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3 Reasons Most Business Websites Suck at Branding

 

Have you ever wondered why that spiffy new, professionally crafted website you spent a few grand developing to show yours is a “serious business” sits all alone on the web, unvisited, unfriended, unshared, untweeted? Yeah, me, too. Rereading a long series of articles written by some “people who ought to know” about marketing in the age of social media may, however, clue us all in on an answer to this dilemma.

  1. Most business websites’ owners are too tight-assed to use the word suck on their websites when it’s really appropriate. People, especially serious business owners, seek to be universally loved and understood as serious, professional, prim, proper, and absolutely neither common, crass, nor, heaven forbid, vulgar. Being so, they for darned sure aren’t willing to let their hair down long enough to really relate with real people who are quite comfortable saying something, like your perfectly coifed website, sucks when it really sucks.
  2. Most business websites’ owners try to create a culture around themselves instead of trying to serve a culture that is coalescing around a topic bordering their businesses’ workspaces. Coca-Cola made this mistake with its Coca-Cola Journey digital magazine. Under Armour apparently didn’t when it took over where Nike left off and began UA’s “I Will What I Want” program by addressing issues of concern to UA workout clothing wearers somewhat more rowdily and randily by letting the public it was seeking lead the discussion
  3. Most business website content is designed to sell instead of enlighten, educate, entertain, and enthuse those viewing the website.

So, what can you do to do better than your dull, boring competitors?

First, do the opposite of these things.

Second, do the opposite of these things in a way that doesn’t overtly look like you are trying to do the opposite of those things.

Third, come back next time and we will learn some details of cultural branding.

[reminder]Would you stay on your website more than three seconds after you first see it?[/reminder]

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3 Issues for Crafting Defecting Customer Recapture Strategies

Recapturing lost customers is like recooping lost sheep. We can help you save departing customers.

Picking up where we left off discussing Kumar and his associates’ research on recapturing lost customers, let’s look at their three main questions of interest. When you are crafting a recapture strategy, you must consider the following:

How likely is a given customer to come back?

Trying to regain every lost customer can sap your marketing resources. It’s better to be more efficient and effective by focusing on people whose prior behavior suggests they can be more easily convinced to return. Has the departing customer referred others and never complained or only had complaints that were satisfactorily resolved? These are your best bets. Has this customer canceled because of price alone? If so, that customer is more likely to come back than one who left because of poor service. If a departing customer claims your prices are just as bad as your service, don’t bother knocking on their door again. Such types are the least likely of all to return.

How long will a reacquired customer stay, and how much will he or she spend?

You should consider the returning lifetime value of each lost customer. This is usually based on that customers average historical spend multiplied out over the number of years you expect the reacquired customer to stay. You’d probably be surprised to find someone who departs will be more loyal their second time around. In fact, recaptured customers generally stay recaptured longer, and customers who defect because of price and come back for a better deal stay the longest of all. This shows the important upside of win-back strategies.

Which people should get which saving offers?

You should consider the specifics of each customer in relation to your historical experience with others. Don’t use one-size-fits-all “new-deal” incentives. Who gets what recapture offer varies based on your company’s specific facts and circumstances and the reasons the customer left and is willing to consider returning.

 

You will have to study your customers to work strategically when bringing back your own lost customers. Simply identifying those who are the most likely to sign up again, rather than appealing to every defector, can increase your win-back rates. Considering each lost customer’s average lifetime value can drive how big an offer to make to get them back.

 

A lot of this data can also be used to develop initial customer acquisition strategies, but that is a topic for another day.

 

[reminder]What do you know about your own new customer prospects and lost customers and have you thought of hiring us to help you learn more?[/reminder]

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3 Great Things for Crafting Defecting Customer Recapture Strategies

Recapturing lost customers is like recooping lost sheep. We can help you save departing customers.

Have you ever had a customer leave you and just said to yourself, “Big deal, so what, and who cares? New customers are a dime a dozen.” Yeah, me, too – long ago. But let me tell you why we’re both wrong and why we should almost always work hard but be selective about keeping defecting customers.

First, it usually costs more to acquire a new customer than it does to recapture a departing one. Second, departing customers tell exponential numbers of friends why you stink, but those whom you tempt back into your fold tell even more people what a deal they conned you out of, most of whom will be new customers. Third, who needs a third reason? The first two are more than enough, but there are more discussed below.

But, how do you get defectors to rejoin your tribe? And how hard should you work and how much bling should you toss at them to get them back? Like most things common business owners take for granted, however, there is a good deal of science behind winning back lost customers.

