Akers Consulting Group

The topic of mobile marketing comes up very often in my conversations with small business owners.  Typically, the conversation boils down to the following factors:

1) They don’t fully understand how mobile marketing works, what is involved, and/or how to leverage it to help their business.

2) They perceive it as something that only large companies can afford.

3) They under appreciate the power of mobile marketing, especially for small, local businesses.

If I ask them how familiar they are with SMS texts, mobile landing pages, QR codes, shortcodes, opt-in programs, etc., and I get a response like “A QR what?” then I know that I have an opportunity to really help them.  Most small business owners are too busy with other business tasks, not allowing them to keep up with the constant changes and improvements in the mobile marketing area.  As a business person, what they do understand are the staggering numbers that show how consumers continue to become more and more reliant and attached to their mobile phones.

Here are just a few of the key statistics:

• There are 5 billion plus cell phone user vs. only 1.8 billion Internet users (almost 3x in market size.)
• Of these users, 51 Million use smart phones
• Your Mobile phone is one thing that most people will not leave home without
• Mobile Text Offerings have open rates of 95%
• 73% of new mobile phone buyers report that text messaging is the most important feature on their phone
• The typical mobile phone user now sends more text messages than mobile phone calls
• 50% of all social media interaction is done via mobile phone

Mobile marketing is a great way for a business to actively engage its current clients, resulting in increased loyalty and greater frequency in purchases.  QR codes are very powerful for small businesses, and are one of the fastest growing marketing tools.  SMS texting programs can send exclusive messages to your best customers, resulting in immediate action and results.

Best of all, these effective programs are now affordable to the small business owner.  If sales growth is one of your key goals, find a marketing professional that provides a wide variety of mobile marketing programs and will tailor one to your specific needs and budget.  Talk to several, and choose one that will explain how the programs work, how other businesses similar to yours have utilized them, and will provide you full service, including any necessary printed materials.  Better yet, add mobile marketing to your overall integrated marketing strategy, including local on-line presence and social media marketing.  Then you’ll start seeing tremendous results.

Mobile phones are not going away, in fact they will continue to do more tasks, offer more features, and make us even more reliant on them.  Soon, electronic payments made from our cell phones, for ordinary purchases, will be common.  Get your business involved in mobile marketing now, and leverage the power this platform brings to small businesses.

In working with business owners that are looking for ways to improve their sales, customer retention, employee morale and/or profitability, one of the first things I review is their professionalism.  This pertains to every aspect of their organization, and can dramatically impact both morale and consumer perception. I conduct an analysis of how their behavior and company presentation comes across in the marketplace to current and potential consumers.

I am constantly amazed at how many organizations don’t take the time or effort to either 1) require a level of professionalism from their employees, or 2) take the time to set the proper expectations as to their behavior.

Here’s an example, I have a favorite grocery store.  It isn’t the closest one to me, and might not be the least expensive, but I like the way the store is laid out and they carry the products that I buy on a regular basis.  What I don’t want, as I’m getting ready to turn over another $100 (at least) of my hard earned cash, is to listen to the teenager working the register talking to the other teenager who is bagging my groceries (see more about this person below) about the wild weekend they had, or who’s party they are going to this next weekend.

The cashier should have been taught that I, who am spending my money and thus partially sponsoring her job, am the customer and that her attention should be on me.  The bagger should have been taught that his or her focus should be on carefully placing my grocery items into bags, and not sticking my grapes in the same bag as a gallon of milk and three cans of soup.  Duh!

I blame this on the leadership of the grocery store.  They obviously do not take the time or effort to set the proper expectations with the people they hire to represent them.  Why?  How could this so important aspect of customer service be overlooked on such a regular basis?

In working with business owners and leaders, I find that many are unaware of the negative impact that the lack of professional behavior, coming from representatives of their organizations, can have.  Of course, I’ve also witnessed the owner being at fault, displaying behavior that is hurting his ability to keep customers or employees, let alone motivate them.

Take a moment to look at your organization through the eyes of the public.  Can you describe your organization as professional?  Do your employees, who are often the face and voice of your company act in a professional manner?

Here are some things to look for:

• Do you have hand written signs up where customers can view them?
• Can a customer hear noises or music that they shouldn’t?
• If a potential customer walks or drives by your place of business, would they be impressed?
• How do your employees answer the phone?
• Do you return phone calls and meet deadlines as promised?
• When a potential customer first walks into your place of business, what do they see?  Is the environment clean, welcoming and professional?

Improving the professionalism in your organization can positively impact your sales and your bottom line!  Take a fresh look, and try to visiualize if from a customer’s eyes, ears, nose, etc.

Ok, I’m going to take advantage of this message vehicle to get up on my soapbox and complain about spammers.  Upfront, I know that my message here is not going to suddenly change the world and that every lowlife on this earth that sends out spam will suddenly decide to become a responsible human being.

We get spam and scams in every possible way on-line.  The internet becomes a playground for these slimy individuals.

