The 8020 Blog

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I interviewed Ryan Allis today. He started his business in 2003 and in the first two years he lived in a rented office … yep … lived in his office.

In those two years his sales totaled $12,000 and his expenses $17,000. He slept on a mattress on the office floor and ate noodles for 24 months. The only reason he did not go bankrupt was that a friend lent him $5,000 to pay off the most aggressive creditors.

This year Ryan will do $30 million in sales. He will turn 26 years of age in August.

Ryan’s parents were neither wealthy nor business-minded (father a priest, mother a social worker).  He got where he is today by thinking … finding a specific unmet need in the market place, then putting his all on the line to bring that idea to life in the market place.

He demonstrated guts and determination in the face of self-doubt and market place ambivalence.

Ryan has thus made it almost impossible for any of us to offer excuses - which is the main point of this blog … Ryan was born to lower middle class parents … no money apart from rent, food and power. No big advantage apart from a big heart. Nothing special … and yet he has achieved, at age 25, the extraordinary.

Thanks Ryan for the inspiration.

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Thanks to Liz Cassidy of www.thirdsigma.com.au for the idea for this post … from which I have taken unreasonable poetic license (Liz is your go-to-gal if you have any problem leadership behaviors you want to make disappear).

If you have a “push” marketing strategy then the appropriate pricing model is to figure out your costs, add a margin and go sell it.

By way of example, I had a discussion with the Managing Director of one the worlds largest motor vehicle manufacturers about two years ago. I asked him a question about vehicle production and he stopped me and said “Tom, you don’t understand, we are not in the business of making cars, we are in the business of selling them. We have a policy of estimating market needs and we then deliberately set about to produce an excess of cars which we then push down our dealers outlets and back them by advertising special deals.”

That’s a good example of “push” marketing which normally means that you wind up competing on price which eventually, if you are not careful, becomes a zero sum game.

The other style is “pull” marketing which is where you differentiate your product and create such an interest for it, if not a demand, that people are approaching your business wanting to buy.

This type of marketing means you can price on the basis of value perceived by the client as opposed to cost (see above “push” marketing”). Consulting services - at least the smart ones - price their services on this basis.

Pull marketing means that you can charge a premium price, partly because you have all but eliminated direct competitors but mainly because you don’t base the final price on costs such as time and materials but rather on value.

Probably the worst thing you can do is have a “pull” product and charge “push”prices … if you do that you are leaving a LOT of money on the table.

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A couple of days ago I visited the web site of one of my client’s competitors.

I was delighted to see that they were making  a big mistake which many, many other solopreneur and small business owners make, time and time again.

The big mistake is to take “you” out of your brand.

On the afore-mentioned web site under the all-too-predictable “About Us” tab there was something to the effect that “we are a husband and wife team”. Not even a name. Nothing about what they love/hate/admire/fear/loathe/believe/dream about/like/opine/read/listen to/respect/value etc.

The surgical removal of your personality costs you clients … end of story.

Why?

Because of two facts:

1. People are bored and are more interested in something unique and non-mainstream i.e. your personality.

2. People want to have a relationship with you BEFORE they buy your product/service.

Big mistake. There are few advantages that small business has over big business but one of them is that it is VERY easy for us to inject personality into our marketing message and into our products and services.

Steve Irwin (a.k.a. The Crocodile Hunter), Richard Branson, Walt Disney and Dick Smith all knew this when they started out and they kept it going. Personalize your brand, message, marketing … find the authentic you and strut your stuff …

Frankly, failure to express the essence of you in your business and with staff and clients etc is not only a bad marketing mistake but more importantly it robs the world of a unique and very special gift … you. And as Coco Chanel said “In order to be indispensable one must be different”.

Sameness = boring. Different = interesting.

Which one do you think might be the easier path to the sale?

