Apr
13
Strategy
Former GE CEO Jack Welch once said, We have only two sources of competitive advantage:
How can you put this powerful insight into practice to win, and grow your small business?
Mar
28
Two recent papers from wharton universia found that geography continues to have an impact on efforts to market through the Internet in ways that could help online merchants target new customers. Specifically, the papers examine the effect of economic geography on Internet retailers trying to reach potential buyers of specialty products who live in an area where their purchasing decisions make them a minority.
The first paper, “Traditional and IS-enabled Customer Acquisition for an Internet Retailer: Why New Buyer Acquisition Varies by Geography and by Method,” by Bell, Wharton marketing professor Leonard Lodish and Jeonghye Choi, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul, compares traditional methods of reaching customers with Internet-enabled techniques.
A second paper written by Choi and Bell titled, “Preference Minorities and the Internet: Why Online Demand Is Greater in Areas where Target Consumers Are in the Minority,” also studies Internet retailing in the context of the physical world.
You can reach the studies full review here: http://www.wharton.universia.net/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1862&language=english
Jun
28
If you want Customer to listen to you, you need to talk to their high level needs. Every time you’ll use the following 3 phrases in conversation with your customers, you’ll see their eyes lit up, their ears wide opened, and their heart chest beating.
Here are the top 3 things customers love to hear:
If you’ve created a product or service that addresses clearly at least one this high level customers needs, your success is guaranteed if you can deliver on the promise. For example, Price is the first motive of Word mouth referral in consumers goods.
If you’ve created a product or service that addresses all these 3 three high level needs, you’ll become a magnet to customers. They will come to you in droves, and the word about your service will spread like wildfire. Could you combine these 3 promises in a one product?
If you are entrepreneur, focus your marketing on these 3 high level needs, repeat these phrases endlessly in your advertising, and consistently improve or create products that deliver on these promises.
Jun
5
“What you Say? Send My Customers to Other Businesses for Free as a way to Build Loyalty and grow my business!?”
It sounds like complete folly.
Why would I send my customers away?
It’s very unconventional, but terribly powerful.
And, It’s in this way that Linkcrafter is transforming the marketing landscape, changing the lives of small business owners, freeing millions of entrepreneurs from marketing stress and uncertainty.
Here we go, Instead of giving Planners, calendars, T-shirts, Mugs, coupons, or other material or monetary gifts to customers to build relationship, what in most cases fail to build loyalty, Linkcrafter helps you send your customers safely and securely to other businesses as a powerful way to build Loyalty and grow your business.
Yes, It’s about Sending your Customers to other businesses for FREE as a way to build Loyalty and Growth. And It works.
The old era of egocentric sales pitches never entertained the idea of sending customers to other companies, for any reason. They held on to their customers tooth and nail, even if they didn’t have anything the customer needed at the time.
Companies wanted customers to pay attention to their company, and no one else.
Apparently, no one ever mentioned to those companies that no business is an island.
Customers need more than one company to satisfy their everyday needs and desires. “No company owns enough resources – or can possibly own enough – to furnish unique experiences for every customer,” said C.K.Pralahad in The New Age of Innovation. “Companies must organize a constantly shifting global web of suppliers and partners to do the job.”
A customer experience includes satisfaction in all the customer’s needs for their everyday life. It isn’t enough to sell your customer the microwave oven that person needs. The customer also needs clothes, baby food, music, a good carpet cleaner, a certified massage therapist, and an antique hood ornament.
No company in the world could possibly give a customer every single thing he or she desires.
In short: it takes a village to create a customer experience.
You’ll be recommending companies to your customers that you personally have selected as the best for their needs. You won’t be giving them referrals to professional service and product providers simply because you’ve agreed to – you’ll be giving them the companies that you sincerely believe are the most qualified professionals to meet your customers’ needs.
And your customers will love you for it.
That reputation will buy you customer loyalty and enthusiasm that is impossible to get through any other means.
Linkcrafter marketing solution often sounds too idealistic to companies who have been in the era of the sales pitch too long. Many companies will be thinking, “Spending extra time and resources to help customers with their problems without any request for a sale, without any pitch at all? What’s in it for me?”
