Soon our bathroom will look something like this.

Here’s an unusual example:

This week started out with a ruined bathroom. My husband and I own a beautiful, 100-year-old home in a historic neighborhood of Cincinnati, but the bathroom plumbing finally showed its age and crumbled. We’re taking this opportunity to completely remodel and enlarge the bathroom, which might take several weeks.

Problem: This bathroom contains the only shower in our house.

Solution: Join a local gym to take showers (and maybe get some exercise.)

When we walked into the gym in our street clothes, salespeople beset upon us. The first question our salesman asked was, “Are you interested in cardio or weights?” How could we respond that we were interested in neither? Weary and desperate for a shower, we just wanted to buy a membership. It’s the closest gym to us, so we weren’t going to comparison shop. The salesman proceeded to show us every piece of equipment and describe all the classes before we were finally able to give him a credit card.

With a few questions at the beginning of his sales pitch, he could have saved himself a lot of time and made money faster. Instead, he treated us like every other person walking into that gym- with a polite, very well-rehearsed sales pitch. I’m certain he treated us exactly how the gym trained him to sell to us, and he will probably be recognized for sales excellence at the next quarterly meeting. But following a script doesn’t best help the customer, especially when faced with unusual customers like my husband and me.

Is your small business set up like this gym, to put impediments in the way of customers buying? If you train your salespeople to sell without considering the customer’s situation, then you are. Salespeople shouldn’t know exactly what they are going to say before they encounter an actual customer – they might miss a customer who is ready to buy.

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The possibilities for the design were endless, ranging from representing a pointillist painting to depicting the employees of a company seamlessly working together. We finally settled on the violin motif because of its beautiful simplicity – which is just what a small business’ brand should be. (Accomplished photographer Laura Poland found just the right angle to capture the cover image.)

Brand Harmony is an exceptionally good book for the small business owner or marketing professional because of its radical ideas on marketing such as:

• How to cut your advertising budget and make more money.
• Brute force branding – why it doesn’t work.
• Clear action steps about connecting with your customers and finding out what is truly important to them.
• How to create your “Picture of Success” and develop a path to reach it.

After all this to-do, I’m sure you’d like to see the cover, eh? Here are the front and back covers:

And if you’d like to buy the book, it’s only $10 at yastrow.com.

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Listen or download below:

Download the measure your marketing MP3 file here. (12.8MB)

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This article focuses on the first rule- Be easy to do business with. Small businesses have the competitive advantage of being able to offer their customers flexibility, personalization and relationships.Your customers will be as loyal to you as you are to them- take advantage of this truism.

Being easy to do business with isn’t the only reason your customers will become loyal, but it is certainly a necessary condition. If you give your customers any reason not to buy from you, they probably won’t. If you make it difficult to do more business with you, they won’t do that either.

So how do you become easy to do business with? The first step is to analyze what your business is like from your customers’ point of view. This is not limited to marketing interactions with your customers but should include billing, customer service, waiting areas and every point of contact customers have with you. Ask your employees for their honest assessments and feel free to ask some of your customers about their experiences with your business.

Sometimes companies make operational decisions and neglect to consider how those decisions will affect the customer experience. A lovely restaurant near my office is open from 7AM – 2:30PM, which is brilliant for operations. They only require one eight-hour shift. It makes scheduling very easy. But how does it look from a customer’s point of view, when McDonald’s opens at 5AM for breakfast? How many potential customers avoid this restaurant when they have to be at the office by 8AM? You need to be available at the times your customers want to buy, even if it makes life more difficult for you.

Many small businesses avoid the hassle of accepting credit cards. Yet Nilson Reports show that there were 20.2 billion credit card purchase transactions in 2009. That’s about 65 credit card transactions per U.S. citizen each year. If given the choice, it’s likely your customers would prefer to pay by credit card (other studies also show consumers spend more when they use credit cards as opposed to cash, as well).

