come up with such a cute slogan. It would equally suit a road making company, a steering wheel manufacturer, a windmill ... and on, and on.

Aaargh.

Surely this is a fabulous demonstration of The Emperor's New Clothes?

It's true isn't it? We know from our own experience something that is praised to high heaven as the best thing since sliced bread and yet is run of the mill...

Were we disappointed?

You bet! Did we tell anybody? Of course. Lots more people than we tell if our purchase really is the best thing since sliced bread.

I was reminded of this when I received Gary Bencivenga's latest bullet (marketing bulletin) today. In it he notes the "Most Important 9 Word Sentence In Marketing History". And in his bullet Gary extols the necessity of doing deep research on your product.

It's essential for a copywriter to understand the product and service completely. If you're writing copy for a service or product you own you're automatically in a good position. However, if it's simply a "me too" product and you can't find anything unique to say to get people excited what then?

You might get sales, but they won't be loyal customers. You'll probably compete on price. You'll be running from deal to deal desperate to get that profit.

Yet often outside eyes can help you see that extra edge you've got.

Remember Adrian from Cut N Copy Media? He didn't realise that his edge is his proven theatrical-based creativity and ability to think of great ways to enhance a product with video presentations. It needed someone else to point that out to him. Yet Adrian was great at marketing for the theatre's productions he ran.

Remember research is the bedrock of brilliant copywriting. Look at Gary Bencivenga's latest bullet for his starter list of 10 questions to ask before writing anything at all.

I'm a keen fan of great copywriters and certainly Gary Bencivenga is up there with the greats. So check out what he says and give me your take on it if you will.

Enjoy...

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copywriting, copywriter, copy research, copywriting research, great copy, Gary Bencivenga, Most Important 9 Word Sentence In Marketing History

 

Email company Vertical Response has produced an interesting email use survey for first quarter 2006.

It does make interesting reading, although the results are only for campaigns they're involved with.

Some of the specifics are as follows:

Retailers sent 107,525,465 emails and consultants 10,309,629

Suprisingly PR and events only sent out 1,941,233.

Interestingly, on average, the bigger your list size the less likely you are to have your email opened. Which points to the fact that as your list grows it's focus goes a bit adrift. That means your offers may not hit the right spot with everyone. Click throughs appear to follow this same pattern.

That said there are industries that buck that trend.

And places of worship look as though they have the highest open rates of all.

All fascinating stuff.

Of course as we all know you have to be careful around statistics. As you can make them say almost anything. And remember these results are from one company's customers who may all have decided to select it because they have low open rates, or small lists, or bad offers or abject subject lines.

As Vertical Response themselves point out they can't really show that in their stats.

Isn't it funny what you find out?

I've just returned from sitting in on an interview I'd arranged for one of my clients with a journalist from "The Manchester Evening News" (part of the UK Guardian group). The piece is going to be a profile piece in next Tuesdays MEN (Independence Day, otherwise known as the  4th July).

I knew Adrian was an interesting person. He'd been a West End and UK stage producer for quite a number of years producing 42nd Street, Dr. Dolittle, Summer Holiday and many others. He was responsible for bringing Riverdance over to the UK from Ireland and launched it on an unsuspecting public!

He'd then decided to start-up a video production company. He was probably the first to get High Definition cameras in the North of England.

So I knew that they'd have plenty to get a good profile for Adrian and his company.

I'd already asked Adrian for his biography but as he usually is he was much too modest in it!

These were some of the things I discovered...

• He flew cars on wires into an Oxford theatre for a Rover eight car launch (way before Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang)
  
• He'd put on Summer Holiday at Backpool and sold out the full 25 week run (nowadays that's unheard of)
  
• He'd been the first to tour Cats when the West End production was still going
  
• He toured Chess profitably
  
• He'd put on a show on Broadway (An Irish Dance show)
  
• He'd produced the Copacabana (Barry Manilow) muscial
  
• As part of his marketing he started to produce and edit TV shows.
  
• he produced "The Making of..." for Copacabana which was shown on ITV in the UK
  
• he produced "Michael Barrymore on Broadway" for the BBC

And there was lots more. I won't add to the list or I might get repetitive strain injury - read it in the MEN.

Apart from anything else it just shows when you think you know a fair bit about someone or something you suddenly find extra layers!