The more successful your company is at recommending other companies’ products and services that are relevant to its customer’s lifestyle and needs, the more likely it is that customers will extol the virtues of your company.
Your company gets a reputation for caring about people through this free exchange of information. When a person benefits from information you give them, they become an advocate for you. And the next time they hear someone looking for a service that your company provides, they’ll recommend you – in glowing phrases.
You can’t buy that kind of advertising.
Linkcrafter web based relationship management solution helps you to engage with other qualified companies to co-create customer experiences. You’ll work within a network of partners, all of whom can provide your customers with products and services that are outside of your area of expertise but that are essential to making sure the customer is completely satisfied.
Learn to Co-Create
Through Linkcrafter, you’ll be able to co-create complete experiences for your customers with other companies. You’ll collaborate with these companies to understand exactly what your customers need and how to get it to them.
Your customers will look to you as a resource, a guide, and a trusted ally.
Is Your Company Still in the Dark Ages?
Most companies aren’t prepared for this new approach to marketing. Companies who co-create customers experiences with other qualified companies will keep themselves far ahead of the competition.
How do you accomplish all of this? We’re not going to lie. It takes a change in mindset.
Business people become super-connectors, people who know a lot of people, and know their interests, skills, and needs of everyone in their social or business circle and connect them together.
May
27
1. If you don’t have enough customers, it’s simply because you don’t have enough friends. People buy from Friends.
2. If your advertising is not delivering good results, it’s simply because you don’t have enough advocates to confirm your message to their friends. When a person asks about your advertising, he is told: ”be careful, I don’t know these people, and this is advertising, the reality may be different. You know … Ads are Ads”.
3. If you customers don’t recommend their friends to you, it’s simply because they still think you are a risky business to recommend. They can personally take the risk to do business with you, but they are not ready to recommend you.
4. If you don’t have Advocates for Your Business, it’s simply because you are not an advocate for other businesses.
5. If you don’t have Enough advocates for Your Business, it’s simply because you are not an advocate for a lot of people.
6. If your customers evaporate after the first transactions, it’s simply because nothing make you memorable and you don’t remind yourself to them in a memorable way.
7. If people don’t listen to you, it’s simply because you don’t have a strong opinion about your business solution and express this opinion with enthusiasm and passion.
8. If everyone forget about you, it’s simply because you forget about everyone.
9. If no one remind you, it’s because you don’t remind anybody.
10. If you want customers to buy from you every day, You should do marketing everyday.
11. If you do your marketing once a month, Customers may buy from you once a month.
12. If you do your marketing sporadically, Customers will buy from you sporadically.
13. If you keep in touch with your Customers in ways that add value to their life, they will keep in touch with you in a way that create value for you.
May
21
The “summer song” of the business world these last years still is “Networking. Networking is Great, Networking is Great for You, networking is WOW, networking will save your business, Networking is the best marketing tool for the new economy. Network, Ô Network, Yes, Network”, and All the folk dance on this cute, nice Music.
Have you tried networking for your Business? Can You measure the business outcomes of your networking effort? Is it worth the time, the stress, the uncertainty, the investment you devoted to it?
Recent studies and testimonials on business networking are revealing that 92 to 98% of professionals and business people on social or professional networking websites and clubs obtain No business impact from the time and money they invest in networking, and are unable to measure any impact they assert.
John Veitch a Top networker on Rize, LinkedIn, Facebook, put this way :
“I’ve always had high hopes that people might use the Internet to achieve useful things in their lives.
Mostly that’s failed to happen.
In recent years with the introduction of social networking opportunities I’ve seen that most people fail to understand how online social networks work. The success rate on Ryze is somewhere between 8% and 2% depending on your viewpoint. On LinkedIn the success rate is even lower. None of the many social network sites available are any different. There are millions of registered people, a few spectacular stars, a tiny cohort of regular users and many uncommitted users, creating a massive long tail of people who don’t get it.
