Thursday, August 26  

Business thinking is creative thinking

Business thinking is creative thinking

This blog is along the lines of an article I wrote a few months back about people applying for jobs. Read that article here.

I had an email last week from a University/College student:

"My group and I have an assessment which involves planning a mock event in which we have decided to include a motivational speaker. We were wondering if we could gather some information such as his (she mentioned the speaker specifically) booking fee etc so we can plan our budget."

I sent through the information this girl requested and that was that. This is what I'll assume will happen from here.

She'll go off and finish her assignment. She'll do a good job and get a good mark. That's fine. But in the real world of business it wouldn't work like that. This person wouldn't get a job.

You see, in business you need to be creative. I don't mean graphically creative. You don't need to be able to write, draw, paint, crayon.....nothing like that.

You have to be creative in terms of the way you think.

The speaker I quoted her costs $6,000 + GST.

That's a lot of money. In her assignment I'd guess it takes a fair chunk of her budget.

But look at it from the speaker's perspective.

Would he take less? Depends.
What factors would influence him in taking less? Let's see.......exposure to a target audience, credibility, ability to generate income from the audience.

Would the speaker do the speech for free after I quoted $6,000? Depends.

"Depends on what Brendon?" Glad you asked.

Depends on what the benefits would be to him.

Here's 1 good reason why the speaker would do a $6,000 speech for $0.

1. Because he makes $30,000

Sounds a bit clever, but stick with me here. Here's the conversation:

"Hello Brendon. How much for the speaker to do a speech?"

"$6,000."

"I want it for free. Here's what I'm thinking: the speech will be to 3,000 highly motivated businesspeople. Your speaker speaks on business stuff. He's well respected.

What we'll do is set up a space for him in the foyer at the entrance to the speaking hall. We'll provide tables and chairs and 4 staff members for 3 hours.

Your speaker has a range of merchandise - books, CD's and DVD's that he sells.

At our last conference to this audience our research showed that 50% purchased with an average buy of $50.

$75,000 in sales (1,500 x $50) is what we would expect your speaker to sell on the day.

The sales staff will man the booth immediately before the speech. After the speech we'll break for 1/2 hour so our guests can go off and buy your speakers stuff. The space will be reserved for your speaker for 4 hours after his speech.

We'll also set up 10 Internet connected computers so people can order online on the day.

And we'll insert an order page from your speaker directing people to his web site for more sales.

Now instead of making $6,000, your speaker could make 5 times that. How does that sound?"

Creative thinking in business means making things happen. Only then are you in business.

Have a good night.

Brendon

We have our cake and we're eating it too!

We have our cake and we're eating it too!

Our cake finally arrived today.

It was with eager anticipation that Mel and Jo opened the box and took a piece each. After they'd had a chuckle at my whining in yesterday's blog, they were hoping it would be the right cake so I would shut up!

I wasn't here when the cake arrived. But I got a phone call shortly after:

"Hi. The cake's here. And it's delicious!"

As you can see, Jo's enjoying it!


Jo found the Mud Cake to her liking!

But if you think that's the end of the complaining...............you're right. About the cake at least. I'll write another blog shortly about something that has happened this week that got me thinking.

Cheers

Brendon

Wednesday, August 25  

Article continued

2 more articles added

Howdy again.

The post below - "How a moron does business - the case of the "Cookies, Cakes & Cartridges" business" - is now an article on the site under the same name. Click here for the articles page.

Also, I have added another chapter to the "Selling cigars - all smoke and mirrors?" article (not sure if articles can have chapters?? Oh well, they can now!).

Cheers

Brendon

How a moron does business - the case of the "Cookies, Cakes & Cartridges" business

Howdy.

Down the page a bit (August 17) you'll see a blog titled "A printer cartridge and a Cheesecake." Here's the story...

We had a guy called Paul come in and make his pitch for our ink/laser cartridge business. The business he is with provides free delivery and a free cake with each order.

That sure did impress Mel and Jo in the office!

Paul did a good job and we decided to move away from our current supplier and give these guys a try. We go through 12 $165 laser cartridges a year and 8 $34 ink cartridges. That's $2,252 per annum.

Mel ordered a cartridge......and a Chocolate Mud Cake!

Mel rang up and ordered a cartridge for the laser printer. Costs $164. She ordered on Monday and it was to be delivered yesterday (Tuesday). We held off on some printing.

