I don’t talk about traditional advertising
(tv, radio, print)
very often on this blog.
Why?
Because for most smaller businesses,
it is not necessary.
As Michael Philip and Salli Rasberry state in
Marketing Without Advertising,
“More than two-thirds in the U.S., certainly
– of profitable small businesses operate
successfully without advertising.”
There are other more effective
and more efficient means of marketing.
When people ask me what I do,
I tell them “I get things done.”
I say I’m going to do something
and then do it.
It might not be a successful,
it might not always be the “right” thing,
I may not actually do the work myself,
but I execute.
There’s value in that ability.
As Jeffrey Pfeffer says
“success depends on execution—
on the ability to get things done.”
An angel investor in India
posted that one of the first thing he looks for
in entrepreneurs is
“the ability to accept “delayed gratification””.
I thought that was such a given
that it was not post worthy
…until I started reading the comments.
Successful entrepreneurs HAVE to delay gratification.
There are no immediate results.
Products have to be produced before they are sold.
Posts have to be written before traffic comes.
The delay between the two could be months
(for blogs, 9 months in the Google sandbox)
or even years.
A study by Harris Interactive
found that 70% of all mobile ads were deleted.
10% were acted upon.
That would sound terrible on its own.
However, when compared to
a direct mail campaign where a
success is 2-3%,
it is terrific.
How to improve that rate?
Same as with direct mail,
a more targeted list with permission to sell.
Some money is better than none, right?
Wrong.
In a social experiment,
when a pot of free money was divided,
stingy offers were rejected
even though this rejection resulted in
no money being given to either party.
This may not make sense
until we think about what
the money represents.
It represents status.
Accepting a low ball offer is
equivalent to accepting a lower social status.
What does this mean?
When negotiating a deal,
terms need to be not only win-win
but win-win equally for both parties.
According to a study by
Maria Jonsdottir and colleagues,
the average person has 6.4 action slips a week.
Amidst these action slips are
storage failures
(going to the store to get coffee and
then forgetting why you were at the store),
sub-routine failures
(returning with tea instead of coffee),
and discrimination failures
(taking the wrong car to the store).
The highest incidence of action slips
happened on weekdays between 12 and 8.
What does this mean?
These might be the best times
to capture impulse purchases.
When many people think strategy,
they think boardroom strategy,
executives sitting around dreaming up
the big vision for the company.
So unless you’re in that select group,
you have nothing to do with strategy, right?
Wrong.
Vince Thompson, author of Ignited,
points out that 94% of strategy is
in reaction to the marketplace.
The lower in the hierarchy you are,
the more likely you are to be close to that marketplace,
the bigger the opportunity you have to suggest strategy changes.
Having trouble getting through to the top?
My most effective means has been
a typed letter, hand addressed and
mailed (externally) to the President.
Jell-O salads are a summer staple.
Allrecipes alone has over 150 recipes for it.
So Jell-O designed especially for this purpose
sounds like a great idea, right?
Wrong.
Celery flavored Jell-O
(and other vegetable flavors)
was launched in the 1960’s
and yanked from the shelves shortly after
due to low sales.
Even no-brainers sometimes fail.
Everyone has their off days.
When they deliver substandard product.
So what to do when its your vendor or employee?
In The Power Of Nice,
Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
suggest saying
“You do such great work.
I’m not sure this is up to your caliber.”
I’ve used this same technique
(though without the first sentence)
with solid success.
Stuck in a sales plateau?
Consider raising your rates.
That’s what
Jessica Duquette of ItsNotAboutYourStuff did,
with success.
“At one point,
I hired a fabulous business coach
who insisted that I raise my rates
for people who wanted to work with me specifically,
and to hire others to do
the more routine work with my clients.
I can honestly say that each time
I have raised my rates,
I have actually gotten more business,
not less, as I had initially feared.”