Some folks who appear to know a lot about this stuff are V. Kumar, a professor at Georgia State University; Yashoda Bhagwat, a doctoral student there; and Xi (Alan) Zhang, another doctoral student there, who studied the issue for seven years and published an article in the Journal of Marketing in 2015, which got a lot of press including an article in the Harvard Business Journal. Regaining “Lost” Customers: The Predictive Power of First-Lifetime Behavior, the Reason for Defection, and the Nature of the Win-Back Offer. Journal of Marketing: July 2015, Vol. 79, No. 4, pp. 34-55, (http://journals.ama.org/doi/10.1509/jm.14.0107) discussed in the Harvard Business Journal, March 2016 pp. 22-23 (https://hbr.org/2016/03/winning-back-lost-customers).

The upshot of Kumar and Co’s research is reacquiring customers who leave may help businesses not only regain their lost profits but also usurp profits from competitors. Nonetheless, not all lost customers are worth the investment in reacquisition and not all of them will remain profitable if reacquired. These guys studied (1) the lost customers’ first-lifetime experiences and behaviors, (2) the reason for defection, and (3) the nature of the win-back offer made to lost customers are all related to the likelihood of their reacquisition, their second-lifetime duration, and their second-lifetime profitability per month. Their study shows that the stronger the first-lifetime relationship with the firm, the more likely a customer is to accept the win-back offer.

Come back tomorrow and find out some answers to vital questions you need to consider when crafting your own “customer saving strategy.”

[reminder]Do you even care about recooping your lost sheep and recouping their profits?[/reminder]

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The First 21 Questions Any Prospective New Small Business Owner Should Ask

Have you ever played 20 Questions with yourself about a new business venture? Yeah, me, too.

Do you still think you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur and start a new business? Great! Now, ask yourself these 21 Questions to make sure you’re thinking about the right key business decisions:

1.     Why am I starting a business?

2.     Am I prepared to invest the require amounts of my life’s precious resources of self, time, effort, energy, emotion, intellect, property, and people needed to get my business started?

3.     What kind of business do I want?

4.     Where will my business be located?

5.     What products or services will my business provide?

6.     Who is my ideal customer?

7.     Who is my competition?

8.     What differentiates my business idea and the products or services I will provide from others in the market?

9.     How will I brand, market, and advertise my business?

10.  How many employees will I need?

11.  What types of suppliers do I need?

12.  How much money do I need to get started?

13.  Where will I get my startup capital?

14.  How soon will it take before my products or services are available?

15.  How long do I have until I start making a profit?

16.  How will I price my product compared to my competition?

17.  How will I set up the legal structure of my business?

18.  What licenses do I need to obtain?

19.  What taxes do I need to pay?

20.  What kind of insurance do I need?

21.  How will I run my business?

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Do You Have What It Takes To Start Your Own Business?

Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to start your own business? Yeah, me, too.

Starting your own business can be an exciting and rewarding experience. It can offer numerous advantages such as being your own boss, setting your own schedule, and making a living doing something you truly enjoy. But, becoming a successful entrepreneur requires many things.

Consider whether you have the following characteristics and skills commonly associated with successful entrepreneurs:

Are You a “Smart Creative”? Are you able to think of new ideas? Can you imagine new ways to solve problems? Entrepreneurs must be able to think creatively. If you have insights on how to take advantage of new opportunities, entrepreneurship may be a good fit.

Are You a Calculated Risk Taker? Being your own boss also means you’re the one making tough decisions. Entrepreneurship involves uncertainty. Do you avoid uncertainty in life at all costs? If yes, then entrepreneurship may not be the best fit for you. Do you enjoy learning about the opportunities available and obstacles you might have to overcome so you can enjoy the thrill of taking calculated risks? Then read on.

Are You Independent? Entrepreneurs make a lot of decisions on their own. If you find you can trust your instincts — and you’re not afraid of rejection every now and then — you could be on your way to being an entrepreneur.

Are You Personable and Socially Persuasive? You may have the greatest idea in the world, but if you cannot persuade customers, employees and potential lenders or partners, you may find entrepreneurship to be challenging. If you enjoy public speaking, engage new people with ease, and find you make compelling arguments grounded in facts, it’s likely you’re poised to make your own new business succeed.

Are You an Effective Negotiator? As a small business owner, you will need to negotiate everything from leases to contract terms to rates to getting employees and others to do what you want when, where, why, and how you want it done. Polished negotiation skills will help you save money and keep your business running smoothly.