Sure enough Tuesday comes and no sign of the cartridge. No phone call to say it wasn't coming. Nothing.

When this cartridge selling business fails (and the owner loses thousands of $) the owner will say, "There's just no market in this city. It's too competitive, too hard, too many backroom deals going on."

What he should be saying.......

What he should be saying is, "I'm a moron who has no understanding of business. I shouldn't be allowed within 100 feet of a business."

This is all I wanted.....

All I wanted was this: my cartridge to be delivered when they said it would be delivered. That was the acid test.

Now I won't use them again because of the simple fact that I don't trust them. Their shoddy service directs me to make all sorts of negative assumptions about them. They don't do what they say they will.

Do what you say you will. That will impress the customer. As an added bonus, you get his money. And his word of mouth referrals. Sure, my business is only worth $2,252 a year. But I'd already told 4 people about this great concept. If they buy the same as what I do, that's in excess of $11,000 in sales pa.

But that all stops. All gone (almost).

I gave them a second chance.....they are even more stupid than I first suspected!

The cartridge wasn't delivered. I rang up and said, "The cartridge was meant to be delivered yesterday."

"Sorry," she said. "Our delivery guy was delayed. It will be there today."

And it did come. A day late. Guess what? No cake.

"We'll bring the cake back tomorrow."

This is why it's so easy to be successful in business.....

....it's because you are competing against clowns like these people.

Here's the situation so far:

1. They haven't meet the expectation. Failed miserably.
2. We gave them a second chance and waited another day for the delivery.
3. They failed that miserably by not meeting the expectation then.

2 chances. Failed them both terribly.

Here's what should have been done:

# 1: The cartridge and the Mud Cake should have been delivered by a friendly delivery guy when they said it was going to be delivered. That should have been accompanied by a "Thanks for your business" card:

====

Dear Mel

Thanks so much for your business - we greatly appreciate you giving us a try and can assure you of our best efforts, prices and products at all times. And yummy cakes!

Thanks again. Look forward to being of assistance.

Regards

Mary

===

Now that would have been impressive. Exceeded our expectations. Been professional and friendly. Made us feel like we'd want to do business with them again. Made us feel appreciated (most people stop using a business because they don't feel appreciated).

# 2: The delivery guy is running late. So do this: Ring us.

"Hello Mel. It's Mary here from Cookies, Cakes & Cartridges. I'm terribly sorry Dave (personalise it) is running a little behind schedule because the traffic has been much heavier than expected.

Is it okay if we deliver the cartridge tomorrow? (Get the customer's permission) I'm very sorry for the inconvenience - we always strive for a perfect scorecard.

Dave will call on you first thing in the morning (ambiguous, Dave can turn up at 10 and that'll still be okay) and he'll have an extra cake for you as our way of saying sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for your understanding Mel. Bye."

# 3: The delivery is a day late and they didn't bring the cake.

Time for some major groveling here because the business sucks and you know it.

Here's a choice of 3 actions they should have taken - what would you do?

1. Phone call apology. Written apology. Extra cake. And no charge for the cartridge. Eat the cost, cost yourself $100. With a policy like that you (as the business owner) won't be tolerating crap performance from yourself in the future. If you do, it's gonna hurt your hip pocket.

And you'll probably keep the client, win back some goodwill and get some positive word of mouth because of what you did.

2. Free cake. $20 discount. Phone call apology an hour after the cartridge and/or cake was delivered.

# 3: Phone call apology. $20 discount voucher off your next order.

I can't wait for the Mud Cake to arrive tomorrow - it will either be a Cheesecake or won't show at all!!

It's tough to make a buck out there in the business world. Make the most of every customer. They're the ones who pay the bills, feed the kids and pay the mortgage.

If you do mess it up (and we all do), make things right for your customer as quickly as possible. It's the right thing to do - not only for your customer, but for your business as well.

And sure enough, this blog has gone on for so long that it's now at least article length (and maybe even a book!). I'll turn this one into an article and put it on the 'Articles' page.

Cheers and have a good night.

(By the way, that old saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"..... should actually be "Hell hath no fury like a woman who didn't get her cake." Mel and Jo are angry!!)

Brendon

Tuesday, August 24  

If nothing changes, nothing changes

If nothing changes, nothing changes

Howdy. Hope you had a good weekend.

