Put Up Or Shut Up

By Willie Davis | September 8, 2008

A man went to a doctor feeling run down. After the examination the doctor told the man, “The best thing for you to do is to give up smoking, give up drinking, get up at sunrise, exercise, and go to bed early at night.” After a moment of silent reflection, the patient shook his head and said, “Doc, I really don’t deserve the best. What’s second best?”

 

Many independent retailers are like the above patient. They want to provide their customers with a great customer service experience but opt for second best band-aid solutions, like rousing customer service speeches, empty slogans plastered on the wall, or smile training.

 

DO YOU WANT TO ACT OR JUST TALK?

 

A quality customer experience begins at the top. Top brass puts their time, effort, and money where their mouth is. They make service a continuing company-wide top priority.

 

If you aren’t willing to pay the price to deliver a great experience, then don’t mention it to your employees or customers. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and gets you a poor image in your market because you will deliver less than you promise. You’re better off to just keep quiet, offer bargain-basement prices, and pray that your competition is no better than you.

 

Treat your customers as a lifetime partner. If you saw them every day and at the end of that day they would make a decision to buy from you or your competition, how would you treat them? Always brainstorm with your staff how you can improve your customers’ experience. Train your front-line people in the art of customer service, not selling.

 

The hole in your bucket proportionally decreases as your customers’ experience increases. Second best band-aids will not hold her in for long.

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Last Night I Heard The Voice Of The Next Generation

By Willie Davis | August 20, 2008

Any long flight that arrives after midnight is grueling. However, my four hour flight from Primetime Vegas to Ohio was a heartbeat because I chatted over an empty seat with Jennifer Riser, senior guard for the Vanderbilt Commodores women’s basketball team. Jen was heading back to Nashville via a short stop in Ohio to visit her Grandmother.

You see, Jen is a Gen Y just coming of age. Her generation officially took the keys to the kingdom in 2003, but they really won’t take control of the room for a few years, depending on the rocks the world throws at us. My generation (Baby Boomers) officially took control in 63’ but didn’t rule until the late 60s. We’ll fight Jen and her generation on this take-over, however, we’ll succumb and fade away to our gated communities…

Of course, I was interested in some logistics of a major SEC sports team and Jen “clued” me on meeting, training, eating, and killing time routines on the road. And then somehow the conversation turned!

Jen’s next thoughts were reflective of her generation. She’s not sure where yet, but expressed a desire to collectively help clean up and rebuild the outer world (the one I helped mess up)? She was concerned about the country’s direction. Her language was of peer relationships, peer enforced-codes of conduct, and a strong sense of community. It was difficult for her to express her words, but her inner motivations shined like a yearning sun.

I shared my belief that there are many like her waiting to join hands and tackle the world’s full court press. Her right words and dutiful actions will come in time.

Last night I heard the voice of the next generation. Jen is a real “Gen.” Independent retailers better start taking notice. It’s a whole new ball game.

Note: Jen Risper’s Vanderbilt team made the NCAA Sweet Sixteen last year. I was not surprised. I’ll watch and see where she leads them this year.

Posted in Personal Exeriences | Leave a comment

Primetime

By Willie Davis | August 19, 2008

What a pleasure to address over 100 folks in an early morning Primetime Breakfast. This group of appliance, electronic, and furniture retailers are members of Nationwide Marketing Group, one of America’s largest buying and marketing organizations – over 2,800 members, operating some 7,500 store fronts and over $11 billion in annual combined sales. Primetime is the name of their convention. They meet twice a year, this one being at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas.

My topic was 52 Ways To Get High Potential customers Into Your Store Without Spending (Much) Money. Unfortunately, I only got to cover orally the first 10 as we ran out of time (I knew this would happen). However, I did give them a handout with all 52!

The world is hurling fireballs at these dudes right now. The easy route was to list some tried-and-true off-beaten methods that have been hanging around for years. The riskier route was to identify some ideas that could help them navigate a safer path round the forces changing their world.

I chose both. Ideas 19 thru 52 are nothing really new under the sun. Ideas 14 through 18 can help them today. However, ideas 1 thru 13 were carefully crafted to give them a mysterious glimpse of what’s coming and what they can do about it.