So don't assume...

If you're interested in what Adrian does now check out the Cut N Copy Web site. He also provides a nice little booklet for budding business DVD producers which you can get from his Cut N Copy Web site contact section.

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High Definition Video, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Chess, Copacabana, Theatre marketing, theatre production, video production

A blog can best be described as a communication channel that's available to almost anyone.

The downside with that is the number of new blogs getting created, old ones floating around and current ones updating. That means we're all deluged with the possibilities.

If we use RSS feeds to get posts we have to be very selective. If we sign up for everything that catches our fancy we end up getting more posts than we can physically read in a working week. Yes I know, I've done it!

Think on this for a moment though...

If a business blog is to communicate it should aim for your current clients and prospects. If you write for them you don't need to be too concerned about the all the other blogs out there. And believe me there are some great blogs out there too.

What about getting people signed up for your blog?

It's nice to have an acknowledgement that people find your writing interesting. That's the cream on the cake. The cake is your current clients and prospects. If they sign up that's the beginning of a relationship, or the deepening of an existing one. That's exactly what you want to happen.

Marketing is about TOMA (Top Of Mind Awareness) so a regular blog contributes to that as part of your marketing strategy.

Now we know what a business blog should do we can ask the question: How can a blog rock?

The answer lies with your clients and prospects. Ask them what you can write that will interest them, intrigue them and be helpful to them. Only then can you get a blog that your readers want to read and think it rocks!

So, what do you want from this blog?

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Marketing, Blog Marketing, Business Blog, TOMA, Top Of Mind Awareness

Marketing applies to everything a business does. The problem?

Many people don't know what they can do to improve the marketing in their business. And in not knowing what they don't know they don't look for marketing help, struggle on, sometimes barely making a living.

E-Myth Question

I occasionally look at the E-Myth site to see what Michael Gerber and his people say about business growth. I was struck by a question that they were asked. So I answered the question through a comment. I don't know whether Benjamin who asked the question will see my comment so let me tell you what I said, why and what Benjamin needs to do next...

Benjamin asked how previous clients could be persuaded to effectively return and buy more mid to high end jewelry from his store when currently only 15% of his clients do.

One Marketing-Related Answer Coming Up!

My comment was roughly: 

Keep a relationship going so you're at the top of their mind when they think jewelry.  How do you keep the relationship going? I suggested that he check out this blog for tips on sending out stuff in a variety of ways to maintain customers interest.

Then I thought a little more about it and decided to provide a few ways that a jewelry store could easily

1. Get their customers details
   
2. Keep in touch with them
   
3. Persuade them to re-visit and buy

Getting Customer Details

Have a monthly draw where everyone who fills in a form (with their details - email address, phone, name, income range, address, , birth day and month, age range and if applicable item purchased, types of jewelry they like) can win a voucher worth 20% off their next single item purchase.

Every customer who buys a piece from them is asked to complete the form so that they can get offers on like items, sale items and be put into the monthly draw too.

Create special VIP customer nights where people designated as VIPs get to browse the store after shut down with refreshments. They need to fill in the form too. VIPs are those people you want to use your store and/or current clients.

There are many other ways of building your customer lists... questionnaires, feedback forms, complaint forms, joint ventures with others such as high-end clothing, high-end photographers.

The list goes on.

Keep In Touch With Them

As soon as they've purchased an item of jewelry put a note in the little bag you give them. The note should thank them for their custom, maybe give a little-know tip on jewelry care and a little of the history of the shop, the owner and some of the more memorable pieces you've had.

Then follow that up with a monthly (short)  email/ postcard or letter. Try different ways of getting in touch. Let them know about things such as the latest hot selling item, what to look out for in forged jewelry, how to clean costume jewelry, offer free cleaning of their most expensive item, cut-price valuation of any two items, the VIP night offers.

The next month change the way you communicate to them if it was a letter last time use an email this time. Keep them short, friendly and helpful.

Maintain a log to see what results you get.

Occassionally pull someone out of a hat and phone them to see how they like the piece they bought last time, don't sell just get feedback. Find out how they like the communication with you.

Get a web site up, and or a blog. A blog can be better because you can flag up imminent events at the store, or show pictures of exclusive pieces you've just got in. Or show your jewelry buying trips. Show your jewelry on great looking people - not models though!

