Are you satisfied with your:

• Number of new customers
• Number of repeat customers
• Gross revenue
• Net profit
• Employee morale
• Expenses as a percentage of revenue
• Employee productivity

If not, The TEL Solution may be just what you have been seeking. Consider the three elements, as described below, and what they represent in relation to your current business model:

Tactical Marketing and Sales

Know your customers and potential customers; know who they are, where they are and what they buy.

Whether your business is Business to Business or Business to Consumer your first challenge is to know your customers. In the case of B to B, you must know the profile and desired applications of your product’s ideal user or reseller. In the case of B to C you must know the demographic and user profile of the end users of your products or services. It is also very important that you focus the majority of your company energy on your best customers which on average represent only 20% of your customer base.

Once you know who your customers are – their needs and their buying influences – then you can target them in all of your Marketing and Sales efforts. If you rely on Traditional Marketing, which is the passive dissemination of information, you are probably exhausting your marketing budget by merely making a suggestion about your products and/or services to an unidentified audience.

If the passive approach to your business success is unacceptable to you there are steps that you can take that are fast, effective and will drive immediate results. These steps begin with Tactical Marketing.

The application of Tactical Marketing in any organization begins with:

• Identifying who your customers are
• Prioritizing your customers by order of their affect on your profitability
• Creating a database with all relevant customer information
• Focusing most of your sales and marketing energy on those customers

Of course in the process of building a superior relationship with existing customers, we cannot overlook or neglect the opportunity for new customers. The tactical approach to new customers is also a specific series of intentional actions and events, the most consequential of these actions are:

• Acquiring the target prospect’s interest
• Drawing the prospect in and creating an opportunity
• Delivering a positive experience
• Providing a reason for the customer to want to return
• Building a relationship and adding the customer to your database

A detailed customer database is the best of the best of marketing tools, but it is much more than just a tool. For your business it will become an asset. A customer database is the key to placing a very tangible value on the “blue sky” dynamic of your business.

Engaged Employees

Employee Engagement is not something that you talk about with your employees; it is something that you do.

If you do not wish to suffer an annual loss of $17,000 per employee then you will want all of your employees totally engaged in your business. Engaged employees care about:

• Their company’s success
• How productive they are
• The Company’s customers
• Their work environment

If you are unsure if your employees are truly engaged there is a very simple exercise that will give you a good idea of the answer. You can most likely perform this exercise without actually talking to anyone because you probably already know the answers and these questions will help you to put what you already know into perspective. Just imagine that you ask your employees three questions. If the potential answers to these questions make you uncomfortable because of what you imagine your employees might say, then your employees are probably not engaged. Of course if you are unsure you can always just ask them. The questions that you would ask your employees are:

1. Describe for me the ideal boss?
2. Describe for me the ideal work rules and environment?
3. What value do you think that you personally bring to our company?

Whether your current company situation is a new start-up, a well established enterprise, or a company formed by the combination of one or more companies, through merger or acquisition, engaged employees are essential to success. Your employees cannot or will not engage your customers until they, themselves, are able to truly connect with your company. Through the engagement process you will; place obvious personal value on your employees, respect their ideas and their input, improve employee satisfaction, increase productivity and foster an atmosphere of shared success.
Your employees can make a definite difference. Although overall business success is always the ultimate goal, very often your company goals are just “too big” for your employees. Engaged employees must have goals that they can understand, relate to and impact.

Engagement gives workers a voice. It facilitates feedback and opens the channels for candid communications like reverse evaluation. Engaged employees become empowered employees and their powers include problem solving, diagnostics and corrective abilities. Engaged employees are less likely to leave your employ, which lowers replacement and training costs. They are safer, more productive and much more customer oriented.

Engaged Customers

Customers appreciate a sense of belonging.

Once your employees feel the power and benefit of engagement, they will want to project that feeling to your customers. Your employees will reach out and apply to those customers that same sentiment of shared success. In business we often talk of the win-win scenario. This, of course, is when we are able to show the customer that the product or service is a good deal for them and, at the same time, we know that the sale is good for the vendor.

