Pre-selling Solutions to Your Customers (Action Wednesday/Positioning)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape.  Today is Action Wednesday and I’m excited about our topic, we’re going to keep it short but I think you’ll enjoy the content.

I’ve had a lot of success in my career pre-selling ideas to clients, something they may not have thought of, and they end up hiring my services.

That’s what we’re going to talk about today, pre-selling solutions to your customers.  It’s a little bit like Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come.  If you share a very good idea with them they may buy. 

What do I mean by pre-selling solutions to your customers?  Well, let’s break that down.  Pre-selling means before they ask for it.  You are being proactive and knocking on their door with a solution.

How do I define solution?  That is essentially the unique products and services that you offer.  Your target audience may be any customer, however, you should design a potential solution tailored to each customer individually.  Then, approach them with the solution in hopes that they will think it is a very good idea, an idea they value and need, and want to buy it.

How do you make pre-selling solutions work?  To start, you have to really understand your customer (this is often referred to as customer intimacy).  If you understand who they are, and what their goals and aspirations are, then you are in a good position to create a unique solution.

Approaching the customer is sometimes the hard part.  You should be proactive.  Knock on their door and say “I have a solution for you that I think you’re going to love”.  And, hopefully, they allow you to present that solution.  Once your presentation is complete, if your argument is compelling, they will buy that solution and in fact buy your product and that is your goal.

Remember, the answer is always “No” if you don’t ask.  So, under this mindset of pre-selling solutions to your customers, you are essentially taking knowledge of your customer, creating a unique product, offering it before they ask and hoping that they will say yes.

You won’t be batting a thousand.  Success rates will vary widely.  Mine has been in the middle of the road, maybe fifty-fifty.  But, if you really think smartly and provide a good idea to that potential customer, there is a high chance they will buy.

That’s our Action Wednesday, hope you enjoyed it, hope you are already thinking about pre-selling solutions to some of your customers.  Please join us tomorrow for Recon Thursday.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape and we’ll see you next time.

James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com

Developing Mission and Vision Statements (Strategic Tuesday/Process)

Hello everybody, Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape.  It’s Strategic Tuesday, and we are starting a new series on strategic planning and action planning.  We’re going to begin defining things such as mission, vision, objectives, and goals as well as strategic and action plans.

Today’s topic is “Developing Mission & Vision Statements.”

Mission and vision statements for a company are very important.  I do recommend, following my short blog, that you dive into more research about the subject.  There is a great deal of material and numerous examples available.  I’m sure that will help you in the preparation of your company’s mission and vision statements.

What is a mission statement?  A mission statement outlines how a company plans to get to where it is going.  It’s very important to have that sense of direction.  It also expresses the purpose of your company and outlines measurable objectives that you will use to gague success.

Mission statement is designed for the internal side of your company.  Your employees need to know where the company is going and how it plans to get there.  Also, it’s about the present.  It’s not about the future which relates more to the vision statement.  And, it provides a sense of urgency around what we need to do to make our company successful.

Let’s look at the mission statement for our taco stand.  A possible mission statement for our taco stand: “to be the best taco stand by selling gourmet tacos fast where people line up around the block to buy them.”

A vision statement identifies where a company wants to be in the future.  It communicates the purpose and values of the company.  The audience for the vision statement is the external and internal.  By external, we mean your customers.

By getting a sense of your vision statement customers are able to understand your purpose for being in business and why they should be a customer.  Your employees get a sense of how they should handle themselves as an employee and where the company is going.

The vision statement should be a compelling and emotional message.  Now we’ll look at the vision statement for our taco stand.  The taco stand vision statement is “to enhance the local dining experience by providing the freshest and tastiest tacos fast.”

If you don’t grasp the subject 100% yet, don’t worry.  Spend more time looking up mission and vision statements online and I’m sure they will become more clear.

Mission statements are about the “How,” the purpose of your organization combined with success measurements.  And the visions statement is about the “Where,” encompassing the values of your organization, what your company is about and how it gets things done.

