Posts Tagged ‘strategy’
Show Rooming Is Our Fault
Show Rooming Is Our Fault
Target got all a tither last week firing off letters to their suppliers demanding they either reduce their costs or focus on giving Target more unique and exclusive products to sell in their stores.
Problem is that folks go to Target, look at a product, touch it, hold it, feel it, ask questions about it and then turn around and go online and buy the same thing cheaper from some online company that doesn’t have the costs to bear for the brick and mortar, the labor and all the rest.
They call it Show Rooming and brick and mortar retailers like Target are getting sick of it.
But Target is mad at the wrong people. It’s not the supplier that’s the problem – it’s us.
Maybe it was the way I was brought up or where I’ve worked but there’s something wrong about using one company to learn and see everything about a product and then going out and buying it online ( or anywhere else for that matter.) And it happens a lot.
There’s something wrong with walking into the local hardware store, getting that advice on which paint to use to cover paneling, spending some time at the color wheel and then saying “Thanks man!” while jumping in the car to speed off to the superstore to get the exact same paint a little cheaper.
There’s something wrong when the Veterinarian examines your dog, hands you the product she needs to stay healthy and you put it down sheepishly saying “gee I can’t get that right now” only to go on line, look for the same product and order it there for 3 bucks cheaper.
There’s something wrong with going to a car dealer, working the sales rep for 2 days, getting all the answers, taking that test drive and getting all of it down on paper to then neatly fold it, slip it into your back pocket and then shopping around with all this new knowledge to get better price from some other dealer who sells the same model car.
And it happens to you too.
It’s not real different in sales either when you spend 3 weeks educating a prospect about a solution, prepare a proposal and that prospect takes your proposal and their new education, then turns it over to a competitor and says “Beat that”. That happens, that’s life but that’s Show Rooming a Sales Rep and that ain’t right.
It’s a lot like stealing I think. For too many people it’s not a problem to take insight, or time, or commitment, or ideas only to use them against the very people and places that were so skilled or gracious in giving them to you in the first place by going somewhere else to buy.
That’s called Show Rooming and nope, even though its rampant and even a source of pride for some, I don’t like it one bit.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
The DIFM Kid
The DIFM Kid
I gave up. January 1st was the day that I was done.
I gotta just focus on what I do well and maybe do that better.
Now I pay a 14 year old whiz kid (a friend of my son), to just do technology stuff for me now. “The DIFM Kid” (Do It For Me) is what I call him. (He is pictured here as rendered by my wife) I don’t pay him a lot. But the ROI is unbelievable.
Let him set up the Netflix on the Wii, let him set up my wife’s new Facebook Business Page, let him figure out how to connect the piano keyboard to the PC so we can record some of my son’s music. Let him figure out why the wifi sync doesn’t work or why we need two Routers now because of all the stuff using whatever it is they use.
I’m not stupid. Some people (and this is hilarious) think I might be a little on the “techie” side of the ledger. ( LOL- that’s called Acting man) but it is getting harder out there. I don’t have the time, but I have the need.
I just realized no matter how many manuals and instructions I read, or how many tutorials or videos I watch, I’m not going to get it. Or I am not going to get it done fast enough. Or sometimes I am going to make it even worse. And maybe I need to focus on what I do well already and quit wasting time on stuff I don’t.
And now word has spread about “The DIFM Kid” and me using him. Now everybody in the extended family is asking for him. He disappears on Sundays 3 towns over at brother in-law’s house to go set up a new TV or to fix a slow laptop or to connect a transmitter to an outside thermometer. There’s a darn waiting list for him and texts asking “When is “The DIFM Kid” gonna be around? “ Things are looking great for him.
There are a lot of us out there feeling that way, consumers and small businesses alike.
You don’t have to look that far to see that Do It For Me services are going to explode not just in my family but in the marketplace too. I see them every day grow stronger and stronger where I work. They’ve been around forever, but now the speed in which new becomes old, or good becomes just OK or keeping up becomes “What the hell just happened?” is accelerating at a pace where DIY ( Do It Yourself) might soon feel so yesterday.
That smacks of opportunity. Be ready- The next DIFM Kid could ( or maybe should) be you.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
What I Learned Acting In Star Trek
What I Learned Acting In Star Trek
This last weekend we again watched the recent J.J. Abrams Star Trek film from a couple years back. Awesome movie.
I thought back to when I was an actor in Star Trek from the original series. Working with the other actors on set was life changing for me.
But let’s talk about this latest movie version of the series for a minute. It is a look back to the beginning of Star Trek – a “prequel” view at how the original characters, (i.e. the likes of Shatner, Nimoy and Deforest Kelly) all started out; how they formed their relationships and beliefs. About why and how they go about “boldly going” so to speak.