The next step to becoming easy to do business with is to test your processes internally before inflicting them onto your customers. I’ve received my fair share of speeding tickets, and I’m always amazed at how cumbersome it is to pay the fine. I’m certain all of my readers are law-abiding citizens, but you may have seen an acquaintance’s speeding ticket. In many states, the envelope provided to mail in payment is the same size as the ticket itself, requiring you to fold the ticket in quarters to mail it back. The government isn’t designed to be easy to do business with, but small business owners should learn from this lesson.

Accounts receivable is an area where many businesses aren’t easy to do business with. Have you ever tested the process required for your customers to pay you? Does your billing cycle consider your customers’ schedules, or is it simply convenient for you? Take a look at your invoices. Are they clear, professional and part of your branding experience? The worst invoices I’ve seen have a hodgepodge of clauses left over from process changes that were created for internal convenience.

Once you identify the areas where you are difficult to do business with, you need to fix those areas. This step can sometimes be impossible in large companies, where a labyrinth of bureaucracy cements processes in place. The great advantage of small businesses is their flexibility, though. Start by prioritizing the most important interactions and the ones with the most room for improvement.

Finally, tell your customers about your improvements. It doesn’t matter how many fixes you’ve made if your customers don’t give you credit for them! At your next appropriate interaction with each customer, mention your new, more convenient billing cycle or that you are now accepting credit cards.

Being easy to do business with should be a cycle of continuous improvement. Each improvement in your customer experience- no matter how small- will grow your customer loyalty a little more. Occasionally, ask some of your best customers what you could do to serve them better or how you could better meet their needs. Always be on alert for how you can make your customers’ experiences better- and actually make those changes.

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Jerry and Janis’ business planning skills are very impressive. They managed to plan for every scenario, except one… becoming an overnight success.

Listen to my segment below:

Download the marketing a startup bakery MP3 file here. (7.6MB)

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Joseph DePinto, CEO of 7-Eleven, wanted to discover the secret of their most successful stores. He said of one location,

“It’s the epicenter of coffee for 7-Eleven. This store sells more than 2,500 cups of coffee every day. I need to figure out what makes their coffee business so great, so I can roll it out to our other stores.”

He finds out that in this store with the highest volume of coffee sales, it’s all about the relationship, not the product.  Watch the clip below:

After working with Delores, who greets most customers by name, Joseph DePinto realizes,

“That’s why we’re selling 2,500 cups of coffee. Not because we have great coffee but because we have Delores there.”

In a more unusual situation, Waste Management president Larry O’Donnell learns the local trash collector is the literal face of his company to customers. After watching trash collector Janice greet and hug customers, he began to see her job as building relationships with their customers, in addition to collecting the trash. He made plans to change Waste Management’s approach to productivity measurement.

The specific segment isn’t available, but the full episode is here: Undercover Boss – Waste Management (The segment starts at 30:00).

These corporate leaders got the opportunity to see what their customers and employees experience first-hand. They witnessed the value of customer relationships. But you don’t have to go undercover to build relationships with your customers- you just have to start doing it.

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At the peril of using negatives, I want to give small businesses advice on how not to treat their customers. In the following examples, imagine how your customers would respond if you tried these bad tactics.

Don’t offer customers a make-believe loyalty program.

Any customer can tell that buying six smoothies in a month in exchange for a free one is not a good deal. If you insult their intelligence, customer disloyalty will skyrocket.

Don’t try to trick customers with sneaky advertising.

A company named Sneaky Advertising tried to post a spam comment on my blog. I visited their site, and took the screenshot shown below.. There’s no such thing as stealthy profits, because no one is fooled by those haphazard advertisements. If you trick customers into viewing your advertisements, two things can happen: they ignore it, or they get angry about it. If your customer gets angry at your advertisement, that means they are really angry at you. Only advertise to your customers in ways they find acceptable.

Don’t act like a large company when you’re not.

Small businesses can offer customers things that large companies cannot. Use your size to your advantage– don’t try to hide it. Large companies have many faults that small businesses must avoid such as unnecessary bureaucracy, unwieldy communication and treating customers like a number.

