July 27

Learning from Competitors: Pros and Cons



Following your competitors, whether tracking them online or through traditional media, is a time-honored method of gleaning marketing and business insights. Nothing beats competitive intelligence to help you position, price and develop products with an edge.

Yet there comes a time when following the competition is harmful. How?  Let me share a story to illustrate my point.

"Ann" (not her real name) offered personal coaching services and decided to follow six personal coaches whose work she admired. She signed up for their free newsletters and downloaded their free E books. She listened to their podcasts, watched their videos, and followed them on Facebook, Twitter, and a host of other social networking sites.

She noted what they were saying and how they were saying it. She noted the prices they charged and the new products and services they offered.

But a funny thing happened along the way...Ann began changing her own pitch to mimic her favorite coaches. If Coach A was offering a new class on branding, Ann tried to offer that. If Coach B was offering a class on using feng shui to set up a home office, Ann looked into it, figuring this was the right way to go.  She began to get frustrated because sales and new clients weren't coming to her as they had been before. Ann updated her website several times, trying new messages, graphics and ideas. 

By the time Ann called me, she was at the end of her rope.  "I did everything you said," Ann told me over the phone. "I followed the competitors. But my sales aren't anywhere near what theirs are!"

When she described who she was following, I said to her, "You realize that they have 10 years more in the marketplace than you do, right?"  She hadn't thought of that.  "They have 10 years more of a presence building their name, developing their offering, and getting their message out there. Besides - how do you know what message of theirs over the past year actually worked, and what didn't?"

Ann hadn't thought of that. The more we talked, the more I realized that Ann viewed their messages - the frequency and upbeat nature of them - as proof positive that her admired and revered competitors were doing better than she was at gaining new customers. In fact, Ann had no idea if that was true, but she was beating herself up just the same and mucking up whatever hard-earned traction she'd already gained in the marketplace by rushing to change her message, website and products every time a competitor did the same.

Competitive intelligence can show us if someone is doing something similar or different. What it cannot tell us is whether or not they were successful at it. Unless a company is publicly traded and must by law disclose its sales in an Annual Report or shareholder prospectus, you have NO idea whether or not their new marketing pitch worked.

Before changing what you are doing in response to competitive activities, consider the following pros and cons.

Pros of Following Competitors

• Learn from peers
• Gain an understanding of the other products, services and price points your customers and potential customers are seeing
• Glean ideas

Cons of Following Competitors

• Tendency (if insecure or new to the industry) to judge oneself against competitors without adequate facts
• Trap of falling into the "me too" mentality, or developing products re-actively rather than proactively
• Not following your own personal brand or discovering your own inner brilliance
  

Ann decided to "unfriend" and stop following many of her competitors last month. When I last spoke with her, she had happily renovated her website and already had two new leads. She'd gone back to her own unique, funky and quirky style, which attracted clients to her consulting practice who she loved working with. And instead of worrying about how her revenues stacked up against others, she looked only at this quarter of her earnings as compared to last quarter; really, that's the only benchmark you can use.

I have Ann's permission to share her story here.  Do you see your own story reflected in this tale? I know that I've fallen into the traps outlined under the "Cons" above, and just like Ann, when I realized it and changed what I was doing things improved.

If you follow someone too closely, you may fall into one of these traps.  I think about hiking out in the wilderness, a sport I enjoy. If I follow too closely  behind the person hiking in front of me and don't look at where I'm putting my own feet, I tend to trip over tree roots or fall into little holes on the trail.  If I pay attention to my own progress...well, then I'm much less likely to fall!







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July 23

Compounding Effect of Blogging
Today's Acorns isn't something I wrote, but it's something I wish I'd written. The good folks on Freelance Writing Gigs wrote an excellent post on the benefits of blogging. I'd expand this to include the benefits of all online content, from posting articles to Ezine and getting links back into your website to articles on revenue-sharing websites such as Suite 101 and others. Many writers scoff at the revenue sharing sites, but I have acquired several clients through my work there (while making decent money each month from article royalties). They found me through various Google searches seeking a copywriter for specific projects. By Googling search terms related to my content, my articles came up in the Google results, they read the articles and liked my writing style. It was like preselling people on my work, and I get paid by the site for my articles. Whether you're a writer or a small business owner seeking greater online exposure, this article provides excellent tips for building your online brand and nudging Google into working for you as an automatic, free marketing partner.

Read:  The Compounding Effects of Blogging


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July 19

First Step to Start a New Business
My free podcast/radio show on Blog Talk Radio focuses today on the first step to starting your very own business. Do you dream about being your own boss? Following your passion and creating a company with lasting impact? Many people envision themselves as wealthy entrepreneurs, coming up with a million dollar idea and founding a company that will grow to be the next Microsoft. I have that dream too, both with Seven Oaks and with EquinArt Creations, the first company that I launched in 2004.  I share your passion!

