I’ve often had experiences dealing with businesses that were very negative. One time the experience is good, and the next time bad. Why?

I use the phrase, “Repetition is Reputation.” When you are consistent, you build the trust of individuals.

Influence and branding are built on consistency. People like knowing what to expect. You can wow them or over-deliver, but do it consistently.

Make it easy for potential customers to understand who you are and what you do, and they will be more likely to say “YES” when you approach them.

Have any of you had the experience of dealing with someone who wasn’t consistent? Share it with us.

Technorati Tags: Branding, influence, reputation

A few weeks ago, I had a very bad customer service experience.  I’ve known the owner of this restaurant since he was a kid helping his parents in their Deli.  Six weeks ago he opened his restaurant.  I’ve been there nine (9 ) times already with at least 6 people in our party.  

I’ve also recommended his restaurant to at least 100 other individuals.  In fact, when I spoke in front of an audience of 250 local business individuals, I mentioned how great the food was at this restaurant and that the audience should try it.

I’m usually the first of our party to arrive and normally I get a table and wait for the others to arrive.  This time I was told that their new policy “was to not seat anyone until all of the party arrives.” When I asked to speak to Antonio (name changed for privacy), the owner, I was told he was too busy in the kitchen. She said this without even checking to see if indeed he was busy in the kitchen.

When the others arrived 10 minutes later, I went to the hostess and said we were all here, and her response was, “Since the others were late they had to give our table away to someone else, and we’ll have to wait until another table opens up.”

Is this a way to Get Customers to Call, Buy and Beg for More?  Of course not!  But if the owner doesn’t inspect what he expects, his business will go downhill very quickly.  He is in an area where people vacation in the summer and is currently booked solid.  But after the vacation season, he will wish he had his constant patrons.

He is focused on efficiency instead of customer retention; on the quick buck without brand building for the long-term; on delegating without customer service in mind.

I expect him to be out of business within 1 year if he continues to operate his restaurant in this way.

Tell me what you think.

Technorati Tags: brand building, Customer Retention, customer service, local business, marketing brand, restaurant

I’m often asked the question, “How do I build my Brand?”  My response often is, “What are you Building?” This really takes some thought.

You want your customers to remember the essence of your company, not just the image you give with your public face.  For example the brand Coca Cola has a definite public image, but I often ask myself what is its essence. 

Essence, I find, must come from inside a company.  This oftentimes is expressed in your business and its core purpose.

You are building your brand on a daily basis whenever you interact with a customer, prospect, or in your networking.

When someone asks you, “What business are you in?” what do you say? Do you say “real estate”, the “insurance business”, or “I’m in retail sales?”

To illustrate, let me go over these three.  Massage these to fit your business.

Real Estate:  “I’m in the business of helping individuals build (find) their dream homes with creative financing.”

Insurance:  “I’m in the business of protecting people’s life styles…for them and their family.  I’m a Dream Doctor…I also protect their dreams.”

Retail Sales:  “I create gourmet gift baskets that make people memorable when they give them.”

I can go on and on.

What business are you in?

Don’t define your purpose only by the products or services you offer.  Rather, consider defining your company’s purpose in terms of what customer needs and benefits you provide. Answer the question, “What benefits does the customer receive from what you have to offer?  Remember, a customer is always asking themselves, “What’s in it for me?”

When Western Union was founded, it was a telegraph company.  I remember seeing the old ads where they showed miles and miles of poles with lines hanging from one to the other. Why are they thriving as a business today, without telegrams?  Because, around 1980 or so, it started understanding itself as a “Money transfer” service.

Creating your brand may sound easy.  It isn’t.  It takes an awful lot of concentrated and continued effort.  But done right, it’s worth it.

Technorati Tags: brand, brand building, building your brand

I recently spoke at a friend’s seminar in Los Angeles, and while I was having coffee in the hallway during the break, someone asked me if I would tell him what I thought the most powerful marketing strategy was.

I told him that it didn’t have anything to do with referrals, advertising, or any of the other methods used to create a customer.

