Comments (0)

By Sandra Holtzman, October 20, 2012 11:21 am

This past summer I had the great pleasure of being a judge for the Chase Manhattan and Living Social “Mission Small Business” contest.  During that one week, I (and other judges each) reviewed about 600 business plan concepts. (About 70,000 responded.) There were 12 winners each receiving $250K.

First, almost all the plans fell into the middle range meaning they were good solid plans but didn’t stand out in some special way.  There were a few that were just plain confusing so much so that in some cases the name of the business was never mentioned, or I was left guessing what exactly the business was/did.

The ones that stood out, however, made sure that they answered all the questions asked in the entry information.  One of the key points that separated the winners was their passion which came across into the written word.  Another was their story…storytelling is very important because it draws the reader into your world and let’s them experience it.  Also important, and part of their stories, was how they overcame or were overcoming obstacles and their strength and tenacity to keep going no matter what.  One of the requirements was how the business contributed to the betterment of their community…and by that I mean not just writing a check to the local charity but actually having a positive impact on their local community. This included  job creation, another  very important factor.  Each of the 12 winners had all of these elements.

A word of caution…no funder wants to hear that your use of proceeds will go to retiring debt.  Unfortunately, no one cares about your past…they are funding your future.

When you’re asked or tasked with submitting a business plan, make sure to include all these aspects – they will help you stand out from the pack.

For details of the plan, names of the winners, and interviews with two final judges, one of whom was a sponsor, please visit the links below.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11669958/1/chase-and-livingsocial-award-12-small-businesses-250000-grants-totalling-3m-through-the-mission-small-business-program.html

http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=389700003

Sandra Holtzman teaches CEO 035: Licensing.
She is the author of Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing.

Comments (0)

By Sandra Holtzman, October 13, 2012 9:54 am

Image provided by Shutterstock http://www.shutterstock.com

In a recent blog post by a PR firm, their primary research determined that the top three reasons a company’s PR efforts fail are:

1.       The budget was too small
2.       The client had no significant point of differentiation from their competitors
3.       The client or their contacts weren’t available or were uncooperative

I’m sure whether you’re a PR or marketing firm or a client, you’re able to identify with at least one of these situations.
Kudos for Bridge Buzz for their valuable research and articulating the problems.

Here’s what my team does to try and avoid these situations (with the caveat that PR is not foolproof and sometimes efforts fail):

1.       We warn the client upfront that there is only so much we can do for any particular budget.  If they want a particular result, and they are not budgeted for it, we state that upfront and clearly.  In some cases we have the client sign off on the statement to make sure that when the effort “fails” they understand that they contributed to their own failure.

2.       We tell the client immediately if their story is newsworthy and how newsworthy it is.  We perform our customer-focused primary research which gets all representatives of the customer stakeholders into a room at once and we find out what messages will be successful for all of them. The issues  of value proposition and competitive differentiation can be solved in the research as well.    The bottom line of customer-focused market research and marketing is that the messaging speaks to the customer in their own words which will have an immediate emotional impact on them.  I have never seen it not work.

3.       In Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing (pp 63-64) we talk about a local hospital that hired a PR firm to get press. The firm  convinced a feature editor of a large local paper to write a story that focused on this organization. The PR person told the marketing person to be on the alert for a call from the paper.  The editor called the manager repeatedly.  The manager never returned the calls.  Guess what? The PR firm had done such a good job of selling the story, that the editor ran the story anyway, only he featured the hospital’s largest competitor because that marketing person made themselves available. So here’s a perfect example of shooting yourself in the foot by paying for PR for the other company.

http://bridgebuzz.bridgeny.com/

Sandra Holtzman teaches CEO 035: Licensing.
She is the author of Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing.