We’ve all received spam in our e-mail.  We receive the ridiculous messages that your name has been chosen, out of the more than 100 Million people in the US, to help some person in a third world country transfer millions of dollars.  Free money for you!  Thank goodness that these people have never taken an English course or have proofreaders, or more people might fall for their ridiculous scam.

Lately, as I have been trying to launch and grow my blog, I’ve been inundated with supposed post replies that are nothing more than a link to some website.  Sites that are totally unrelated to the subject matter and are their vain attempt to increase their website rankings.

My question is, who are these gutter dwellers?  We have a choice in what type of person we want to be.  These folks make a conscious decision to send out hurtful, misleading and wasteful messages to millions of people every day. Do these folks really have such low self esteem that they allow themselves to be the leeches of the internet?  Can their parents, spouses and children really be proud of them?

I consider much of the spam, and definitely the scams to be immoral behavior.  This behavior costs business owners time, resources and money.  Imagine the additional jobs that money could be used for.  Of course, this damaging behavior of these spamming slime-balls do keep folks in the IT departments busy.

Soapbox has now been put away, for now.  I’m sure I’ll get more spam replies to this posting!

At a professional networking event last night, a fellow business owner asked me a question that you have probably heard many times if you own or run a business.  He asked, “Who is your best customer?”

Advertising sales people will often ask this, trying to figure out if you know about your client base and also if their product can succesfully target that demographic. In my years of sales management and training, I witnessed on countless occasions where a business owner did not truly know what his or her best customer was.  They often made assumptions, which were proven to be false once a customer database analysis was performed.

Do you truly know who your best customer is?  Beyond the typical demographics of how far away they live, what gender, income level, etc.  What are the common attributes of your best customer?

I am glad that this person asked me, and I’m even happier that I was able to answer him without hesitation. (It would be pretty bad if I taught this to my clients and didn’t know myself). 

For me, my best client has four attributes:

1) They know that something needs to change (in their business, leadership, marketing or sales approach), and,

2) They are willing to listen and discuss their current situation openly, and,

3) They understand the long-term value of improving their situation (increased wealth, career advancement, job satisfaction)

4) They are open to putting forth the effort to change (with my support and encouragement).

Knowing these key attributes allows me to quickly qualify a prospect. 

Do you know your best customer’s attributes?  List out three or four of them now.  

P.S. If you match the four attributes I listed above, perhaps it would make sense for you to talk to a professional coach? At Akers Consulting Group, initial conversations are always Free, so you have nothing to lose.

I received a telemarketing call today, and it was just too typical.  No wonder telemarketing has such a negative stigma.

As you may know, I recently wrote and published a book, “Win! A Leader’s Guide to Building a Winning Team.”

The telemarketer tried to initially draw me in by wanting to know if he could ask me questions about the book.  After the second question, I could tell that he was trying to sell me something.  How?  Because the questions were not relevant.  When I asked him his reason for calling, he told me that he was with a company that helps self-published authors market their book. I’ve looked into these companies already, and can tell you that their packages are on average around $1000.  I would need to sell a ton of books in order to see any type of ROI on that kind of investment.  Luckily, being somewhat knowledgeable about marketing, I’m already doing all the things they would do for me, and they are costing me a fraction of their asking price.

Here’s the thing – the telemarketer failed where most sales people do – he was trying to sell me.  I sniffed it out right away, probably because I’ve trained sales reps for many years and know the bad habits that they pick up.  If you are in sales, remember to make the conversation about me, and not about you.  I don’t know you, and don’t really care about your company.  I only care about how you can help me with my struggles and concerns.  Find out what those are, and then tell me how you can help me with those.  How are you building trust and credibility with your prospects?

If you are in sales, and aren’t hitting the numbers you need to, perhaps it’s time to look at your approach.  Consider hiring a professional coach, who can help you fine-tune your prospecting, listening and closing techinques.  One additional sale can cover your entire investment.

Head coaches of professional sports teams are favorite fodder for criticisms, both of their leadership and the management decisions they make. Sports Talk radio thrives off of sports fans that love to question the top management of their favorite teams. As an example, look at the criticism pointed towards  New England Patriot’s head coach Bill Belichick, a result of a decision he made during the 2009 season to go for it on a 4^th and 2 situation, which ultimately failed and led to a defeat at the hands of the Colts. Monday-morning-quarterbacks across the country were questioning his decision making ability. One decision, from a man that has led his team to three Super Bowl championships in a ten year period, placed under what could be called undue scrutiny.

Human tendency is to outwardly criticize decisions that we may not understand or agree with. Your employees will do the same thing with decisions and actions you make!

While your decisions or your actions as a business owner or executive may not be discussed on a local radio talk show, you should count on them being scrutinized and become water-cooler topics amongst those that are affected.  

How can you avoid loss of productivity? Make sure you communicate to your team.  The biggest cause of rumors regarding management decisions is lack of communication. Explain to your team members why you are implementing a change.  Even if the change is an unpopular one, the fact that they have an understanding behind the decision will help them move more quickly through the change curve to acceptance.