I'm unfit at the moment. Real unfit. I just can't seem to get motivated. I've joined the gym....even been a couple of times. I'll swim every now and then. Maybe go for a run. But I can't see to get into it.

So today I called Sam

Sam is a friend of mine who is rather fit. She loves health and fitness. Her whole face lights up at the prospect of helping people get fit and healthier. She's done all the courses, has a relevant degree, trains real hard and is just about the most enthusiastic and positive person I know when it comes to fitness. Sam has just started doing some personal training a few months back. She'll be a great success at it.

So I called Sam today and we're arranging to get together and start a fitness program for me.

Because what I'm doing ain't working. If I have Sam's help I can get fitter faster.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

My Cigar Store series of articles

If you've been following the article, you'll know the 3rd Chapter is already late.

I've looked at my workload for the coming couple of weeks and have identified the spots where I can allocate the time to write the article. And, as you'll see by the time of this blog, it's in the office of a night.

I've been home and had dinner, flogged my kids in Table Tennis, watched some of the Olympics, had a coffee and a chat, kissed the kids goodnight and wandered back in to catch up on my writing.

I've had to change my schedule around to get it done.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

Marketing of our business

The marketing of part of our business hasn't done as well as I'd like over the past couple of weeks. I've sat down at looked at the facts and figures and have come up with 3 different strategies. 1 big change and 2 minor adjustments. We'll see if that makes a difference in providing the desired result.

If we continued on doing the same thing we would have received the same result.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

If your business or web site or speaking career or fitness or writing or whatever isn't what you want it to be, then change.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

Don't sit idly by and hope things change for the better. They won't. You have to change them.

Cheers

Brendon

Friday, August 20  

My wife bought 3 things

Last Friday (the 13th) my wife bought 3 things.

1. A house
2. A game for my kid's PlayStation.
3. A bottle of $2.50 nail polish.

My children's reaction to the purchases were:

# 1 - not interested at all.
# 2 - the boys (11 and 10) were very excited.
# 3 - our 13 yo daughter was thrilled.

Different strokes for different folks.

Different people are interested in different things.

I thought of my kids reaction when I was writing an offer letter for a client's product. If I was interested in this product, what would convince me to buy it?

A quick call to a friend of mine who is interested in the product and I had my answer. My client had a great letter. And his customers have a great offer.


Have a good weekend.

Regards

Brendon

Thursday, August 19  

Selling cigars - all smoke and mirrors?

Selling cigars - all smoke and mirrors?

As regular readers might know, I like the occasional cigar. The last batch I had were Montecristo No 4 - a box of them provided by a friend who should know better than to bet against me!

I was in a shopping centre in a major city today and happened to wander past a cigar shop. They had the full range of cigars - a great selection. They also sold a large number of cigar smoking accessories. It was a well stocked shop.

In I went for a look. After having a look around I bought a lovely cigar.

That 1 cigar cost me $39 ($28 US).

And here's the reason why I love having this web site and writing articles like this one. It goes something like this:

Mel (that's my lovely wife) is going through the accounts:
"What's this? One cigar for $39??!!!"

Me, sitting back in my chair, feet up on the desk, cigar smoke slowly rising from my mouth, lit cigar in my left hand:"Research.... darling. Research," say I.

Mel: "And this.....$245 for a restaurant meal???"

Me: "More research. Gee I work hard."

Mel: "$345 for hookers, booze and use of the hotel jacuzzi...."

Me: "Um, errrr, ahhhh....oh yes, that was research. And lots of it...."

You see, easy!

Anyway, where was I? Okay, back on track....

I bought the cigar for $39 and the latest copy of Cigar Aficionado (another $12.95). Paid my money and left the shop.

The owner of that business could do a better job at marketing his business.

...click here to read the rest of the article

Regards

Brendon

Tuesday, August 17  

A printer cartridge and a Cheesecake

A printer cartridge and a Cheesecake

My business goes through a few printer cartridges. We have a laser printer and an ink jet. The laser cartridge gets replaced about once a month at a cost of $165.

We get the occasional sales rep in here trying to get us to buy the cartridges from them. But we have a supplier who supplies us the cartridges at the best price we've found.

But yesterday a guy called Paul came into the office. His business is called "Cookies, Cakes & Cartridges".

If you buy a cartridge from Paul you get free delivery as well as your choice of a free:

* Cheesecake
* Mud Cake
* Diet Fruit Flan
* Bag of Cookies

Now that's an incentive for Mel, who usually does the buying!