Quality products and services, excellent customer service and fair prices are what we most often consider important to our customers. However, these are all base elements and can actually be provided by any company in the same or similar business. When these three elements become the primary focus of a business then the factor upon which the buying decision is made becomes the price. Whoever has the lowest of the “fair prices” will win the sale. When this happens, no matter what you are selling, whether it is a product or a service, the focus being mainly on price makes what you are selling a commodity. True Customer Engagement will divert the focus to value and away from price and when you truly sell value your price does not have to be the lowest.

Engaged Customers will tell you what they think. They will say what they do and don’t like about your goods and services. Because they are engaged they will give you the opportunity to meet their needs and retain their business now and in the future. Engaged Customers will:

• Buy more
• Return to you more often
• Be more satisfied
• Refer you to others.

When you are successful in engaging your customers you will recognize that you have created an interactive, positive connection with a targeted source of income. This connection will be transparent and it will be based upon:

• Interactivity
• Immediacy
• Facilitation
• Collaboration
• Experience
• Trust

Loyalty Marketing

Consumers expect to be rewarded for their loyalty.

Research shows that it costs seven times as much to acquire and sell to a new customer as it does to sell the same amount to an existing customer. This statistic makes clear two very significant points:

1. The marketing dollars that you expend in the process of increasing your business with an existing customer can be substantial and still be much less than the cost of winning a new customer.
2. You should do everything possible to maintain the customer relationships that you have so long as what you do remains proportionately profitable for your business.

Loyalty marketing is the process of giving the consumer a reason, or reasons, to want to continually do business with you. It is you telling the consumer what is in it for him. It is a mix of tangible and intangible incentives, brand recognition and identification and fulfillment of needs.

Rewards programs are a very common and basic approach to Customer Loyalty. These programs have been around for a long time and they are successful in most applications. The challenge is to make whatever initiative that you undertake; different, desirable and functional. If you choose to issue some in-house medium of exchange that can be used for future purchases then that medium must be; easy for the customer to manage, a positive benefit, immediately redeemable and provide certain (absolute) benefits.

Rewards programs are just the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to customer loyalty. Every business is different and therefore each approach to loyalty is going to be, in some ways different and in some ways similar. It is very important to create a loyalty program that fits your business type, your products or services and your ideal customer profile. Research shows that customers who receive an award through a Loyalty Program will, on average, spend twice as much as non-rewarded customers.  

In the case of business to business loyalty; fulfilled needs and ease of interaction is usually much more impactful than would be some type of rewards program. B to B loyalty programs should focus on the customers’ successes, build value and facilitate their profitability. Businesses buy what is perceived as; good for their business, easy to access and uncomplicated.

In Business to Business or Business to Consumer the basic rules are the same; it costs less to maintain existing customers, it costs less to sell to existing customers and loyal customers should always be a top priority. Loyal customers will protect you from the competition, especially in a poor economy and they will give you a sense of future success because you will be able to track and project repeatable purchase patterns.

Summary

The concept of Engagement is not brand new or unknown. You cannot read a business publication without finding some mention or reference to engagement. In fact, in a 2007 study conducted by Professor Alex Edmans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, the Professor found that the companies on Fortune’s Best Places to Work list, all of which have engaged employees, saw annual returns of 14 percent while the average company return is only 6 percent.

Similarly, the strategies of Tactical and Loyalty Marketing are not new. However, the question is:
“Are you currently applying these strategies to your business, and if not, why not?”
If we are to survive in this economy then we must take advantage of every tool and opportunity available to us.

The TEL Solution is that opportunity. It can be applied to any business in any market. The information necessary is available to you for self application or you can choose a fully developed, customized, turnkey solution for your business. The choice is yours.

TEL 15 MINUTE PRESENTATION

Good Morning, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today about a subject that is very important to us all. My topic is BUSINESS SUCCESS IN ANY ECONOMY. Obviously this is a goal that we all share and one that cannot be adequately covered in a short 15 minute discussion. However, what I can do in the time allotted today is talk about three factors that are crucial to success in every business. The three factors are Marketing, Engagement and Customer Loyalty.

 

My intention is to help you imagine how you might improve what you are doing by identifying how these factors apply to your business and how you can use this knowledge to your advantage. I welcome your questions and if I am unable to adequately answer you in the time allowed I will be happy to stay after and speak with you one on one or in smaller groups.

