Georgia SBDC- Small Business Blog

Fighting Habit

An excellent post from the Duct Tape Marketing Blog.  This a problem I think the majority of people have.  Very good advice.  Enjoy!

Have you ever made a sales call, presented what was an obvious advancement in terms of innovation, quality, efficiency and price, only to walk away without the sale?

If so there’s a good chance you’ve met the competitor known as habit. Habit, even a costly one, can stop a buyer from switching to your product more thoroughly than any competitor’s feature set or low ball price ever dared to.

When you encounter a prospect or market segment that’s unwilling to listen to logic you must be prepared to introduce a specific approach aimed at teaching them how to switch. In some cases the fear of change, unknown or known pain of switching, or overall risk raises the selling bar to the point where most give up. Implement the following and you might find a rich new market for your products and services.

Acknowledge the habit

The first step is to come to grips with the problem yourself. Stop trying to convince people why they should switch and start understanding what’s keeping them locked where they are. You can’t help them solve the problem if you don’t understand and acknowledge it yourself.

How much does that habit cost?

Once you understand what’s holding them back you can go to work on defining exactly how much their fear or indifference is costing them. When you can quantify just how much their behavior is costing them in dollars and cents you’ll stand are far greater chance of getting their attention. Look to your existing success stories and poll your existing client base to come up with hard and soft numbers that reflect the benefit of switching to your product or solution. When you can demonstrate that not switching is costing $9822 while switching only costs $3588, you’ll raise at least one eyebrow.

Build a case of what’s in it

Since your fighting the laws of physics here you’ve got to create even more force to overcome the inertia of a reluctant buyer. Focus on what’s in it for them. Talk to your customers and get a good feel for the 3-4 “real” (meaning not the stuff you put in your marketing brochure) benefits your customers experience. Don’t worry about how simple you think they are, if your customers are telling that’s why they really switched, believe it’s why others will as well. I switched credit cards one time because the company showed me how much more detailed their online statements were than anyone else. That’s why I switched – not because I could get a cheap plastic cooler for every $1000 I spent.

Easy to switch offer

Once you’ve helped them realize the real cost and built a benefit rich case, you’re almost there. You’ve also got to remove the final barrier known as “what if.” What if evaporates with an over the top guarantee to switch them back and pay for all disruption if . . .it goes away when your throw in all set-up, training and refining at no cost . . . it goes away when you implant your super responsive customer service rep in their business for 90 days . . . it goes away when you offer to get paid only after they experience the proposed savings. So, what’s your easy to switch offer.

Habit a darn fierce competitor, but one that won’t stand up to your habit busting strategy.

How Does a Strategic Plan Differ From a Business Plan?

A business plan is appropriate when you are starting something new - a new business, a new product/service line within a business, entering a new market or updating your goals and budget for a new year.  It may be written for an audience internal to the firm, or in the case of seeking financing - will be written for an audience external to the firm. 

A strategic plan is a long-term plan for the organization, is very "big-picture-oriented” and is an internal document. The strategic plan focuses on your competitive advantage - what choices you need to make to be unique and extremely good at what you do so that your target market will buy from you. Your strategic plan includes your mission statement and your vision. The mission statement answers the question "What is our company's reason for existing?" The vision statement answers the question "What will our business look like in 5 to 10 years from now?" The strategic plan also assesses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats - known as a SWOT analysis. Other parts of the strategic planning process are profiling your customers' needs, establishing goals and objectives in various time frames - long, medium and short, assessing resources (money, people, etc.), outlining action steps and keeping score with key performance indicators (KPIs). A strategic plan can be summarized on one or two pages and works best when all employees are familiar with it, and how their individual performance fits into the overall plan.

Your strategic plan sets the direction for your firm - where you want to go.  Having no strategic plan is like cooking without a recipe - you may get lucky and it turns out well, but how will you repeat your success?  Would you set out to visit somewhere you had never been before without a map?  Without a strategy, your chance of achieving your goals is significantly diminished.

Every action taken by your firm should be in alignment with your strategy.  Every employee should know the strategy and have a clear understanding of their part in making it happen.  Of course, the only constant is change.  A strategic plan must be revisited and revised at regular intervals as appropriate - maybe due to new opportunities, maybe due to new threats in the market. 

To borrow Home Depot's old tag line, "You can do it; we can help."  Contact your local SBDC office for assistance in developing your strategic plan.  It is often helpful to have an objective third party facilitate the process.  Did you know SBDC consulting services are offered at no charge?

Some very good sources - Jim Collins' Good To Great; Verne Harnish's Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

 

5 Examples of Social Media in Healthcare Marketing

A well done post by Michelle Bowles from Top Rank Marketing Blog.  Check it out for some great information and lessons for marketers.

From Top Rank Marketing Blog:

More than ever, it’s essential for hospitals and health providers to rethink their healthcare marketing mix to include social media.

The proof is in the numbers: 34% of consumers use social media to search for health information, according to research data from How America Searches: Health and Wellness.