I have a few handouts left. If you would like a copy just e-mail me with your name and address. I’ll be glad to send you my ideas.

 

willie@willie4you.com

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The Eight Baddie Words Never To Use In Advertising And The One Word You Must Use

By Willie Davis | August 16, 2008

 

Here are the eight baddies.

We – Me – I – Our – Us – Difference – Solution – Quality

 

The one word you must use – you!

 

Your mission.

What makes people tick? Philosophers have long speculated that people get up every day and do what they do to be happy, not the right now feel-good happy but the inner happiness that is derived over time when life has meaning.

 

Meaningful lives are realized when their individual desires are

fulfilled and imprints imprinted. Home furnishings satisfy many

desires. For example home furnishings help parents with their

desire to raise strong families. Home furnishings can help boost

self-esteem, build independence, show off, or just fill a space

because the floor is uncomfortable or not a nice place to eat. Your

task as an independent home furnishings retailer is to develop and

deliver a customer experience that scratches the itches of your

potential customers.

 

The role of advertising.

As an owner you make decisions on your business purpose, what

merchandise to offer, where to be located, whom to hire, how to

compensate, train, and motivate. These decisions create a culture

that shapes your customers’ experience. If your experience

touches them deeply they will share with others and be loyal to

you. How well you do compared to your competition is the

foundation for your word-of-mouth advertising.

 

However, the home furnishings business model cannot rely on word-of-mouth advertising for survival or growth. You must entice strangers to visit you, and your weapon of influence is called advertising. Your advertising is simply the process where you pay somebody to tell someone what you want to tell them.

 

Five questions to ask yourself before advertising.

Do you want to create advertising that 1) draws immediate traffic or is remembered when your potential customer has needs of what you sell? Then (2), what is that advertising message, (3) to

whom shall you direct it, (4) who shall carry it and (5) at what price?

 

Most independent retailers’ advertising is designed to draw immediate traffic. This mode of advertising is commonly called transactional advertising.

 

How transactional advertising works.

Transactional advertising is intrusive, logical, urgent, and packed with an undeniable offer. Transactional advertising interests only those who are “in the market” right now for what you have. And that number is only about 2% of your market at any one time. OK, let’s say 3%, no 4%. Still a small number.

 

To succeed in transactional advertising you sit down at the table with your competition and play transactional poker. In thisgame the player who intrudes the most with the best offer generally gets the bulk of the 2% traffic. OK, 4% traffic. One hand per weekend, winner determined by close on Monday.

 

A Tent Sale trumps a Coupon Sale. A Coupon Sale trumps a Summer Home Sale. A GOB trumps them all. The result is like real poker hands, you win some and you lose some. And if you sit one out you certainly lose. Hopefully, you’ll win more than your original ante. If not, you go home.

 

Transactional advertising messages can be carried by any media, including non-traditional media, but it is best conveyed through print. Many of you are learning that the table stakes to play transactional poker are rising as the cost of media increases (and their effectiveness decreases).

 

How to increase your transactional advertising chances.

 

• First, the basics. Get their attention (think of jumping at them

from behind a door and yelling “boo).” Give them a Godfather

offer and substantiate it with as much supporting evidence as

possible. Put a time limit on your offer and run the ad as much as

many times as you can afford.

 

• Second, tell the truth. “Trick them to stick them” is a strategy that

is working less today and won’t work at all tomorrow.

 

• Third, don’t be cute and sprinkle in relational messages with your

transactional advertising. No, I’m not talking about consistency or

inconsistency of your creative look. I’m talking about confusing

your right-now deal with long term promises.

 

• Fourth, hire the right media. Know which media are best for

immediate traffic and those best for long-term branding. Mixed

messages confuse everyone, including your sales staff. Print is

better suited for transactional advertising targeting transactional

shoppers,and electronic media is better suited for relational

advertising targeting relational shoppers.

 

• Fifth, transactional advertising is thought to be more intellectual

than emotional. Partially true. We buy on emotion and justify with

logic. But every product has an inherent nature that can be

emotionally pitched. Find that emotional hot button. Then don’t

dilly dally with your offer. Put your deal up front and back it up

with as much authenticity as possible using words that emote

emotion. Admittedly, this is easier said than done and that’s

partially why you pay agencies and copywriters.