Before any of those methods will ever have an impact on your business, you have got to uncover and communicate a way in which your business is different from every other business that says they do what you do. You have got to create a simple idea or position in the mind of your prospective customer or client.

You must create an environment where your prospective customer or client will think of you immediately when they need what you have to offer.

Fed Ex with its “Overnight” theme, and Domino’s Pizza with its “Delivered In 30 Minutes Or It’s Free” promise, are a couple examples.

Another example is how I am offering those of you who do business-to-business selling to put your own title page on my “10 Marketing Mistakes That Steal Your Cash” book and gift it to your B2B customers…free of charge to you.  I also allow you to use this newsletter to help you grow your business; you can use it in your newsletter, on your website, or any way that will help you grow. Just let me know when you do so. 

When you offer additional benefits like these to your B2B customers, you now become not only the person who provides your product, but also someone who wants to help them grow their business and get more customers.  See the difference?

Here are a few more examples:

Whatever business you are in, you can make arrangements with a car wash to detail your customer’s vehicle whenever they visit you.  If you’re an accountant, while you are preparing their return, you can have their vehicle cleaned.  I bet when they leave, they will rave to their friends about this unique touch.

How about becoming dominant with your offer?  I know of an accounting firm that offers their clients a 100% refund on their preparation fee when they refer four new clients.  They are known as the 100% refund guys.

Here’s the last one.  Solve a problem.  Is there something that customers or prospects fear in your market or seem to believe is universal for what you do?  If so, create a system of communicating how you have the answers. For instance: “Painless Dentistry”.

I’m sure you can offer a guarantee that no one in your industry would dream of doing. When I had my insurance company, the department of Insurance said that our customers had a free 30-day look.  They could ask for a refund if they didn’t want the product.

I turned that into a guarantee.  “If within the next 30 days you feel our product doesn’t meet your expectations, just return it and we will refund the money you gave us.”

I don’t know why a guarantee scares most business owners.  You probably guarantee your work anyway.  You just don’t say so. Boldly announce that you guarantee results and watch what happens.

Put your creative head gear on and I bet you will come up with a few ways to dominate your market and become the “one” to buy from.

The last step is to communicate your difference in all your promotions and marketing tools, literally shouting about that difference.

Technorati Tags: dominate your market, dominate your niche

Are your Employees your Ambassadors?

I recently read an article where Herb Kelleher, the individual who made Southwest Airlines famous, said the following. 

“Southwest’s communication, its message, is its people.”

That means that they have trained their employees to be the Ambassadors of their company.  If you have flown on Southwest, you know what I mean.  Whenever I have flown with them, it was a pleasure. 

Southwest has over 25,000 employees spreading the word as Ambassadors and you could even call them missionaries, because they have converted many an airline passenger to their cause.

Here is a question for you.  “Are your employees your missionaries?”

Here are some guidelines for turning your employees into ambassadors/missionaries:

1. Train them, constantly, to keep their dedication, skills, and enthusiasm at the highest levels.
2. Select only those who you feel will be excited enough to represent your company on the highest level.
3. Keep only those who display their zeal when talking to a customer or potential customer.
4. Reward them well.  They are the individuals who are bringing profit into your company, so share the wealth.

This is a good place to start. If you need more detailed help in doing this, see Step 3 in my book “Up The Loyalty Ladder”, and Chapter 3 in my book, “How To Get Customers To Call, Buy & Beg For More.”

Technorati Tags: business promotion, herb kelleher, promoting your business, southwest airlines

Question: How do I start blogging, make my message unique, and attract all the clients I want?

Blogging is the tool of today for serious marketers, writers, and others who need to communicate information to a selected audience.

Blogging is typically used as a public journal, similarly to a diary.  But it is also used as I’m using it…to provide specific help to subscribers of my blog.  By comparison, you can say that my newsletter provides general help, whereas my blog is used to give more specific help.

One of the great things about a blog is that it can serve for two-way communication when subscribers leave comments about the posts left by the blog post author.

You don’t have to do written blogs.  You can also do video blogs and podcasts (the equivalent of audio blogs).

