Executive Wisdom Times: The Newsletter No.56
May 2009
A monthly newsletter about business, strategy, people, purpose and processes based on the popular articles, interviews and workshops conducted by Ric Willmot, FAIM FAIPF MIMC.
© 2009 Ric Willmot. All Rights Reserved. You are encouraged to share the contents with others with appropriate attribution. Recommend your colleagues subscribe.
The Executive Wisdom Times is in six sections this month:
- Ponderances - Marketing Smart in a downturn
- The human condition - Where's the customer service?
- Upcoming Events
- Webinars & Teleconferences
- Ric's Rant - Don't read this unless you are willing to be ticked-off
- Before you go ...
Ponderances - Marketing Smart in a downturn
Stop blaming the economic downturn for poor performance. Business isn't any harder than before, if you really do deliver value in your product or service offering. What is important is that you continue to market, otherwise you will no longer be registering on the radar of potential customers and clients.
Yes, the overall market may have contracted, but people will continue to buy. So it makes sense that you must be visible in the marketplace and importantly articulate your value from the customer's perspective.
Not surprisingly, you need to be marketing-smart because marketing-dumb will decrease the effectiveness and success of your effort. Here are 5 of Ric's Target Twelve Tips to Marketing Smart in a downturn.
1. Build it and they will come - RUBBISH!
Randomly implementing tactical measures can be completely worthless. These are what I call, alternatives seeking an objective. And, when these tactics fail, you feel even more desperate or depressed. Invest the time and thinking energy to establish a clear strategic objective. Understand who your clients are, and what they need that you can deliver. Next, develop an action plan to consistently put your offering in front of them.
2. Make your message sophisticated.
Your marketing message has to clearly articulate the fundamental value proposition you provide to your customers and clients. It needs to grab the attention specifically of your target audience; generate interest in the customer to know more because it addresses their issue or problem; has a bottom-line outcome so their desire to buy grows. Finally, you must have a step to urge action by the customer to purchase. If the marketing message is not clear, the parade will pass you by.
3. Added value
In times of economic downturn most businesses scale back and reduce costs. But the message you convey by doing this is exactly the opposite of what you are wishing your customers to do! People, in bad times and good, always want to reduce the price, but they NEVER want to reduce the value. Otherwise there would never be any Porsche's sold; a KIA can transport just the same. But the perceived value and luxury of a Porsche enables people to spend the extra. I call it the Porsche Paradox. Work at ways to add value without significantly increasing your own costs.
4. Be seen
It's easy for you to fool yourself into thinking you are too busy to market. Well guess what? If you don't make marketing a priority in a downturn; you won't be busy for long. And, physically meeting customers and clients, it seems, is a lost art. Many of my clients are amazed when I call them to meet for a coffee. With emails, and SMS, tweets and facebook, the physical interactions are what clients are thirsting for. Get out there and meet the people, be seen!
5. Stay in touch
Don't wait for customers to come to you. Develop a system to purposely stay in touch with clients and provide useful and valuable information: email newsletters, telephone calls, personal notes in the post, a blog, private client closed-door sales, etc. There are a hundred ways to stay in touch. How many are you utilising?
What's your plan? Do you have a plan? Do one thing, get it right and then move on and do the next. Action is the only precursor to success!
If this has you nodding your head, and you would like assistance with your key marketing strategies, call us on: +61 7 3395-1050 or click here and Ric will call you.
We're here to help.
The human condition - Where's the customer service?
Three telephone calls to register my newly purchased MYOB for Mac software, only to be kept waiting on hold for more than 15 minutes each time, then to be answered by linguistically challenged operators who could hardly speak English let alone understand it.
The first call was more of a jape than a registration service. Thirteen minutes attempting to have recorded "Ric Willmot, Executive Wisdom Consulting Group" had produced "Rich Hilmont, Execute Whistling Consultant Goop". Frustrated, I said I would call back later.
By the third call I was able to speak with one person who finally registered my product. The reason I had to call back a third time? I was rudely disconnected by the second operator when I demanded to speak to a supervisor; “They are all on a break, there’s no one here to speak with you.” CLICK.
I had two questions:
The first: How to import my PC MYOB file into this Mac version of MYOB?
This question was too much for the operator who also disconnected me. I considered that this person was in some way helpful, so maybe she didn’t hang up on me and we had an unfortunate telephone problem.
If that was the case and benefit of the doubt afforded; considering she had just taken all of my details including telephone, fax and email address, then she will be in contact quickly saying sorry we were disconnected. But alas, no.
An email sent to MYOB resulted in a telephone call from a competent English-speaking person who feigned authority, care and consideration for a short time. Until it was explained that MYOB had designed their Mac entry-level program in such a manner that it could not import or export PC-Mac data. Go figure!
"So you are telling me that MYOB has designed an MYOB software program in such a way that it cannot export or import MYOB data?"
"Well, when you put it like that."
"Is there any other way to put it?"
"You purchased a basic Mac edition of our MYOB software. If you purchase a premium edition of the Mac MYOB software you can import and export data with PC and Mac."
"How much for the premium edition of MYOB for Mac?"
"I can give you a special upgrade price seeming you have just bought the basic Mac Edition. Only $569!"
"That's strange. Harris Technology are advertising the same version you are upgrading me to, for exactly $569."
The silence was deafening.
"You just lied to me about a special upgrade price didn't you?"