Don’t talk negatively.

Remember the pink polar bear example earlier in this article? Speaking in negatives is not an effective way to communicate your message. Focus more on your strengths than your competitors’ weaknesses or jabs. Just try to read the following excerpt from DirecTV’s website without focusing on, “NO!” and “ONLY!”

All of these points have something in common and can be summarized in one statement:

Don’t treat your customers like they are stupid.

Your customers are smarter than ever, have access to more information than they did a year ago and grow more discerning with every sales pitch they hear. Most importantly: they can tell if you are trying to trick them.

Use your marketing budget to treat your customers as the intelligent, discerning people they are. If you do, you will have the opportunity to grow loyalty, sales and referrals.

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Laura starts by telling us what she enjoys about owning her own business:

I love the freedom I get from owning a business.  I have full creative control over all my work, so I’m free to try new techniques and experiment with new ideas.  I’m also able to work at my own pace, set my own hours, and choose my own assignments.

But all small business owners discover challenges as they grow. For Reflected Spectrum Photography, Laura was already an experienced photographer, but running the other aspects of the business, such as sales, marketing and finance, was difficult at first. Since her core competency was photography, she sought advice:

I continue to learn as much as I can about these fields to improve my knowledge and skills in those areas, but I have also benefited greatly from the help of good consultants, such as Zoo In A Jungle Marketing and Andrew Technology. Having expert advice available has been extremely helpful to give my business a head start.

As with most successful small businesses, Reflected Spectrum Photography focuses on the customer experience and building relationships. Relationship-building is easier for small businesses than with large ones, which is a key competitive advantage of being small. Laura agrees and adds, “I really enjoy building relationships with all my clients. I find it very rewarding to be present at the most special moments in my clients’ lives, and to see how their children have grown at each new portrait session.”

Laura realizes that satisfying her clients involves more than delivering beautiful photographs, so she ensures they have a great experience during the photo shoot as well:

I try to help my clients feel relaxed and get them excited about having their pictures taken. If my clients are enjoying themselves, that allows me to capture special moments as they happen and preserve them as art, and I hope that they will be treasured for years to come. The most rewarding part of my job is seeing the expression on my clients’ faces when I’ve captured the perfect expression of happiness on their child’s face, or caught a spark of real emotion from their wedding day. If my customers enjoy the experience and love the results, they are likely to hire me again in the future and refer me to their friends.

As for building her customer base, Laura has employed a very successful web marketing strategy and client referral network. She says, “Before you can make a client happy, you first have to actually get some clients, so well planned sales and marketing strategies have played a key role in my success.”

As a successful small business owner, Laura parted with the following advice for aspiring entrepreneurs:

Before you start to focus on selling your products or services, build a solid foundation for your business to grow on.  Once you become successful, you may be too busy with your clients to focus on building a good web site, formulating targeted marketing initiatives, or finding a record keeping system that works for you.  If you need help with any of these things, don’t be afraid to ask!  Help is out there in many forms.  Books, forums, internet articles, and expert consultants are all available to help you get your business off to the right start.

Contact Info:

Reflected Spectrum Photography
Laura Poland
http://www.reflectedspectrum.com

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One of the most powerful concepts in marketing is Brand Harmony, developed by Steve Yastrow. I work closely with Yastrow & Company, and have seen the benefits of Brand Harmony for our client companies. Steve Yastrow’s book of the same name, Brand Harmony, defines your brand as, “Every experience your customer has with your company.” (14) If these experiences blend into a harmonious whole, your customer develops a rich, positive brand impression of your company and products.

A company we work with, Prairie City Bakery, creates a great experience with their baked products. They sell baked goods such as cookies, muffins and doughnuts to food service vendors, convenience stores, drug stores, etc. They have faced the challenges of offering a great-tasting and high-quality product while also providing a quick snack for consumers. Part of this experience is the packaging, which makes it look homemade. President Bill Skeens is fond of saying, “People eat with their eyes,” a statement which shows an understanding of the importance of customer experience.

