Archive for the ‘Employees’ Category

Marketing is easy when you’re awesome

Friday, October 14th, 2011

A couple weeks ago, I published a post imploring businesses to be good. Being good is important for your business, though it might not make your marketing any easier. But what if your business is not just good, it’s awesome? Being awesome opens the door to great marketing opportunities that makes your marketing strategy easy.

Here are three ways marketing is easy when you’re awesome:

1. PR and social media are easy

For many businesses, developing a compelling PR and social media strategy is hard– what do we say? who will care? who will spread the message? But for businesses that are awesome, PR is easy.

Grady Veterinary Hospital in Cincinnati, OH accepts animals in need from the SPCA. Right now, they are caring for a kitten that had been set on fire and loosed on a city street. Each day, they provide updates on the little guy’s progress. Because they do awesome things, their public relations and social media strategy is easy: Tell stories about the wonderful animals we help.

2. Word of mouth marketing is easy

It’s pretty obvious that if your business is awesome, your customers will want to talk about you. That’s the essence of word of mouth marketing. Give your customers something to talk about– a charitable initiative, an innovative application of your product or service that goes above and beyond what they could have imagined.

The BonBonerie is an extremely successful confectioner here in Cincinnati. Customer demand is so strong that they have an entire cafe dedicated to wedding cake tastings. Their business has been built mostly on word-of-mouth marketing because their business is amazing. The beautiful cakes, delicious flavors and careful service give customers plenty to rave about. Crafting this business wasn’t easy, but the word of mouth marketing is creating itself.

3. Employee satisfaction is easy

Happy employees make happy customers. When an employee believes in what she does, she wants to help each customer as much as she can. And, no surprise, employees find it easiest to believe in awesome employers.

When I worked at Apple, my fellow employees were 100% dedicated to the company’s way of doing business. Apple has a great employee training program and customer service methodology, and the employees already believe wholeheartedly in the products they sell. Because employees believe the company is awesome, they are able to provide customers with awesome experiences.

Marketing is easy when you’re awesome. “But my business isn’t awesome,” you might reply. So what are you going to do about it?

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Posted in Employees, Marketing, Marketing Theory, Public Relations, Small Business, word-of-mouth marketing | 1 Comment »

Your employees want to be cross-trained

Friday, September 9th, 2011

How do I know your employees want to be cross-trained?

They’ve told me.

In my work with Yastrow & Company, we do extensive, in-depth employee research, and cross-training is the most universal request we hear. Practically every group of employees, in every industry and every job role tells us, ”I wish I knew what everyone else in the company did everyday. It would help me do my job better if I understood where my coworkers are coming from.”

Restaurants can schedule back-of-house staff to individually work the front of the house for a shift. Companies with IT departments can have IT staff rotate through the various departments they support– and show the other employees the demands of the IT department. A retail store can ask their purchasers to work a few hours on the floor.

Sometimes management gives pushback to the idea of cross-training, and their reluctance is understandable. It’s a cost, and it takes valuable employees away from their work for a time. But the investment in cross-training helps build teams and breaks down barriers across departments. When employees understand what their coworkers do in the course of their jobs, they will be more helpful to requests. Asking back-of-house employees to work with customers for a day will make them realize the importance of the customer experience.

Offer some cross-training. I guarantee your employees will find it valuable, and it will help unify your business.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Employees | 1 Comment »

Customer Service: Trust Your Employees

Friday, December 17th, 2010

Customer service interactions are a big part of marketing for most companies. Customer service employees are often the face or voice of a company when customers have problems, whether it be to accept a return, resolve a billing issue or answer questions. Before a customer service interaction, customers may be frustrated or confused, leading to a lack of patience.

Many of the biggest problems in customer service occur when a company’s process or policy doesn’t apply to the situation a customer is experiencing, furthering their impatience, frustration and confusion. Being told, “I’m not allowed to do that.” or “This is company policy.” doesn’t resolve a customer’s problem, and all too often customer service employees are put in the position of angering customers.

For instance, last week FedEx delivered a package of mine to the wrong address, so I needed to pick it up at their warehouse. Their process states that anyone picking up a package must show government-issued ID with the same address as the ship-to address on the package. However, the whole reason I was at the warehouse was because the ship-to address was the wrong address. This policy clearly didn’t account for my situation, creating a bad customer service experience.

What can companies do to prevent policies from getting in the way of good customer service? They can trust their employees to make the right decision and allow them to bend policies for unusual situations.

Many managers out there may be gasping in horror, exclaiming, “We have the policies to prevent people from doing stupid things!” We only need to look to Nordstrom, one of the most successful retailers, for a counter-example.

For many years, the Nordstrom Employee Handbook was simply a single, 5″x8″ grey postcard reading:

Welcome to Nordstrom

We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.

