Archive for November, 2010
The Customer May Not Always Be Right, But They Are Always First
There is an old adage in the business world that says “the customer is always right.”
By Darren Slaughter
Common sense and plain old experience will tell us this is just not true. However, if a contractor wants to continue in business and see positive results from their marketing efforts they should always keep the customer first.
What exactly does this mean? Peruse through the local paper, the billboards, the television ads and the internet websites and what do you see over and over again? You see honest, hard working and knowledgeable contractors spending all their time and money talking about themselves. “Here is my product and my great prices, buy from me” is a common theme. Another theme is to see a picture of the contractor is his nice uniform standing next to his shiny work truck with some catchy slogan. What does that have to do with the customer?
Most customers are in the same frame of mind as a business owner talking to a vendor. They want to know what is in it for them. When the contractor spends the time to discuss a real problem that the customer may be experiencing and the solution to their problem, that is when the customer takes notice and contacts the contractor.
Whether it is a brochure, a newspaper ad or a website the contractor should focus on a problem and their unique way of fixing it. Notice that there is no mention of the lowest price or the quickest turn around. When people have a leaking roof, an air conditioner that does not work or cracked tile their first question is “Can you fix it?” Pricing is secondary when you are the one that has the answer.
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Darren Slaughter blogs at http://darrenslaughter.com where he discusses construction marketing. |
Is Your Brand A Maven Or A Wallflower?
It’s official: engagement through social media has created the biggest brands in the world
A fascinating report by Charlene Li, a partner in the Altimeter Group, and Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint, examines the top 100 most engaged global brands as rated by BusinessWeek and Interbrand. It explains how brands fall into one of four engagement profiles depending on the number of social media (SM) channels they have and their depth of engagement in them.
The four profiles are:
•Mavens – brands with seven or more SM channels with high levels of engagement across each. These brands have dedicated SM teams and ‘could not imagine operating without a strong presence in social media’. Examples include Starbucks and Dell.
•Butterflies – brands with seven or more SM channels but lower levels of engagement across each. These brands ‘still struggle with getting the full buy-in from their organizations to embrace the full multi-way conversation that deep engagement entails’. Examples include American Express and Hyundai.
•Selectives – brands with six or less SM channels with high levels of engagement across each. Often hamstrung by the lack of a dedicated SM team, they ‘focus on engaging customers deeply when and where it matters most’. Examples include retail group H&M and Philips.
•Wallflowers – brands with six or less SM channels but lower levels of engagement across each. They are ‘cautious about the risks [of SM engagement], uncertain about the benefits, and therefore engage only lightly in the channels where they are present’. Examples include McDonald’s and BP.
Li and Elowitz apply their findings to the BusinessWeek/Interbrand 2008 list of the top 100 worldwide brands – and the results speak for themselves. The top 13 places are all filled by Mavens. The first Butterfly (Oracle) appears at number 14, the first Selective (H&M) at number 23 and the first Wallflower at a lowly number 51.
For the record, the top 10 are:
1. Starbucks
2. Dell
3. eBay
4. Google
5. Microsoft
6. Thomson Reuters
7. Nike
8. Amazon
9. SAP
10. Intel and Yahoo (joint result)
The most successful brands, by a proverbial country mile, are those that actively engage with their customers through a number of different social media channels. This doesn’t mean employing a vast SM team (Starbucks has just six people overseeing 11 SM channels), but it does prove that simply setting up a Facebook fan page and asking your customers to ‘like’ it isn’t enough.
Engagement is the cornerstone of relationship marketing and this report should provide food for thought for anyone who continues to doubt the engagement-creating opportunities offered by SM marketing.
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Peter Applebaum is the Founder and Managing Director of Tick Yes. Tick Yes is a social media marketing company based in Sydney that uses proven digital relationship marketing strategies to help clients improve brand awareness, increase market share and meet profit objectives. For more information visit our website: http://www.tickyes.com/ or read more articles on our blog: http://tickyesblog.com/ |
Understanding Team Building – The 4 Themes Of Team Building
The 4 Themes Of Team Building
1) Communication
Communication is a vital asset to any team – if members cannot converse or communicate with one another then ideas and development is unlikely to happen. Unsurprisingly the aim of communication in regards to team building is to facilitate interaction between team members often asking them to solve problems that require the team members to communicate with one another. On the flip side of that another approach to a communication exercise is to show the problems with bad communication.