 

• And sixth, make the ad about the customer. The best ads are

about your customer and how your productds or service

will change their life. Unfortunately, most advertising is about the

product, the company that makes it or

you, the company that sells it. Many retailers believe that

because they are paying for the advertising they want to talk

about themselves. Me. My store. My history. My service. My

products. Much advertising assumes the customer cares and is

asking What, When, and Where. In reality your customer is

asking nothing – and if they did they would be asking Why?

 

Let’s get specific!

Here’s an example of a poorly written transactional home

furnishings radio script. Yes, this script can easily be intrusive with voice, inflection, music bed, and frequency. However the ho-hum offer of lower prices and good service justified by a trumped up store event and time served is weak and vague. It’s all about the advertiser, left-brain logical, emotionless, and full of baddie words.

 

Wake up (insert your town’s name)! (insert your store name

here) is holding our annual (insert current sale). For a limited

time we are offering our lowest prices of the year on name brand

quality furniture. (insert your name, sales manager’s name, and

top sales associates’ name here) have personally retagged our

large sales floor.We’ve marked down our sofas, famous (insert

recliner mfg here) recliners, bedrooms, and dining rooms – huge

savings! Plus, all (insert mattress mfg here) mattresses – sets

starting as low as (insert $299 or $399). And, at (insert your

store name here), we have flexible financing with approved credit

and fast delivery. See us for details. Since (insert year of origin)

we have been (insert your town’s name) furniture solution. Our

people are proud to make the difference. So, during (insert store

name here)’s gigantic (insert current sale) you’ll find all your

furniture needs. We’re open from 10 to 8 Monday thru Saturday,

closed Sundays. Call (insert your store name here) at (insert

phone number here). And come and see us. But, hurry, our deal

won’t last long!

 

The eight baddie words never to use in advertising…

 

Baddies – We – Me – I – Our – Us: These are personal

pronouns. When these five personal pronouns appear in an ad the

ad is generally about the seller, not the customer. However, skilled

copywriters can use these personal pronouns and make the

communication personal – and that’s OK. Face the truth. Your

potential customers care only about themselves, not you. You are

just not that interesting. There are twelve personal pronouns in the

above copy, all about the advertiser.

 

Baddy – Difference: Most advertisers are just too lazy to dig,

study, and think, write and rewrite until “the difference” is

discovered. What is the difference between your people and

theirs? Your product and theirs? If it’s a major selling point find it

and articulate it!

 

Baddy – Solution: Think about it. What are you selling if it’s not a

solution to some problem? Identify the problem and your specific

solution. Your potential customer will determine if it fits them or not.

 

Baddy – Quality: Quality is purely subjective. Everything has

some spectrum of quality – from poor to great. It’s not for you to

decide the quality. Again, your potential customer will make that

determination.

 

And here are some additional baddies for you to ponder:

Baddy – Any superlative adjective (most – best – superior –

lowest – largest – fastest – lightest – cleanest – etc):

Copywriters use superlative adjectives as short cuts to fit radio

and print formats. Unfortunately, it’s a slippery slope where original

clarity of thought easily slides into murkiness. Empty adjectives

such as lowest, huge, gigantic, and superior should be clarified, a

premise long copy direct response writers understand well. Too

often in the home furnishings industry advertisers cram convincing

selling points to predictable, boring, and meaningless words.

There’s a bunch of superlatives in the above radio script.

 

Baddy – Source: Please, don’t say you are the source unless you

clarify for what.

 

Baddy – Technology: Smart advertisers figured out long ago that

consumers don’t buy technology. They buy what the technology

brings them. Don’t tout any technology. Tout what it does.

 

Baddy – Your business name: Many independent retailers have

been taught that the more you machine gun your name the more it

will stick in the mind of your target. In reality the mind is packed

with piles of memory guarded by the subconscious. And yes, you

can beat the subconscious into submission by getting your name

out enough. But there is no real value in just your name, and your

ad will not be remembered until you answer the customer question

“Why should I care.”

 

And now for the one word you must use….YOU!

