I've been writing about all the relatively formal things relating to marketing. You should also be aware of the informal things. That means your attitude. It shows in everything you do. You already know that you are your best marketing weapon. That you I refer to is both you the individual and you the company—even if you have no employees.
You can activate all the good tactics we've been talking about and still fall on your keister. If you do, that indicates a problem in your company's attitude. Prospects are more wary and experienced than they used to be. Customers have high expectations and are used to your meeting and surpassing them. If you fall short in the attitude department, that's going to undo a lot of your good and well-intentioned works.
As marketing is everything you do, attitude is probably the most important of those things. It shows in every word you say, in your tone of voice, every time you communicate, every day you're in business. You may have run that yellow pages ad two years ago, but today, some people are going to see it and become aware of you for the very first time. They may call or visit you. Because they care so intensely about themselves, they're going to be very tuned in to your attitude toward them. Your company attitudes are going to be omnipresent and visible from the moment they hear about your company. These are the elements they'll unconsciously factor into their relationship with you—or the lack of a relationship.
The marketing fires are fueled by enthusiasm and passion. Enthusiasm means being honestly excited about not your product or service but what it can do for your customers. This kind of enthusiasm is highly contagious and very desirable. It shows to your customers. But it starts with you, the owner of the company and then spreads to your staff, salespeople, and customers and then to their friends and associates.
Enthusiasm at its highest form is called passion. The most successful guerrillas feel this passion every working moment of every day—and they feel it about the benefits they offer. If you don't feel true passion for your offering, perhaps you ought to look into getting into a different line of work. Without passion, there is little enthusiasm. Without enthusiasm, profits are few and far between.
How can you develop true passion for what you offer and what your company offers? By studying your offering and focusing on the main benefits it offers. The more you know about it deep in your heart, the easier it will be for you to feel passionate about what it offers the world. The more competitive advantages that you offer, the more passion you can feel growing within you.
On an unconscious level, your prospects are hoping that you'll display this passion, hoping that you believe in your product or service so much that they'll understand why they should make it a part of their lives. If they sense a lack of enthusiasm, they'll see little reason to want it.
Enthusiasm and passion originate in the brain but are conveyed by the heart. You've got to make sure that everyone knows about the benefits you offer and that they become as excited as you are. Not easy—unless you're passionate about your story. My daughter was supposed to give a commencement address from her university. She was terrified at the thought of speaking in public. I advised her to think not of herself or her audience but of the passion she felt for her topic, which was helping the homeless. That passion helped her deliver a compelling talk without a trace of nervousness.
Passion is fairly rare. You find it in romances, in love of nature, and in some cases, love of money. I hope that you feel it deeply about your business—and your life away from business. In the heart of the guerrilla, passion rules.
You don't have to give away free things in order to be generous. You can prove your generosity by your ability to listen and see things from your customer's point of view. You can prove it by your willingness to share information, by the inside tips you give to your customers.
There's a big difference between generosity and negotiation. You can demonstrate your generosity by your willingness to cut corners in your customer's favor, but you don't have to cut prices.
As if I had to tell you, it does help if your margins allow you to give some things away—especially after you've made the sale. That's where generosity really stands out—when people don't expect it. My client who tosses in a free set of linen once a bed has been purchased, the car dealer who gives a free GPS system once a car has been purchased—those companies are known for their generosity because the customers want to talk about such a delightful and surprising thing that just happened to them. It's true. Customers do talk about positive happenings they've had during their purchase experience, and if your generosity is apparent, that's a very positive thing to talk about. Of course, you aim for bliss in every detail of the purchase experience. Generosity is just one of those details.
Time, though you've probably lived all your life believing the contrary, is not money. If you run out of money, there are many ways to scrounge up more. If you run out of time—well, that's all she wrote.
The Roper Poll, Gallup Poll, Harris Poll, and the universities of Maryland and Pennsylvania conduct studies each year on what Americans cherish the most. In 1988, time hit the top of the list. It has remained there ever since and will remain there for the rest of our lives. Time, rather than being money, is life itself. And everyone knows it. That's why, if your business does not focus on speed, you're in serious trouble. People do not like to wait. They want what they want when they want it. Usually, that means right now. Making them wait is showing a disrespect for their time, and time is something they cherish.
If they call with a request, grant it ASAP. If they send you an e-mail, respond within twenty-four hours, though two hours is far better, and two minutes is best. If they order something, do all you can to ensure on-time delivery. Even if they must be put on hold when they call you, be sure you fill that hold time with marketing messages that enlighten and fascinate them.
I had a client running an urgent-care center, and his research showed that people hate waiting. So his marketing message became: "If you have to wait more than twenty minutes to see the doctor, your office visit is free." He broke the bank with that claim, and he lived up to it. Although he could have mentioned a myriad of other benefits, it was the lack of waiting that hit the bulls-eye for him.