CLICK ... she hung up!
The imbroglio around customer service by many organisations seeking to reduce costs by outsourcing is something that still has the odium of indifferent concern to best practice. Misrepresentations take it to a whole other level.
Opportunities in Propinquity
We have now placed a specific page on our website for Developmental Opportunities. We trust this helps all of you, especially those who suggested just such a page on the site.
Here is a reminder of what is approaching.
Upcoming Events
SURTHRIVE 2009 & BEYOND
Brisbane, Australia, July 8
Limited to only 15 participants, this interactive day is designed for business owners and partners to gain maximum leverage from strategic business approaches that will give you the edge over your competition. One time only - this will not be repeated.
EXECUTIVE WISDOM BUSINESS COLLEGE
Brisbane, Australia, August 6-8
Dubai, UAE, November 8-10
The intent for this program is straightforward. A 3-day intensive program for business owners, partners and executives to grow and build a thriving business in spite of the economic uncertainties, perceived vulnerabilities, and situations which are causing other businesses to perform at less than optimal capacity. Not for the feint-hearted! 
THE ULTIMATE EXECUTIVE NETWORKING EVENT - RIC'S SYDNEY
Sydney, Australia, December 4-6
WOMEN-ONLY EDITION - Sydney, Australia, December 11-13
Limited to only 5 participants and Ric, only unique people will share this ultimate executive networking and learning experience. A long weekend in Sydney, indulging in the best food, wine, shows and conversation while staying in luxury on Sydney Harbour.
 The May 2009 webinar-conference is: Marketing for people who can't sell.
There are many people in business who are not natural marketers let alone salespeople. Accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, recruiters and alike. But the reality is that if you are in business then you have to be marketing if you want to remain in business!
Monday 18th May at 12 noon EST (GMT +10). You must register to reserve your place.
- Current Mentor & Coaching Program Members are FREE
- Current Members of the Online Coaching Club are FREE
- Members of the Society for Executive Wisdom are FREE
- Registration for all others is $39 including GST
This is a Coaching Club that is accessible no matter where in the world you live!
Our clients benefit from our knowledge, experience, and straightforward advice during good times and bad. They make better decisions ... decisions that have improved their businesses, their careers and personal lives.
- Are you interested in learning about organisations, like yours, that not only survived but thrived during economic slowdowns and recession?
- Are you willing to undergo an objective and truthful assessment of your organisation's capability?
- Are you able to face the brutal facts about today's economy?
- Are you dedicated to the long-term future of your organisation?
- Are you committed to doing whatever it takes to survive and thrive, today and in to the future?
For less than the same price of an espresso per day, here's what you get:
- An educational webinar every month on a business facet that will give you immediate results, even in these tough times.
- A monthly teleconference on business which will include interviews with successful and smart people, tips from me, etc.
- Unlimited access to the "Members-Only" section of my website that contains an enormous amount of tools, articles, information and resources to help you and your business.
- Access to download and keep all of the webinars and teleconferences so you can replay them as often as you like.
- Access to me, to bounce ideas off, ask questions, get second opinions, etc. I am a sounding-board ... a resource to you.
- You become part of a community of like-minded business people interested in thriving and succeeding, not sulking over problems.
This is limited to only 50 people; and 32 have already been secured.
Ric's Rant - Don't read this unless you are willing to be ticked-off
The business world is denigrating at a rate that would give the most seasoned of astronauts vertigo. Here is what I have personally experienced or been witness to in the last few months. All these events are 100% accurate and true - as Bart Simpson says: "You just can't make this stuff up!"
- Failing to return phone calls - everyone wants referrals; and yet people within organisations foolishly believe they don't have to display common courtesy. If customers stop doing business with your boss, YOU will soon be out of a job. Customer service is EVERYONE'S job no matter what title you have printed on your business card.
- A man wrote me an email that some of the articles which he could download from the Free Resources section had typos. He pontificated that I needed the proofreading services of his wife at $70 per hour. Here is a person benefiting from value I am providing for free who, in return, wants to charge me to correct some errors that aren't bothering me or my clients who actually invest money with me. Most people who find typos inform me and give the location, so my web guy can fix them.
- A woman took 7 minutes at the counter deciding what type of coffee she would order from the Starbucks in the Sydney CBD (although there should be laws on what can be termed: coffee).
- Not delivering on promises. The editor of a magazine has been promising for three months to send me the PDF copies of a few articles I wrote for his magazine this year. No sign of them. I did however, receive an email asking me to refer potential advertisers.
- Just minutes prior to a confirmed 11.30am meeting, I received an email stating he was home sick and couldn't meet with me.
These people are like black holes, imploding and crashing in on themselves, increasingly subsumed by their own narrow world until they collapse, inert, spent, disiccated. The question is: How many of the rest of us do they trap in the debris?
On the upside, the funniest comment I received this month was at a coffee meeting where one of the people at the table said that after seeing my photo on the top of my website; he thought I would be taller. I am 5'11".
There are far too many blogs by way too many people, that are boring, repetitive or plainly self-promotional and nothing else. This blog will never be boring or obsequious. My purpose is to offer alternative views to management’s conventional wisdom so that organizations can deliver increasing value, acquire increasing business, and develop Executive Wisdom for Breakthrough Executive Performance.
© 2009 Ric Willmot. All Rights Reserved.
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