Len Brzozowski, of the Xavier Leadership Center, wrote a very interesting piece on customer service culture and Nordstrom. He states, “Nordstrom boasts the highest sales per square foot performance in the retail industry – by almost double.” And they do it by trusting their employees.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Employees | No Comments »

Don’t keep selling if your customer is ready to buy.

Friday, July 16th, 2010

A large part of marketing is selling. When you are selling, you need to find out where your customer is in the buying process – and why she is buying. Ask questions to learn about her. In the beginning of the conversation, let her do most of the talking. If you start selling right away, you might turn away a customer who is ready to buy but is tired of sales pitches.

Soon our bathroom will look something like this.

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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Posted in Customer Experience, Employees, Selling | No Comments »

Stop micro-managing. Start empowering.

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Micro-managing is the pitfall of too many small businesses. It may be counter-intuitive that you must let go a little for your business to grow. After all, perfection can only be achieved if you manage it, right? If your team has the power to make decisions, won’t they only screw things up?

Wrong. If your team feels empowered, they will think of ideas you never dreamed of.

Your small business will never grow unless you develop a team who share the same business vision and are empowered to make the vision a reality. I’ve seen many small businesses stagnate because their owners weren’t able to communicate, delegate and relinquish authority to their teams. Your team can consist of employees, independent contractors and vendors.

Micro-managing means managing the small stuff. As a small business owner, you should be concerned with things such as the company vision or strategies for the upcoming year. Here are some ways to avoid micro-managing. They may not seem like large infractions, but think of the time wasted that could be put towards valuable business growth activities.

  • Always think, “Is this the most important thing I could be doing right now?” Management expert Peter Drucker wrote, “Doing the right things is more important than doing things right.”
  • Unless you own a graphic design firm, don’t ever question a font again. Instead, employ designers who have the freedom to design what your customers want- not what you want.
  • Don’t spend an hour on the phone with an accounting software vendor when you will never use the software. Let your bookkeeper make these decisions. The same rule applies to any kind of purchase.
  • If your sales team has a bold new idea to reach customers, let them try it out on a limited scale. Avoid “talking it to death” at all costs.

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Posted in Employees, Entrepreneurs, Marketing Theory, Small Business | No Comments »

Measure Your Marketing Podcast

Friday, April 9th, 2010

I joined David Weatherholt on his weekly radio show “Getting Down to Business” to help his listeners measure their marketing. Listen to see how your small business stacks up! Then listen for our advice on improving your small business marketing. David and I both specialize in small business issues, because we know your issues are unique and require a different strategic focus from large companies.

Listen or download below:

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

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Posted in Customer Experience, Employees, Marketing Podcasts, Small Business | No Comments »

Internal Marketing for Small Business Podcast

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

In the beginning segment of  ”Getting Down to Business,” host Dave Weatherholt interviews Todd Clark, founder and president of DenaliTEK, an Anchorage-based IT consulting firm. Todd credits his business’ success to an effective Mission and Vision Statement. He was able to use these credos to build a company culture, create excitement in employees and improve the customer experience. Todd also added, “If you don’t have happy employees, you won’t have happy clients.”

Later in the show, I analyze what makes an effective Mission and Vision Statement. I explain how DenaliTEK uses their Mission and Vision Statement as an internal marketing strategy to create strong beliefs about their organization’s purpose and future. DenaliTEK has built a very strong internal brand. It is especially impressive how Todd developed a set of criteria called, “The 10 Keys to Success,” that DenaliTEK uses to evaluate  prospective employees to determine if they will help build the culture. The company lives its brand every day.

Not every company is this successful in implementing their Mission and Vision. Many times, these items are left as bullet points in the dust-heap of executives’ PowerPoint slides, never to become implemented. Another pitfall is making them too vague, so that in trying to say everything, they communicate nothing.

For more insights, listen to the podcast below:

Download the internal marketing MP3 file here. (7.6MB)

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Posted in Branding, Employees, Marketing Podcasts | No Comments »

The Importance of an Internal Brand

Friday, November 27th, 2009

In this podcast, Gerhard Vierthaler and I talk with David Weatherholt, host of “Getting Down to Business,” about sales strategy and cold calling.

I advocate turning your marketing towards yourself to help all employees realize their roles in the sales process. A strong internal brand will improve your profitability, employee performance and your work environment.

Fortunately, small businesses are especially equipped to develop compelling internal brands. They are usually tight-knit organizations with a cohesive culture that can be harnessed to achieve a common company goal.

Download the advertising and promotions for small business MP3 file here. (13.38MB)

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Posted in Branding, Employees, Marketing Podcasts, Small Business | No Comments »