These are two important ingredients, and in the future I want you to spend more time with this.  Develop that vision and mission statement.  Share it with your employees, share it with your customers and you will be moving down the road towards a very vibrant strategic and action plan.

That’s our Strategic Tuesday.  Stop by tomorrow for Action Wednesday.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.

James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com

7Ps of Marketing: Promotion (Smart Monday/Promotion)

Hello there, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape. 

Today is Monday, so that means it is Smart Monday and we’re going to be talking about Promotion, one of my favorite topics.

Before we do, I want to thank all of you that are following my blogs.  I’m in New Mexico and I have fans throughout the state of New Mexico, but it’s exciting that I also have followers in California, Minnesota, Georgia.  My goal is to share my message with small businesses across the country.  So, again, be sure to share with your friends and thanks for tuning in.

Today’s topic is “7Ps of Marketing: Promotion.”

What is promotion?  Well, it’s telling your customers about your products and services, their benefits and where they can be found.  It’s not very complicated, at least in theory.  Of course there are a million ways to go about promoting your product.

But why are you promoting your product?  In today’s world customers have numerous choices when they buy.  The goal of your promotion is ensuring, at that time when they make a decision to buy a product or service, that potential customers are thinking about your product or service and they buy your product or service. 

If they have money in hand and they know your product, but they’re not thinking about your product at the time of purchase, you’ve missed out.  It’s very important that you promote your product so you achieve what is called mind-share, or top of mind.  

Now, where do you promote?  Advertising is absolutely everywhere.  I keep thinking that one day I’ll look up and there will be a large logo on the surface of the moon.  Now, that’s the ultimate billboard. 

There are so many places you can promote your product.  We talked about traditional and digital marketing.  Whether it is dasher boards at a hockey game, or a logo on a coffee cup, advertising is everywhere, that’s branding, marketing and promotion.  As a marketer, you have to effectively promote your product to your target customers.

What makes good promotion?  Let’s go back to our taco stand, the example we’ve used in the past.  The owner spends all of his time developing the most incredible recipe for tacos on the face of the earth.  Nobody has a better taco anywhere.  But he’s so involved in the development of his product he forgets to tell people to buy his product.  You’d be surprised how often that happens.  Hopefully, by tuning in to Once a Day Marketing, you are now beginning to share more about your product with your customers.

What makes effective promotion?  It starts with being compelling.  It needs to be something that when people hear it they’ll say “Oh, that kind of cool”, “That’s kind of interesting”.  Often marketing is so bland or generic it doesn’t capture any attention.  When consumers have numerous choices, you have to make sure people are hearing and seeing your message, that it cuts through the clutter out there . 

The message has to be consistent.  Frequently a company will do a little bit of marketing and think they’re done.  But, you need to be consistent with your efforts.  Your message should be visible because, again, when that customer decides to buy a product, you’ve got to make sure your product is sticking in their mind, so you’ll capture their dollars

The message has to be relevant and resonate.  It’s not only creating awareness, it has to target the right audience.  For instance, if I’m not excited about a car like a Ford Mustang, all the advertising in the world is not going to capture my attention. Ensure you are targeting the right people, at the right place, with the right message and then they will hear it.   And they have to hear it again and again and again.  That is why that consistent, compelling message is so important in your promotional efforts.

When it comes to developing your promotional plan, be creative, have fun, and also be smart about it.  You have finite resource and time, so it needs to be promotion that actually reaches your targeted customers.

Finally, keep track of results.  No matter how good your promotional plan is, your audience will eventually tire of it.  Continuously create new ways to push your message so that customers have the recognition and recall and top of mind for your product and they purchase your product when they are actually out there spending their hard earned dollars.

That concludes our Smart Monday, stop by tomorrow for Strategic Tuesday.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing where business takes shape and we’ll see you next time.

