Be Different or be dead

September 5, 2022

Why Customer Learning is a better tool than Market Research

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A critical component of audacious marketing is customer learning: a continuous process of developing a deep understanding of the customers in your business plan that you have chosen to SERVE.

It’s an organic capability that should be developed in your own organization rather than one which can be outsourced to another firm. Why? Because you nurture and retain the attributes that will distinguish your organization from the competitive hordes, and customer learning is one of the traits that will separate you from others and drive superlative performance’.

Most organizations rely on Market Research to try and understand customer demand; Customer Learning is the breakaway tool to make you DiFFERENT.

In addition, online tracking tools that monitor individuals’ behaviour on websites and search engines don’t try and understand the customer, they merely want to observe the products or services people click on and push advertising to them. One could argue that observing behaviour is a form of learning, but when the outcome is to have advertising messages relentlessly pushed at you when you are on the web, it has the pusher’s benefits in mind not the surfers.

This marketing tactic is a product flogging technique not a learning one.

Here is a comparison between the common Herd approach to mining customer data and the approach I used to take a startup to A BILLION IN SALES.

Market Research

- evaluates the market periodically.
- can be (and is often done so) outsourced to an external firm.
- is viewed as a study.
- takes a snapshot of a customer at a point in time.
- takes a narrow view of the customer.
- describes the ‘average’ customer.
- knows little about each individual studied.
- uses few traditional segmentation variables.
- focuses on determining customer ‘needs’.

Customer Learning

▪️is an ongoing process. Every customer contact is treated as an opportunity to gather information about the customer. It’s anything but periodic.
▪️engages all employees. Each person is the organization is given the responsibility to zero-in on what a customer desires when they engage with them.
▪️is considered a core competency of the organization. Customer Learning is viewed as an essential element of the organization’s competitive strategy that will separate it from its competitors.
▪️looks at the customer continually. The continuous nature of the process is able to spot changes to customer demand and put the organization in a better place to respond to it.
▪️looks a the customer holistically. Customer Learning looks at the customer from a broad perspective, rather than focusing on what their narrow product and service requirements might be. It looks at lifestyle for consumers, or overall strategy for businesses for example.
▪️ seeks to understand very small groups of customers. Customer Learning focuses on small discrete groups of people as opposed to mass market segments in order to look for differences in demand rather than similarities which is the main emphasis of Market Research.
▪️targets knowledge on individuals rather than the ‘average’ person. The ultimate goal of Customer Learning I’d to go nose-to-nose with an individual; to know what each person—not a mass—craves and covets.
▪️uses many segmentation variables to obtain robust information on many unique customer groups. Customer Learning uses as many segmentation variables as it can to get closer to an individual.
▪️seeks to discover customer secrets and what people CRAVE.

The bottom line is that there is a role for market research, but it won’t get you a competitive advantage in your market.

Invest time and energy in building a customer learning capability in your organization and you will be handsomely rewarded.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 9.5.22 at 09:00 am by Roy Osing
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April 25, 2022

Why winning customers is more important than keeping them

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Why winning customers is more important than keeping them.

How do you build a loyal customer base that is impervious to the sirens who try to lure them away from you with their enticing promises?

I’ve spent considerable space in this blog talking about how to build customer loyalty.

The challenge tends to be multifaceted in its set of solutions with no single silver bullet that will do the job.

Here are some specific tactics I’ve mentioned in other articles on the topic:

— recruit people who like to serve humans.
— abolish the dumb rules, policies and procedures in your organization that your customers don’t want to play by that only piss them off.
— create an empowering rule system to ‘say yes’, not one that is controlling and ‘says no’.
— listen to the frontline and do what they say you should do to improve how customers are served.
— put in place a service recovery strategy that is enacted whenever you screw a customer over.

If you fix your OOPS! and surprise me with something I don’t expect, I will forget the mistake and remember what you did to atone for your sins.

— allow frontline people to bend a rule in favor of the customer when it makes sense to do so.
— give your special marketing deals to your loyal customers first before offering them to customers if your competitors (this is a classic lie most organizations tell: they say they want to encourage and reward a customer who has been loyal to them for many years, but refuse to offer them the same special deal they offer someone who they want to attract from a competitor).
— pivot you’re call centers away from call processors with cost management as the priority to ‘loyalty centers’ where caring for people is the key— and don’t outsource them.
— forget about what your competitors are doing to take your customers; worry about what YOU are doing to KEEP them.