Speed will become one of the most important things you can say or do. If you don't say it or live up to it, a competitor will take that business away—simply because that competitor shows a respect for people's time. You should apply the concept of speed to all contacts with you: to how you fulfill orders, how you service whatever needs servicing, your delivery time, and especially your ability to solve problems. People don't like to wait: on the phone, on your site, in your office, in their office, and when dealing with you and any of your people. They know that time is not money. So save their time whenever you can.
Neatness is hardly something you'd expect to learn about in a marketing book or a marketing course. And yet it's part of the Disney marketing plan and the Nordstrom marketing plan. They're well aware of the power of neatness as well as sloppiness.
If people see that your premises are neat, they assume that's the way you do business. If they see that your space is sloppy, they'll assume that you do business the same way. Why do you suppose that people visit McDonald's? First reason: clean rest rooms. Second reason: great french fries. What do women look for when selecting a service station? Right, clean rest rooms.
The Disney organization is superb at keeping its premises neat. The rest rooms are cleaned every fifteen minutes, and litter is picked up within moments of being dropped. It turns out that Disney founder Walt Disney and McDonald's owner, Ray Kroc, were neat freaks, and their awareness of it is one reason that their businesses reflect their passion for orderliness. That passion has been translated into profitability.
Neatness is not something you do on a Monday morning. Keeping everything tidy is an all-the-time job. It doesn't cost anything except for time and energy. You'd probably be appalled if you knew how many people refuse to patronize a business with, for example, dirty floors.
When I'm talking about neatness, I'm talking about your office, your store, your car, your delivery vehicles, your service people, your telephone manners, your signs, your correspondence, your windows, and the space around your workplace. They're all part of your marketing, as every guerrilla knows.
Be sure that your business associates are on the same wavelength as you when it comes to neatness. With all of them aware of its importance, it won't be difficult for you to keep everything looking spic and span. Naturally, that includes yourself and your employees. If your place of business shows that you can't keep it looking professional and orderly, people will figure that you run your business unprofessionally and disorderly. I'm sorry to sound like your mother, but I'd hate for you to lose business just because you neglect to empty the wastebaskets or have a messy desk. In a world in which mass marketing reigns, there's an important place for neatness. That place is where you work.
The most special minority group in the world is made up of those people who call your business. They should all be treated not as interruptions of your business—which, alas, many are—but as the reason you're in business in the first place.
I was part of a group that did a survey of Midas Muffler Shops. We learned that Midas was getting 100 percent of its initial contacts by phone. That's the good news. The bad news is that only 71 percent of those calls were being converted into appointments. The reason for this dismal conversion rate was that the phone was being answered by the person closest to the phone—often, somebody who was more interested in automotive exhaust systems than in people. Or by somebody in a bad mood. Or by a person who was too busy to speak on the phone.
We recommended a half-day telephone training system for Midas. And Midas instituted one new rule: You must attend the telephone training program before you answer the phone at Midas. As a result, Midas began converting 94 percent of callers into appointments. Everyone who answers the phone sounds as though he or she is in a good mood and delighted that you called. No wonder the company's profits soared as a result of becoming aware of the importance of incoming phone calls.
People who call your business should be able to sense the smile in the voice of the person answering the phone. They should be treated graciously and made to feel important, for indeed they are. Callers should be made to believe that they are right—even if they're wrong.
Each phone call is a golden opportunity for you to intensify your relationship with the caller. Or to blow it out of the water. Try to answer each question as clearly and sincerely as possible. Remember the immense importance of first impressions, and remember that a phone call is often the first impression the caller will have of your business.
Your phone should be answered the same way each time, giving first time callers the unmistakable impression that you're professional through and through, and giving customers a sense of consistency and continuity. Believe me, they'll appreciate it. And you'll appreciate the growing profits that can come from proper telephone demeanor.
Let's cut right to the chase. Value is far more crucial than price. And perceived value is far more crucial than value. People will pay higher prices for products and services that deliver more quality for the buck. And they'll pay higher prices still for products and services that they believe deliver more quality for the buck. If this were not so, Rolls-Royce would be out of business. Ferrari would be long gone.
I have a raftload of business books, many on the topic of marketing. I'm floored at how few discuss the significance of value, especially of perceived value. Hello? Am I missing something? I don't think so. I think that the others are too wrapped up in the concepts of quality and service, excellence and teamwork, statistics and technology—so wrapped up that they're taking their eye off the ball. The ball is the value that the customer thinks he or she is getting. It doesn't have much to do with price. It has a lot to do with perception. Guerrillas are cognizant that perception is reality. People have to feel that you're the kind of company that offers a great value.