There are huge numbers of people who have joined professional networks, but far too many sit isolated and inactive”
Sure, it’s Not because networking doesn’t work, Networking does work But only for The few who understand what networking is about. Get first insight from our previous post “Why most of people waste time in networking?”
John observations are right.
Many websites have tried to help the unskilled networkers, but our survey found out that close to 90% of people on professional networking websites get No value for the time and eventually the money they spent in these networks.
On these traditional networks, the reason for linking two people is weak. Most networks are built on a casual business acquaintance – maybe you worked in the same company. Those networks are fine for who-knows-who, but when it comes to marketing your company to:
They’re useless.
The problem with current networks is that they don’t create enough “business transactions” for the majority of their users. The number of transaction is too low, discouraging the majority of users and even worse, there’s no way to measure the value (ROI) of the transactions that occur.
We need to go beyond networking as we know it.
May
20
Are you struggling to get your business noticed and attract clients? Have you tried, but with limited success, all the small business marketing things like:
It comes at no surprise.
Every year, Millions of entrepreneurs dreams Die simply because they can’t access the necessary spotlight that will change their dream into reality. The Dream killer logic of the advertising and media industry is constantly working against them. Your marketing initiatives and actions are heavily limited by the Gate keepers logic.
The logic is crystal clear: No Money, No Advertising.
90% of the Internet traffic goes to only 5% of websites, that either keep this traffic or redistribute it to their own products and services network, or create barriers to sell advertising space and time to anyone who want to reach people through their service.
If you have enough money for the Gate Keepers, they open the doors and you could reach millions of consumers. If you can’t afford to pay the money, the gates are still closed, and you are kindly advised to try small business marketing things.
In this way, The Gate Keepers Shut the light over the dreams of millions of entrepreneurs, and small businesses are dying at a rate of 70 to 90% every year.
Even, those who survive the Gate keepers logic should constantly go back to pay their survival tax.
Today, many small businesses have to share minimum 30% of their Revenue with the advertising and media industry holders . For example, a real estate professional in Paris has to give 40% of his revenue to Google to be able to survive.
The advertising and media industry slogan “No money, No Advertising” will finish to kill our free civilization.
If advertising finishes to mean money, and if advertising is essential for the survival of any human activity, what are the consequences on our civilization?
- How do we promote not-for-profit activities like arts, cultural creation, human imagination, etc?
- How human creativity will prosper if at the very beginning we must filter its validity by the law of money or profit?
We need to make choices that put us in control of our future, our civilization and make it more difficult to be controlled or directed by Advertising forces.
We want you to join us to win this war, and we will prevail together.
When we’ve started working on Linkcrafter our goals were very clear. We wanted:
We have reached all these three goals.
Linkcrafter.com will roll out soon. Pre-register today to be the firsts to be notified.
May
14
Are you feeling lonely?
Do feel like you need a helping hand but just can’t ask for it?
Do you feel like no one outside there could understand who you are and your inner value?
You are not Alone. You just feel alone, because we are all connected to each other. There are thousands of people out there ready to listen to you, ready to support you, ready to care about you, ready to give you a chance.
No Man is an Island: You Don’t Have to Face Life Alone.
To succeed in business as in life you need to make Friends. Your success depends on the number of friends you made. For businesses owners it means you need to Turn more strangers, prospects and customers into Friends.
What you need to succeed is Friends.
- If you don’t have enough customers, it’s simply because you don’t have enough friends,
- If your advertising is not delivering good results, it’s simply because you don’t have enough advocates to confirm your message to their friends. When a friend asked about your advertising, he is told: ” be careful, I don’t know these people and this is advertising, the reality may be different. You know … Ads are Ads”,
- If you customers don’t recommend their friends to you, it’s simply because they still think you are a risky business to recommend. They can personally take the risk to do business with you, but they are not ready to recommend you,
- If your customers evaporate after the first transactions, it’s simply because nothing make you memorable and you don’t remind yourself to them in a memorable way.
- If people don’t listen to you, it’s simply because you don’t have a strong opinion about your business solution and express this opinion with enthusiasm and passion.
- If everyone forget about you, it’s simply because you forget about everyone.
- If no one remind you, it’s because you don’t remind anybody.