2) Problem Solving/Decision making
Creative thinking can often be a very social activity. Often people work better when bouncing ideas off one another especially when the group gets on well. Problem solving activities focus on the group’s ability to solve complex problems through a consensus opinion. Whilst a solution may be presented by an individual the group will facilitate the development of the idea in to the solution through an agreed trial and error or discussing the logic behind the solution. Often problem solving activities mirror problems that are felt within the employees’ own field of work however more abstract problems are also helpful as they show creative members of the team.
3) Planning/Adaptability
Like problem solving the aim of planning exercises is to encourage participants to work together to solve a problem through planning. Exercises focus on the benefits of working as a team to produce solutions that have been planned out rather than rely on trial and error. Discussion is encouraged and shows team members how important it is to plan and discuss challenges.
4) Trust
Trust exercises are possibly the most complex in terms of theory. Essentially you are trying to instill a highly emotional bond between team members or at least prove that other team members can be trusted! Exercises clearly lean on the message that through trust you can progress and solve problems that are otherwise difficult to solve without trusting one another.
Whilst a few of these themes are quite complex ultimately the goal of any team building exercise is to help participants interact with other team members. Team building events gives businesses the opportunity to show that they are committed to developing the employees’ interpersonal skills and happiness. After all the very best team building exercises are rewarding and fun – certainly not forced and awkward!
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De Vere’s training centers have excellent facilities that are perfect for team building events or all shapes and sizes. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Malcolm_Debris |
Effective leaders and managers need to have enthusiastic followers.
Since people are your key source of competitive advantage, you need every single employee to be fully committed to taking the company forward and doing everything they can to make it a success in the future.
Unfortunately, the recession forced many companies to alter their course. In recession-altered workplaces, employees are often adrift, not really clear what the future holds for them or the company and not sure if or how they can make a difference.
This is where it becomes crucial to create a positive picture of the future that enthuses and energises the workforce and gives your employees something to believe in.
Imagination can have a powerful effect on motivation and belief. It can also have a direct effect on behaviour. Why do you think golf coaches advise their students to always visualise good shots, rather than think about all the ways the shot can be miss-hit?
Professional athletes and coaches in all sports know that imagining positive future scenarios is a powerful way to increase the likelihood of achieving a positive result. People become excited by their idea of a positive future, they become motivated to make it a reality and their behaviour becomes more focused on achieving the desired outcome. In the same way, you and your teams will have a much better chance of success if you create a picture of the future that leads to positive outcomes.
So how should you go about creating a positive future?
- Involve your employees. The process of creating a positive future can be energising and engaging. Participation in creating their own professional future – and the future of their working environment – is often the critical factor in ensuring employees buy-in to the vision and take responsibility for making it happen.
- Start with strengths. Even though you’ve gone through a difficult time, you and the company have survived. Establishing a strong foundation of strengths reminds the team of their skills and achievements and provides a starting point of positivity and optimism. Things to think about and discuss are:
- What do we know about the strengths of the company, our team, each of the individuals?
- In spite of all the things that we might want to change, what are we happy with?
- What do we not want to lose as we move forward? - Describe the perfect future. If your organisation could be everything you dreamed, how would it be? Imagine the future as you want it to be, and then describe what you see in specific, detailed terms. In other words, look “back” from your success and see what helped you succeed in getting there. When this exercise is done with a team, they will typically see world-class processes, culture, technology, people and performance. Importantly though, this attractive picture of the future doesn’t just come from anywhere; because you started with strengths, it is built on the foundations of what you know you can do, meaning that the imagined perfect future is essentially both desirable and achievable.
- Help each person identify the “What’s in it for me?” factor. Creating a positive future as a team is a great opportunity for synergy. However, while the whole team may have the same positive picture of the future, the benefits of making it a reality are likely to be different for each person. To really gain commitment and collective action, each employee needs to fully appreciate its meaning for them personally see what is in it for them personally.
Finally, demonstrate your own personal sense of excitement about the positive future you’ve created. Constantly express your personal confidence in ultimate success and endlessly seek, find and use examples of success and progress to build a sense of momentum.