Send a birthday letter to all those having a birthday that month - again a special offer for them.

Remember the benefits of PR in your town and surrounding area.

Again the list just goes on.

Persuade Then To Visit And To Buy

Your communications should all have a great headline, friendly well-worded copy and always give an offer that you know your clients would find irresistible.

You know them and  you know their hot buttons.

Keep following up with different headlines, offers and copy.

When you get a job lot in search your database for people who bought a related item. Send them an offer...

I know you see where I'm going so I won't labour the point.

This Guardian story about Lack of Readership in UK Blogs raised my curiousity.

There is no doubt at all that we in the UK are way behind the USA when it comes to blogging. And I think we're also quite a way behind on the Internet generally. Although Broadband take-up is changing all that.

The forward thinking businesses in the USA are employing bloggers now. I've not heard the UK starting down that road.

That said I do think that the statistics that the Guardian reveal can be interpreted several ways.

Firstly in the USA 40% of people surveyed had read an individual's blog in the last week compared to 13% in the UK, 25% in France and 12% in Denmark.

The question I'd ask is why did the survey get such a massive response from the UK? Was it because the Guardian's own readers were encouraged to take the survey? If so could it be that Guardian readers are luddites and don't believe, or trust, the Internet, blogs or anything they can't hold in their hands?

The numbers surveyed in the UK was 6,066 compared to 1,798 in the USA which does have a slightly larger population than our own.

The article points to the low level of trust in blogs, compared to other media.

"Just 5% of UK respondents said they trusted newspaper or individual blogs. This compared with 18% who trusted Yahoo!, 31% who trusted Google, 57% who trusted TV channels and 59% who trusted quality national newspapers. "

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The Guardian, blog readership, blog, blogging, UK blogging

Multi-tasking is all about handling more than one project in a day.

Yet Dan Bobinski in Management Issues reveals some interesting and worrying information on multi-tasking.

He notes that Robert Croker, Ed.D., chair of the Human Resource Training and Development department at Idaho State University says,

"It's a common misconception is that a brain is like a computer. A computer is designed to multitask. A human brain is not designed to function optimally in a multitask environment."

Dan notes multi-tasking research in a related article on the Mangement Issues blog which show problems with multi-tasking.

Both the Journal of Experimental Psychology and science journal NeuroImage have published research that shows what happens as we multi-task.

It shows that the brain goes through several steps that take up time...

To quote further from Dan's article these include:

• "a selection process for choosing a new activity,
  
• turning off the mental rules needed to do the first task,
  
• turning on the mental rules needed to do the second task,
  
• orienting itself to the conditions currently surrounding the new task"

The thing that is of most concern is that the research shows that switching between tasks means they can take four times longer to finish. Due to the extra activity the brain has to go through.

From this it instantly becomes clear as to why interruptions are so difficult to handle, because we switch from work mode to conversation to work again. Put in a few of those in the working day and our brain activity is going to go through the roof along with our stress levels.

Bethlehem Steel And Charles Schwab

It also explains why the old Bethlehem Steel story is so vitally important to managing your projects.

Remember Charles Scwab told management consultant Ivy Lee to show him a way to get more things done and he would pay anything "within reason." Famously Ivy Lee simply gave Schwab one unused piece of paper and told him:

1. 
   

   Each night take such a piece of paper

   
   
2. 
   

   Note the most important things you have to do

   
   
3. 
   

   Number them in order of their importance

   
   
4. 
   

   When you get to work the next morning start at number one (the one you decided was most important) and continue with it until it's finished

   
   
5. 
   

   When you've completed the most important task, start on number two and continue that until it's finished

   
   
6. 
   

   Work on the most important task left on the list for the rest of the day

   
   
7. 
   

   At the end of the day don't worry if you've not completed the whole list because using any other way would have been even more impossible

   
   
8. 
   

   Make this your work habit every day

   
   
9. 
   

   "Send me a check for what you think its worth."

As you're aware Schwab sent Lee $25,000. A fortune in the 1930's. That same technique is still taught by Time Management experts today.

Why Is It So Important?

So the reason this is so important is that it is saying "focus on completing one thing at a time".

Exactly the same is true of managing multiple projects. Yes there can be some interruptions, like phone calls and emails.