To make friends, start treating people like friends.
Treat your customers the same way you’ll treat a friend. Lit you eyes when you see them, recall their name, remember what they said last time to you, ask about their news based on previous conversations, and share what is hot and what is not hot list, and ultimately invite for a beer or any other entertainment.
In average a person has 11 to 12 intimate contacts, 150 social contacts and from 500 to 1500 weak ties. Look what will happen to your business if you succeed in the next 12 months to have 12 to 15 intimate friends in the business category you are playing or in your ideal clients list :
|
Number of Intimate Friends |
Intimate friends of your Friends(x12) |
Social contacts of your Friends (x150) |
Weak ties of your Friends (x1500) |
Potential reach through your Friends network |
|
1 |
12 |
150 |
1 500 |
1 663 |
|
2 |
24 |
300 |
3 000 |
3 326 |
|
3 |
36 |
450 |
4 500 |
4 989 |
|
4 |
48 |
600 |
6 000 |
6 652 |
|
5 |
60 |
750 |
7 500 |
8 315 |
|
6 |
72 |
900 |
9 000 |
9 978 |
|
7 |
84 |
1 050 |
10 500 |
11 641 |
|
8 |
96 |
1 200 |
12 000 |
13 304 |
|
9 |
108 |
1 350 |
13 500 |
14 967 |
|
10 |
120 |
1 500 |
15 000 |
16 630 |
|
11 |
132 |
1 650 |
16 500 |
18 293 |
|
12 |
144 |
1 800 |
18 000 |
19 956 |
|
13 |
156 |
1 950 |
19 500 |
21 619 |
|
14 |
168 |
2 100 |
21 000 |
23 282 |
|
15 |
180 |
2 250 |
22 500 |
24 945 |
If you succeed to have 15 intimate Friends inside your business industry or from your ideal clients list, you could reach up to 24 945 contacts, without measuring the cascading effect. Your marketing will automatically go on autopilot:
Go ahead and make Friends and Succeed wildly. Good luck.
May
13
1. Steal consumers: We live in a “world no longer marked by a shortage of goods but by a shortage of customers”. To have new customers for your product you have to steal them from your direct competition, or you take the money they would have spend with other businesses (indirect competition for the household available money).
We use steal, because you need to use some advertising tricks or marketing persuasion to induce new customers to switch from competition to you, or to alter their spending habits to include a new product in their portfolio.
Anytime you’ve attracted a new customer, you’ve taken it from competition. It should not be called “stealing”, but it’s hard for the competition.
2. Rent consumers: There are 3 ways to rent customers:
- Huge discount to alter consumers reaction or Trial products, or trial period,
- Over promising advertising to motivate new unsavvy customers to try
- New and short lived products: it’s a customers-rent-based-business strategy that thrive on introducing intentionally short lived products and play on the attractiveness of new product to make small or huge profit.
Rent-customers-marketing strategy is usually motivated by quick earnings scenarios. Many businesses use it to push their products in order to close some financial gap in their business plan.
Not all your rent customers will become loyal nor will be satisfied with your product or service, but rent customers is a marketing strategy worth consideration, for example when you have to go out of business and close the shop.
3. Keep consumers: it’s the most critical function of marketing in the new economy. It’s not easy. To keep customers you need to keep in touch with them in a meaningful way. It’s this “meaningful way” that’s the most difficult for marketers.
Most companies don’t know what to do with their customers once the transaction is done. The only thing they know to keep in touch with their customers is to spam them with selfish advertising, new offers, sales, etc. These are not meaningful ways to keep in contact with your customers. Linkcrafter relationship marketing solutions are dedicated to helping you build long lasting customers loyalty.
4. Befriend customers: 5% increase in the number of your business friends or advocates will increase 25% to 95% your profits. And, the Law of the few in marketing states that 90% of your present customers are brought to you by 10% of your contacts (customers, prospects, friends or strangers) who like you. These people are your Natural advocates. They are your Friends.
Befriending customers and strangers is the only competitive advantage you could build over competition in the new economy, because the new economy is based on advocacy.