Although these tactics are proven to be effective in retaining customers, for long term benefits they need to be expressed within a cultural context.

They need a cultural framework that defines the people in the organization should value loyalty above anything else and that they should behave a certain way in order to earn it.

In my experience, this cultural context is best expressed this way:

In order to build long term customer loyalty, we must do whatever it takes to ‘win the customer’s business every day’.

In other words, if we want the customer’s loyalty forever, we need to have a ‘win their business everyday’ mindset that permeates the entire organization.

▪️We need to earn the right to serve them, not expect that since they are a customer of ours today, they will be a customer tomorrow.

▪️It’s an active expression connoting proactivity rather than a passive approach to ‘managing the account’.

◾️It’s a drive to take action to retain their business rather than assume the business is ours and react when we think it’s in jeopardy.

The key words in this value statement are: ‘Whatever ‘- ‘Win’ - ‘Business’ - ‘Everyday’

‘Whatever’ — there are few limits when it comes to keeping the customer on our side in every department of the organization.

Everyone’s job is to go all out to find appropriate ways to do what the customer wants.

And notwithstanding that every organization has rules and policies, there is substantial latitude given to step outside the rule system and do what’s needed to meet the customer’s needs.

‘Win’ — treat every customer engagement as if it represented a new sale. Expend the same amount of energy engaging with an existing customer as you would trying to win a customer away from their current supplier.

It’s amazing to me how much time and money most organizations invest in trying to either lure someone away from another company or win back a customer who was lost to a competitor.

The extra effort and cost made to ‘offer 3 months free service’ or ‘give away a TV’ should be reserved for loyal customers first and everyone else second but it is rarely done.

‘Business’ — get away from the notion of ‘managing the account’. Your actions with an existing customer are to expose problems and opportunities for them and new business for you.

It’s a proactive approach you take for every encounter you have with a customer who has been with you for some time.

The questions you ask all point to uncovering the issues they have that can be accommodated by your product and service solutions. The ‘How’s it going?’ call isn’t that at all; it’s prime objective is to create business value for the customer.

‘Everyday’ — winning their business isn’t an occasional act; it must be practiced every time out. You can’t take time off from this obligation. Every customer engagement must have ‘winning their business’ as the expected outcome.

Most organizations declare how important customers are to them and that they want to serve them in an exemplary way. Yet the culture of these organizations tells a different story; it values other principles.

In fact look at their performance planning system. Does it specifically measure an individual’s performance in the above categories?

If someone is not recognized and rewarded for how they contribute to and achieve the outcomes needed to build customer loyalty then nothing productive happens towards this goal.
Serious organizations ‘bake’ these behaviours into their rewards system rather than simply declaring their aspirational intent.

Only a ‘win the customer’s business everyday’ culture will produce a stream of loyal customers.

I challenge you to look at your actions and test them with the approach I advocate here to determine whether your organization is serious about procuring loyal customers or merely stating the intention but continuing to do the same-old, same-old things you’ve done in the past.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 4.25.22 at 03:34 am by Roy Osing
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March 26, 2022

Three easy ways you can market how you treat your employees

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From a business and a human standpoint, you must treat employees well. First, well taken care of employees work better. Second, it takes more than a good product or service to convert today’s consumer into a customer. People look deeper into a brand and business before making a purchase.

Specifically, how a company treats its employees influences a person’s purchase decisions. For example, say a consumer wants to purchase clothing from a boutique. The clothes may be amazing, but if the boutique has a reputation for shady workplace practices and mistreating employees, it will likely dissuade them from making a purchase.

Because consumers focus more on employee treatment and company culture before supporting a business, company leaders should prioritize marketing how they treat their employees.

This article will dive into tips for successfully marketing how you treat your employees, and how treating your workers well gives your business a competitive advantage. But, first, let’s talk about why it’s important to treat employees well.

Why it’s important to treat employees well

It’s important to treat employees well because when they feel supported and valued, they’re more likely to do their best work for your company.

Also, it positively affects your customer service when you treat your employees as more than just warm bodies. They’ll do more than list the functions and features of your products or services. Instead, your employees will become advocates for your customers and do everything they can to ensure your customers get the most out of your brand and their purchases.