But before you start your blogging adventures, you need to decide what’s the best way to use your blog to accomplish your goal of “making your message unique and attracting all the clients you want”.

And of course, before you can start that process, you have to get clear about what the unique message is that you want to spread.  See my blog post of 5/31/08 about creating a unique selling proposition.

Once you know what your unique selling proposition is, you are then ready to decide the best tone and tact to use with your blog.

An example is my blog.  I want to help my subscribers grow their businesses as quickly and as large as possible.  So I decided to create this blog that answers your specific questions to help you do that.

So decide what’s most important to your customers and prospects and build your blog around that.

Blogging Programs

There are two basic categories of blogging software: the type you download and install on your own web server, and the type that you use online in a parent website. The easiest type to use when you’re learning is the second type, and a perfect example of this is Blogger.com, where you open an account, fill in some blanks, and have a blog up and running in just minutes. Other blog software offering this service include LiveJournal, Facebook, MySpace, Open Diary, Windows Live Spaces, Xanga, TypePad, and WordPress.com. Blogger is the dominant dedicated-blogging site in this category.

If you’re ready to download and put blogging software on your own server – a difficult task if you are not experienced with blogging software – you can use WordPress, Drupal, Livejournal, Moveable Type, SimplePHPBlog, and Typo. Of these, WordPress is probably the most dominant, with thousands of themes available for free download and installation. I use WordPress for my site.

The easiest way to install the WordPress software is to have a skilled freelancer do it for you.  Depending on the features you want, you can have it installed for as little as $150.  Some freelancers will install the program for you, submit your site to the blog search engines, and even make posts for you on a regular basis.  All you do is provide the content and they’ll post it for you, so you don’t even have to fiddle with the program.  Needless to say, the cost starts going up, the more services you add. 

How They Work

Blogging software all works in basically the same way: you post articles and entries, which your community is able to comment on if you allow it. You have widgets down the side that allow for other features like the weather, a list of blogs that the author commonly references or links to (blogroll), information about you, archives, documents, categories of blog posts on the site, and advertisements, etc.

One of the things to consider is whether or not you want to run advertisements on your blog. Some of the pre-hosted blogs will have ads run on them whether you want them or not, and you won’t get any of the revenue. Blogger.com allows you to choose whether or not to run advertisements. With WordPress you can do whatever you like with your hosted version of the software.

The most popular web-based blogging software appears to be Blogger.com; the most popular server-based blogging software is WordPress.

Building Your Blog

Once you have your blog “shell” (template) up and running, you’re ready to create a blog. Make your entries useful and/or interesting at the very least.  If you can make them entertaining, that’s even better.

Write an article for your blog regularly, at least once a week. If you’re publishing regularly, you are clearly a live blog, and Google will give you a boost in rankings. In addition, this has a variety of effects.

First, other bloggers who like your content will link to you, giving you valuable inbound links that will increase your Google ranking. Second, more readers will subscribe to you, giving you a reputation as a reliable expert in your field. It’s that expert status that you’re looking for. With this, you will be able to develop real online relationships with your audience, who are also your likely future customers. Keep your blog focused on its topic and on the relationships that form between you and the readers, and you will have done precisely what needs to be done with a blog.

Your tools for ranking high do not end with inbound links. You should also learn a little about using keywords, so you can optimize your blogs for the search engines as well as for people.

It’s also wise to start learning how social bookmarking sites works. Services like Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, and more specialized sites like Slashdot, allow you to post links and short descriptions of your entries and articles, giving you valuable one-way links and guiding more interested traffic to your blog.  Of course, this takes additional time, so you might want to have a freelancer make those posts for you.

As you can see, there is much to this for the purposes you have in mind.  So this is only an overview. There are literally hundreds of strategies you can use when blogging to attract more clients and brand yourself.  The best thing is to start, learn, and add strategies as you go, one step at a time.

Technorati Tags: attract clients, attract customers, blog primer, blogger.com, blogging, wordpress

Question: I have been struggling for a while to come up with a USP, and my concerns are growth, retention and branding of who we are.

