The Martial Art of Difficult Conversations

I’ve read several books that dealt with making conversations work. Here is a brief article that gives specific advice and a clear example of diffusing a verbal attack. Each of us can use this in our business and family lives, but marketers should consider presenting this to their colleagues in sales and customer service.

The Martial Art of Difficult Conversations by Peter Bregman.

Successful entrepreneurs have to beat the odds.

It takes a special kind of person to start a business. It takes skill, energy, dedication and luck to make it successful. The stories told by three entrepreneurs in the following article will sound familiar to every founder of a midsize company.

The statistics surrounding the survival rate for small businesses have long been subject to fervid debate. Depending on who you’re talking to, the predicted life span for a startup can elicit grim to cautiously optimistic responses.

One commonly cited figure is that half of all businesses go under in the first year while 95 percent fail within the first five years. According to a study done by the Small Business Administration, two-thirds of all new small business survive the first two years but only 44 percent will still be operating by year four.

Common culprits for failure include undercapitalization, cash-flow crises, and overexpansion. Then of course there are a host of external factors that nobody can predict — let alone adequately plan for — such as volatile credit markets and unstable economic cycles.

To gain insight into specific practices that enable small companies to keep going and growing even during difficult times, BusinessWeek profiled three entrepreneurs who have reached benchmarks in their companies’ life cycles: three years, five years, and 10 years. Their stories and strategies follow.

Read the article by Stacy Perman for Business Week on CRM-Daily.com.

Consumers are segmenting themselves.

Before allocating resources, savvy marketers identify segments of the marketplace where they stand the best chance of making an impression that will lead to a sale. In short, they look for the “low hanging fruit”.

Big companies use sophisticated CRM (customer relationship management) software to track customer activities, compare them with other customers, and target new offers or custom-tailor support services. In theory, CRM sounds good, but it is complicated and costly.

According to an article by Nick Wreden in Strategy+Business…

A better alternative is now available: The rise in social networks and online communities, combined with the new era of the Web-empowered consumer, makes it possible for companies to reap the benefits of segmentation without many of its costs or complications.

Using self-segmentation information for marketing does present challenges. It must be accompanied by organizational changes. These include allowing or expanding customer input into such insular areas as product design, services, policies, and procedures, and may require that departments other than marketing and customer service open their doors to customers.

Marketing must de-emphasize product promotion and think bigger than the company’s brand, tuning into conversations and issues that customers and prospects face. Monitoring and responding to conversations among multiple communities is labor-intensive, and the signal-to-noise ratio can be low.

There are risks as well. The same community that offers an opportunity for a stronger relationship can also generate a backlash that hurts the brand and affects sales.

Read the entire article here.

Radio reaches more adults than the web.

As a former FM DJ — a long, long time ago — I took some pride in reading this Chart of the Day. That said, I was surprised to see that radio and television are still the best ways to reach adults.

Can you sell what you wouldn’t buy?

You are a savvy shopper, right?. You think before you buy and so does your customer. He’s looking for the same things you are… value, features, performance, benefits. Oh, yeah… and style, color, newness, hipness, whatever.

Take a quick look at your marketing strategy. Look at your products, your message, your results. Would you buy your product from your company? If not, why would anybody else?

Ask your key people how they would answer these questions. Get their honest answers and empower them to suggest necessary changes. Be ready to change your marketing plan as often as you have to so savvy shoppers will buy from you.

Embrace change…

OK, if you’re not a “hugger” you might not know what I mean. And, sheesh (!) that headline is old school, but bear with me. As a marketing coach, a big part of my day is asking questions, so here’s a biggie…

What should you be doing tomorrow that you aren’t doing today?

Social media marketing answers.

I asked questions, maybe this YouTube video contains the answers. You be the judge. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Questions about advertising in a down economy.

I work with people who run companies. As a coach, I don’t try to convince them of anything. I make sure they have the information and resources they need to make the right decisions for themselves. Mostly, I ask questions…

• If you slash your marketing budget, how will your customers know that you are alive and well and ready to do business?
• Your customers are cutting orders. What is the most cost-effective thing you can do to find new customers?
• Your competitors have slashed their marketing budgets. Is this a good time to take away their share of the market?

“Advertising” or “marketing communications” can include a wide range of tools and techniques. Every company has to choose the right mix for their audience… print ads, snail mail, email, blog posts, webcasts, trade shows, sky writing, whatever.

If your industry is off 20% in this recession, that means somebody is getting the 80% that’s left. The important thing is to stay as active and visible as you can. Maybe the most important question is…

• If you decide to compete aggressively, what else can you cut besides marketing?

A good marketing budget includes come combination of brand building, lead generation, direct sales and customer support. Lead generation and direct sales are the easiest to measure, customer support often delivers the greatest ROI.

I would ask…

• What is your current marketing mix and how should it change in response to current conditions?

Of course, this question should be asked routinely in good times or bad.

Standing out in a crowd. What crowd?

One of the biggest problems for any marketer is getting people’s attention. OK, great products, customer-focused messages, enticing offers and amazing customer service aren’t easy. But once you have all those other things, you have to do is get noticed.

Yesterday, I was reading Seth Godin’s blog. Seth knows how to get noticed, but that’s not my point… at least not entirely. He was describing his alternative MBA program. In his words, “Unaccredited, residential, free and six months long. A new way to learn about a new way of doing business.”

Most of the nine “graduates” left the program ready to start or grow their entrepreneurial companies. One, was determined to land the best job ever. What makes Susan Lewis different is her approach. She isn’t submitting hundreds of résumés (crowd), she’s inviting potential employers to apply to her (what crowd?).

Social media marketing miracle!

Balderdash. If social media marketing works for you, great. Show me the money! Thus far, nobody has. That’s why I chuckled a bit this morning when the Industry Standard Weekly Edition newsletter arrived.

Lately it seems I can’t go anywhere without running into a gaggle of social media consultants bloviating about the wonders of social network marketing. Sure, you’ve seen ‘em, too. Slick shake-and-bake “experts” promising to help you leverage the power of Twitter and Facebook to raise your profile and, inexplicably, boost your profits. But scratch the surface on most of these claims and they instantly crumble. Meanwhile, it seems the only people making any money in social media are the consultants themselves.