Align with Your Customers

   Some small business owners seem to possess a potent combination of optimism and a belief in their own ability to generate the circumstances necessary for business success.  Others seem to be inclined to “hunker down” and “weather the storm”, seeing each less-than-perfect economic indicator as proof we are “not out of the woods yet”.  The perceptions of the owner aside, because there certainly can be industry or company-specific factors that overwhelm any plan put into place by a small business, are there any fundamentals that can help drive success no matter who you are?  We think one important fundamental is “alignment”; in particular – alignment with your customers.

   Alignment is not a new concept.  Kaplan and Norton have written about strategic alignment in their work developing the balanced scorecard for business.  Alignment, or harmony with one’s natural surroundings is a theme found in ancient and modern texts.  We should all have an appreciation of the many types of environmental harmony important to our well-being – if only from the experience of dis-harmonies. 

   From a business perspective, what does it mean to align with your customers?  We believe it is a not a process per se, but a fundamental approach.  In a big company, it is called culture; for a small business it usually results from the owner’s personality having been imprinted upon the business as a whole.

   The first step is to put customer at the center of the business.  It is not about you, it is about them.  Sounds simple, but in the real world it takes some practice – particularly for the first type of small business owner mentioned above.  Customer experiences matter.  Customer perceptions matter.  Everyone in the company must behave with the customer first.  And the language you use to promote your business and interact with customers should be their language.  Industry jargon is great for communication shortcuts internally or with peers, but make sure the language of the customer has a prominent place.

   Once the customer is at the center of the business, you will gain perspective.  You will begin to experience your business as your customer experiences the various interactions with your company.  Seeing as your customer sees, combined with your internal knowledge of the supporting processes, will lead to an awareness of how well your business is actually doing at every step of the way.

   This awareness leads to an understanding of what needs to change and what can stay the same.  It will be much easier at this point to make decisions that can improve efficiency while maintaining or strengthening the customer’s experience.

   A key concept, related to alignment and one that intersects in many ways, is empathy.  It is important to be aware of customers as human beings - social, intelligent, ancient creatures carrying all sorts of evolutionary baggage.

   Social constructs, such as family, clan, tribe, village, nation, and others, always have been and always will be part of being human.  People have learned to validate their decisions and perceptions with their social unit.  This is why the reputation of a business is so important.

  Environmental cues have been key to survival, the ultimate evolutionary measure of success for an individual.  People are pre-programmed to look at faces, read body language, and scan the environment to make an assessment.  Your business cannot be threatening in any way.

   The individual’s current emotional state, over which a business has little control at first, is also part of the empathetic mix.

   Cognitive inputs, such as benefits and tradeoffs, are definitely part of the decision-making process.  But as we’ve seen, not the only part.  And at any given moment, not necessarily the most important part.  Relying solely on the customer’s ability to logically come to the correct conclusion regarding your business ignores the larger picture.

   We recently held an alignment-focused brainstorming session with a medical practice.  Included in the session were both the physicians and the reception, office, and supporting staff.  Physicians, while not fitting precisely into business owner example noted above, are by personality and training often possessive of a cognitive, logical, medicine-centric approach.  By introducing the customer’s voice – the actual language used by patients when they called to inquire about medical care (and which sometimes included crying – a pure, emotional response), the physicians themselves gained a better understanding of the patient interactions they had experienced.

Your Business has Two Sales Funnels

We talk a lot about the sales funnel in our presentations to business owners.   The concept is pretty straightforward - you need to propose a lot more business than you actually need to meet sales targets because not every proposal turns into a sale.  With a little experience, studying funnel performance will clarify the “close ratio” or “capture rate”, and you can even develop a formula to use going forward.  (If you have more than one sales rep, you can also use funnel performance to measure how well they sell).

In our examples, we presume that half our proposals end up in a closed sale.  That is a 50% close ratio, and it means for every $100 of sales we want (or need) we must propose $200.  When you know how many sales calls it requires to generate $200 worth of proposals, you have the beginning of a sales activity plan for your sales reps (or you).

Most funnel discussions focus on “acquisition”; generating new business by converting prospects into customers.  Business owners should already have a sense that acquiring new customers is relatively expensive, and the most cost-effective source of generating sales is from existing customers.  Upselling, cross-selling, and generally keeping customers coming back for more is relatively less expensive.  When you think about it, a lot of the convincing that you need to do with a prospect doesn’t need to be redone with an existing customer; they already trust you.

Which brings us to the concept of “flipping the funnel”, or making sure there is some focus on “retention”: keeping customers as customers, upselling, and cross-selling.  It turns out that email and social media marketing, while very good for the top of the acquisition funnel process, are great tools for the retention/upsell/cross-sell retention process.

Email and social media marketing are all about engagement; sharing content that really resonates with your audience.  Since you’ve already established trust, your messaging can get right to the point.  And your messaging is more likely to be read and acted upon, too.

As you think about where your sales will come from and how you are going to get those sales, don’t forget the two funnels.  Work them both.  Understand that the dynamics of each funnel are different.  And your email and social media marketing needs to be different in both cases, too.  The end result is a better close ratio on your combined sales efforts.  And a more efficient and affordable sales generation process.

