I caught this piece called Evolution of the Household from Womansday.com, with thanks to several people in Twitter, and Digg before that, who caught it first.
I posted it here because of the food for thought elements.
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February 2009
Please join me this coming Monday afternoon, February 9, on Build Your Business Radio with Barbara Weltman. Her show starts at 1 PM PST, 4 PM EST, and I’ll be joining her for the second half of the show, around 1:25 pm Pacific Time or so.
You can listen live at that time at http://www.wsradio.com/internet-talk-radio.cfm/shows/Build-Your-Business-Radio.html.
That’s this coming Monday, February 9.
Tim Berry
President and Founder
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Please join me this coming Monday afternoon, February 9, on Build Your Business Radio with Barbara Weltman. Her show starts at 1 pm PST, 4 pm EST, and I’ll be joining her for the second half of the show, around 1:25 pm Pacific Time or so.
You can listen live at that time at http://www.wsradio.com/internet-talk-radio.cfm/shows/Build-Your-Business-Radio.html.
That’s this coming Monday, February 9.
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This month’s ADP Employment Report was bad again, 175,000 small business jobs lost. Not as bad as last month, but still bad.
I had a good talk with Joel Prakken, of Macroeconomic Advisors, which produces the monthly survey for ADP, the large payroll processor. He pointed out, correctly, that he’s just working with what information is available — economics is educated guessing at best — but he didn’t sound very optimistic about quick recovery.
I asked him specifically about the phenomenon of large layoffs generating a rise in new businesses. That’s been true in past recessions, but, Joel said, it’s not clear yet whether that’s happening this time.
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Palo Alto Software is proud to welcome Elizabeth Walker and Ken Burgin as guest authors from the Duct Tape Marketing Coaching network.
We usually have our weekly planning meetings in one of the coffee shops in town—for one thing, there’s better coffee—and we can usually find a couple of other business owners to chat with.
The “R” word is coming up a lot, of course. How bad will it be? What should we do? How worried are you? Maybe surprisingly, in those coffee shop gabfests, we’ve heard some fabulous ideas and success stories along with the questions and worried looks.
Recessions are not new. Statistics show that businesses that continue promoting through recessionary times come out stronger than ever when the hard times are over.
The First Step: Take care of your Ideal Customers and they’ll take care of you.
Ideal Customers really trust you, value the experience they have doing business with you and look to your expertise to give them what they want. They buy a lot of your product, pay quickly and never give you a headache. They pay more, and they expect to!
They are the lifeblood of your business, and right now they are being wooed by every one of your competitors with special offers, lower prices and extravagant promises.
If you do nothing else this week do this: write to each of the Ideal Customers who provide most of your profit to tell them how much you appreciate their business. Reassure them that you are committed to maintaining the high level of service they are accustomed to. Ask for a personal meeting with you or your sales team to discuss their needs. Remember, they are hurting too—be prepared to offer them something of value that will help them keep their Ideal Customers.
And know that in times like these, you have to go the extra mile to maintain these valuable relationships.
But don’t stop there. Ask your Ideal Customers what publications they read, what TV shows they like, what kind of music they prefer, and perhaps even what kind of leisure activities they enjoy. Look for the commonalities among the answers and you’ll get an idea of the places where your advertising will work best because it’s reaching the right people.
If you really want to be successful, you simply must strengthen the loyalty of your Ideal Customers and find more customers just like them.
Here is what we would like to hear you say every time you are about to start a new task in your business: “Will this help me keep my Ideal Customers?”
If the answer is no—don’t do it!
Elizabeth Walker (thinking and words) and Ken Burgin (creative genius) are the Marketing Masters. They are both Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coaches. Liz leads seminars in business strategy and communications at the Schulich Executive Education Centre, York University. We are thrilled to be working with small businesses and entrepreneurs everyday, and derive considerable joy helping them build busy businesses.
web: http://www.marketing,masters.ca
blog: http://thebuzzwithkenandliz.blogspot.com/
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Here’s a round-up of blog posts from the past week that you might have missed.
Interview of Sabrina Parsons — Web Analytics World interview with Palo Alto Software CEO about Email Center Pro
Those Super Bowl Commercials — Tim Berry shares some thoughts about the advertising during the big game
Business Plan Pro tip: Calculation Rounding — How to prevent rounding from affecting your printed plan
A Word From the Man in the Middle. Building a Culture for Success — Guest blogger Tim Nagle talks about empowering your employees to make good choices.
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Last night I drifted back to my Mac at about 9 PM. I’d installed the new iLife for 09 on my Mac earlier, after dinner. I started fooling around with iPhoto. By the time I pulled myself away it was the next day. I clicked to my Twitter account and wrote:
oh no I just spent 3 hours doing maps and faces in the new iPhoto … I had so many better things to do, but it’s spellbinding. Damn!
And immediately after, I added — because it’s also true:
and also the new iPhoto mapping led me to download the new Google Earth, also spellbinding … don’t start if you have other things to do.
Which is a good reminder to me of why I like this business; software, and technology marching on. The face recognition feature on iPhoto probably isn’t game changing — reviewers are generally not impressed — but for me it’s really cool. Or, as I said in the tweet, spellbinding. And the mapping feature is a terrific addition. And Google Earth’s new version 5.0 is just plain amazing technology. I could spend hours, days, weeks with it. Especially the combination, posting my 50 years of photos onto the map.
It’s also interesting how technology develops. I was dabbling with tying photos to maps and looking at face recognition three years ago as my son and his wife developed amiglia.com, a photo site. As time goes on, the technology gets better, and the bigger players adopt it.
And other businesses develop in their wake. Google Earth and Google Maps have generated thousands of new applications. Easy photo management, photo mapping, and easy application of face recognition will also create new opportunities.
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In the second installment of Palo Alto Software’s “Back to the Fundamentals” webinar series, we welcome John Jantsch as he presents “Simple Marketing Tactics that Pay off Big in a Slumping Market“.
John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system and has been called the world’s most practical small business expert for consistently delivering real-world, proven small business marketing ideas and strategies.
John will bring his extensive knowledge and know-how to this new webinar, exclusively for Palo Alto Software.
Learn how to:
* attract all the clients your small business can handle
* work only with clients who value what you have to offer
* significantly increase what you charge for your services
February 11, 2009 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time
Back to the Fundamentals
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Surprising nobody, but worth noting. Angels Flee From Tech Start-Ups in Yesterday’s NYTimes.com.
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Some call it spin. Does it work over the long term?
- Call it a free trial but take credit cards and start charging people two weeks later if they don’t remember to cancel first.
- Give away your accounting software for free because free customers have switching costs and need upgrades. Call it a donation for small business.
- Call your consulting company an institute. Hey, maybe you can actually make it a nonprofit company and still pay yourself a good living. Institute sounds so much more reassuring.
- Bug people to renew their virus checker six weeks before it expires, then start their annual subscription the day they renew. That’s cool: sell a 12-month subscription every 10 or 11 months.
- Pad your endorsements. After all, who can check?
I like to think that kind of behavior doesn’t pay off over the long term. It increases the business friction. It increases the chance of angry customers. It’s like the opposite of insurance. Is this good business? Do you think it works?
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