James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com

Email Newsletters: Tracking Results (Digital Friday/Promotion)

Hello again, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape.  I want to thank you for following us.  It has been a very good week.  I heard from a lot of people.  Someone who works on the Tonight Show is using the Blog.  Another follower is covering soap operas online.  Another is covering college football and, an Emmy Award winning composer.  It’s very exciting to see that people are using Once a Day Marketing to help their businesses get more fit.

Today is Digital Friday and as always, we’ll talk about things digital.  Today’s topic is “Email Newsletters: Tracking Results.”

Email newsletter correspondence is created using an online tool that allows you to design, distribute and track results of electronic newsletters, postcards, announcements and so forth.  It’s a very powerful tool to engage your customers via the internet and mobile apps.

One option is Constant Contact, which I’ve been using for years.  Others include iContact and MailChimp.  You can explore and see which best meets your needs.

What really makes these tools interesting to me is they’re easy to use.  You can choose from templates provided or, you can have a graphic artist design something specifically for you.  They also allow you to put in all different types of content.

You will also be able to create powerful contact lists.  People that you can send to that have opted-in.  Lists can be categorized so you can target selected groups with your email newsletter.

Perhaps the most important thing for me is the analytics.  I absolutely love it.  Every time your email is opened, it is tracked.   If you embed video, links or other content, everyone who watches it is tracked by their email address.  If they’ve opened it more than once, that is tracked too.  You can obtain powerful analytics as to who’s actually engaged with your newsletter.  There are not many other things that do that for you in the promotion world.

How do you begin?  The first step is to seek out one of these email newsletter sites and sign up.  Typically, the fee is small, so it’s not a barrier to using one. 

The next step is for you to determine your message and content.  What will be relevant and resonate with your audience?  A newsletter for the sake of a newsletter will not add value.  So, you have to really think about who you’re targeting and zero in on a message that they will listen to, watch and respond to.  

Now, what elements should you put in your newsletter?  Well, you can include practically anything.  I have found that video links are well accepted.  Recipients will watch a video, especially if you’ve told the story around why that video is included. 

You can feature pictures, text and include links to other sites you would like your audience to visit.  Anything that will make your newsletter meaningful to your audience is fair game. 

The next question is, how often should you send your newsletter?  That is really specific to your target audience.  They may only want to hear from you once a month, which I do with my corporate newsletter for my business.  However, they may want to hear from you every day, like Once a Day Marketing.  So you have to do some analysis as to how often.

When to distribute correspondence is another area to review.  You may not want to send it out at 3am, however, it will be in the in-box first thing in the morning if you do.  Eleven AM is often a good time because the recipient is probably awake now with all that coffee inside them.  Also, you get to them before they take off for lunch.  You will have to determine the best time to send out your email newsletters based upon your targets.

I love electronic email newsletters.  I hope you now understand why.  They are a great way to communicate with customers who have opted to receive your correspondence.  Your job is to make sure it’s engaging content that they will want to look at and interact with.  Then track those results.  It’s like watching the New York Stock Exchange ticker tape.

This concludes Digital Friday and another week of Once a Day Marketing. So, please tune in next week to see what we’ve got in store for you to help advance your business.

I have been receiving inquiries about interacting with me directly.  If you are interested in a one-on-one service engagement, please give me a shout, contact information is at the end of this blog.  I am Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, and we will see you next time.

Jim Glover: 505.501.1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com

James Bond Your Competition (Recon Thursday/Process)

Hello again, Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape.  And today is Recon Thursday.  Our topic today is “James Bond Your Competition.”

What I mean is that you are not going to be really James Bond secret spy but you might be secret shopper.  You’re basically taking time and immersing yourself into where your competitor is with their customers.  You may physically go to their stores or shops or call their 800 number, perhaps you interact with them through e-mail correspondence online and you’re just pretending to be a customer.  See how they respond to you, favorably, negatively, whatever they’re doing. That’s good information for your competitive matrix so that you can keep track of your competition and then devise strategies around it.