While it’s easy to identify demand, many healthcare marketers are not exactly sure how they might tap into the social web to reach business goals. To help understand the possible applications, consider these five examples of how the social web can work for hospitals and others in the healthcare industry:

1. Tweet Live Procedures
In the past year, social media channels have helped open up an area of healthcare previously only available to a select few: the operating room.

Last February, Henry Ford Hospital became one of the first hospitals to Tweet a live procedure from an operating room. Doctors, medical students and curious non-medical personnel followed along as surgeons tweeted short updates on the kidney surgery to remove a cancerous tumor.

This healthcare marketing tactic can effectively create excitement and raise public awareness for a healthcare organization. In the case of the Henry Ford procedure, Twitter was abuzz that February day with users both re-tweeting the messages from Henry Ford and adding their own thoughts on the event. That buzz can help healthcare organizations both attract new patients and recruit medical personnel.

2. Train Medical Personnel
Some healthcare organizations are beginning to recognize the potential impact of leveraging social media channels to complement training efforts. Mayo Clinic Social Media Manager Lee Aase, for example, incorporated social media into a recent training presentation for local chapters of the American Heart Association. (Check out Lee Odden’s social media interview with Aase for Online Marketing Blog.) During the presentation, Aase leveraged Twitter to encourage participants to contribute to the discussion using the #AHAchat hashtag.

Weaving social media into healthcare training initiatives can provide multiple benefits, including:

• Giving trainees a forum to ask questions and quickly receive answers
• Providing presenters with immediate feedback from trainees (i.e., if trainees have mastered a concept of if more guidance is needed)
• Enabling organizations to complement healthcare marketing efforts by sharing slideshows, video or pictures from training sessions on social sites like YouTube or Flickr

3. Reach Mainstream Media
70% of journalists now use social networks to assist reporting, compared to 41% the year before, according to a  Middleberg Communications survey reported by PRWeek. With numbers that high, it only makes sense for healthcare marketers to leverage social media channels in order to achieve coverage by both mainstream media and industry publications.

As part of healthcare marketing efforts, organizations can use social media channels – including blogs, forums and microblogs – to share success stories from out-of-the-ordinary operations or treatments, medical research or other significant achievements. For example, when Aurora Health Care tweeted a knee operation in April, it received significant media attention, both from mainstream media and industry publications including Good Morning America, the local Milwaukee public radio network and Hospital Management Magazine.

4. Communicate in Times of Crisis
When disaster strikes – whether it be a flood, an earthquake or a terrorist attack – hospitals and healthcare providers are at the center of it all. Healthcare providers can leverage social media networks to provide real-time updates both for those directly affected by the crisis and those watching from afar.

During the November Fort Hood shooting attack, Steven Widman of Scott & White Healthcare – one of the hospitals that treated Fort Hood victims, used Twitter to provide up-to-the-minute news. Through Twitter, Widman provided updates on emergency room access and hospital operation status, re-tweeted news from Red Cross and communicated with reporters.

Widman shared with Found In Cache Blog the results of the social media crisis communication efforts:

• Twitter followers increased 78% in just three days
• Scott & White Healthcare was listed on the front page of Twitter as a “trending topic”
• The hospital’s YouTube channel was ranked the 79th most viewed non-profit channel during the entire week surrounding the crisis

5. Provide Accurate Information to Patients
73% of patients search for medical information online before or after doctors visits, according to this video from the HealthCare New Media Conference. With the magnitude of health information available on the web – both accurate and inaccurate – it’s likely that these patients can easily be misinformed.

By integrating social media into the healthcare marketing mix, organizations can share accurate, timely information regarding symptoms, diseases, medications, treatments and more. Social sites like Inspire are providing a forum for patients to share their health problems and questions about treatments with other patients, as well as qualified medical personnel. Inspire, for instance, partners with trusted health nonprofit organizations to ensure information is accurate and its community is safe.

The benefits of integrating social media into healthcare marketing efforts are priceless – from improving patient care to gaining media coverage to attracting new patients and staff. If your healthcare organization hasn’t already taken advantage of social networking channels, now is the time. If you’re having challenges getting approval, check out “Social Media in Healthcare Marketing: Making the Case“.

How else can healthcare marketers leverage social media to complement their efforts?

What Do My Customers Want?

One of the hardest things for a small business owner to stomach sometimes is that the customer’s wants and needs are not the same as the small business owner’s dreams for his or her company.  A business needs to cater to the needs and wants of his customers in order to make a profit for their company. In a post by Seth Godin, he also says to keep in mind what the industry also wants.  This is the same principle, but focusing on a different type of customer. 

It is always a smart idea to keep in mind who your customer is.  The needs of a government buyer are not the same as the needs of small business owner. Your customers want to know that you are an expert in the areas that you are trying to provide a solution for them.  Are you? Can you demonstrate experience dealing with similar types of customers solving comparable problems?  Make sure that you research what your customer is really looking for.  If they care about the lowest price, then maybe you should market that point.  If they are interested in convenience and quality, market those points.  The key is to focus on the qualities that are important to your customers and their situations.