The way I work is that I have two periods of time a day that I pro-actively make progress, issue and coaching phone calls so that I'm not (usually) interrupted by those.

I also turned off my regular email update. Sometimes it can be a pain when you're waiting for something but it's a small price to pay for a bit more control over what you're doing.

Focusing on the task in hand and completing it means that your brain is not constantly worrying over an unfinished task that's waiting to be finished.

This is such an important concept that I've cross-posted this from another of my blogs ("Top Achiever's Get It Done")

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Technorati Tags: Multi-tasking, Dan Bobinski, Management Issues, Journal of Experimental Psychology, NeuroImage, interruptions, gotta minute, Ivy Lee, Charles Schwab, Bethelem Steel, Time Management, coaching

Management Issues reports on a survey by consultancy the Ken Blanchard Group.

In it the leaders and managers surveyed said:

41%  felt "inappropriate" use of communication or listening was their biggest mistake
25%+ felt they over or under supervised people
14% thought they had a lack of management skills
12% said there was a lack of support
5% felt a lack of accountability
82% noted a failure to provide appropriate feedback to others
81% suggested failing to listen or involve others
75% said inappropriate leadership style for situation used
76% failure to set clear goals and objectives
Nearly 60% said leaders failed to train and develop people

Yet we all know business is being conducted as we speak. Contracts are signed, projects completed, clients delighted, invoices are raised and paid without quibble.

Now here's a thought...

Maybe we don't need everyone to be a leader. Maybe it's good enough to be an administrator or a manager.

Think about a company stuffed to the gills with leaders.

I think we'd all soon be complaining about over communication, too many courses and too many goals and objectives.

Nett result?

Too little time to do our real job.

Please save me from the over zealous consultant trying to make everyone fit into their precisely defined and highly specific role model.

 Life is fuzzy, let leaders rise to the top and let the rest manage as they do now.

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I returned to Seth Godin's blog today as I'd been re-reading Frank J. Rumbauskas's ebook nevercoldcall and the ebook mentioned Frank's Blog which mentioned Seth's Blog on sales.

So I dutifully dropped by Seth's blog to read The death of the sales call?

In it Seth explains that if you've made an appointment to see a salesman you should expect to be sold to. Otherwise why bother with the meeting?

This could be logically extended to cold calls. If a salesperson rings you up and you have no interest in what they're offering tell them so immediately. That way you don't waste your time or theirs.

It's strange how people find you. I just thought I'd share some searches people did to get to my blog for one thing: Richard Branson and Virgin.

Here they are:

• richard branson virgin atlantic business growth
  
• virgin atlantic richard branson business growth
  
• virgin business growth
  
• virgin atlantic business growth

What was so weird was that I've probably blogged about Virgin (in passing) once yet I'm second on the searchers search results!

Like I say weird...

Seth Godin's blog is a place I go for a good laugh.

Not because he talks rubbish.

Although to be fair he does sometimes.

No. What I like are the comments that he gets where people almost fall over themselves to discuss whatever he says.

I can just imagine him chortling to himself as he writes a particularly ironic posting. Certainly his post on gaining more traffic to your blog fell into that category with an enormous thump. Some people saw the funny side but generally it was discussed quite seriously.

This makes a very good point. How do people know that a "marketing expert" has told them useful stuff they can apply to their business? The more off-the-wall the advice maybe the less people feel able to question it?

It reminds me of a prospect that I was talking to who was very wary of marketing folk as he felt he'd been taken for a ride by one of them. He'd been told that his business would benefit from telemarketing. He paid up but got no results at all. He'd also completely rebranded his company at quite a significant cost.

Now to be fair as you know you do need to test different approaches to your prospects and clients. But my prospect had completely missed the point. He'd not talked through his business and marketing strategy with the marketing person. If he'd done that he'd have seen that they were clueless on marketing.

Did I get the contract? No, because he'd been burnt and now only saw marketing as a cost. One that he didn't really want to pay any more money out on...

So that prospective client missed out on some great marketing because they felt they'd been conned by their previous consultant.

Could that prospect have worked out whether the previous advice was relevant and applicable to his business? Maybe not. But he could certainly have checked exactly what results the consultant was expecting from the telesales.