OK, the three important points to keep in mind as you develop a USP are…

1. Formulate your USP from your prospects’ or clients’ point of view. Your USP can’t be something only you think is so wonderful that people would be interested. It should be something the prospects or clients want.

2. Whatever USP you come up with, deliver on its promise or promises. Do not state something you can’t fulfill.

3. Define your USP in one or two short paragraphs (ideally less than 100 words) that clearly spell out the benefits – not features – your customers will get from your product or from doing business with you.

Let’s talk about point #3 in detail.

Your USP should clearly state the benefits and not the features of your product.

There’s a big difference between benefits and features.

Features are product characteristics, such as the car has a 450 horse-power engine, seats are genuine leather, and so on.

Benefits are the financial rewards, such as saving time or money, or both. Or they can be emotional rewards like protection, peace of mind, and the security which the customers get from an insurance policy.

Benefits answer the customer’s most important question, “What’s in it for me?”

Let’s go with the feature above. The car has a 450 horse-power engine, seats are genuine leather, and so on.

The benefits are: Heads will turn when you drive by, and the girls will rush to take a ride in your new (whatever make).

If any of you reading this blog are in the insurance business, here are some USP’s I created.

For example: Let’s take the features A-rated carrier and comprehensive coverage.

The benefit of the A-rated carrier is: The insurance company has strong financial strength and stability to pay all the claims.

The benefit of comprehensive coverage is: Complete protection for you and your family.

The names of insurance policies are usually features. For instance: Decreasing term, mortgage life insurance and keyperson insurance.

The benefit of a decreasing term-mortgage life insurance policy is: You’ll have the money to pay off the house if the wage-earner dies.

The benefit of a keyperson insurance policy is: You’ll have the money to keep your business going in case your key employee dies.

As you can see, although product features are usually easy to identify and describe, product benefits can be trickier because they’re often intangible.

The benefits of an insurance policy usually are: (1) financial rewards like saving money and time, and (2) emotional rewards like protection, peace of mind, and security.

While it’s fine to talk to your prospects about the features of a policy, remember to always tell them what benefits they’ll get from the features.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What advantages do you offer your prospects and clients?
• Do you offer them the best policies?
• Do you give them the largest selection?
• Do you provide them with more service, advice, and follow-up than all your competitors?
• Do you offer them the fastest service?
• Are you open evenings and weekends, seven days a week, to better serve your clients?
• Can clients reach you after business hours?
• Do you educate your clients with special reports, newsletters, brochures, information hotlines, or other services to help them improve various aspects of their lives?
• Do you offer a guarantee?

Listen, even though you’ll need time to think about these questions carefully, answering them will allow you to create a compelling USP that’ll knock your prospects’ and customers’ socks off.

Another suggestion I would give you is to take advantage of gifting my book, “10 Marketing Mistakes That Steal Your Cash,” to all of the business people in your town. Then call on them and show them how you can benefit them. If you missed this FREE offer I made in a previous blog post, you can go to www.kenvarga.com/report.php to learn more about how you can use the book to differentiate yourself from your competition and grow your business.

Regarding “Retention”, I gave suggestions in prior blog posts. Review the posts I made on May 23, 2008 and on May 28, 2008. One post is titled “Customer Retention”; the other is titled “How To Create Lifelong Customers”.

As far as branding is concerned, remember that what people think of you and your brand is everything. Don’t ever think that because you are not Coke or Nike that you don’t have a brand. You ARE a brand.

Your brand is not your advertising, your logo, or your product.

Your brand is owned by your customers, the people you work with, and anyone else who has an impression of you. Your brand is other people’s perception of what it is like to do business with you or work with you.

You transfer a customer four times to different departments and they never get their problem solved. That’s your brand.

You put a telephone customer on hold for over a minute. That’s your brand.

A repeat customer for many years comes into your place of business and no one greets them by name. That’s your brand.

I can go on and on.

It takes an on-going commitment on your part, to take your personal brand to the highest level. Brand becomes the way you do everything, almost without thinking.

Remember, it is all about keeping promises and creating great experiences.

Technorati Tags: Branding, Unique Selling Proposition, USP