29. June 2009 by admin.

Article written by Nathan Jansch, The Boardroom at Cherry Creek

As I mentioned in my last posting, the way that our clients and customers perceive us has a very important impact on if and how they do business with us.  Even if you provide the best, most wonderful, inexpensive solution for your client’s particular need, there’s a good chance your company will fail if your clients don’t perceive you as being the best, most appropriate, cost-effective solution for their needs.

My initial intent was to list five areas that you should focus on to optimize your customers’ perceptions of your company, but as I got to writing my entry I realized that a five-part series was more appropriate, both for me as the write and for you as the reader.  So please check out my full five-part blog entry which will be featured in this posting and in my next four.

Focus #1: Pricing & Product Placement

The price of your products/services and how your customers find you are probably going to be the most important factors in how your customers perceive your company.  Just think about your own biases and judgments about Nieman Marcus and Walmart.  With one you expect to pay top-dollar, with the other cost-consciousness is top-of-mind.  With one you expect to receive the finest quality, with the other quality might be lacking.  With both, certain segments of the population have been weeded out of their target market.  With your own business, you need to identify what the image is that you want your customers to have and you need “package” your product/service according to that image.  Price your product/service too high and your customers won’t be able to afford it.  Price your product/service too low and you run the risk of having your product/service being cheap and lacking value.  The placement of your product/service is also a key factor in how your customers perceive your business.  Not only does the placement of your product/service sway your customers perceptions about the quality of your product/service, it influences their perception about your company’s ability to address their specific needs.  Take, for example, an ad placement in a legal publication.  The advertisers in that publication are more likely to be perceived as specialists in matters relating to the legal profession.  When targeting a specific niche of the populous, you need to project your company in a manner and in a location that demonstrates your expertise in that market.

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24. June 2009 by admin.

Article written by Nathan Jansch, The Boardroom at Cherry Creek

A lot of us know the adage that perception is more important than reality.  But when doing business, how many of us really internalize and contemplate that thought?  Do we really think about how our customers and prospective customers perceive us?  Or do we just focus on our day-to-day operations and just assume that prospective clients will know that your company offers a superior service or product?  Well, if you don’t pay attention to how you are perceived, you’re probably missing out on a lot of business and huge profits.

In a study that was recently highlighted in the Harvard Business Review, people actually believed that budget aspirin delivers less pain-killing benefit than higher priced competitors, even if though, by law, they contain the same chemical properties.  The same principle was true with wine drinkers; those who pay more for their vino believe that it tastes better than a less expensive alternative — even when the wine is identical.

That’s why branding directed at shaping consumer expectations can be so powerful in motivating their buying habits.  As Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton and co-author Dan Ariely, write, “We know that people have favorite beverage brands, for instance, but in blind taste tests they frequently can’t tell one from another: The value that marketers attach to the brand, rather than the drink’s flavor, is often what truly adds to the taste experience.”

In their short article titled How Concepts Affect Consumption they explore how perception can influence a buyer’s purchasing decisions along with several other psychological ways in which consumers are motivated.

Is your business focusing on its brand and how people perceive you?  Check out my next posting which will touch on five key areas in which your clients “perceive” the quality of your business.

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23. June 2009 by admin.

451 Marketing Founding Partner AJ Gerritson was recently featured in Sharmen Lane’s NY Entrepreneurism Examiner column discussing the “The top five things every entrepreneur should do to start or keep their business profitable”. I thought I’d share the list here:

1. Determine how your potential customers receive news and information relevant to their industry. In today’s digital age, prospects and customers are getting answers to their questions from a variety of sources, and when and how they want. To succeed, you need to know not only what your target market is reading and viewing, but how they are viewing it. Is it through text messages, or websites, blogs or social networks sites? Then you need to determine how cost-effective it is to advertise and publicize through these different mediums.

2. Focus not on how great your product or service may be, but on how effectively it solves a problem or business need for your customers. Awards and accolades are terrific third-party validations, but prospects want to know the specific benefits that will help them. Real-life case studies, even if they are not exclusively related to your products or services but signify a growing trend (i.e. emergence of social media as a communications tool), are much better indicators of a company’s value. If a prospect reads about how one of your clients grew their business by hiring you, and you can back it up with the references, they will have a real clear picture about what to expect from an engagement with your company.