Coming back to Seth's blog. In reality although I had a good laugh today Seth's blog is usually thought provoking.

Have a great weekend.

"Press releases are dead", say the Internet enthusiasts. "Press releases will die because of the Internet and email", say the Internet luddites.

People have been saying that press releases face a natural death for a long time now. Previously I've asked Why Would Anyone Write Press Releases?

There's no doubt that the Internet changes the way we communicate. Just as the airplane changed how quickly and how far large numbers of passengers could be moved relatively cheaply so the Internet increases the rate of communication and the number of people you can communicate with.

The new airplane didn't kill off transport by ship, by lorry or by train. So the Internet wont kill off press releases either

The reason?

For some time now we've had web sites that act as Press release hubs. Where you send your press release and journalists have the opportunity to browse them to see if they're of interest.

Two FREE press release sites are www.webwire.com and www.prweb.com

The latest press release I've got at prweb.com draws parallels between business and The World Cup.  Check it out and look at all the other releases that are there too. Does that look as though the press release is dead?

If your press release is full of hype it wont be added to the site. However, if you have interesting newsworthy content you'll get added.

So press releases are now more Internet friendly and the sites are helping journalists by not adding over-hyped releases.

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Scotoma, also known as "having a blind spot" is common in almost all business.

An example related to domestic life. Several years ago my wife and I stripped the wallpaper in our funny-shaped walkway of four doors between the sitting room, kitchen, dining room and toilet. We went to the DIY store at the weekend to choose some new paint and painted the walls a refreshing shade of green. Unfortunately the strip of wall above the dining room had a hole in it that we hadn't noticed. So I dashed out and got some filler to plug the hole. I put the paint away to give the filler a day to cure.

Unfortunately putting the paint away made me forget the little section of wall above the door that I hadn't painted yet.

That little bit of wall went unpainted for over 18 months. When a bulb blew in the walkway I was replacing it and looking upwards to make sure it went in properly. The light flicked on and I saw the nicely filled but unpainted section above the door.

I'd developed a blind spot regarding that unpainted strip. I'd become so used to it that it didn't even register anymore.

Blind spots in companies work exactly the same way. Although they can be slightly more complicated!

I had a client who was running a company manufacturing luxury beds. Their accountant had put one of his staff in to work as their financial controller until they could recruit one themselves. Unfortunately the controller required every request to spend money to come through her.

The nett result was that the business was not taking advantage of bulk buying for screws, glue and other commodity items.

Similarly if all the delivery vans were out and they had an urgent delivery the delivery staff had no budget to order a delivery van. That meant an urgent item went undelivered.

If the controller went on holiday and anything needed ordering the staff had to wait for the owner to get into the business to be able to order anything.

I hope that doesn't sound familiar.

The owner and other directors had a blind spot...

Some of the recommendations I made were

1. to immediately institute call-off purchasing for commodity items


2. To give the delivery team a budget and monitor its use


3. To replace the controller with immediate effect

When I told the owner my findings it was like the blinkers had been pulled from his eyes. He said he now recollected other things that had been affected by the financial controller's reign.

Once he instituted my recommendations company morale shot-up and work began to get completed more smoothly and out to the client when promised.

Almost every single recommendation I made the owner, or the other directors, saw the benefits immediately.

But they all had a blind spot. They'd needed a fresh pair of eyes to see what they were overlooking.

Do you know if you've a blind spot? If your growth is slowing or has stopped don't use the excuse of "a saturated market", "not buying now", "it's the normal sales cycle" or "our product need refreshing".

Don't monkey around get someone in to review your business. Do it while business is slow!

Tags: business growth, business consultant, blind spot, Scotoma, www.acornservice.com

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Search engine marketing and Internet marketing are two key phrases that generate enormous numbers of searches in Google, Yahoo, Overture and other search engines each month.

As just one example look at the US version of the Overture search engine. These are the monthly searches for marketing related keywords:

1. Search Engine Marketing - 1,148,022 per month


2. Marketing - 337,214


3. Internet marketing - 283,868


4. Email marketing 96,125

From that list you can see the steep difference in interest between search engine marketing and just marketing as key phrases.

Obviously people with web sites are more interested in search engine marketing to begin with. But do these figures reflect established web site companies or the number of companies waking up to the Internet and trying to get better visibility amongst the millions of pages?

