The BV Blog

In the marketing industry, we’re frequently presented with the task of achieving more bang for less buck, especially in slow economy.

And whether we’re actually in a recession or not, in our current economic state, it’s only natural that business owners are concerned about their bottom lines.

But a slow economy is no reason to slash your marketing budget. It’s time to attack.

In a post at the Stopwatch Marketing blog John Rosen lays out a plan for burying your competition, a helpful do’s and don’ts list ripe with successful and not-so-successful examples from previous economic slowdowns, and sage advice to live by.

While slowdowns can be scary and painful, they also have salutary effects. They force companies to refocus efforts on strategies that genuinely build businesses and powerful brands. For those who accept this challenge and make the right choices, slowdowns can be a period of growth and success.

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I was inspired by this piece from Jacquelyn Ottman. She’s the founder of J. Ottman Consulting, “a marketing and new products firm committed to meeting consumer needs sustainability.”

It seems that, sometimes, we Americans can forget what we’re capable of doing. During presidential election season, for instance, we invest so much hope in our candidate, as if he or she is the lone messiah capable of leading us to the promised land. But, the fact is, the solutions to our problems are in all of us, not just one leader.

In her article, Ottman writes that we, as marketers, can have a huge effect not only on how people perceive our environmental issues, but how they will be addressed. She shows that we don’t need to wait for a single scientist to come up with the big answers to our climate and energy questions, but that you and other marketers - yes, marketers - can make a difference in a million different ways. Please read it, then apply your imagination to your own sustainability questions.

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Has the time come to adjust the thought process behind your business plan?

My first job after college in 1973 was in the semiconductor industry. My second job was selling computer supplies door to door in New York City.

When I think back on that time in my life, I realize that it was pretty simple. We had no cell phones or e-mail, and only substantial companies could afford computers. The only way to grow my client base was to organize my prospect list and knock on doors. In the 1970s, the way we sold was very personal: door to door, face to face.

Fast forward 35 years. The information age, supercharged by the birth of the Internet, has consumed us. We are inundated with thousands of e-mails every month, computers call us on the telephone, and there are hundreds of channels available via cable and satellite. Information is everywhere - in our cars, on our cell phones, laptops, desktops, and PDAs. Acquiring information is no longer a problem, which also means that the ability to do so does not represent a competitive advantage. So, it’s safe to state that the communications infrastructure has been built, and the Information Age is over.

My claim is that the Age of Commitment is now here and, in a way, we’ve come full circle. To clarify, if you have all the information you need to run a business and the same is true for your competitors, customers and prospects, the playing field is level. The thing to do now is work on building more meaningful, long-term relationships, just like we did in the 1970s and for many generations prior.

The quality of the relationships you develop and nurture with people is still the most important piece of the business puzzle. It always has been. Most of us have just been a little too distracted by the flash and fast pace of the computer revolution to remember that.

Succeeding in the Age of Commitment requires that you learn all you can about the nature of commitment and what it takes to truly serve your current and prospective customers. It’s that commitment that will help you succeed in this new age.

Dan Molloy heads Molloy Business Development Group and has created a series of very unique and effective training programs designed to improve sales and leadership competencies. To learn more about Language Of Commitment training, read this or call 866/473-9000.

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I love subs. Those five-dollar footlong subs. But the last time I went to the nearby five-dollar-footlong-sub store (the one named for an underground train), they were all out of tuna fish. The last TWO times I stopped in they were out of green peppers. And during my last THREE visits there were no onions in the joint.

Frustrating? You bet! Especially when you’re a tuna / green pepper / onions sorta’ fella like yours truly. But what really toasted my bread was that, each time, the “sandwich artists” who broke the bad news to me could not have demonstrated less concern over my customer experience. In fact, they were borderline rude about it.

Now, I understand that on the list of the world’s real problems, my onion-free subs barely crack the top five. Okay, maybe the top four. But if you own a sub shop — or any other business, for that matter — it should be mighty important to you that your employees not only empathize with your customers when things go wrong, but that they’re empowered to take a step toward making things right, even if that step is merely offering a sincere apology.

This latest brush with employee apathy - and the resulting damage to the sub chain’s brand equity - reminded me of a recent blog post from Drew McLellan. The subject was “Where should business owners invest their money in 2009?”

Drew writes:

As business owners and leaders look back on ‘08 and either shudder at the memory or exhale a sigh of relief that they survived it, it’s easy to assume that the plan going forward should be to lower prices or cut the marketing budget.

The reality is, both of those are the wrong answer. Cutting prices and slashing your marketing budget will only put you deeper in the hole as the economy rights itself. So what should you do with your money for ‘09?

Spend it on your employees. Make sure they understand your brand, your brand promise and how you want them to treat your customers. Don’t hold an annual meeting where you devote 5 minutes and a PowerPoint slide to your brand.

I’m talking make an investment. A real investment.

Talk about how you want your brand to come alive every week. In managers’ meetings, on all staff retreats, in your HR reviews. Make it a part of your interview process, your exit interviews and everything in between. How much time do you spend on how each and every employee delivers on the brand promise in your new employee orientation?

At Disney, no matter what position you are hired for, from street sweeper to a manager of a division, the first thing you’d do is attend a 3-day orientation that talks about absolutely nothing except the Disney brand and how you, the new recruit, are expected to carry on that tradition.

Think about it. Who interacts with your customers? When your customer has a concern or a complaint, who deals with them?

Especially in an economic time when every client matters and you can’t afford to lose any ground, isn’t this the year you should earmark some of your marketing dollars for the very people who deliver your brand every day?”

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You know that telephone customer service is a hot-button issue when people are writing letters to the editor (scroll down to the bottom) to complain about it. But maybe you didn’t know just how much it costs when incoming calls from sales prospects are mishandled.

In a fascinating article for marketingprofs.com, internet marketing expert Todd Meichiels quantifies this in stark numbers. He tells the story of a client who was paying big bucks for Google AdWords to promote their web site and drive calls to a toll-free number. But when he made a test call, Meichiels arrived in the sixth circle of automated attendant Hell, with no way to speak to a live person. Like most callers, he just hung up.

This company was paying $65 per click to get roughly 1 out of 10 visitors to actually pick up the phone and dial a call to the sales team. This amounts to $650 per call (actually much more, when indirect marketing costs are factored in), and that $650 call was immediately flushed down the abyss of the automated phone system. Any chance of a positive impression was immediately turned into a lost sale.

Maybe you’re not using AdWords, but you’re spending money to get people to call you by including your phone number on your web site, in ads, sales flyers, brochures, on letterhead and business cards and in the local phone directory. Maybe you don’t use an automated attendant, but a poorly trained staff can do just as much damage as a badly designed call answering system. How are you doing? Why not pick up the phone and check it out for yourself.

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