Comments (0)

By Peggy & Arthur Winters, September 27, 2012 12:15 pm

by Peggy and Arthur Winters

Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been defined as a management tool that can be used to investigate the degrees of loyalty in a firm’s customers’ experiences. It serves as an additional tool to traditional customer satisfaction research. The Net Promoter Score is obtained by asking customers a single question on a 0 to 10 rating scale. “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” Based on their responses, customers are categorized into one of three groups: Promoters – extremely likely to recommend (9-10 rating), Passives – likely (7-8 rating), and Detractors – not at all likely (0-6 rating). Subtracting the proportion of detractors from the proportion of promoters and converting it to a percent gives a Net Promoter Score.

Any analysis of NPS reveals that it is being employed as a useful form of market research that can present companies with an understandable way to measure customer satisfaction without getting lost in deep data. It gets companies to think about their customers’ experiences and loyalty from the customers’ point of view. NPS and CX should serve as a matrix or model for how customers see their interactions with a brand / designer / store and/or website and how the brand should work to improve these experiences.

But answers to only one question will not reveal the whole story of WHY a customer might or might not recommend the brand. To improve one’s loyalty NPS, one must look for the root cause. These interactions include individual stages in the customer’s exploration, discovery, purchase, satisfied use and services rendered.

Additional ways to employ NPS as an indicator of customer loyalty could include:

ACE – Actual Customer Experiences and referrals – using point of sale, call center and billing data that signifies exactly what customer interactions have occurred…

SPA – Superior Perception of Attributes that are revealed through customer conversations that inquire how satisfying were their experiences with the good old 4 Ps — Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

APS – Analysis of Promoter Score through further evaluations of customer interactions asking what they did as a result of interactions with the brand (designer, product, store, website, or experience). Specifically: “Have you recommended this brand?” These evaluations are calculated to define customer perceptions, future intentions for purchasing, and importantly, recommendations and referrals.

NPS can be an effective predictor of whether, how, and when a customer might, and actually has recommended the brand to a friend, family or colleague.

Above all, NPS can also be an analysis of Customer Experiences (CX) that serves as a reference for a company’s Internal Branding. NPS can be infused as a metric for evaluating a company’s systems for creating related Customer Experiences (CX).

How would this recommendation affect “STAYSEXY™’s” NPS Net Promoter Score? Drawing by Arthur A. Winters.

Arthur & Peggy Winters co-teach SXB 200 Brand Marketing Communications for Image & Meaning and SXR 050 Intro to Branding: The Art of Customer Bonding.

Comments (0)

By Sandra Holtzman, September 22, 2012 11:30 am

Make your product and services easy to find, easy for visitors to your website to stay a while, learn about you and follow through.  That’s what a medical cosmetics physician did and it worked for him (see link below).  The bottom line is he  got specific about what his customers wanted and gave it to them.  This included adding before and after photos of people who had used his services (this is equivalent to a demonstration of your product/services – one of the best way to get a customer). He also put a “Call to action” (what you want the customer to do for next steps) up front and center (ok to the right hand side of the home page but you catch my drift). And response improved.  He decided not to use a form because that would slow down and discourage follow-through.  While this worked for this particular physician and his customer population, another  physician who specializes in the treatment of pain did exactly the opposite.  He had a long form on his website in order to weed out patients who didn’t live in the immediate area (thousands of people have pain and he would have had to hire additional full time help just to deal with the inquires coming from his website), who had the kind of insurance he takes, and who had the kind of pain he could treat.

Image provided by Shutterstock http://www.shutterstock.com

The bottom line is you have to customize your messaging in whatever format you deliver it, to your customer’s habits and wishes. This means you have to reach out to your customer base and find out how they want to be “told and sold”. What’s the single or couple of most important messages that they need to hear in order to move them from a visitor to your website?  Then give it to them.

If you’re in retail like dungarees.net (see link below) then you might want to solicit customer reviews.   Find the issue that, when solved, will not only keep customers on your site (or reading your materials) longer,  but also convert them from a visitor to a customer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/business/smallbusiness/three-keys-to-converting-web-visitors-into-buyers.html?smid=pl-share

Sandra Holtzman teaches CEO 035: Licensing.
She is the author of Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing.