 

Regardless of the size of your business or how many employees that you have, as long as you have employees and/or customers you will always face Business Challenges and problems that are created by some factor outside your personal control. The key is not to expect to be able to avoid these problems, because when they are completely outside of your control they are unavoidable, rather the solution is in keeping them at a minimum and when they do occur resolve them as quickly and painlessly as possible.

 

The challenges that I am describing can and will occur both inside and outside of your business. The ability to quickly identify your problems will go a long way in the process of a quick resolution.

 

External factors are probably the hardest to anticipate.

 

For example:

 

How could you possibly know that a big box retailer is planning to move into your market and offer your most profitable products at a discount every day?

Or given the fact that even our government economists are unable to accurately predict shifts in our financial markets how can we as independent business people expect to anticipate a profound change?

 

In these examples it is much better to have a strategy which will overcome the effects of an external change than it is to imagine that you can prevent them.

In the case of the Economy you may be adversely affected whether it goes up or down:

 

If you are in the Real Estate or Construction business in a time of economic downturn and the tightening of credit markets then your business will undoubtedly be down.

Inversely if you are in the business of cleaning and preparing foreclosed real estate for resale then in a down economy your business would be up.

 

In either case when you are adversely affected by the economy you must improve your processes, cut your expenses (without sacrificing quality) and most importantly you must be prepared to win a larger share of a smaller market.

 

It is also impossible to accurately predict what your competition will do. If they are willing to sell at a loss in an effort to captivate your share of the market they will put you in a very difficult position. In the case of big box versus small retailers, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, they can very often undercut your price because they have much greater buying power and can buy the exact same products that you can, only cheaper.

 

The only way to overcome pricing challenges is to replace the price-only-consideration with an emotional buying driver the best of which is; VALUE. This should always include; value of the relationship, focusing on the customer’s idea of success and value after the sale.
 
Internal challenges fall more within your control and when identified in a timely manner and properly addressed they can be solved or better still prevented. In fact if you properly prepare and manage your internal business environment this state of being will also better prepare you against external factors and in many cases will prevent any negative effect on your business.
 
Employees must always be your first concern. In an ideal situation every employee would handle every customer interaction and every decision exactly as you would with precisely the same outcome. This may seem, at first, as an impossible goal. However, highly engaged employees will truly share your vision and desire for success, your acceptance of personal responsibility, risk and your devotion to the business.

 

As the leader of your business it is necessary that you wear many hats, take on multiple complex roles and accept responsibility for every aspect of your company. If a particular duty falls within your area of expertise then it is a non-issue because you will handle every related situation with ease. It is those obligations that are not second nature to you that will represent an uncomfortable challenge and at times a problem that you are unable to solve. We must all look inside ourselves; identify our strengths and weaknesses and admit when we need help. The primary roles and responsibilities that we should consider fall in the following areas:

 

1. Marketing-Simply put advertising in; publications of any kind, radio, television, billboards and sponsoring events are not necessarily marketing. Very often the use of these media is merely the passive/general dissemination of information. It can be ineffective and typically un-measurable. On the other hand if you expend your effort and budget in the identification and profiling of your ideal customers and the most profitable products and services that they will buy then you move your business into the realm of Tactical Marketing which is very specific, measurable and effective. 

 

1. Sales-Only 3% of our population at large is equipped with the skills necessary to deliver conquest sales. The balance of the workforce who have some involvement in sales type transactions are either order takers or interaction facilitators. To counteract this you have two clear choices; either you take the time and spend the money to hire only sales people from that select 3%, that I mentioned, or you create tools and processes which will allow sales semi-professionals to effectively sell without feeling like they are selling.

In the case of an even more complex dynamic; that being when the people who represent your business are highly skilled professionals such as; Doctors, Lawyers, Loan Officers, Mechanics, and Certified Plumbers who also have the responsibility of customer service and selling it is impossible to replace these people with sales professionals. Therefore it is imperative that you provide them with the non-confrontational tools necessary to sell without feeling like they are selling.

 

1. Inventory Control-If you are to meet your customers’ expectations and have what they need when they want it then how you control your inventory is imperative to your success. At the same time if you maintain excessive inventory it becomes an unnecessary cost. However, even this description is an oversimplification because true inventory control begins as an element of tactical marketing. Which means that it is necessary to create a profile of the perfect customer then match the perfect products (those being; most profitable, easiest to deliver and most convenient to manage) with your best customers.