Just how do you play the spy game? One of the things you can do, as we discussed before, is dive into the Internet.  Use search engine key words, Google alerts, remember I talked about that.  You can program in your competitor’s name or their product and every time something goes online you will get an email notice. 

Overall, you need to be where your competitor’s customers are going.  It might be on a website or a mobile app developed by an individual or a company. 

There is also the traditional advertising and marketing world which includes TV commercials, radio and so forth.  I want you to really pay attention to everything that’s going on with respect to the traditional advertising.  Same thing with digital advertising.  See what the competition is doing.  Are they creating YouTube videos, have they created a social commerce site on Facebook and so forth?

You might even visit competitor’s retail outlets.  Physically go there and be that secret shopper.  Find out how their staff is interacting with you.  Perhaps there’s an 800 number you can call or an online chat you can use. 

So, you just need to be that spy, get in there and take a look and then take all that information and, once again, add it to your competitive matrix.  I guess this is like reporting back to “M.”

You probably now have a sense that it’s very important to have this kind of competitive information at your finger tips.  You can’t create strategy and action plans without it.

So, the cold war is over and there is no real James Bond.  But, you do want to become an expert at identifying what your competition is doing, keeping track of that and then using that information wisely.  So, in fact, you are James Bonding.  That’s our show for today, be sure to stop by tomorrow for Digital Friday.  And I am Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape and we will see you next time.

James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com

Got Mentor? Your Best Ally (Action Wednesday/People)

Hello again, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape. 

Welcome back to our blog.  Today we are going to talk about something very important, at least it is in my career and I think it will be in yours, and that’s a mentor.  We’ll get to that in just a second.

I want to ask, how are your marketing skills coming along?  You’ve been following Once a Day Marketing for a little bit.  You’ve been thinking about how to be smarter, you’ve been thinking about strategy, action, reconnaissance, and our digital Friday.  I hope little by little you’ve been carving out more market share for your businesses, penetrating the marketing a little more.  Maybe taking a little bit of work back from your competitor.  Stick with us because over the long haul that will be the case.

Today’s topic is called “Got Mentor? Your Best Ally”

I am lucky.  I have two fantastic mentors in my life: Chuck and Jim.  They both hail from major marketing and branding businesses.  They are the nicest men in the world and have assisted me time and again.  I owe so much to them.

I hope in your quest to find a mentor you find somebody that will really take an interest in you and your business and provide you with good advice.  It’s very tough to go it alone.  As an entrepreneur I’ve been doing that a long time.  You might be an entrepreneur but even if you are in an organization sometimes it feels like you are all alone.  Sometimes it’s tough to make the right decision.  Perhaps you should be going off in a different marketing direction.  Perhaps you have to let an employee go.  Should you borrow money?  Should you let somebody invest in your company?  There are all sorts of decisions you have to make as a small business owner, as an entrepreneur, or, even running a non-profit organization and a good mentor can advise and support your decisions. 

What makes a great mentor?  It’s good to have someone who can provide you insight and guidance.  They need to be “smart.”  By smart I mean within your business space.  The more they understand your business arena the better advice they can give.  More importantly they need to be honest.  They are not just there to give you a nice polite pat on the back.  They need to be very sincere and give you credible advice.  If you are able to find that person, then you have someone to celebrate with when you have successes but you also have someone to commiserate with when you are facing challenges. 

Just how do you find a mentor?  Start close to you and work out.  You already have friends, family members and business acquaintances.  My recommendation is that as you start looking around your “neighborhood” that you seek somebody who has broad knowledge, preferably in the space that you are working in.  You may not find that expert but the more they understand what you are trying to do the better advisor they can be for you. 

Now that you are building your network through LinkedIn and meeting people via networking events, you can start tapping into people you don’t necessarily know so well.  Believe me, they are going to be flattered if you were to approach them in a very professional manner and suggest some sort of mentoring relationship.  I have been approached that way a couple of times and I’ve said “yes”.  It’s rewarding to assist individuals to become more successful.  I’ve got a sneaky feeling if you ask you will get a positive result.  Remember this simple rule: The answer is always “no” if you don’t ask. 