It made me think about my original days involved in Star Trek and what influence it had and has on my life today. My experience acting in Star Trek was huge. Those days on the “Trek” set shaped some very important things about me and how I act today.
Maybe you could learn from it too.
Star Trek wasn’t much of a hit when it originally aired late in the 60’s, but in syndication all through the 1970’s, it rocked.
I have 3 brothers and we were all growing up in the 70’s.
William Shatner and his crew had nothing on us; truth was, we were Star Trek.
I was Capt James T. Kirk. My first officer Spock (played by my older, sci-fi book loving, overtly logical brother Kevin), was incessantly harangued by Dr. “Bones” McCoy played by Brother Paul. Paul and Kevin kind of had that relationship off set at times, so it was a good fit. My littlest brother James played the role that offers the focal lesson for today.
James always played (he had no choice) …… “The Guard ….Who Went Bad”
You gotta have a bad guy sometimes. It makes it more fun. It gives you a purpose. It gives you a “mission”; a mission to succeed, to win and sometimes, to save the world.
Baby brother James had a rough time of it when you think about it. He always started out as part of the “crew” (which he liked) but only for a while (which he didn’t). His role, being about 7 years old, was always to guard the ship and crew as he slowly moved from room to room. (One bedroom was the “Bridge”, the other was “SickBay” and the rest of the little house was whatever dangerous planet we beamed down to).
Suddenly James (aka “The Guard…Who Went Bad”) was forced to “snap” and turn on the crew, putting our mission at risk. Racing through the house we would chase James, tackle him, and even though we had only set our phasers to “stun”, we somehow always killed him – his body blown to bits all over the living room ( somehow that was better than the “disappearing thing” that happened with the phasers on TV.) Good Times.
Gotta have a bad guy sometimes. That sticks with me. I have to have a purpose occasionally, to defeat something. My guess is you might too.
Maybe you work hard everyday to beat down this Guard Gone Bad sketchy economy thing. Maybe you strategize, work weekends and nights to knock this thing out and grow the business despite what seems like an incredibly hard mission.
Maybe you work up a sweat by3 o’clock pounding out calls and working hard to have conversations with your customers because you are fighting this Guard Gone Bad enemy that is someone’s false perception that you “can’t” do something. Take that Guard Gone Bad; don’t tell me I can’t do something.
Maybe the Guard Gone Bad for you is the competition. You won’t let “these other guys” take your market share, take your sales or take your future away from you. Nope; skip the phaser, give me the photon torpedo.
Maybe the Guard Gone Bad for you is a demon you are battling inside yourself. And it would be so easy to give up and check into Sick Bay but ain’t no way that is going to happen.
So maybe ( no assuredly), there is something good to be said about finding a foil, about finding that enemy to defeat and about creating and/or finding that Guard Gone Bad.
Thanks to my cast mates in the original series produced in Norwood, MA in late 70’s and especially to James. Sorry you got killed so many times bro, but at least it wasn’t in vain.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
Your Favorites & Mine
Your Favorites & Mine
Happy Friday and New Year,
Here’s a quick look back at 2011.
The votes are in (ok the views). Here are the top 5 (listed 1-5) most viewed blog posts at this site in 2011; presumably your favorites. Good taste I’d say and thank you for your readership. I’ve added 5 others I’d add as my favorites.
Look around a bit. What’s the worst that can happen? Steal something shamelessly and grow the business?
Top 5 Most Read Posts (2011)
You Had Me At Hello (and then, you just let me go)
The Most Powerful Phrase In Sales
My 25 Secrets Of Selling To Small Businesses
Help For Looooonnngg Sales Cycles
My 5 Favorite Posts of 2011 (aside from above!)
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
Drug Reps Selling Differently
An article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal very much worth the read.
Drug Reps Soften Their Sales Pitches
Interesting. A Softer sell. A different kind of sell.
And Sales are going up.
- Interesting to read what happens when a sales rep becomes a resource to the physician.
- Interesting to read what happens when a sales reps shifts focus on providing more help to the physician’s patients.
- Interesting to read what will happen when a sales rep becomes a real help to the physician allowing her to get more time to see patients.
It’s not a stretch to replace each word physician in the bullets above with Small Business Owner or Banker or Distributor etc. And to change each word patient to customer.
Nope, not a stretch at all.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
7 Bold Predictions For 2012
7 Bold Predictions For 2012
I’ve done these before.
And by the way, that’s “Mr. Markstrodamus” to you.