 

1. Customer Satisfaction-Very few business people will tell us that they think their company has poor customer service. We all think, even if only by our own standards, that we have good, or even great, customer service. For the sake of this conversation let’s presume that this is true. That two or more companies in the same business have the same level of customer service and that quality of service is somewhere between good and great. In this scenario customer service becomes a commodity because irrespective of who is the provider it is exactly the same.

The only way to overcome this challenge is to do something different, something better than the competition and in this way set ourselves apart. What has been found in performance improvement and customer satisfaction surveys is that the best way to set your business apart is to focus upon the customer’s idea of success. What this means is that you do not necessarily sell the customer what he says he wants. You take the time to understand his true need, his goal and when you have done this you will be able to sell the customer what he really needs. You see it is not just the product or service that gives the customer what he wants it is the end result; the accomplishment of a goal or the fulfillment of a desire.

1. Physical Plant-Your business environment is representative of your personality as a leader. At the same time it either establishes an inviting, desirable atmosphere for employees and customers or it is the opposite and sends the wrong message to everyone. But we are not just talking about landscaping and paint we are talking about that feeling of shared pride and success that I mentioned earlier. This is that process that I describe as “employee engagement” wherein your employees will have the same feeling about your business as you. It is very difficult to feel good about your workplace if you are not proud of what you do, what your environment looks like and how it makes your employees feel.

 

1. Safety-As business leaders we all desire to provide a safe healthy work environment. Not only do we know that this encourages productivity and improves morale we also know that the cost of lost time accidents can be staggering. Someone once told me that an accident is an accident and that they are hard to prevent. That is not at all an accurate statement. Virtually all accidents are caused by some human action and therefore can be prevented. Quite often decreasing or eliminating accidents can be as simple as causing the employees to focus on working safely. This is partly due to employee engagement and partly a result of giving the employee a reason to focus on safety as a normal part of the work day.

1. Productivity-We have all heard all of the Expressions like;

 

“work smarter not harder”

 and

 “measure twice, cut once”

 

which are two in a very long list of old sayings. However, the fact of the matter is that the foundation of great productivity lies in employee engagement. It begins with creating goals with which the employees can identify, understand and relate. Then carries forth with that feeling of shared success and mutual benefit and culminates in what you truly want; higher quality, increased production, lower costs and most importantly improved profitability.

 

As you can see from the path that we have followed here today that I believe that employee engagement is the first step to success. This is not just MY opinion, it is impossible to pick up a business publication and not find some reference to employee engagement. I will caution you here, that employee engagement as a stand alone change agent will not improve your business. It IS where you must begin but it is imperative that you complete the cycle by ensuring that the principles of engagement are expanded and include customer engagement and every other aspect and facet of your business.

 

It is not until you have engaged employees that they can understand how to engage your customers. It is not just about what they say and do it is about how they feel, and it is about how they take that feeling of engagement, the connection that they have with your business and project that same sense, that same emotion on your customers.

Tactical Marketing-is that process that I described earlier wherein you identify your best customers, match them to your best products and services, focus your energy and your budget on them and draw them into your business.

 

Once you have drawn them in, engaged them, focused on their concept of success and truly fulfilled their need you will want to keep them. This process of Customer Retention and Loyalty is a natural follow on to engagement and tactical marketing. This is the element that ensures that your customer base is dependable and repetitive; it is within this structure that you will build a cradle to the grave following for your business.

 

The hat dance and how you manage it in your business is up to you. You can spend your time trying to wear every hat regardless of how uncomfortable they may be or you can reach out to available resources that can help you accomplish your goals in less time and with less cost then you can do on your own.

 

Only you can say what roles you should play, what hats you should wear, only you can know when to seek help. I will tell you this; help is out there all you have to do is recognize and define your needs and match them with the available resources. There is always pain associated with growth it is up to you to decide just how much pain is truly necessary and how much is self imposed.

If you would like to know more about improving your business regardless of the condition of the U.S. economy then a more in depth understanding of Tactical Marketing, Employee and Customer Engagement and Loyalty marketing can be very helpful. I would like to invite you to an upcoming TEL Solution Seminar which will give you a detailed understanding of the tools necessary to drive change and improvement in your business.