Are You Open To Being Supported By Others? Before you start a business, it’s important to have a strong support system in place. You’ll be forced to make many important decisions, especially in the first months of opening your business. If you do not have a support network of people to help you, consider finding a business mentor or consultant. A business mentor is someone who is experienced, successful, and willing to provide advice and guidance. Business consultants do the same thing professionally, meaning they expect to be paid for their services. If you are buying a franchise in order to start your own business, then your franchisor should be a major component of your support team.

Do you think you have what it takes to start your own business?

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Why Turnkey Processes Yield The Best Results

Have you ever wondered, “How can I go big in my business without a technological breakthrough?” Yeah, me, too.

In his book Discipline Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup, Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, posits only two distinct types of entrepreneurship exist. Aulet’s first type includes small and medium enterprises usually started by one person to serve a local market seeking the rewards of personal independence and cash flow from the business.

The MIT professor’s second type, innovation-driven enterprise (IDE) entrepreneurship, involves more risk-taking and more ambitious as entrepreneurs, working in teams build a business off some technology, process, business model, or other innovation that will give them a significant competitive advantage over existing competitors. IDE entrepreneurs seek to create wealth through exponential growth more than to remain in control of their companies as they drive to become big and fast-growing to serve global markets with the help of venture capital from a limited number of new part-owner-investors who insist on seizing control of the enterprise.

There is, however, a third type of entrepreneurial enterprise that blends these two extremes. This third type, which is achievable by every small and medium enterprise owner, is to start, buy, run, and grow a turnkey business in order either to sell it for profit or sell duplicates of it as franchises.

Rather than being based on a technological breakthrough, turnkey businesses based on quality management improvements drive the success of the clear majority of small businesses in America and around the world today. Quality management improvement drives better businesses to be more effective, more efficient, and, therefore, much more profitable than their competitors in many ways.

Unlike Aulet’s SME model, the turnkey model blends the best of both entrepreneurial worlds. It begins with a focus on local, then regional markets, but has the end game of letting others rent the business process the turnkey entrepreneur innovates. The turnkey quality management system innovated allows for duplicable jobs, instead of tradable jobs, which multiply employment instead of merely relocating employees. And, most importantly, it grows exponentially with the franchisor staying in control of his or her business model and operations, while each franchisee begins with and maintains control of his or her own personal risk, reward, and destiny.

Whether you want to be a small business owner, an IDE entrepreneur, or an owner/franchisor, if you want to truly own your own business and get the biggest return on your investment of your life’s precious resources of self, time, effort, energy, emotion, intellect, property, and people in your business, then you must use the P10 Principle to start, buy, run, grow, and sell your business as a turnkey operation and begin with one location and let other people rent your business processes as franchisees.

[reminder]What are you doing to turnkey your business?[/reminder]

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10 Reasons Why You Can Hire Us

Here are the top 10 reasons business owners hire us:

1. You can hire us because of our expertise.

2. You can hire us to identify problems. Sometimes you are too close to a problem inside your business to identify it. That’s when we ride in on our white horses to save the day.

3. You can hire us to supplement your staff. Sometimes you discover you can save thousands of dollars a week by hiring consultants like us when we are needed, rather than hiring full-time employees. You realize you can save additional money by not having to pay benefits for consultants like us. Even though fees are generally higher than your employee’s salary, over the long haul, it simply makes good economic sense to hire us as consultants.

4. You can hire us to act as a catalyst. Let’s face it. No one likes change, especially small businesses. But sometimes change is needed, and we may be brought in to “get the ball rolling.” In other words, we can do things without worrying about the corporate culture, employee morale, or other issues that get in the way when an organization is trying to institute change.

5. You can hire us to provide much-needed objectivity. Who else is more qualified to identify a problem than a consultant? A good consultant provides an objective, fresh viewpoint–without worrying about what people in the organization might think about the results and how they were achieved.

6. You can hire us to teach. We canteach employees any number of different skills. We keep up with new discoveries in our fields of expertise–and are ready to teach new clients what they need to stay competitive.

7. You can hire us to do the “dirty work.” Let’s face it: No one wants to be the person who has to make cuts in the staff or to eliminate an entire division.

8. You can hire us to bring new life to your business. If you are good at coming up with new ideas that work, then you won’t have any trouble finding clients. At one time or another, however, most businesses need someone to administer “first aid” to get things rolling again.