Talkology Will Rule. IPhone 4s’ Siri, Dragon Dictation and the like continue to grow in influence. It’s a mere matter of time. Holding a phone to your ear was a pain in the tuckus so Bluetooth came along, nested in our ears and gave you your arm back. Why deal with the sprain and pain of typing then? Wireless microphones we will all soon wear as we enter orders, write reviews and even update systems like salesforce.com
QR codes will explode for businesses large and small. Don’t get what these are yet? They allow you and your customers to spend more time with a product. Be the first to have a ritual develop using the QR codes with your brand, your stuff, your resume’, heck even your T-shirt. Enough with the “What is this QR code again?” stuff. Learn it – and execute on it ahead of everyone else. Someone else agrees with me on this one see here.
“Attraction” Will Be The Marketing Buzzword. It’s not about getting “attention” or calls to “action” anymore. It’s about building a product, a following, coveted knowledge or even a legend about what you do or can do. You will aspire to have buyers search and yearn for you so much you need to beat them off with a stick. Look for sales training, marketing campaigns and web content to rally around the best way to answer the customer pleas of “Tell me more!” instead of the other way around.
Video Selling Will Actually Happen. Never did really take off eh? But it’s getting easier everyday and frankly too much is lost for seller and prospect alike without visual cues. Get out your Skype or Face Time Makeup (I can assure you that’s a product coming) and either iron that shirt or cover it with a sweater cuz’ now its going to matter.
“You Are For Hire” Booms: Oh, you’ll keep your day job but frankly social networking isn’t working fast enough for many businesses. You’ll be contacted based on your “Kloutish” or Tweet Grader scores, or number of Facebook fans et all, then signed up and rewarded in $$ for influencing your friends even though you aren’t part of any affiliate program. It’s like Mary Kay and Lia Sophia cept you do it online and without a blog. Trust is low. But Trust is necessary for buyers to buy and now Trust will be worth cash to you. ( And you will take it because you will believe!)
Simple Makes A Comeback. Oh sure we all think we are simple to buy from or deal with; except that we aren’t. We know that we as a species have outgrown our ability to remember and execute well upon what we learn as what we are learning is so vast. We know we have to bring simple back. The single greatest killer of sales is not the status quo ( are you kidding me in this economy people and businesses want to stay put?????) rather, it is complexity. Confusion and complexity is like hitting the emergency brake on sales. Look for “It’s as easy as 1- 2 -3″ to come roaring back.
2.5 = 3.5, XLVI, 2, 18 & 8: Charlie Sheen rejoins 2 & 1/2 men ( as the show is plain terrible now- and really, who likes Alan playing the bad sleazy guy anyway!) -They’ll say it was all a dream. Also, The Patriots win Superbowl XLVI in February, The Bruins repeat, The Celtics get banner #18 and Red Sox crush Theo’s Cubs in World Series to get their 8th trophy. How do you like dem’ apples?
That’s what I see, and you?
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
3 Frogs
3 Frogs
I had (and have) other posts ready to go for the New Year -all with of course the usual focus on helping you and me “grow the business”.
But I am stealing shamelessly from the message my local Parish Priest gave yesterday at church services cuz’ his message was frankly better than anything I could have written for today.
“There’s an old adage about three frogs” he said. “Three Frogs sat on a log and one decided he would jump. How many frogs are left on the log?”
Some answered “Two!” but most mumbled or said nothing.
“The answer of course, is three.” Father Paul said.
I had never heard of this 3 frog adage but the message was both obvious and stunning to me. Father Paul filled in the blanks in his short sermon. Decision is not action. All of your dreams and goals and resolutions and lists we make this time of year aren’t worth much if we really don’t act upon them.
I’m guilty of this. For 10 years, I’ve written and kept my New Year’s resolutions and goals and plans and lists nearby me at all times. I look at them often. I’ve achieved many. Ok, some. I looked at them all in fact this last week just to prepare for setting this year’s goals.
Last year I made the decision to limit my 2011 goals to 3 actionable things versus carrying about 10 each year in which I strived. Each of these three things was important. If I am honest with myself though, I got just one achieved and partially one of another so I batted about .400. Pretty sad for a whole year and only 3 big dreams.
I’m not going to be that unmoving frog this year. And I’m not going to pat myself on the back for just “deciding” to do exciting and different things this year and that I was able to write it down and look at it.
Nope, I’m jumping this time.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark.
Hard Work Redux
Hard Work Redux
It’s not unusual to go home now and need to study work documents, emails and Power Points all night long it seems just to be ready for work the next day. It can feel like you are studying for a final exam. And some neuroscientists say our ability to think and learn has outrun our ability to remember, execute and act upon what we know. Yep, that feels about right sometimes.