This is worth repeating. One of the biggest mistakes advertisers

make is focusing on themselves and not their potential customer.

The word “you” is one of the most powerful words in the English

language. It ignites imagination and stirs emotion allowing you to

take your potential customers exactly where you want them to go –

now! It opens a path to the right side of the brain where decisions

are made before they are justified.

 

Your advertising needs to produce results. The word “you” is the

gatekeeper to these results.

 

Willie’s Challenge

I choose not rewrite and improve the previous transactional radio

script I used to demonstrate the baddie words (Wake up (insert your

town’s name)! (insert your store name here) is holding our annual

(insert current sale)…

 

…what I will do is issue you a challenge. Email me two radio spots

you have run (script or electronic version). I will rewrite your two

radio scripts and demonstrate how the camera can be turned away

from you and focused on your potential customer. If it is already

pointed there I will improve your aim. In the end you will have a

stronger ad, led by the word “you.” Deal?

 

Send your scripts/spots to willie@willie4you.com . Please put

Radio Challenge in the subject field.

 

Advertising is just your truth well told. Isn’t it time you tell yours better? Take the challenge.

 

 

 

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Dance Of The Dollar

By Willie Davis |

 

July, 2008

 

Dance of the Dollar

                                                                               

There is no money lockbox.

 

Doctors, lawyers, pastors, housewives, CEOs, and all the poor people in America spend their money to solve their problems – in good times and bad. Their money is fluid, replenishable, and floating all around you. Your job is to persuade them to dance their dollars down your street and eagerly wave their money in your face.

 

The question is always how?

The answer starts by understanding the key reason money moves in your market. Money moves because of value. It’s illegal to print or steal money. Jail time. But there is no restriction on you offering more value than your competition. Yes, value!

 

Value is a word that is overused and misunderstood. It’s so overused we don’t pay attention to it when we hear it forty times a day. Everyone talks value yet few can define it. Once understood, the actions behind this word are the music that moves money to your bank account. If you understand value, and we mean firmly, clearly, and unequivocally understand value, you can make dollars dance down your street. 

 

So, what is value?

Value must be thought of mathematically.

 

V=PE-P

(Value equals Personal Experience minus Price)

 

Value is the difference between the Personal Experience you provide and the Price you are asking. Value is the space between personal experience and price. The greater the space the greater the value.

 

When your Personal Experience exceeds your asking Price – Value is exposed and generally a sale is made. Mathematically this formula is (PE>P = S) (when Personal Experience is greater than the Price you have a Sale).

 

The value formula (V=PE-P) is applied when your buyers are scrutinizing a possible purchase from you. Price is the fulcrum on which their personal experience teeters. Their money will move to you if they believe their personal experience from you is greater than your asking price.

 

Think about yourself. After your next purchase of anything ask how your personal experience stacked up against what you paid. Were your happy, hosed, or ho-hummed?

 

Your dilemmas…

  • Value is subjective. The value equation (V=PE-P) is not applied by every one uniformly. Different strokes for different folks. What’s more important for your target market, personal experience, price, or both?
  • Personal experience is subjective. What comprises your personal experience? Is it your products, your people, your processes, your policies, your principles, your physical structure, or all of them?
  • Pricing is subjective. The path of least resistance for many industries, home furnishings included, is to unearth value (the gap between personal experience and price) by lowering the price (let’s have a SALE). In reality, value can be revealed by raising the personal experience. Do you create value more by lowering your prices or raising your personal experience, or both?

 

As an independent retailer you should examine closely the kinship between personal experience and price in your business. Then scrutinize your competition. You might be surprised how your world looks when viewed thru these value lens.

 

Are you interested in learning how to measure your customers’ experience by asking one simple question? If so, let’s talk!

 

willie@willie4you.com

 

 

 

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Business Puzzle

By Willie Davis |

 

June, 08

 

Business Puzzle

 

Does this sound like your business puzzle? Commodity home furnishings. Mature industry. Chaotic. Savage competition. Little differentiation. Low profit margins. Price battles. Slow growth.

 

Welcome to today’s reality!