There's one critical first step that you need to take. This step is best illustrated by an entrepreneur named Shai Agassi, an Israeli businessman. Shai' story is included in the July/August 2010 issue of Smithsonian magazine.

Shai founded a successful software company. After selling his company, he turned his attention to alternative energy. Shai wanted to make a difference in the world and he thought he could use his creative talents, drive, and energy, as well as the skills he'd honed through years perfecting his computer software knowledge, to help the world's energy needs.

Shai studied the various green energy needs and concepts. He attended conferences and workshops. He spent about a year researching alternative energy, and looking for an area in which he could make a difference. He settled on the automobile. He looked at the current generation of electric cars. He studied the ones on the market. He read every report he could get his hands on about electric cars.

Then Shai took the very first step to launching his new company - the step which I recommend that you take, no matter what your industry or idea.

The first step is to ask a question. It is the most important question to ask when thinking about a business idea.

"What is the real problem my customers have that I can solve?"

You see, Shai uncovered some interesting things in his research (this is why research is so important!).  Most of the hybrid and electric cars on the market can only travel 40 to 100 miles before needed to be recharged. Recharging takes several hours and charging stations are not readily available.

He discovered that contrary to popular opinions in the media, consumers liked the idea of fuel efficient, 'green' cars.  Consumers liked the appearance and style of the available models.  But they were too expensive.

Price, however, wasn't the real problem his customers faced. No, the real problem revolved around the battery.  Customers were afraid and fear was the biggest hurdle to buying an electric car.

Customers were afraid that:

• they would drive to a destination, the battery would be low, and there would be no way to recharge
• the car's battery would give out on the highway

Consumers like the current fuel station model for fossil fuel driven vehicles. They're comfortable with it. In every country he studied, the model of a service station was in place.

He came up with a solution to his customer's problem. What if, instead of waiting hours and hours for a battery to charge up, you could just change the battery? He came up with the concept of electrical "service stations" in which consumers drive cars onto a platform. Within 3 minutes, a robot changes out the spent battery for a fresh one. Spent batteries are recharged at the 'service station' and used on the next car.  Consumers buy a subscription or monthly membership to the service stations to cover the cost of changing and recharging the batteries.

You can read about Shai's magnificent solution in Smithsonian magazine.  He borrowed existing technology used for military models and adapted his idea of selling rented batteries for electrical cars. Shai's model is being tested right now on taxi cabs in Tokoyo and cars in Denmark and he is hopeful that the model will catch on. Right now the experts believe his model viable in cities, but even if taxi cab fleets could convert from gasoline power to electrical power, it would improve air quality and reduce fuel needs (even if a tiny bit - but every bit counts.)

For anyone interested in starting a small business, use Shai's example as the one critical, absolutely essential question to ask before doing anything.  What problem do my customers have? How can I solve it?

You can't answer this question without research.  Shai spent a year reading everything he could about the green energy industry. He attended conferences, met scientists and others working on the problem. He spent a long time thinking about the material he'd absorbed before coming up with a completely out of the box, crazy idea that just might work.  He's hoping to make driving an electric car as easy as driving a gasoline powered car by changing not the car or its components, but how the cars are refueled....which is really the underlying problem.

Consumer problems are driven by emotion.  In this case, the emotion was FEAR....fear of getting stuck on a highway with no easy way to recharge or restart the car....no way to use the car easily.....fear...

He took away the fear by changing the model of how the cars are services.

So what is YOUR customer's REAL problem? What are you trying to do for them that no one else can do?

Think about it.

This is the first step in starting any business.





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July 13

Growing Your Business One Leaf at a Time
My special guest this week on Monday's Seven Oaks Small Business Marketing Show on Blog Talk Radio was Dr. Stacey Salant, P.h.D., a licensed clinical psychologist. Stacey's area of expertise is changing behavior and the thinking patterns underlying our behavior that may be holding us back. 

One thing that Stacey talked about that really hit home for me and a point I'd like to bring out for you, my clients and loyal readers, is the notion of breaking down big goals into manageable chunks. Stacey shared the story of an artist she worked with who needed help overcoming a creative block.  By breaking down the big scary goal (painting a new picture) into short bursts of manageable goals (clean studio, buy new brushes, clean old brushes, inventory art supplies) the artist quickly overcame her creative block and was painting again.

I envision myself as a bustling, busy type and to the outside world I am. But there are times when even I need to break big goals down into 15 minute increments. I have several large writing projects on my desk right now, two for clients and one for myself. I found myself wishing each day that I'd have time to get to them - but watching the days slip by without much work getting done.

I took Stacey's advice to heart. I set aside "me time" this morning - an hour, but it was an hour well spent. I not only created an extensive outline for one project but made a good sized dent in research for another.  The result is that today I am one step closer to my goal than I was yesterday.