Many experts believe that value is simply the difference between anticipated price and the price asked. In this definition, a good one, there is no difference between value and perceived value. That's a bright observation because it takes into account that perception reigns supreme.
The secret, then, is to control the anticipated price. You may not have much to say about the actual price—production and materials are somewhat out of your control. But anticipated price? That's up to you. You can raise the price anticipation with your reputation, the presentation of your offering, even with your marketing copy and graphics. If your offering is carried in expensive stores, people will expect your price to be higher. They'll also be influenced by your stationery, address, office decor, and attire.
A restaurant with soft candlelight and romantic music charges more for meals than does a harshly lit cafeteria with the sounds of dishes clacking. The cost of the food ingredients, cooking, and refrigeration is the same at both restaurants. But the perception of value is raised by lighting, music, and decor. The world's best marketing can enhance your reputation and build your credibility, but it can't do beans for your lighting and decor. When you can't either, that's when to turn to the copy and visuals of brilliant marketing. It can do wonders for your perceived value.
I once had a client that doubled its sales the first eight years it was in business. I attended a board meeting the next year when the chairman announced that the year would be devoted to no growth. No growth? I heard the sigh and the moan from the other directors.
The chairman explained that the company had been growing so rapidly that it was no longer able to accomplish twenty-four-hour turnaround and to say yes to all customer requests. He said that the rapid growth had made the company less easy to do business with and that the coming year would be devoted to changing that inability to render perfect service to customers.
It worked. The company barely grew that year. But the next year, it again doubled its sales, and the year after that, it was purchased by a Fortune 500 company for an obscene amount of money. Very few businesses would even consider disregarding growth for a year while striving for perfection in company service. Most grow to where they're too unwieldy to act like a mom-and-pop business. Most have their minds focused on growth and money rather than on service and ease of doing business.
The cost of making it easier to do business with you? There is no cost. All that's required is heightened awareness and acute sensitivity to customer needs. The business I mention didn't come to its realization because of customer complaints. The business headed those complaints off at the pass because the chairman was so tuned in to his customers and the crucial need to be easy to do business with that he didn't need suggestions from the outside. He knew in his heart that the company sometimes had to say no to customers who were used to the company's always saying yes.
Guerrillas regularly examine their business from the standpoint of customers, often asking friends, posing as potential customers, to call the company and ask for complex favors. Only when viewing their business through customers' eyes can you get the real truth about the ease of doing business with you. If there's even one impediment, make changes. Stop problems before they arise.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is all about the necessity for making repairs before repairs are needed. Robert Persig, the author, regularly maintained his motorcycle, so it never needed repairs. Moral: Your business is your motorcycle. Fix it before it breaks.
Every decade seems to be fueled by a different business concept. In the 1980s, that concept was quality. It became so endemic in business that the price of admission for doing business became quality. People took it for granted.
In the 1990s, the overriding concept was flexibility. Businesses learned to be flexible with their service, product availability, selection, and staffing. During the first decade of the 2000s, innovation seems to be the concept du jour.
But I'm concerned about those businesses that are still resting on their laurels of the 1980s and have not yet learned to provide flexibility. It's not too difficult for you to offer, and yet your customers pray that you do. Flexibility means being able to grant almost all customer requests. They can't come to your place of business when you want them to? Offer to come to them. They can't get the style they want? Offer to obtain it for them. You don't carry the brands they want? Do what you must to add those brands to your inventory. As you can see, flexibility relates to service, quality, selection, price, payment plans, and even days and hours of operation.
Just as quality is now taken for granted, flexibility is also now expected by more and more of your customers. If you don't offer it, somebody else will. And it will be a major uphill struggle to get those customers back. It's a sorry situation if you're hidebound in tradition or in the way you used to do business when your customers need something different.
One of the areas that most cries out for flexibility is service. Guerrilla companies knock themselves out giving their customers superb service, and that often requires flexibility. My daughter just purchased a new salt-water aquarium, a complex system, especially in the hands of amateurs like her.
She asked the pet store owners whether they could help us with the aquarium during the first few months. Their response, "We don't usually do that, but we'll come over once a week if you'd like." That's flexibility. And that's one of the things she mentions to everyone who compliments her on the beauty and vitality of her aquarium. Does she pay for this extra service? Of course she does. It's a nominal figure, but she doesn't mind paying it at all. Flexibility is why she'll be a patron of the store for the rest of her life.
If people sense that you're a flexible sort, they'll be more inclined to do business with you. If they sense just the opposite, they'll likely do just the opposite. Wouldn't you? Life tosses us curve balls, more than we expect. We need to be doing business with flexible companies and flexible people so we can duck out of the way of a painful encounter. Thomas Jefferson said that one of the secrets of life is the avoidance of pain. Your being flexible conveys an attitude to customers that it won't hurt to do business with you.