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Here are seven easy things about getting a business up and running:

1. Coming up with a good idea that will sell (it’s not that hard)

2. Getting excited about your cool new logo

3. Writing your cool sexy new web pages

4. Kicking your web developer’s butt when he/she/it has still not got your web site up

5. Reading interesting business web articles/books, doing courses/workshops (especially mine!)

6. Talking to friends about your cool new idea

7. Tweaking your cool new logo and re-writing your web site (then refer #4 above)

Here’s the one hard thing about getting a new business up and running (yes, there is only one):

1. Pushing through the fears, doubts, frustrations, disappointments, let downs, cash flow snarl ups, demotivating moments, apathy, lethargy, self-esteem issues etc etc etc

… and continuing to push through them day after day, week after week and year after year … until they dissolve (perhaps) into the nothingness they always were.

It’s really not complicated … do what you know you need to do … and keep doing it with sheer bloody minded persistence despite your doubts and the small minded nay-sayers…

Go for it … push … harder … that’s it … now keep going …

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I have a close friend whose business is languishing without enough clients. Sam (name changed) is a therapist and has around 5 clients a week. His capacity is 40 clients a week.

Sam’s answer to the client slump is to …

• Clean his offices daily

• Read more books on his specialty

• Talk to me about how slow things are

• Talk to other therapists to make sure they are slow too

• Enroll in more therapy courses

• Talk to me again about how slow things are

Sam listens to my advice and nods sagely as I suggest he build some marketing systems and also tell him what they should be and how to build them.

After listening and nodding Sam reverts to the above list. Bear in mind that Sam actually has the time and ability to act on my advice.

Sam needs some GOYFA … Get Of Your Fat Ass … and do something. It’s not rocket science. If anyone wants more clients they need to firstly build the marketing systems (ezine, reactivation letters, advertorial, yellow pages, referral systems, newsletter, continuity club, seminars, webinars, articles, blog, twitter … the list goes on) and then they need to GOYFA …

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I’ve written on the subject of handling client/prospect complaints before but I think it’s worth writing again.

The basic idea is this: “if you stuff up then fess up and fix up” so that you “turn the frown on your clients face into a smile”.

I recently conducted a large marketing campaign which, I am pleased to say, was highly successful and resulted in 167 people (to date) pulling out their credit cards and ordering from www.8020Center.com

But due to a problem we failed to foresee (involving the long holiday weekend here in Australia and our unmanned office), a number of people continued to receive multiple email reminders about the offer after they had ordered. Not a good look.

Most people were quite good about our mistake and either ignored it our let me know about it and in most cases we were able to stop our “little digital man inside the computer” (a.k.a. our auto-responder system) from sending out more emails.

But for Paul (a very patient person!) the little digital man persisted in sending out more reminders, even after my clear instructions for him to desist.

So by way of illustrating the point of this post here’s an extract from my email to him …

Hi Paul, I’m personally going in right now to rip out the little digital man’s heart through his throat.

(My relationship with this technology is definitely in the love/hate category.)

OK … got it in my hands now … it’s messy and still beating but it won’t last long … where’s my dog gone … here boy …

Right … all done.

By way of apology I’d like to offer you a gift … if you go to this secret URL you’ll find 25 interviews that I have conducted with very competent business leaders … you can download any or all of them. I normally sell this package for over $400 and I hope that it will signal to you that I’m serious in my apology (please keep the link to yourself).

Paul, I have left you subscribed to just the one list which is our monthly Ezine … content rich … let me know if you want me to pull the plug on that one as well otherwise you should get your first copy  on the 1st of next month … after I have found a new little digital man.

Okay so that was the email - but I am not showing you this so you think “Gee Tom what  swell guy you are” … no … it’s to reinforce the message that saying sorry is not enough … you have to send the client/prospect away with a smile.

Saying sorry means squat (as in nothing) and “actions speak louder than words” so if you stuff up, then fess up and fix up.

The fess up and fix up are something we need to do anyway, if for no other reason than a stand point of integrity but in addition it’s best to think about a complaint as a marketing opportunity … better to have people out there in the market place telling others about your “fix up” than your “stuff up”.

And yes, if you were one of those who got a minor avalanche of annoying emails from my now-deceased little digital man then email me at Tom@8020Center.com and I’ll send you the link to the interviews with my compliments …

Last reason to “fess up and fix up” … you will sleep better at night.