It’s easy to avoid tackling your underlying fears because it makes life uncomfortable. Many times, it seems easier to fight daily fires and look for the next great idea to make life better. But the day will

come when you have to stand back and take a hard look at what you want to accomplish and how you’re going to do it. Everyone agrees that you need to “make your numbers.” Your question is, “How?”

 

“How” starts with Strategic Planning.

A Strategic Plan is a blueprint of where you are going, how you’re going to get there, and how you’ll know when you’re there. Your Strategic Plan can focus on your overall organization, or narrow

down to specific products, services or programs – like advertising. Micro-target markets require microadvertising which requires micro-strategic plans. Have you replaced yesterday’s Yellow Pages strategic

plan with today’s Internet strategic plan?

 

Your advertising Strategic Plan is more than sales and financing.

Today’s advertising requires more to reach fewer people. Your advertising puzzle is all about understanding your customers and influencing them efficiently and effectively – to get the right message

to the right people at the right time through the right media. All plans should include a realistic budget, a calendar with timelines and accountability, and a media plan using both traditional and non-traditional media.

 

But your advertising Strategic Plan is just a part of your overall marketing communications plan.Your advertising plan must fit together with your Internet strategy, e-mail campaigns, in-store POP, price tags, brochures, follow-up materials, etc. Do your plans interlock?

 

Staying ahead of the curve is a 4-step process.

1. Identify the end picture. This is not a picture drawn by your computer’s operating system. It’s more like a doodle drawn by you on a cocktail napkin, the result of intuitive flashes. It’s impossible to complete a puzzle until you’ve seen the finished picture on the outside of the box.

office 740-321-1113 ? Toll FREE 800-288-0874 ? fax 740.321.1118 2. Generate a step-by-step action plan. For now, create a plan that can be implemented with your current resources. Don’t make a pie-in-the-sky plan that outreaches your staff or resources. You can build on it later.

 

3. Execute the plan. Failure to execute is the chief culprit keeping independent retailers from completing their puzzle! Commit the time and discipline necessary to get things done.

 

4. Scrutinize your execution to ensure that the picture delivered is the picture desired. It’s downright tough to establish front side accountability procedures, but it’s essential.

 

And once planned it must be executed!

 

Question: if you could drive more traffic, close more sales, gain a competitive advantage, free up valuable time, and do so at your current advertising budget – would you be interested?

 

Let me put it another way – are you game? If so, let’s talk!

 

willie@willie4you.com

 

 

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Go Ahead, Mess With Mother Nature

By Willie Davis |

 

May, 08

 

Dear Mother Nature,

 

You are such a con artist. You encourage our romantic view of you as a mother patiently caring for her human offspring. But I know this is just part of your mis-direction. Really, your bigger duty is to make certain that we humans survive.

 

You built us to mature slowly, dishing out most of our energy, optimism, stupidity, and sex drive at around age 20. You tell us to multiply which most of us do. You say “thanks” and graciously give us a few decades to care for our young. Then you get rid of us at the time of our most wisdom to make room for the newer, younger model. While you did give us free reign over the planet, a longer life span than most other animals, and a mosaic brain with all sorts of abilities, you also cold heartily fixed the framework by which we age and die.

 

Well, eventually you’ll win and I will disappear from your scene. But consider yourself notified that I’m not going easy. I’m going to suck down vitamins, exercise more, eat smarter, utilize organ transplants, nanotechnology, and any undiscovered medical practices to die on my timetable, not yours. 

 

Sincerely, your aging and not your friend offspring,

 

Willie

 

 

Go Ahead, Mess With Mother Nature!

 

Howdy…

 

Humans die and so do businesses.

There have been significant changes in the marketplace these past twenty years. The Internet has destroyed all secrets, consumers are empowered to new heights, and the world is going global. The image of Mother Nature as a kind and gentle queen bee baby-sitting the world softens the reality that those who adapt live and those that don’t die. 

 

The home furnishings industry has long been a machine molded from the Industrial Revolution. This machine builds products and distributes them through a controlled pipeline managed by trained employees heavily regulated by policies and procedures. The consumer is the end of the food chain to be sold to ensure the survival of the species.