Social Media Marketing Deconstructed

Small business owners, particularly those who have been in business for a while, often approach social media as a marketing tool with a degree of skepticism.  We see this in our presentations on the subject; some audience members sit with arms crossed and a bit of a frown on their faces.  It doesn’t take a PhD to recognize there are some barriers that need to be overcome.

We begin by deconstructing the phrase social media marketing and telling the audience to ignore, for a moment, the word in the middle; media.  And by promising, they know more about this than they think.

Marketing is Marketing

“Let’s begin with marketing.”

At the root of everything “marketing”, including marketing with social media, is the necessity to understand the customer, understand what a business can do for the customer, and communicate in terms that will resonate with the customer.

A bit of work in practice, but conceptually this is nothing new.  And something that most small business people comprehend intuitively – or quickly come to understand if they expect to stay in business. 

“Does this make sense?” we ask.  Nods, generally, around the room.  Marketing is marketing is marketing, and the basics have been in place essentially forever.

Humans are Social Animals

“Now, let’s talk about the first word; social.”

Ever since we metaphorically lived in caves, humans have been social animals.  We have depended upon each other collectively for our survival.  Clans, tribes, families, faiths, nations, friends, and probably numerous other manifestations throughout history attribute to our social nature.

An individual’s survival has depended upon the ability to quickly size-up a situation; friend or foe, fight or flight, safe or dangerous.  Before we left the cave each morning, we scanned for tigers, traps, or treachery.  By now, it is hard-wired in to our social make-up.

“We all know how to be social.  We’ve been doing it all our lives.”

A few arms unfold.  A few frowns relax.

“When you first meet someone, or enter into a social situation like a party, what do you do?  You size them, or it, up.”

Nods.

“When someone speaks to you, or asks a question, what do you usually do?”

“You answer back.  You wouldn’t stand there, stone-faced. That’s being social – you know this.”

More unfolding and relaxing.

“When you have a question about something, who do you ask?”

Now we prompt for answers.  Specific examples come back and we stop when we hear this: ‘someone we trust.’

“That’s right”, we say.  In the family, clan, tribe – someone we trust.

Dare to Reconstruct Social Marketing

So, social marketing would be leveraging the trusted relationships a customer (or potential customer) already has to help explain in terms resonant with them how your business can help them.

“Make sense?” we ask. “Pretty simple, right?”

And behold: the arms have unfolded and the frowns disappeared – sometimes even replaced with smiles.

“See, you know this stuff.  Told ya’.”

Concluding, we add:

Don’t worry so much about the “media”.  Media come and go.  They all have their specific rules and requirements, like column-inches in a newspaper ad.  That’s not the important part.

“Okay to continue?” 

With nods and relaxed attendees who understand why we market using social media, we proceed to show them how.  

Prepare or Pretend

Small businesses in the New York City area are enduring the third multi-day power disruption in the past fifteen months. This time there is a tragic loss of life and enormous property damage as well. Businesses are adapting – doing their best to return to productivity while scrambling to cover the disruptions to billings and cash flow that will follow. 

Is this the new normal? Should small businesses expect this type of disruption on a regular basis now?  In our book, two times is a trend – and this is now the third time. Small businesses can either pretend it is a fluke, or they can prepare to handle it better the next time. 

Our advice is to prepare. 

This perspective comes from helping small businesses take advantage of online (cloud) functionality for both their marketing and their IT infrastructure. Using these functionalities makes a business more productive when everything is running normally. The costs are so small that the payback is immediate, and that is typically our focus. In the case of disruptions, where workers in impacted areas can be effectively isolated for days, the business is more resilient. 

If an isolated worker has the latest version of a critical document, the business can be forced to wait until that worker finds connectivity, or risk inadvertently using the wrong version, or incur the expense of recreating the document. If a physical office location is the only source of common connectivity, the entire business comes to a halt without power. Customers outside the impacted area may not be able to adjust timelines and deadlines. In any case, the business runs the risk of costly mistakes and lost business. 

There is a large body of expertise dedicated to formal business resiliency and recovery planning – if you need a resource, we can refer an expert. Definitely explore online (cloud) for your marketing and IT infrastructure – for this, we are the experts. You’ll create a better functioning business, whatever the weather. 

Sustainable SEO for Small Business

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), structuring your online content to improve search rankings with Google (or Bing), is a topic about which many small businesses have questions.   We are often asked about the importance SEO or if it can be ignored without too much consequence.  And when a small business owner asks that question, it usually means they are ignoring SEO and they hope it isn't hurting their business. 


The answer: SEO is important.  But even more important are content and marketing.  And when you get the content and marketing right, the SEO will start to fall into place.


First, lets cover some basics about search rankings.


When someone does a search, two sets of results are provided by Google: 1) web pages, and 2) advertisements - both of which have been determined by Google to be relevant to the search query.  