Today she was on the phone asking for a quote on our laser cartridge. It's $1 less than we pay now. But we get a free cake/cookies and free delivery! Mel is one happy girl.

That's great marketing. Something as simple as a $5 cake has gained that business over $2,000 pa.

A free cake has no relationship whatsoever to printer cartridges. Maybe that's why it worked?

Cheers

Brendon

Monday, August 16  

Burleigh on the Beach Case Study

New Case Study added to site

Howdy

Haven't written for a week and a bit. We've been rather busy at work and I've been traveling a bit - that always slows me down.

As regular readers know, we do a few resort web sites. A recent small site we did was for Burleigh on the Beach.

The site has been rather successful and Colin and Cath (the Managers) allowed us to write up a case study on the success of the site. The site has only been going for 8 weeks and there is still work to be done.

But I'm sure you'll find the Case Study of interest - simple techniques that have worked well. Click here for the free Online Bookings Case Study.

Regards

Brendon

Friday, August 6  

Badge of honour

Badge of honour

Howdy. I took my son Jack into his first Scouts meeting last night. He's going to go along for a couple of meetings to see if he likes it. If he does, he'll join.

That was the plan anyway. But then this happened:

I was walking up the steps of the hall entrance with Jack when 'Josh', one of the leaders came out. Josh was about 20 years old, had the full Scouts uniform on with badges and lapels and all sorts of official looking stuff.

Jack gazed at all that stuff pretty much the same way most men gaze at beer.

In that millisecond Jack made up his mind that he wanted to join the Scouts. He didn't speak to anyone, he hadn't met anyone, he hadn't even made it into the hall!

Uniforms and decorations hold very powerful influences. A person in uniform gets instant credibility. People respect uniforms and badges. It's just the way it is.

Titles and Awards

It's the same with Job titles. Job titles help distinguish between 'levels' in a company. They are held in very high regard by people. people want to be able to tell their friends, family and significant others that they are the "General Manager" rather than a "Salesperson".

That's why salespeople jobs have titles like "Sales Manager" now. Or "Account Executive."

Titles matter.

And then there are Awards.

We often encourage clients to enter industry awards. Not because it means they are a great business. Because the perception of the business in other people's eyes is that it's a great business.

You see, when people make a buying decision they are always assessing the level of risk associated with dealing with that company. They might talk with others, they might note the serious looking uniforms (!), they might notice the banner displayed announcing the company won a Business Award.

Highly influential

That last one is highly influential. An independent 3rd party providing an implied endorsement. Now that will reduced the level of perceived risk.

As consumers, we take our cues of businesses from factors that really have no bearing on the quality of a business.

* Is the restaurant clean?
* Does the doctor wear a white jacket?
* Is the salesperson smoking?

None of those aspects impact on the quality of service or product we'll receive. But we think they must. And it's on that we base our case.

Have a good weekend.

Brendon

Thursday, August 5  

Free reports back

Free Reports back

Hello. We've fixed the Free Reports on the Free Info page. The autoresponder service we used is no longer in business.

We've reverted to just clicking on the link for access (rather than having to provide your email address). Hope you find the reports useful.

Cheers

Brendon

Tuesday, August 3  

Fixing free stuff

Fixing free stuff

Howdy. For those people trying to access the free stuff from the link at the bottom of the page - you can get into the page, but the autoresponders for the various free reports aren't working.

I'm onto a solution now. Will be a few hours away.

Cheers

Brendon

Monday, August 2  

Copying the copy

Copying the copy

Howdy. Hope you had a good weekend.

Interesting day today. Just happened to find a couple of sites that have ripped off either my web site copy or graphics. I hadn't really considered the ramifications before, but when web site copy is copied then it can have pretty serious consequences.

It's prompted me to write a new article titled "Why a web developer should NOT assign copyright for design or content on a web site". Hope it is of some interest to any web designers, graphic artists or Search Engine experts out there.

And just to make you jealous, below is the view of the beach a couple of minutes up the road. I had my morning coffee right where I took the shot (click on the photo for a larger version - it's only 48 kb) - just a beautiful, beautiful place.

It's a place called Burleigh Point for all of those keen Australian surfers out there.


The magnificent view from where I had my morning coffee

Have a good day.

Cheers

Brendon