 

Fortunately, some nervy independent retailers have decided not to be a cog in this slow moving machine. They have stopped looking for magic bullets to eek out their existence. Rather they treat their business as a living, breathing, and evolving organism. They avoid Mother Nature’s stinger by deliberately interfering with her natural selection process, resolved to die on their schedule, not her’s!

 

You grow by evolving your organization.

You and your competitors are sitting around a poker table as Mother Nature deals. Table stakes. She’s smiling because she knows that there are more of you than can survive. As the hands progress some of you will fold forever while new players join the game. It’s survival of the game that matters, not the players. Mom’s happy.

 

These daring independent retailers aren’t playing by the Queen’s rules. They choose to stay in the game by transforming their company to beat the competition. If they don’t like the cards Mother Nature dealt them they demand a new shuffle, contending only when they are dealt a winning hand. Yes, they have meddled with Mother Nature, but why not?

 

The metaphor of Mother Nature bulldozing everyone to follow her death docket is a crock. Everyone dies but there is no fixed law determining the length of time a species can endure. You need to address only three questions about your business to deter Mother Nature’s doomsday departure.

1)      Who are you?

2)      Where are you going?

3)      How are you going to get there?

 

Finding the answers to your three questions is not as petrifying as you might think. Hint: the answers are discovered from the ground up as your business is a series of connected systems, all focused in a single direction.

 

Question: If I could get the answers to these three questions for you in a 25 page written report, a two hour oral report, and do so within 24 hours at a price less than one of your advertising promotions, would you be interested?

 

If so, let’s talk!

 

willie@willie4you.com

 

 

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How Stella Is Going To Get Your Groove Back

By Willie Davis |

April, 08

 

How Stella Is Going To Get Your Groove Back!

 

I stared at Stella’s bleak tombstone. I never knew my mom’s mom. Stella died in 1928, leaving my mom at age sixteen to help my grandfather raise the other five children. “Here lies Stella Hall, devoted wife to Stuart and mother to Ruth, Margaret, Jack, Betty, and Kathleen.” To the right of Stella lie Stuart, my Aunt Julia, Uncle Earl, and their son William. Alongside them are my parent’s graves, a grassy spot to Dad’s right marking time till I arrive.

 

But my eyes were anchored on Stella…

I had only seen one photograph of her, a head and shoulders portrait with her body angled slightly to her right, her head tilted slightly left, her right forefinger resting so trendy on her right cheek. Was my prolific child-bearing devoted grandmother a closet flapper of the 20s? 

 

In those fixating few seconds I realized I knew nothing about Stella. I wondered why she died before her years, what made her laugh and what ticked her off. Did she read a lot? How much of an independent thinker was she? What did she dream about? What was her favorite food, the music that got her toes tapping, and what stuff made her wish list? How iron-willed were her values? Where did her moral compass direct her? The answers were close to where I stood, but they would remain eternally silent, buried memories of family no longer living.

 

To be sure in the 1920s Stella would have wanted and received a personalized experience as a customer.

My guess is that Stella’s life was an open book to her few chosen sellers and her buying experiences were right neighborly. According to Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, authors of New York Times Bestseller Call to Action, 80% of today’s customers want a personalized experience. Yet today’s customers are squeamish about sharing intimate details with strangers through potentially risky media. Today’s Stella is not about to share her personal preferences with those that ask. She is guarding the information retailers need to provide her a positive personal experience.

 

Smart retailers are not waiting for the technological magic bullet to personalize every step of her buying process.

They are stepping up and allowing today’s Stella to take control of her buying experience by providing her numerous customized options from which she can choose. They have stopped probing for information they cannot get and are shaping their offer based on Stella’s observable behavior. 

 

If you wish to become elite in today’s retail world and accelerate customer intimacy you need to learn more about personas! A persona is a fictitious person that represents your typical customer. Personas are non-existent individuals created solely from your customer base to help advance your business persuasion strategy.

 

Your customer base may contain three to six different

fully-fleshed out characters.

These artificial characters will easily identify which is the most valuable and which is the least valuable to you, now and in the future. You will be able to fashion a retail experience that complements their thinking and buying preferences. You will now have a toll both directly to their emotional side, speaking a language they appreciate about what matters to them. If you wish, you can become more customer-focused than product-focused. They will reveal their market potential so your human and financial resources can be competently allocated. You can pinpoint their media preferences, eliminating wasted advertising. And they will help position you away from your competition.