Walt Disney was a genius at getting his employees committed to his organisation’s future. When he started his theme parks he was clear on their purpose and their strength. He said “We’re in the happiness business”. That is very different from being in the theme park business.
Walt Disney’s picture of the future was clear. “Keep the same smile on people’s faces when they leave the park as when they enter”. He didn’t care whether a guest was in the park two hours or ten hours. He just wanted to keep them smiling. A clear picture of the future drives everything the cast members (employees) do with their guests (customers) and inspires excitement, commitment and ownership for making that picture a reality.
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Head over to Antoinette Oglethorpe’s blog to get more free articles and resources on Motivating Employees Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Antoinette_Oglethorpe |
“Can Social Media Marketing Impact Your small Business?”
I’ve almost certainly obtained much more queries within the subject of social media marketing these final couple of months than on any other subject. It really is all the buzz. So precisely what do I suggest by Social Media Marketing (SMM)? It’s using resources and methods to far more successfully construct relationships on the internet. It consists of providers such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,Yelp!, and blogs, to name a couple of.
Mind Movies bonus
But prior to I dig into on the net social media, look at what is happening with marketing in common. Conventional marketing techniques are waning.
We’ve all been reading through in regards to the plight of printed newspapers. In accordance with Yahoo Finance, 4 out with the five main newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation. A lot of have currently exited the marketplace. Television viewership is slipping, too. So what’s heading on?
We’re seeing a shift. Suggestions by personal acquaintances and customer opinions posted on the web are now the most trusted types of marketing globally. Nielsen has found that 90% of shoppers trust peer suggestions. This really is in comparison to 14% who trust advertisements in traditional media. And also the ad dollars are following the trend – from offline to on the web. Now, examine what is going on on the internet. Twitter and Facebook are growing in leaps and bounds. Visits to networking Internet web sites improved 53% during the initial week of last September year-over-year. Final year the typical teenager sent or acquired more than 35,000 text messages-about a single message each and every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. (Nielsen)
You probably have someone within your family attempting to coerce the rest with the family into receiving on Facebook. Or you might have a friend or business acquaintance who has suggested which you need to become on Twitter. It is getting an effect. Internet users last August spent 17% of their surfing time on social network websites, practically three times the amount of time invested a yr ago.
A particular group of you reading through that is wondering who inside globe has time for this stuff. And there may be another group which is already hooked. But forget the family and buddies for a moment. The huge question is regardless of whether or not being a modest small business you ought to care.
Nicely, let me break the news for you. You must care. That is simply because there are numerous methods to generate cash making use of SMM. Even so, it’s a matter of how lengthy it’s going to consider and at what price.
For now, take into account this. Inside the world of marketing there’s something known as a product adoption curve. As you might expect, when a new support (or technology) turns into obtainable, the rate at which it really is adopted by men and women follows a bell-shaped curve. That indicates that early on, only the adventurous, early-adopters attempt it. But as time goes on, it turns into much more mainstream plus the vast majority then jumps around the bandwagon. Lastly, you’ll often have laggards who are late to adopt something new. SMM is from the early adopter stage for businesses. The early adopters for this technology are primarily really big firms and choose little entrepreneurs. The large, Fortune 500 firms, for instance, almost all have staff with SMM in their career description and they’ve also adopted formal social media policies for their employees.
The good news is that you’re not late! The great vast majority of persons are using SMM for personal factors and couple of are leveraging it for organization purposes. So I encourage you to get available and begin obtaining acquainted with social media. It’s the way on the long term of marketing!
Written by: http://www.Socialprofitformula2.com
Two Branding Gurus Tell Their Side of the Story, Part 2
This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert’s views alone.
Personal branding guru Dan Schawbel and brand identity guru David Brier face off.
BY FC Expert Blogger David BrierMon Sep 27, 2010
I recently interviewed Dan Schawbel, the author of the forthcoming Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future, the founder of the syndicated Personal Branding Blog, publisher of Personal Branding Magazine, and a columnist with BusinessWeek. Recently, Dan was named to the prestigious Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30 list.
In this exclusive interview, Dan sheds light on the misunderstood realm of personal branding.
David: First off would you define “personal branding” as distinct from pitching oneself in the ordinary, hit-the-streets approach?
