Category Archives: Helpful Hints

April 26, 2016 · 9:41 am

Getting To Know You

One of the most basic things we should do in business is to identify the group of people that is most likely to buy our product or service.  That’s not a profound insight, I know, but because it is a “duh” moment, I wonder why more business people don’t really do it?  How you define your audience is something that influences everything from marketing to product.  Understanding how those customers and potential customers interact with your business is incredibly basic and yet it often goes undone.

One reason I hear for that, particularly among earlier stage businesses, is that it’s expensive.  Putting aside what I’m about to tell you, it’s critical no matter the cost.  While we may have self-driving cars, there are no self-operating businesses of which I’m aware.  However, the cost isn’t really an issue.  There is a lot of free infomration available from the government. Maybe you thought all the Census Bureau did was count us all once a decade – check out their free stuff and I’ll bet you’re surprised.  Do you have analytics on your website?  Google Analytics is free, at least until you become a high-traffic site (and you won’t mind paying at that point).  Finally, if you’re a physical location, you can ask people to fill out surveys about basic demography.  Heck, you can have an employee jot down who they see.  Online questionnaires are easy to implement and also are free.

My point is this.  I rail from time to time in this space about the overwhelming amounts of data we confront these days.  It’s often hard to make sense of it and we often get conflicting information.  That, however, is a far better outcome than having NO data.  Getting to know our customers and their behavior, likes, media habits, who they are, where they are, and why they buy from us is an important part of business.  It’s not optional!

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April 13, 2016 · 9:10 am

2, Not 250

I was listening to one of the many podcasts to which I subscribe yesterday. The speaker was rambling on about the subject of content generation and he said something that made me rewind the podcast so I could be sure I heard him correctly. He was opining that the only reason that companies are spending money on content creation today is to generate data.

His statement made some sense. After all, brands today don’t think of themselves as sponsors of other people’s content. They’ve been sold on the idea that they need to have their own content creation hubs which can populate multiple channels such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. I encourage that in some ways with my clients since who knows the brand better than the brands themselves?  Who better to speak in the brand’s voice? Who ought to know the customer and the customer’s interests and to reflect those perspectives in their content? But in retrospect, I couldn’t disagree more and here is why.

I might be way naive about this, but I think audiences want to be educated and entertained. I don’t think they want to be tricked into being tracked and giving us data. I think when they are offered a list, that list ought not to be on 25 pages so as to squeeze out every last page view and ad exposure. I think they want to feel emotions – awe, wonder, joy, excitement, rage – and not just kill time. When I read articles about how I can create titles (People love lists! People love “epic”!) to lure people to my blog, I get sad.  I understand that many people are intellectually lazy.  I get that there is a reason for the use of TL;DR as a standard retort on the web but maybe that’s a commentary of what passes for most content these days rather than on the specific content.  People have become overwhelmed by crap and they’re weaning themselves off that crapacious diet by minimizing consumption.

I don’t think greatness is anything is measured by the volume of consumption or traffic numbers.  Thre are still fewer iPhones in the world than Android.  There are still fewer meals served at Per Se than at McDonald’s.  If we all do our best not to post 250 times a day but to post 2 great, enlightening things – however long that enlightenment takes – maybe we can stop the downward spiral of attention spans and intellectual curiosity.  If “stupid is as stupid does”, how about we upgrade what we do?

 

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April 8, 2016 · 9:42 am

Waste Not

Foodie Friday, and the topic this week is a better bottom line. I went out for breakfast this morning. As I ordered, the server asked me if cinnamon toast was OK. I replied that I didn’t care for any toast at all, thanks. When my breakfast showed up a few minutes later, the toast was parked right on the plate along with some apple butter. I’m sure it would have been delicious but it went uneaten.

Toast, toasted

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The obvious business point is that food – and therefore margin – was wasted. No business can afford to throw resources away. There are some less obvious points as well. I looked at the check – there was no notation on it to hold the toast, so clearly the blame lies with the server and not with the kitchen. Was the server paying attention? What if the customer had expressed a concern about a food allergy and that concern wasn’t passed along to the kitchen?  While my server was quite attentive, refilling the coffee as it disappeared and providing milk as requested instead of the prepackaged cream, she didn’t handle the single most important part of her job – getting the order right.

I don’t mean to blow what is a relatively minor error into an indictment of this server.  I do want to use it as an example of how minor errors can have an impact on the bottom line if they persist.  Wasted resources, inattentive sales reps, and unhappy customers are the kiss of death in any business.  Who knows how many other orders of toast or grits or potatoes went out of the kitchen, only to come back untouched and tossed.  How often does something similar happen in your business?

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