Netflix also creates good customer experiences. The system learns which movies you like and dislike to recommend other titles to you. If you lose a DVD, they don’t accuse you of stealing it. With their increasingly populated Watch Instantly section, you hardly even have to bother with DVDs. (But every company has room for improvement. Netflix team members…if you are reading this… please add a “Holiday” movies genre. It’s ridiculously difficult to find those titles.)

Each time a customer comes into contact with you or your products, you are creating an experience for that customer, even if you aren’t trying. Sometimes, especially if you aren’t trying. The worst– and most memorable–customer experiences come from brand disharmony.

How many times have you heard the phrase, “The system won’t let me.” from a customer service representative or retail store cashier? Technology is an area where many companies create disharmony. Rarely are systems designed with the customer experience in mind. Recently, I discovered that my bank’s idea of offering electronic payment is to print a physical check and mail it to my vendors for me. Imagine my surprise when I received a late notice from a vendor that I had paid “electronically.” The bank told me they needed four days’ notice to process the payment, and I had only given them two. How is that a better experience than simply writing and mailing a check myself? Why would they design such a useless system?

When you create brand disharmony, you confuse your customers. They don’t know what to think about you– Even worse, they know exactly what to think about you, and it’s unfit for print. But when the experiences you’ve created for your customers create Brand Harmony, they feel an affinity for your company and have a rich sense of why they want to buy from you.

Think of some companies you have an affinity for and that create great Brand Harmony with you. What experiences do you have with those companies? Now, ask yourself: How can I gain inspiration from these companies? What experiences should I create with my customers?

Don’t just think of your “traditional” marketing communications. Customers don’t care if your billing department and marketing department are separated by a chasm. If your invoices and advertisements don’t create complementary experiences, your brand will be weak in their minds.

By thoughtfully considering what experiences your customers should have and putting those thoughts into action, you can help your customers know exactly why they buy from you. If they have a good answer for that question, they will be less likely to switch to a competitor or make do with a substitute product or service.

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Advances in marketing technology allow us to learn so much about our customers. With the information customers share with us, it’s never been easier to develop customer relationships and loyalty. But when the technology is used to create paint-by-number experiences, customers will feel a dissonance and know you aren’t actually interacting with them. Customers are very clever and can tell when companies use marketing technology against them instead of for them.

Laura Poland, an Indianapolis wedding photographer and close friend, experienced this technology dissonance first-hand with OvernightPrints.com. She usually orders business cards and brochures using her professional email address. However, one time she placed an order using her personal email address. OvernightPrints.com stored both of these addresses in their marketing database but didn’t record that the addresses belonged to the same person.

OvernightPrints.com’s records showed that Laura was a loyal customer when she used her professional email address. They sent her the following year-end coupon for 25% off any order:

But OvernightPrints.com also had Laura’s personal email address on file. Clearly, the personal email address wasn’t loyal to them. It had only placed one order. In a bid to “activate”  this dormant customer, they sent a sweeter deal to the email address that had only ordered once:

We wanted to give OvernightPrints.com a chance to respond to Laura’s disappointment at finding her loyalty was not rewarded. Here is the email from their customer service department:

Part of our marketing strategy to reactivate “inactive” customers is to send them different offers, which sometimes offer greater discounts.  We also have a Loyalty Program for our top customers, which provide excellent discounts as well. Should your purchases reach the level that qualifies you for the program, we would very much like to invite you to participate.

So it seems that Laura is neither loyal nor disloyal enough. OvernightPrints.com uses their technology to categorize their customers, and it seems some categories are luckier than others.

What lesson should we all learn from this marketing faux pas? (Besides that ordering infrequently from OvernightPrints.com is the best way to score deeper discounts). If a company tries to use technology to “cheat” some customers, the customers will find out. And that will erode their relationship with the company. No one stays loyal to a company (or friend) that doesn’t show loyalty to them. Carefully use your marketing technology to bring you closer to your customers, instead of further away from them.

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