Our customers’ and prospects’ knowledge relative to us is pretty clueless – at least in spaces we need to be good at. That’s new. Used to be everyone kind of knew what we knew. Not much rocket science to understand what a business card was for, but a “landing page”? Yeah -you see.
I can’t sell my colleagues, learners or bosses on stuff and visions like I used to anymore. Now, I gotta really teach em’ first; really spend a lot of time educating before I can get anyone onboard. Nothing wrong with that. Just the way it is now. Bet it is for you too.
Hard work used to be – let’s face it, a lot below the neck. Push harder, run faster , show up more often, beat the other guy to it, keep dialing, keep smiling, drive all night, stay later, get in earlier, never give up, never take “no” for an answer, etc etc.
Now the hard work seems like it’s in your head now. Again. Like it used to be.
Know more, read more, analyze more, compare and contrast more, strategize more, think more, share your perspective and insight more, study more, research more.
Ain’t nothing wrong with that. That’s the way most of us were brought up in school.
Never thought the stuff you did in school would help you in the real world eh?
Things are different now.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
5 Things You Will Soon Lose (But It’s OK)
Your Resume: What you think of and how good you are about getting or keeping customers (the only thing any employer truly should care about) will soon best embodied by your blazing trail on the web via your blogs, slideshares, tweets, posts and commentary by businesses and customers you’ve influenced ( or not). Your web fingerprint is a lot more credible than that single pager of spin we’ve grown to love.
Your Thirst For Big Numbers. You’ll soon despise having 500+contacts in LinkedIn or 10,000 followers on Twitter. Instead you’ll yearn for being part of as many smaller networks you can. It’s a bit sad, but we are embracing ever more tightly, the belief that “the bigger the network is the lower the trust of those within it.” Tough business this world of trust is.
Your Memory: Well, at least the loose data stuff. With the Googlization of the world and how it changes how we use our brains (it’s a fact by the way) to find out about stuff, you’ll need just a swipe or a couple of spoken syllables into your (insert wicked smart battery powered thingy here) to get that memory jogged. Good news it that neuroscience studies show it leaves more focus for the brain to work on more important stuff.
Your Social Skills: Tragic but we’ll soon be hard pressed to remember how to make eye contact, know which hand to lead with to shake hands and remember that unlike IM, you have to wait for someone to stop talking before sharing your thought. Forget “Virtual Meeting”, “Flesh Meeting” will become two dirtier words. Happily, when we realize what we’ve lost we’ll get a fresh start on new and improved social skills.
Your Boundaries: It will happen. Meeting at10 am. Meeting at2:30 pm. Go home at4pm. Play with kids. Nice dinner at6pm. Watch reruns of 3 and a ½ men (Sheen came back from the dead- it was of course, just a dream). Meeting at9pm with New Zealand staff. Sleep. Meeting at8am in UK client. Meeting at10 am. Rinse and Repeat. Global is big. Global is different. But global is money.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
Reminders
Apple IOS 5.0 came with a new App called Reminders. It’s pretty cool. It didn’t come pre-populated though with any real helpful reminders about work so I thought I would do that in case you’ve forgotten.
- Discovering needs is dead. Creating needs is alive and well. Big difference folks; a huge difference. One assumes your prospect is a helpless victim of their environment, the other presumes they are definitively in charge of where they intend to go.
- Have you ever heard such a hue and cry for information and knowledge before? Consumers and businesses yearn to understand social media, global marketing, internet marketing, economics, new languages, tablet and smart phone technologies and more. Teach people too. Teach people and you’ll corner that market and never go hungry.
- It’s not like it used to be anymore. Before you ever hear from that prospect or customer they’ve been to your website and done lots of digging already (but they won’t tell you that). When they finally get to you- you best deliver something other and better than a screen shot rehash.
- You can choose not to have a credible or professional web presence for yourself online but that would be unwise. Trust is at an all time low. People, prospects, customers, partners and employers all want to see what your brand is and what you represent before they invest in you for real.
- You can have too many contacts, too many followers, too many fans, too many friends. There’s a point where your influence like it or not, looks like it’s for sale or it’s too easily given away; either way – trust deteriorates, hits the tipping point and it becomes a zero sum game.
- Be Invaluable. Differentiate. Simplify. Hard to go wrong if you do those three things. Just a reminder is all.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
Email: mark.mccarthy@deluxe.com
Internal Blog: http://blogs.deluxe.com/Mark/
External Blog: http://growthebusiness.wordpress.com/
Twitter at: http://twitter.com/GrowTheBusiness