Since Google's main (multi-billion dollar) business is advertising where they control all aspects of approving and placing the ads, they can be confident of the ad relevance.  Google has to infer the relevance of the websites to be shown for the search results - primarily, they make this determination through proprietary algorithms and methodologies.  


But they can use a little help - and to that end, Google announces what factors they look for.*  And so you know, they really work best with text-based content. 

Sometimes SEO is presented as a plan to outsmart Google - to force your pages higher in their search results - based on what Google has announced and what has been inferred.  This type of plan often includes the need for convoluted language on your website and blog, links back and forth to other sites, and often a high-priced service offering its own algorithms and  proprietary research methodologies.  This is a synthetic approach to SEO - determining the content of your online presence to satisfy Google.


We recommend a more natural, sustainable approach to SEO.  All of your online content should be designed with the customer in mind.  When you are speaking their language, addressing their concerns, and providing valuable solutions to their problems your online content will naturally resonate and will be relevant to their searches.  It will naturally include many, if not most, of the relevant keywords.


The key is to really take the time to understand and speak in the voice of the customer.  Sounds easy, but not everyone does it effectively.  And their concerns will change over time, too.  You have to stay connected with customers to keep your finger on the pulse of your business.


The other key is to put your content out there.  And we recommend engaging with as many Google properties as you can.  Google will ultimately find most everything that is out there on the web, but working with their properties will make it easier for Google to validate your information.  The Google properties are: 

1. Google Webmaster - registers your validated site with Google, optimization tools
2. Google Places - provides validated local information about your business
3. Google Blogger
4. Google+ - social results are influencing search results
5. Google Adwords - nothing validates relevance like your willingness to pay for an ad
6. YouTube - for video content

Lastly, we recommend a Google Analytics account, too.  In addition to the information about number of visits and other powerful information, Visitor Flow will show how visitors move through your site after they land.

Be smart about your customers and your content.  Don't try to outsmart Google.  Get SEO help if you need it, but be wary of programs that sound too good to be true or require your content to be unnatural.

*(Google has a great video on SEO)

Small Businesses - Ditch the Consumer Email Addresses

Hey, small business owners!  It is time...well past time actually...to move past using "consumer" email addresses to represent your business.

You know which ones they are: hotmail, gmail, aol, the one from your cable company.  You should be availing yourself of every opportunity to promote your business, not advertise someone else's  - and your email address is the first place you should start.

In case you are wondering, or perhaps are a new or about-to-launch business, what we are really talking about is a custom domain.  Every business should register a custom domain name for themselves - yourcompany.com.  No good excuse not to - registrars like Go Daddy and 1 and 1 (among many others) offer custom domain name registration beginning at $12.99 per year.  

The next step is to find an email plan that allows you to utilize that custom domain for your email address: yourname@yourcompany.com .  There is probably an email plan attached to your website hosting, and if you want the same email system that is used by the largest companies in the U.S., look at Microsoft Office 365.  Small business plans begin at $6 per user per month.

That is the how and how much, but we should revisit the 'why'.  We already mentioned advertising another company.  Your own email address also generates a perception of permanence, commitment, and substance regarding your company.  As a small business owner, you know the importance customers attach to a long-term, professional relationship.  Your own email address goes a long way towards demonstrating to prospective customers that choosing your company is the right decision. 

We routinely talk to companies with questions about their websites and keywords, questions about social media and engagement with customers, questions about email marketing with newsletters - some fairly sophisticated questions, which indicate good comprehension of the social media landscape.  And they already have registered a yourcompany.com custom domain name - yet they still use a consumer email address.

Don't let this be you!  Make the move to a professional email address based on a custom domain name specifically for your business.  Let every aspect of your business image match the brilliance of the work you perform.  And do it before your competition.

Keep it Simple, Not Stagnant

Simplicity is often a key for small businesses.  Keep It Simple is the famous mantra.  And for good reason; small businesses tend to be under-resourced and the impact of needless complexity can be swift and painful.  "Simple" tends to go hand-in-hand with lower cost.

Simplicity is an admirable, efficient goal.  But small business owners must guard against rejecting change in the name of simplicity.  The pace of business is increasingly fast, and yesterday's solution, simple and elegant as it may be, can prove insufficient in the face of new competitors and more sophisticated demands from customers.  Staying alert to new, lower-cost capabilities than can help a small business, such as marketing with social media and leveraging the IT power of the Cloud, are good examples of this type of change.

One risk for a small business owner lies in judging the capabilities of the new solution against the old simplicity/complexity (and cost) criteria.  Imagine having never heard of email marketing and trying to assess "producing and sending" a newsletter every month.  Suppose a company website conjures images of expensive web development and maintenance.  What if a company-wide email and shared information network immediately brings to mind thousands of dollars worth of computer servers and special facilities?  Without the proper knowledge, the small business owner would fail to grasp that these capabilities are now simple and inexpensive, and well within the reach of every small business. 

Another risk for a small business owner lies in the relative speed with which the customers and competition grasp that these capabilities are within their reach as well.  If the customers come to expect their suppliers to have these capabilities, and competitors are quick to introduce them, the market shifts.  And the impact of a market shift can also be swift and painful.