3. Become an industry expert. Ideally, you should know all there is to know about your products or services, your customers, your competitors, and the trends that will shape the marketplace for years to come. Basically, be an expert. Sit on panels, engage reporters covering the relevant beats to interview you, or initiate and lead your own roundtable panels and discussions. In essence, don’t be afraid to grow your own personal brand and align with your company’s brand. Prospects find exciting and engaging industry leaders and experts to be more credible, and in turn, will be more likely to hire them or buy from them.

4. Make sure to continue to network everyday. You may be able to position yourself as an expert, and may even already have a steady stream of new business opportunities, but you should never limit the time you spend networking. New business and leads can come from anywhere; conferences, tradeshows, parties, trips to the hardware store, or even from one of those great online social networking sites like LinkedIn.  You don’t have to let your entrepreneurial drive immerse every second of every day of your life, but you should never forget that anyone, and everyone, is a potential customer.

5. Align yourself with causes, stakeholders and individuals that make sense for your business. Starting and growing your business from scratch can seem like a daunting task, especially if you try going it completely alone. Whenever possible, seek opportunities to align your company with causes (environmental, humanitarian, community, etc.) that relate to your business and showcase your commitment to being a socially responsible company. Similarly, take advantage of opportunities to join industry organizations that increase your credibility, expand your networking options, and afford you the chance to learn from others in your field. Finally, engage experts and important stakeholders (government agencies for example), and discuss your products and services, explaining how you can build a mutually beneficial relationship with them. The opportunities to identify and interact with these stakeholders online are plentiful, demonstrating once again how a successful entrepreneur in this day-in-age knows how to entrepreneurially navigate the complex online waters.

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22. June 2009 by admin.

Is Your Business PCI Compliant?

By Minda Zetlin, Inc. Magazine

Nearly every business that processes credit-card payments will have to comply with payment card industry (PCI) standards, which are very specific about how data is handled. That includes smaller and smaller businesses.

These days, even mom and pop companies are being held to payment card industry (PCI) standards.

In December, 2006 The TJX Companies, which operates T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores, suffered a data breach in which hackers stole data for more than 45 million credit cards. Beyond canceling their own and their employees’ cards, most small businesses assumed the incident would have little effect on them. But they were wrong.

Compliance with data security standards from the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council — an independent group formed two years ago by a group of credit-card companies, such as American Express, Discover Financial Services, and VISA International —  has long been a contractual requirement for any company accepting credit card payments. But until recently, few small companies were actually held to the standard. Now, in the face of several high-profile security breaches, credit card companies are requiring compliance from smaller and smaller customers. Security consultants routinely advise clients that every company they do business with should comply with PCI standards. And those who ignore the standard sometimes find they’ve made a costly mistake.

“One small merchant did less than 5,000 credit card transactions a year,” reports Rick Dakin, CEO of Coalfire Systems, a security provider that audits for PCI compliance. The merchant had failed to meet PCI requirements, and suffered a security breach, he says. “Between fines, penalties, and the cost of the forensic investigation, that company wound up paying more than $50,000,” Dakin says. Read the rest of this entry »

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17. June 2009 by admin.

A common problem that many sales associates and business owners face is being “put up against” one or more competitors during the sales process with a prospective buyer.  When faced with this situation, your gut feeling may be to speak negatively about your competitors and their products, but this can come off as petty and as being negative.  What you need to do instead, is to to learn how to sell “competitively.”

Here are seven simple steps, inspired by an audio book by Linda Richardson, founder and chairman of The Richardson Company, which specializes in sales training and techniques.

• STEP #1: Do your competitive research. This should go without saying.  You need to know what your primary competition is offering… before you go on a sales call.   Get on their website.  Look at their messages.  Read their case studies.  Examine their online sales materials.  You should be at least as familiar with your competition as your customer is familiar with them.
• STEP #2: Ask the customer about the competition. The time to do this is in the middle of the sales cycle, when you’re scoping out the customer problem and working on the crafting of the solution.  Ask which competitors have been calling, what they’ve been saying, and to whom they’ve been talking.   If the customer won’t tell you anything, you can assume that the competition probably has the inside track. Read the rest of this entry »

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