Given the level of interest in search engine marketing and presumably search engine optimization it's useful to see this list of "Top 10 Mistakes With Search Engine Optimization" .

Tags: SEO, Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Internet Marketing, Email marketing, marketing

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Ted Nicholas, the author of “Magic Words That Sell” once said, “Marketing mistakes are by far the primary reason businesses do not survive. This includes companies which consider themselves direct marketers as well as those who do not”.

Of course Ted is quite right make mistakes in marketing and you’ll end up paying through the nose for absolutely no results. Yet companies continually make mistakes in sales and seem to be lethargic in sorting it out.

If you don't sort your sales your revenue dries up, your company whithers and dies and your're left with nothing.

Not a pretty picture is it?

Yet whilst most companies don't reach that stage they do allow poor sales staff to be recruited and used against their customers.

They waste the opportunities that marketing provides by using salespeople that have one, or more, of these traits:

• Poor closers


• Too aggressive


• Passive order takers


• Fear of phoning


• Can’t write to persuade


• Can’t present without being boring


• Unable to build value in the service or product


• Has poor follow-up skills


• Can’t get to top decision makers


• Finds rejection difficult to handle


• Poor time manager


• Doesn’t think strategically


• Not self-disciplined

I've just written an article about how to recruit a sales super star. Part of it involves using a 17 Point Sales Super Star Self-assessment Form that I've designed and used in the battle for the best salesman.

If you'd like a copy of the article send me an email to latest at acornservice.com. If you'd like a copy of the form send an email to form at acornservice.com. In both cases replacing at with @.

Tags: sales, sales man, sales recruitment, sales superstar, http://technorati.com/tag/www.acornservice.blogspot.com

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Strategic growth is something that few companies think about.

Why?

Because often they start and the owner is too busy chasing the sale to think such high-minded idealism.

You can almost hear the owner say, "Reality is the key, lets get the money into our bank account. Forget strategy just get it done ."

As a company grows it starts to try different ways to improve business. The CEO Refresher site has an interesting take on this aspect of business growth.

When it comes down to it many businesses really are working in a reactive mode. Every so often they poke their heads up and try a new technique or fad that other companies are apparently getting success with.

Customer relationship management, or CRM, is one I'm particularly familiar with. It's aim is to get the whole company approaching the customer in a joined up way. So that every part of the organisation knows what's been said and how they should treat each customer.

Yet like any other computer system the danger here is that you solidify bad practise into a computer system. The bad customer manual and computer systems currently in place are instituonalised. That means that if people use the system as specified the customer loses out.

If they don't use the system as specified the system falls into disrepute and loses its purpose.

What it boils down to is what Michael Gerber calls "working on the business" rather than working inside the business as a worker drone. By working in the business you need to step back and check that what you're currently doing is the best of all possible ways for you, and your customer.

You also need a system in place to check whether your policies, procedures and practises need adjusting as customers, employees, laws and society change.

Dr Deming is probably one of the most important quality and business gurus the industrial nations have been priviledged to have. His approach is such that he provided companies with the "Deming 14 points".

These points are what helped the Japanese rise to the major industrial nation they are now.

Look at them and see how you can apply them in your own business. If you'd like to read up about Deming's application in the real world read some of Mary Walton's books on Deming and his points

Be warned though applying Demings principles means that you'll have less knee-jerk reaction to circumstances. Which has to be a good thing. Doesn't it?

Google Co-op is an interesting beta program from Google.

It's intention is to help people when they search. That has the potential to change search engine marketing.

It's aim is to allow people to subscribe to experts who can help them by highlighting useful information when a subscriber runs a search.

The Google Co-op beta splits into providers and users.

Providers (the experts) set-up XML of what they expect are commonly used search terms and link that with their own take on what is useful.

The users run searches and are provided with useful links from the experts.

Sounds very useful doesn't it?

It will be provided the experts are true experts and we don't have this facility hijacked by spammers. I've taken a photo of my co-op page at the moment. You can subscribe to me using this page. I'll be putting useful business growth and marketing links on shortly.

All I ask is you let me know what you think.

Tags: Google, Google Search, Google SEO, Google Tags, Google Co-op, Google Beta, Jim Symcox, http://technorati.com/tag/Www.acornservice.blogspot.com

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Marketing is all about testing.