On the other hand, when employees are overworked, underpaid, and undervalued, they are unlikely to treat customers well and they’re probably going to leave the company sooner than later.

Companies that fail to treat their employees well are losing them in droves.

How customers view companies that treat their employees well

Customers view companies that are good to their employees as trustworthy.

Trust is the foundation of every relationship, including customer relationships. When customers see how much your employees trust your business, they feel more comfortable moving forward with your company.

All in all, when you create trust-filled relationships with potential customers, they’re more likely to become actual customers and loyal ones at that. And you can use marketing how you treat your employees as a vehicle for creating that trust.

Three easy ways you can market how you treat your employees:

#1. Create content around your company culture

One of the main things to focus on when marketing how you treat your employees is content. You must create content around your company culture, employees, and the behind-the-scenes of your operation.

For example, let’s say you’re making remote work a permanent part of your workforce. In that case, you must be mindful of people who are skeptical of remote work because of the lack of support for these employees. If you’ve built a comprehensive employee recognition program for remote workers, create content about it and market it.

You can also create content that focuses on the following to highlight how well you treat your employees:

● Compensation and benefits packages
● Your company’s mission and values
● A day in the life of each employee
● What each team in your company does
● How each employee contributes to excellent customer service
● Employee accomplishments and milestones
● Personal employee stories
● Company culture

#2. Share how you support your employees on social media

Company leaders worldwide can attest to the power of social media in their businesses. You can boost brand recognition and awareness, in particular, on social media by connecting with potential and current customers.

Social media is also beneficial when sharing content on how you treat your employees. For instance, one of your employees can do a social media takeover and share a day in their life at work. You can tell your brand’s story in a series of posts. Or you can create content that talks openly and honestly about things most companies don’t talk about, like wages and benefits.

Whatever content you share on social media about how you take care of your employees, be sure it’s emotionally intelligent, genuine, and that your company culture is embedded in it.

#3. Appeal to the “anti-work” crowd

Anti-workers are focused on ending work as we know it. They aren’t against making money. They’re against the mistreatment, inadequate support, and toxic work habits that find their ways into many workplaces.

If you treat your employees so well that even the “anti-work” movement says, “If you have to work somewhere, work here,” customers, potential employees, and the like will come running. 

Focus on how the “anti-work” crowd perceives you. What are people who hate work saying about your company, its culture, and how you treat employees? Create a workplace environment that makes a person who despises working for someone else want to work for you.

Ultimately, if you can get the “anti-workers” to say nothing but good things about your company culture and employee treatment, it will go a long way with your customers.

Conclusion

Attracting customers by marketing how you treat your employees can’t be achieved overnight. Consumers are more knowledgeable and empowered than ever before. So, you must connect with them in ways that don’t involve selling your products and services.

Start by showing them who you are by highlighting how well you take care of your employees.

— Jori Hamilton is an experienced writer residing in the Pacific Northwest U.S. She covers a wide range of topics but takes a particular interest in covering topics related to wellness and mental health. To learn more about Jori, you can follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Posted 3.26.22 at 03:34 am by Roy Osing
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March 21, 2022

Why brands that don’t say how you’re different are useless

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Why brands that don’t say how you’re different are useless.

I recently did a podcast with Shannon Peel of BrandAPeel on the subject of branding, and it reminded me that there are shortfalls (with solutions) in the way branding is currently done that need to be covered once again.

I’ve written on the problems that I see with organizational mission statements and generally with relying on general aspirational statements of intent to define what people/organizations do and the value they create for others.

What Google says

If you Google ‘examples of brand statements’, this is the type of information you get.

“I help individuals reassess their life choices to discover their true paths to success.”

“I develop sustainable business models and marketing strategies to fuel small business growth.”

“I help manufacturing organizations improve their processes to reduce waste and grow profits.”

“Let’s build job free income.”

“Helping you build a big brand with your small business.”

“Chipotle provides premium, real ingredients for customers looking for delicious food that’s ethically sourced and freshly prepared. Chipotle’s dedication to cultivating a better world by cutting out GMOs and providing responsibly raised food sets them apart in the food industry.”

“Starbucks offers the best coffee and espresso drinks for consumers who want premium ingredients and perfection every time. Starbucks not only values every interaction, making each one unique, but the brand commits itself to the highest quality coffee in the world.”