How does this apply to your marketing plan?  It's like this: a tree does not grow all in one day. It grows one leaf at a time. You must also grow your business one leaf at a time.  Take 15 minutes a day. That's all I am asking you for. Set a timer. Get into your quiet, comfortable space, wherever that may be.

Brainstorm and dream a little. How do you envision your business growing? In what way? What new areas would you like to consider? Have you dreamed about new products, partnerships, ideas?

Now what would it take to get there? Remember - you don't need to grow the whole tree today. Just one leaf. Write down a few ideas of how you might promote or market your company. Write a few ideas down about what steps you will need to grow your business.

If you give yourself just 15 minutes a day, you could conceivably grow your business a little bit each day.

I think about the oak tree in front of the house where I grew up. When I was around four years old, the maple out front died and the town planted an oak tree. It was a thin stick and as tall as my dad, about six feet high.  Each year, though, it grew. I was surprised when I moved out and sold my parent's house that it soared over all the other trees on the block. Now I never saw that tree grow.  I just noticed that each year it was higher and higher, the trunk thicker. Before I knew it, the tree soared over all the others.

You can be like that too. While we would all like to be an overnight success, I read a comment the other day from a famous person who said "every overnight success took 10 years to get there."

Slow and steady wins the race. Take your big business goals and break them down into manageable 15 minute chunks. Like the oak tree in front of my childhood home, you too can grow into a mighty oak from a little acorn!



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July 07

Ear Training for Tone Deaf Marketers, or Lessons Learned
As a business owner, you need to develop sensitivity when you receive customer feedback. It's like ear training for musicians.

When I studied music, Bob Kelly, my music theory teacher, taught his students how to identify the notes through a process called ear training. Chords, scales and intervals...we learned how to identify notes by listening to them and using certain tips and techniques. Gradually just by hearing the first few notes of "N-B-C", the three-note theme played on the NBC television channel as their station identification, I could identify the notes, and then if I heard them again I could match what I was hearing in a new piece of music with the shortcut, a mnemonic device.  You also need to develop "ear training" in relation to customer feedback.

I was blessed this week with cranky customers. At first I did not see this as a blessing. I felt like all the nuts had fallen loose from the tree, or maybe in our case, the acorns off the oak.  I wondered why everyone was coming out of the woodwork and making me feel like a greedy Gus!  Last Friday, within the space of two hours, I had three people make casual statements about me that "I was all about making money."  One client joked she was going to set her cell phone to play "Money Money" to represent me when I called her.

Yes, I help people make money, but that's not who I am...I don't think I am "money money." Was it true, or was it perception?

I would have just chalked it up to her joking around but on my way home from my appointment with her, I stopped in a store. A friend surprised me and we stood in the store aisle, chatting. She also said something along the lines of "well, you're all about money" and she said it with a smile, but I wasn't smiling.  Why was a friend saying this?  What in the world was going on? Within a few days, three others said almost the same thing to me! Holy smokes - what was in the water? Branding. It had to be a branding issue, since branding forms perception. Somehow, someway, I felt like I had gotten off brand with my messages.

I put on my deerstalker cap and played Sherlock Holmes. I'm forever banging my drum about marketing messages, so that was the first place I looked. I'm grateful to two clients who were open and honest with me too. You see, I'd changed the home page of Seven Oaks Consulting a few months ago. I was feeling frustrated about my business and so I decided to use hard-sell messages to try to attract clients.

Now I am being open and honest here. It didn't work. Business didn't improve.

Not only didn't it work...it appears that I was creating a brand impression that I was "all about money."

Oh boy. That was NOT what I wanted to do!

Today I took a deep breath, relaxed, and reworked portions of my company website according to my heart, not my head.  Yes, I want to make money. I'm not running a not for profit (and even not for profits must make revenues or money in order to provide services).  I do donate money and time and talent to causes I believe in, but I need to make money to pay my bills.  But I'm not all about money, or at least I don't think I am. I think I am about creative and effective writing, and good quality marketing, and helping people....and I hope you agree.

Putting all that aside, the lesson learned is this:  if I had not had "ear training" in my corporate career with an emphasis on listening to customer feedback, I may have dismissed all those comments are just coincidence. Or perhaps I may have bristled and gotten angry but kept on doing what I was doing. It took some sensitivity to go back to several people and gently ask them, "Why did you say that? What am I doing that is giving you that impression?"  And when they pointed to my new graphics and message on the website, I realized that the approach I was taking was incongruous with my personal brand, which is really what I"m ultimately selling as a business and marketing consultant and writer.

I've been rigorously honest with you here and I hope you won't hold it against me.  I hope that by sharing it, you will learn alongside me.

ALWAYS listen to your customers!


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