For example, a Mckinsey marketing study found that 2/3 of US economy is now based on advocacy: Friends telling friends what is hot and what is not. Only 14% of people trust advertising, 69% are interesting in advertising blocking technologies, and 78% of consumers trust one to one recommendation from friends.
5. Loose consumers: On March 1996, Frederick F. Reichheld and Thomas Teal found that on average, U. S. corporations now lose half their customers in five years. With the powerful emergence of Internet these last 12 years, we can say with confidence that today, most companies lose half their customers in less than 2 years. Not because they don’t innovate, not because they don’t have great product or service, not because they didn’t try to keep their customers with sophisticated CRM systems or loyalty programs.
In most cases, Customers defection is not related to your company product or service quality. A company with a good product or service could see his customers defect in drove. Customers don’t defect because they are not satisfied with your service or product. So, Don’t take customers defection personally, because it is not related to you, but to the overwhelming fact that, today 98% of businesses are commodity businesses. There is not so much in product characteristics or service innovation that really distinguish them from each other. They are all exchangeable without any loss in value proposition or value for money.
Business success or failure in the new economy Shoud be considered as a “relative success” or a “relative failure”. You just need to try again.
May
6
Most small business owners, freelancers, home based professionals will stop doing any kind of advertising if they could have 12 to 15 intimate friends in the business category they are playing or in their ideal clients list.
You’ll say, wow, 12 to 15 friends, that’s not a lot. Yes, it’s not a lot, but 86% of small business owners do business mostly with anonymous customers (people they know nothing about), people with whom they have no emotional contact to or don’t keep in touch with. They are struggling because they fail to make friends, and in business friends are everything.
The Law of the few in marketing states that 90% of your present customers are brought to you by 10% of your contacts (customers, prospects, friends or strangers) who like you. These people are your Natural advocates. They are your Friends
The new economy is based on advocacy. For example, a Mckinsey marketing study found that 2/3 of US economy is now based on advocacy. Friends telling friends what is hot and what is not. Only 14% of people trust advertising, 69% are interesting in advertising blocking technologies, and 78% of consumers trust one to one recommendation from friends.
What you need to succeed is Friends.
To make friends, start treating people like friends.
Treat your customers the same way you’ll treat a friend. Lit you eyes when you see them, recall their name, remember what they said last time to you, ask about their news based on previous conversations, and share what is hot and what is not hot list, and ultimately invite for a beer or any other entertainment.
In average a person has 11 to 12 intimate contacts, 150 social contacts and from 500 to 1500 weak ties. Look what will happen to your business if you succeed in the next 12 months to have 12 to 15 intimate friends in the business category you are playing or in your ideal clients list :
|
Number of Intimate Friends |
Intimate friends of your Friends(x12) |
Social contacts of your Friends (x150) |
Weak ties of your Friends (x1500) |
Potential reach through your Friends network |
|
1 |
12 |
150 |
1 500 |
1 663 |
|
2 |
24 |
300 |
3 000 |
3 326 |
|
3 |
36 |
450 |
4 500 |
4 989 |
|
4 |
48 |
600 |
6 000 |
6 652 |
|
5 |
60 |
750 |
7 500 |
8 315 |
|
6 |
72 |
900 |
9 000 |
9 978 |
|
7 |
84 |
1 050 |
10 500 |
11 641 |
|
8 |
96 |
1 200 |
12 000 |
13 304 |
|
9 |
108 |
1 350 |
13 500 |
14 967 |
|
10 |
120 |
1 500 |
15 000 |
16 630 |
|
11 |
132 |
1 650 |
16 500 |
18 293 |
|
12 |
144 |
1 800 |
18 000 |
19 956 |
|
13 |
156 |
1 950 |
19 500 |
21 619 |
|
14 |
168 |
2 100 |
21 000 |
23 282 |
|
15 |
180 |
2 250 |
22 500 |
24 945 |
If you succeed to have 15 intimate Friends inside your business industry or from your ideal clients list, you could reach up to 24 945 contacts, without measuring the cascading effect.
Go ahead and make Friends and Succeed wildly. Good luck.