There might even be people out there that you haven’t quite found but you can seek them out through your LinkedIn network and through your other sources if you believe that they will be a good mentor for you.  And once again, asking them is a compliment, they may be very busy and they might say no but what if they said yes?  Then you have a really great ally/mentor supporting your efforts.

You can see now why I now believe it’s a good idea to have a mentor.  The right person for you is out there.  I’m sure you’ll find them readily if you make the effort.  Then you’ll have somebody to celebrate the highs and evaluate the lows with.  Perhaps someday you’ll be a mentor.  Wouldn’t it be nice if someone knocked on your door and said “hey, would you help me?”  You pay it forward and say “yes, I’d be glad to be your mentor.”

That’s our blog for the day at Once a Day Marketing.  I hope you join us tomorrow for Recon Thursday.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape. We’ll see you next time.

James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com

Plan the Work. Work the Plan. (Strategic Tuesday/Process)

Hello again, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape. 

Today is Strategic Tuesday and we’re going to talk about the importance of developing and implementing your action plan.  Yogi Berra, and all the pearls of wisdom that he shared with us, once said: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up someplace else.”  If you don’t’ have a plan in place and you don’t follow that plan, how the heck do you know where you are going? Today’s topic is called “Plan the Work. Work the Plan.”

Why is this important?  You have to have a sense of direction.  Can you imagine getting on the road without any sense of direction?  No Google Maps or MapQuest or GPS.  Planning becomes a roadmap for you.  It becomes a game plan for you to follow. 

You need to be flexible as you develop your plan and implement it because things change.  They might change on a monthly basis, a weekly basis, who knows.  It might even be hourly if you have that kind of product where you are interacting with your customers all the time.

It’s important to put your plan down on paper.  If you just have it in your head, that’s fine and a lot of people go that direction, but my recommendation is that you write it down on paper so you can refer to it.  I recommend that you refer to it often.  It’s called shelfware when you make it and you put it on the shelf and you never refer to it again.  So it’s important to actually use it as a dynamic tool for the advancement of your business.  Then also if it’s written down, or an electronic version, you can share it with others.  You can share it with other people in your organization so they can see the common direction you are all trying to move together. 

Now what are the important ingredients of planning the work and working the plan?  First you have to have goals and objectives.  You have to have a place you are trying to get to.  By establishing what those goals and objectives are, that can be the foundation for your action plan. 

Next you have to have actionable tasks.  Things for people to do, whether it be yourself or somebody in your organization.  What are those things you are going to get done? 

Next is ownership.  It might be you or it might again be somebody in your organization.  Somebody has to be responsible for making those tasks happen. 

Next is the timeline and importantly the due date.  You need to set some point out in time where this has to get done.  If not, how do you know when mission is accomplished?  When will it get done?  If there’s not a sense of urgency then people won’t make it a priority.  So set that timeline and due date. 

Next is follow through.  You need to go back and find out if in fact due dates have been met.  If not, you ask the question “Why?”  I think it’s okay in your organization to do this.  You need to ask that of yourself and well as the people who are trying to help you carry out the action plan. 

Lastly is the review and the rework, starting all over again.  What went well and what didn’t go well and how do we fix it in the future? 

By planning the work and working the plan, essentially, you are going to outsmart Yogi Berra and your competition.  You’re actually going to wind up where you want to go.  Develop that plan, make it a priority, share it with others so that you have a common direction and you will get to your final destination. 

I set out an action plan for the release and development of Once a Day Marketing.  I planned the work and now I’m working the plan.  I have to make sure that I get you this video every single day.  I have to make sure I’m sharing these videos on the Internet to build awareness and so forth.  I am planning the work and working the plan and I’m constantly revising it as I talked about.  I’m learning something every single day which I try to implement in future action that I take.

So please, if you can, join us tomorrow Action Wednesday.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we will see you next time.

James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com