Comments (2)

By donald_mcmichael, September 8, 2012 1:13 pm

photo credit: kaje_yomama via photo pin cc

We don’t want to, but it’s often irresistible.

What is it? Looking around and seeing scores of possible new opportunities to boost our business.

We look at virgin (well at least to us) terrain through rose colored glasses and think wouldn’t it be great. We need to…

…tweak our product so it can help a new demographic
…get Company X to make us a business partner, then the sky would be the limit
…go national – no international

If even half is true, why do so few execute on perceived opportunities?

Breaking into a market is difficult.
Expanding can be an attractive and lucrative proposition. It is, however, also a pivotal point in any business’ life because it requires doubling down on the bet that it is the preferred solution. This increase in risk causes our subconscious, and correctly so, to trigger a mental circuit breaker. You’ll recognize the statements for they usually contain “but if” or its close cousin “but what if”.

But if:

• We move by ourselves, it will take years.
• We have a hiccup, will we have enough cash to safely sustain what’s already built?
• I’ve never done this before, how will I know what’s right?

Let’s all thank our subconscious. With so much at risk it is important that we take the time to understand how we are going to avoid jeopardizing current success.

This isn’t a how-to list.
There are tons of books, articles, and blog posts that rundown the different expansion techniques and explain which ones are suited for particular types of businesses. What I want to armor you with are the strategic actions that will help carry you to victory, or keep you from entering into a losing situation.

A simple, yet powerful formula.

• Do your homework. Make sure you first build the infrastructure and resources to adequately support the move. Many try to rely on outside service providers to do virtually all the heavy lifting. Although it is quick and easy to implement, it often leads to its own set of problems; escalating costs, delays, and poor service delivery. Don’t double down on your risk by doing this.

• Timing is everything. Make sure you’re operating at or above industry performance levels for your size business. Proving that you can consistently operate at those levels for several consecutive quarters provides you with managerial confidence and more importantly, the financial heft to work through the challenges expansion will inevitably throw your way.

• Seek out guideposts. First, you can read articles like this (yes, a shameless plug). More importantly, take a look around and find a role model. Someone who has encountered this very challenge and reach out to them. You’ll be surprised how open they are to talking about their great accomplishments and brilliant insights.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine

If you currently can’t meet the above, there’s no shame in waiting. Expansion requires understanding and managing a whole new set of challenges – in essence, a very different business. Being a great business development professional means that you know when to pullback and wait for the right signals.

Donald McMichacel teaches BE 261 – Starting a Small Business.
Follow him on Twitter at @DonaldMcMichael or Google+ at +Donald McMichael

Comments (1)

By Peggy & Arthur Winters, August 30, 2012 10:47 am

Drawing by Arthur Winters

For today’s fashion marketing, original visual content is vital.  The marketing communications strategy is how to make it effective. We’re still seeing some fashion brands using old-style fashion model poses in their visualizations of their new styles or products. But, we appreciate and recommend fashion brands that are creating better visual stories, which provide customers with answers and suggestions. These brands tell a visual story of what they can do for the customer, not just what items they make that only create awareness by projecting their brand image.

Visual Content — yes …

Visual — but NO story …

Fashion marketing needs better communications that connect with the customer’s branding of self. Marketers could now look at their products for visual content and the story that generates its facility for self-styling. And in this multi-media, social media world, visualization in all its forms is pre-eminent.

“Power to the She” –self-styling visual and verbal story

A significant brand mark for fashion marketers is to see visual content that covers all aspects of customer/consumer experience. For example, a fashion firm might even introduce their customers to a fly-on-the-wall look at their design team at work. There is no doubt that fashion may be a most visual product that offers ever-flowing fountains of ideas for visual content – and desire, especially with the use of social media and web sites.

Fashion brand positioning can be more inspiring by showing the customer real life style and life-stage happenings instead of static, mannequin-posed model photos with their logo.