Dan: Personal branding is all about discovering what makes you special, and then communicating it to the right people, through multiple channels. We all have personal brands because we’re constantly being judged based on first and last impressions, and because we always have to sell ourselves in interviews and in social settings. We also have an inherent need for self-differentiation because of how competitive the world is on a global scale and because people love to feel unique in their own way.
In the business world, it’s imperative that we brand ourselves as experts in our field because that’s how you get noticed, and get hired. You need to stand for something, target a specific audience, and base your brand around authenticity and your talents. Since the Internet is the global talent pool, you have to have an online presence, so people can find you, hire you, or do business with you. I recommend a blog under your full name, as well as profiles on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I also recommend that you have your own motto, logo/professional picture, and a unique design that you can leverage across your entire online presence.
David: How does personal branding differ from corporate or product branding?
Dan: Personal branding really exists because people can borrow the same strategies as product and corporate brands. For instance, you get a consistent experience at McDonalds all around the world, and whenever you watch Jimmy Kimmel on TV, you know what to expect from him. While consistency is an important factor in branding, products and people both have to stand for something, have missions, values, and goals behind them. Both people and products base their value and “price” off of supply and demand in the marketplace, and every brand needs a Web site, and a presence in social media.
People need to start acting more like companies and companies need to start acting more like people these days. Consumers are begging to purchase from a human-faced business. You won’t get the same time of emotion and connection with a product than a person you meet and get along with. A person’s body language is more powerful than any product you can purchase on the market too. The biggest difference between personal and corporate branding is scalability. People can’t scale but companies can.
David: What tips do you have for someone who wants to really carve out their niche for their personal brand? Can you cite some excellent examples?
Dan: Some of the people who have excelled at personal branding include Marcus Buckingham, who developed the “strengths movement,” and has become known to the media as “the strengths and personal development expert.” Also, there’s Tim Ferriss, who branded himself as the lifestyle design expert, which was new, hip, and attracted a lot of interest. We can learn a lot from Oprah and Donald Trump, who put their name on everything they do, create and license. When I think about escaping corporate America, I think of Pam Slim first because she’s positioned herself as the top-of-mind brand in that area.
If you want to successfully develop your personal brand, you have to be as specific as you can with the audience you want to go after. Don’t bother being a social media guru, marketing expert, or personal finance expert. You need to be more specific than that if you want to stand out, get noticed, and get job opportunities or new business. Become the top marketing expert in Philadelphia or the top social media guru for reaching millennials. By getting specific, you can differentiate yourself and attract new opportunities. Before developing your online identity, have clear short and long-term goals, and understand your audience as much as you possibly can.
David: How can social media be used as a crutch thus inhibiting someone’s personal brand?
Dan: A lot of people think that just by establishing social media profiles that they will get press and new clients. There are over one hundred million people on Twitter, over five hundred million people on Facebook, and over seventy-five million people on LinkedIn. This isn’t 2005 anymore. You need to work as hard as you can to actually leverage your online presence to pull in new readers, and leads. Having millions of fans on social networks doesn’t mean anything anymore because there’s very little direct revenue impact, trust me. What you need to do is to use them so that you’re connecting only with potential buyers and influencers and then invest as much time as possible to build relationships with them. Also, you need to use social media to pull people into your main Web site because that’s where you can actually convert them.
David: Can the principles of personal branding be applied to larger corporations? If so, what recommendations do you have for larger corporations to make good use of this approach?
Dan: Every single company needs to train their employees to become spokespeople now. You need to get everyone on the same page, with the right message, and to the right audience. There should be guidelines though so people have a reference point. Companies should have a human face so that they can talk to their market like a person, instead of a machine. Press releases and other old media are becoming less relevant, while people (who have personalities) are becoming more relevant over time. Seek people in your company that can bring it to life.
While we both have “our sides if the story” regarding branding, there is the common component of differentiation and refusing to blend in. Additionally, there is a correct assessment of who your audience is.
Done correctly, you will have a brand that knocks it out of the ballpark for all of the right reasons, and not as a result of mere fate. I want to thank Dan Schawbel for joing me in sharing these thoughts with the professional community.
David Brier is an award-winning brand identity designer, author, and branding expert. His firm’s work has won the admiration of peers and organizations but, more importantly, has helped clients jump-start their brands in new and innovative ways, even (and especially) when they’ve failed in previous brand makeovers.