 

Knowing more about your customers’ behavior can be extremely beneficial to you, probably more than knowing detailed personalized information. Here are some questions that will help you decide whether you could use personas for your business:

 

1) Do you know how many dollars are spent each year in your market on home furnishings, your current share of those dollars, and the inclination of your market to buy home furnishings in the first place?

 

2) Do you know how well your price points match up against the incomes of your market?

 

3) Could you outline on a map the geographical territory where 80% of your business comes from?

 

4) Do you have any research that’s telling you what your customers’ lifestyle and media preferences are?

 

  • 5) Do you believe your organization and all of its marketing efforts are more product focused, customer focused, or both?

 

If you are interested in pinpointing your customers’ emotional hot-buttons, merchandise and media preferences, how they think, act, and crave to be treated, and where others just like them are located – well, contact me. We’ll talk!

 

willie@willie4you.com

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Trends Shaping Tomorrow’s World: #48

By Willie Davis | August 15, 2008

 

From a Special Report

Published by the World Future Society

 

Information-based organizations are quickly displacing the old command-and-control model of management.

 

The typical large business has reshaped itself or is struggling to do so. Soon, it will be composed of specialists who rely on information from colleagues, customers, and head-quarters to guide their actions.

 

Management styles are changing as upper executives learn to consult these skilled workers on a wide variety of issues. Employees in turn are gaining new power with the authority to make decision based on the data they develop.

 

Upper management is giving fewer detailed orders to subordinates. Instead, it sets performance expectations for the organization, its parts, and its specialists and supplies the feedback necessary to determine whether results have met expectations.

 

Implications: This is a well-established trend. At this point, many large corporations have restructured their operations for greater flexibility. However, many others still have a long way to go.

 

This management style suits Gen Xers and Millennials well, as it tends to let them work in whatever fashion suits them so long as the job gets done.

 

Downsizing has spread from manufacturing industries to the service economy. Again, this process encourages the entrepreneurial trend, both to provide services for companies outsourcing their secondary functions and to provide jobs for displaced employees.

 

Many older workers have been eliminated in this process, depriving companies of their corporate memory. Companies have replaced them with younger workers, whose experience of hard times is limited to the relatively mild recession since 2000. Many firms may discover that they need to recruit older workers to help them adapt to adversity.

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Increase Your Faucet Flow: Idea #6

By Willie Davis |

A Nielsen survey in May 2008 found that among a representative group of people who had recently made consumer electronics purchases in a brick and mortar store, 80 percent bought from a store whose Web site they visited first. Further, 53 percent purchased from the retailer on whose Web site they had spent the most time.

Nielsen asked, “If you were only able to use one source of information to support your next consumer electronics purchase, which would you choose?”

  • Internet – 58%
  • Visit to local stores – 25%
  • Reviews in newspapers/magazines – 8%
  • Friends and family – 8%
  • Other – 1%

Therefore, your website should do more than show product and sell. Your website needs to communicate your promise so effectively that your visitors gain the confidence and trust to do business with you. It should provide information that helps customers and potential customers make smarter buying decisions.

 

Idea # 6: Add content to your website to ratchet up sales. Content should be something that is important to the people in your market. Assume your customers know nothing about your products. Teaching about your products is essential. In addition to positioning you as the knowledgeable resource, content gets people to return to your website over and over. The content also carries your marketing message and is a major factor in gaining high search engine rank.

 

Willie Nugget #15: Ask yourself three questions about your website.

1) Who is on your site?  2) What do you want them to do?  3) What do they need to know to do this one thing?

 

Refresher Information: The below bucket is your business. Customers come to you from two sources, those new to the market and those not crazy about your competition. Customers die or move, but most of your customers leave your bucket because they are not crazy about you. Your success is determined by the relationship of your faucets’ intensity and the size of the hole in your bucket. Your marketing regulates your faucet flow while your hole size is defined by your customers’ experience. The above idea will help educate your potential customers and draw traffic to your store.

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