Starbucks visualizes it is the customer’s lifestyle…

Those brand managers who have a sense of the visual in communications may be the new Rembrands of fashion marketing!

What’s your story?

.

Arthur & Peggy Winters co-teach SXB 200 Brand Marketing Communications for Image & Meaning and SXR 050 Intro to Branding: The Art of Customer Bonding.

.

Comments (0)

By Peggy & Arthur Winters, June 28, 2012 3:35 pm

Segmented Marketing has been rapidly replacing, or at least collaborating as part of,what we have known as Mass Marketing. So why would any brand, U.S. or “other world,” not customize their communications about their product, service or experience? With a rising local diversity in our domestic market, and an increasing mix of different global cultures throughout the world, a brand needs to continue to create strategies and communications for glocal brand marketing.

Some brands are trying multicultural marketing that attempts to create communications for more than one market segment. The brands that seem to do the job best do forms of Integrated Marketing that go beyond running traditional ads, doing outdoor advertising or going on-line. They are developing innovative Consumer-Centric Promotions (CCP) and Customer Experiences (CX). And they are considering cross-over life-style psychographics to identify “cross-across” target markets.

Today’s Brand Management has to recognize that cross-over segmented markets require more glocal strategies and multicultural communications than ever before.

One to watch is what a retail giant like The GAP is doing. GAP Inc. has products available to customers in over 90 countries worldwide. Their global expansion formula is to enter a country with brand-building flagship stores, after which outlets and smaller franchise stores can be added beyond the main cities, in addition to building an online web presence for each country/region/language and offering international shipping.  This plan goes on even with the news that they will be closing a number of stores in NYC, the USA and Canada.

In the Gap Inc.’s case, they are promoting their image of Americana and it’s fun, family, fashion and value appeals across the globe. They integrate or “glocalize” their promotions with the local customers as seen on their international web pages:
www.gap.cn   www.gap.eu

https://m.gap.co.jp

• 12.06.07

GAPドレーピーなネックがアクセント！ネオンカラーTを、マキシ丈スカートに合わせて、今年顔のデートスタイルに♪

コンサバになりがちなデートスタイルも、今年トレンドは忘れたくない！今年マストのジャージー素材のカジュアルなマキシ丈スカートも、ドレーピーなネックが美しいネオンカラーのＴシャツでコンパクトなトップを作って目線を上に。縦長シルエットの好感度スタイルの完成です♪
（撮影：フラッグシップ銀座）
ポケットT
（Color:Lime/¥2,900/ID:160866）
マキシ丈スカート
（Color:Navy Stripe/¥6,900/ID:160758）
キャミソール
（Color:Red/¥1,900/ID:495955）

• 12.06.07

Gapお得意のサーフグラフィックのTシャツは、POPなカラーパンツをチョイスして今年流に♪

夏のアメカジの王道スタイルと言えば、サーフ。西海岸がオリジンのGapなら、サーフのグラフィックTシャツもお手の物。さらに、トレンドのカラーショーツを取り入れることで、今年顔にアップデート！
（撮影：フラッグシップ銀座）
グラフィックT
（Color:Lemon/¥3,900/ID:164336）
クルーネックT
（Color:Grape Vine/¥3,900/ID:164289）
デニムシャツ
（Color:White/¥7,900/ID:164399）
ショーツ
（Color:Red/¥6,900/ID:164439

The Gap is approaching each segmented market with its brand story and brand image, while welcoming each target market in their own language and giving them the opportunity to adapt this American brand in their own “glocal” way.  In today’s global economy world, we need to develop our own global perspectives as we choose which ideas or products to include in our company brands and our personal customer lifestyles.

Arthur & Peggy Winters co-teach SXB 200 Brand Marketing Communications for Image & Meaning and SXR 050 Intro to Branding: The Art of Customer Bonding.

Comments (1)

By Paige Smith, June 28, 2012 1:09 pm

Here are a few photos from this years Certificate Ceremony.
To view the rest, visit our Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/FITHotTopics

Congrats Everyone!!