The testing is based on checking on the psychology of how large numbers of people act. That makes it almost scientific.

As you know there's even a very famous book called "Scientific Advertising" by Claude Hopkins.

So with that thought firmly in mind I've decided to look again at eBay selling. I've put my ebook "How To Leap Ahead Of Your Competitirs" up for sale on eBay.

The book itself is a later edition of the book I give away free at Acorn Service.

I'm interested in seeing whether it sells in the very crowded category "Self-Employment". I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and I've also used the "wrong" method of auction (it should be Buy It Now). I just want to see

what happens - testing you see!

Tags: marketing, blog marketing, ebook marketing, ebay marketing, ebay ebook, ebay self-employment, how to leap ahead of your competitors, www.acornservice.com

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The Manchester Evening News reported on a story that Marks & Spencer were testing a name change to "Your M&S" at one of their stores.

I've commented on this story. Some of what I'm going to say has been put forward as a comment.

My first question on this story is: "How important is branding?"

The answer is "it depends". Branding when it comes down to it is all about your relationship with your customers. If you have a one-off or intermittent relationship, or you're a commodity  you pretty much have no brand.

Similarly many SME's think branding is vital to winning them new business. Wrong!

Branding is all about the customer experience with your company and the long-term continuing relationship you build with your clients and prospects. For SMEs such relationships are difficult to sustain as your customers can go elsewhere easily.

However, branding is vital in your customers and prospects minds when you're a huge brand like M&S.

Changing the M&S name mean that qualities built up in the brand are lost or diluted. After all do we really need another Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Matalan or other clothing/food firm? Because when the name changes they become just another company that sells stuff.

What's the point in changing a high value brand name? It's like Harrods deciding to update their image and changing the name to Al-Fayed. Would you still think of the store the same way? Maybe if Harrods changed to "Your H?" Again who cares?

What about people who've heard of Marks & Spencers or Harrods and they ask for directions to the store but because the names have been changed nobody knows where to send them?

The loser here is not the customer because they can always, always, find a different supplier for anything they want.

The loser is the store. Playing around with a huge brand is something that is not worth the risk.

Look at The Royal Mail's attempt to change their name and the public's response. In the end they had to change the name back.

Tags: Branding, Brand, Brand Marketing, Marketing Brands, Marks & Spencer, Your M&S, Harrods, Royal Mail, Marketing Blog, Blog Marketing

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I read a web-email today from Kevin Wilke, Co-Founder Nitro Marketing.

It was all about the dangers of 4 words that close your mind like a steel-trap and prevent you from moving forward.

Those 4 words are...

"I already know that."

Kevin's point was that when you talk to someone, attend a seminar or use a consultant you should be open-minded. Saying to yourself "I already know that" stops your brain from listening to what's being said. After all why burden you with more information?

I first really noticed this about 8 years ago at a Jay Abraham seminar.

We'd all gone into the seminar room and I noticed a well-dressed gentleman talking to Jay. As I was sat near them I could hear every word.

Jay had sent all attendees an enormous box of his manuals, audio and videos. A great value. This man was saying "I already know all this how can this seminar help me?"

Jay heard what he said and told him that he'd get great value and if he felt he hadn't he would get his money back.

The following day I saw the man talking to Jay again and again I was close by. The man told Jay that he was not learning anything he didn't already know. So he wanted his money back. Jay agreed and the man left the seminar.

You know that Jay Abraham is probably the highest paid marketing guru on the planet. You're going to hear some of what you've already heard from him and from others who've learnt their craft from him.

Just as I did during that seminar.

The difference for me was that I went with an open mind. I found lots of new points and nuances to help me and my clients further. In addition I had sudden aha moments for different ways of doing business for my clients.

So did I already know it all?

No, not by a long way.

 I got much more value than the thousands the seminar cost.

What about the know it all?

They obviously knew so much more than Jay that they could afford to take some time out to check Jay's seminar then once their inital thought was confirmed to get their money back.

But did they get Aha moments, new ways of getting clients sparked by Jay's talk but not by it's details?

The answer my friends is they got what they expected: No value.

Tags: Jay Abraham, Know it all, I already know that, blog marketing, marketing blog, marketing

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