9. You can hire us to create a new business. We have great experience in this field. Not everyone has the ability to conceive an idea and develop a game plan. We do.

10. You can hire us to influence other people. We can get your message in places you cannot send it yourself.

 [reminder]What’s holding you back from getting our help?[/reminder]

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Crowdfund Your Next Business Venture

Have you ever had a great new business idea but lacked the money to exploit it? Yeah, me too. More times than I care to count. For many small business, however, crowdfunding may be the key that unlocks the golden door of your next opportunity to a Great! business.

Crowdfunding has been around for a long time using a variety of different names. Artists, authors, and composers have for eons presold their works and only created them once they have sufficient subscribers to make it worth their while. Now, everyone’s getting into the act. Take a look at GoFundMe.com, Kickstarter.com, Indiegogo.com and other crowdfunding sites and you’ll be amazed at what’s out there.

Two primary types of crowdfunding exist. Rewards crowdfunding, wherein entrepreneurs presell a product or service to launch a business concept without incurring debt or sacrificing equity ownership of their company. Equity crowdfunding, wherein the entrepreneur obtains several small capital infusions from several backers, usually in the company’s early stages, and each backer receives some proportional share of a company in exchange for the money pledged.

For most new ventures, entrepreneurs prefer rewards crowdfunding instead of equity crowdfunding, because they want to continue solely owning their venture, calling all the shots, and keeping all the profits. Nonetheless, equity crowdfunding does have its place in the collection of financing options out there.

So, the next time you have a great idea and no money to back it, think about crowdfunding.

[reminder]How big of a list of potential funders do you think you would need to get a new venture requiring $50,000 of initial capital going?[/reminder]

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Put a New Concept in an Old Space

Have you ever been sitting in a dumpy little restaurant and thought to yourself, “Gee, this old place would be a great location for [insert your favorite food place] to open up a new store.” Yeah, me too. More likely than not the owners of the the worn out place your in are tired of owning it and it can be economically bought, updated, and changed into the new concept you desire.

My son, Yitzchak, and I recently associated ourselves with Transworld Business Advisors of Baltimore to add business brokerage to my evergrowing scope of business consulting services company, The Besser Business Bureau. Over the past several weeks, we have been wearing the soles off our shoes walking around Baltimore’s downtown harbor districts getting to know as many of the business owners there as we can. If the owners aren’t in when we pass by, we leave the head person in the store a sealed envelope marked “Confidential For Business Owner Use Only” containing a brief note from us asking them to contact us if they’ve ever considered selling their place. If the business is closed as we go by, then we tape the envelope to the front door of the business based on the high probability that the next person unlocking the door will either be the owner or will give the envelope to the owner.

Three things have surprised the heck out of us. First, drop letters are very effective contacting tools if properly done. Second, there are a ton of business owners out there running marginally successful enterprises who are tired of owning them and seeking to get out of what they are doing for a reasonable price. Third, there are tons of people looking to buy a marginally successful business in the hopes of making it better by making it their very own.

So, if you think you see an opportunity to put your expertise to work in a new location, find the owner and ask about buying the place.

[reminder]Do you have what it takes to break out of your rut and try a new way of earning a living?[/reminder]

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Policy, Procedures, and Work Instructions are the Key to a Turnkey Business

Do you ever worry what will happen to your business if you get hit by a bus? Yeah, me too. And I tell my clients all the time, “A quality management system comprised of good policies, procedures, and work instructions will handle all the details of running your business for you, so you can work on growing your business instead of doing your business.” A recent article in Washington Business Journal shows the strength of my position. Nea{cosmo}politan Pizza Favorite Rises To Franchise Heights, WBJ, August 26, 2016, p.6. http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2016/08/24/attention-pizza-lovers-there-soon-could-be-many.html

A husband and wife team started moving pizza from a food cart and then opened one great Neapolitan pizza business, Pupatella, that gets national recognition. But, they hate dealing with the day-to-day details of running the business and their lack of a detailed quality management system has prevented them from opening additional locations. To get over this obstacle to growing their business, they hired an outside consultant who grew his own business from one to 50 locations by putting in organizational systems and formalized processes.

Hopefully, the expert will give them the playbook they need to grow the number of locations they want and Puppatellas will be popping up everywhere.

I help people optimize their businesses by helping owners stuck working in their businesses work on them instead by proceduralizing them from top to bottom, side to side, front to back, start to finish.

[reminder]What process centered quality system do you have in place in your business?[/reminder]