“Disney provides unique entertainment for consumers seeking magical experiences and memories. Disney leads the competition by providing every aspect of related products and services to the world and appealing to people of all ages.”

What’s missing?

These statements address what the brand owner intends to deliver: entertainment, coffee, food ingredients, brands for small business, job free income, improved processes, business models, marketing strategies and ‘true paths to success’.

As a consumer, however, what these statements DON’T tell me is how each brand is different from their competition, and why I should buy their brand and not their competitor’s. My eyes glaze over when I read these claims because for most of them I could substitute their competitor’s name in each statement and they would be valid.

In other words these (and most other) brand statements focus on what the brand owner intends to produce with no comparison with the other choices available to the targeted consumer.

Disney’s reference to ‘leads the competition’ and Chipotle’s to ‘sets them apart in the food industry’ are modest competitive references but they are so vague they don’t offer any concrete and meaningful comparisons to their competitors.
In fact the use of terms like ‘premium real ingredients’, ‘best coffee’, and ‘highest quality’ I find to be high level aspirations that offer little clarity and an abundance of ‘fog’.

How do you create an effective brand?

There are two basic principles I’ve used to develop brand statements that resonate with customers and position the organization as compelling and unique among alternatives.

#1. Create a tight strategic fit for your brand

Your brand must be tightly bound to the Strategic Game Plan—SGP—of your organization, it cannot be allowed to ‘float free’ to be on its own.
You need to be able to ‘see’ the organization’s strategic intent when you assess their brand statement.

If you can’t interpret the strategy being pursued by the brand, it means the brand is too cloudy and vague; it lacks strategic relevance.

Successful brands have a direct ‘line of sight’ to the strategy of the organization.

My SGP process makes it easy to establish the strategic imperatives the brand must serve.

By answering three questions it’s done.

HOW BIG do you want to be? —
defines your growth objective for the ensuing 24 months.

WHO do you want to SERVE? — identifies the customer groups you intend to target to generate the revenue from the HOW BIG question.

HOW will you COMPETE and WIN? — defines your competitive value proposition.

Questions #2 and #3 are particularly useful in establishing strategic context for a brand. They not only define the target for the brand message—WHO to SERVE—they also describe how the competitive encounter will be played—HOW to WIN

My next point examines the importance of question #3–HOW to WIN—more closely.

#2. Declare the differences that define you

The second principle to follow to create an awesomely effective brand is define in the brand statement the difference between you and your competitors.

It’s interesting to me that most brand pundits ignore that people choose one organization or individual over another based on the differences between them, not by the absolute singular claims they make.

Declaring “I develop sustainable business models and marketing strategies to fuel small business growth.” may accurately describe what you do for small businesses, but it says nothing about how you are special or unique among your competitors and hence why I should pick you to help my small business and not any one of them.

An amazingly effective brand shouts out how you are different from everyone else.

Your unique qualities need to be woven into the brand statement, otherwise the recipient of it is left to their own devices to figure out why they should choose you out of the herd.

The ‘HOW will you COMPETE and WIN?’ question addresses this challenge unbelievably well because it involves the creation of ‘The ONLY Statement’ for your organization.

I invented The ONLY Statement precisely for the purpose of declaring how an organization—or an individual —was different from their closest competitors.

“We are the ONLY ones that…” declares what separates your organization from the crowd around you and hence why customers should choose you.
And, furthermore, it is the key to directing how your brand statement should be written in order to have a tight strategic fit.

So if your organization had an ONLY that read:

“ABC Ambulance is the ONLY First Aid Advocate that provides safety solutions anywhere, anytime.”, the brand statement possibilities are straightforward.

In the First Aid Advocate example, their brand statement could read:

”ABC Ambulance provides safety solutions anywhere they’re needed, whenever they’re needed, and we’re the only organization that does.”

Or, the brand statement could incorporate ONLY directly:

”ABC Ambulance is the ONLY First Aid Advocate that provides safety solutions anywhere, anytime.”

My last word

Brand statements are not just about YOU!

In a world where people have so much choice of who to do business with, who to hire for a particular job, which charity to give their donations to and which causes to support, your ‘ask’ of them must paint you as the ONLY choice.

If not, your declaration—brand— gets lost.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 3.21.22 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
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