If you need assistance finding the niche for your business or taking it to the next level, contact the Georgia SBDC Network.  For more information, please go to www.georgiasbdc.org

Event Marketing for Small Business

On line media is continuing to grow everyday and the use by the small business owner seems to grow every day also.  It seems that more and more business owners want to have an understanding about social media, its uses, and more importantly how they can apply it to use in their business. Other forms of on line marketing are also important, such as email marketing, SEO, and advertising.

One thing that many small business owners are now doing is making events that their customers and clients can attend.  The traditional way of inviting people to these events was from the telephone or mail.  Now there are several programs such as eventbrite.com or even using Facebook to reach their contacts.  I was using Constant Contact the other day, and noticed that they also now have a function for creating events, inviting people, and collecting payment if that is what you need.  This is convenient for those business owners who use this program to reach their customers with email.  Customers can sign up for your event on line and it will keep track of all guests who are planning on attending.

The use of technology, if used correctly, can help give you a few more minutes in your already hectic day.  The above example is just one of many to help make you and your business more efficient.  Try to understand and use different programs that can help your business grow.

The Customer Service Paradox

As seen on the SBDC blog for the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay.  Well done!

Small business owners will do well to understand the Customer Service Paradox: 

Great customer service will not help sell a product or service that nobody wants, but bad customer service will ensure customers won’t buy something they do want. 

What makes the Paradox true?  In simplest terms, good or even great customer service is not enough to sustain customers, but it can be the single issue that drives customers away.  The challenge for small business owners is that they want to use customer service as a competitive advantage.  Small business owners may rely on customer service as the unique selling proposition that spurs their marketing efforts when really, great customer service is a basic expectation that all customers have.

At its core, customer service is the activities that enhance overall customer satisfaction with a customer’s or client’s experience with your organization.  You will notice that it is not just the purchasing experience, but the total experience with your organization.  When you think of all the ways customers may interact with your organization, you will see that this can become significantly complicated.

The obvious place to strengthen your customer service efforts are with your staff – all staff.  Your sales or customer service reps are not the only contact your organization has with actual and potential clients.  Make sure to communicate your customer service goals to everyone within your organization.  Convey the idea that excellent customer service is an integral part of every employee’s job description. 

In today’s virtual world, many of your customers may never pick up the phone or talk with someone face to face.  Every access to your company is an opportunity to exceed your customers’ expectations.  Is your website easily understood?  Can your customers find the information they want or find a contact person if they have questions.  Do your employees respond well with e-mail? 

If you ask people to share an example of customer service, good or bad, ten to one they go to the bad.  Customers love to share their horror stories of “what went wrong!”  Again, customers have an expectation that they will be treated well, that they will be able to find what they need, and that they will have questions answered.  If they cannot get this basic customer need met, they will find a company who can deliver.

The Customer Service Paradox transcends all industries and sectors, large and small companies alike.  Customers enforce it every day.  While customer service isn’t enough to drive customers to your company on its own merit, remember that it does have the strength to keep them from returning.

Georgia’s Small Business Person of the Year Says Owning His Own Business ‘Fit My Personality’

Scott Blackstock has fond memories of his first experience working in a small business: “I was four years old when my father bought a tire store. He paid me a penny a tire to wash the whitewalls and I made enough to buy two Cokes a day.” Today, Blackstock is Georgia’s 2009 Small Business Person
of the Year, and he’s still washing tires. But now he’s doing it in his growing chain of express car washes, with locations in Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina.
Blackstock is among the successful small business owners from each state selected by the U.S. Small Business Administration to be honored during Small Business Week in May.

The Tidal Wave Auto Spa company is the latest venture for Blackstock, who has compiled a number of impressive achievements in business development, product innovation, and community service. Blackstock graduated from Georgia Tech in 1979 with a degree in chemical engineering and worked in that field for two years, until his father offered to sell him the tire business in his hometown of Thomaston. “I was only 25, but I already knew owning my own business fit my personality,” Blackstock says. “I like the responsibility and the independence. It’s not easy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Blackstock operated a tire and auto service center for more than 20 years. During this time, he branched out into other successful ventures, including auto parts, real estate development and Thomaston’s first express oil change business.

In 2004, Blackstock opened his first Tidal Wave Auto Spa on Riverdale Road, just south of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport. The rest is car wash history. His car wash business, which stared with two part time employees and one location, has grown to almost 100 full and part-time employees and 11 car washes, with the 12th set to open in July. His company, which includes Tidal Wave and other entities, has seen sales grow from $271,000 in 2004 to more than $6.5 million in 2007.

In starting and growing his business, Blackstock has made good use of federal and state small business programs for financing and training. He used three SBA guaranteed 504 Development Loans to help finance three of the first five of his Tidal Wave Car Wash sites and took advantage of entrepreneur training programs offered by the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network. In 2006-2007, Blackstock took the Incubator Without Walls (iWow) management class at the SBDC in Columbus. As part of the program, he graduated from the SBDC’s “FastTrac”® Growth Venture and Hypergrow Programs. These programs provide entrepreneurs, like Blackstock, with new skills and training to successfully manage rapidly growing companies. “I highly recommend that anyone thinking about starting their own business develop a relationship with their local SBDC office,” says Blackstock. “There are a lot of free programs and the ones where there is a charge are incredible bargains. It’s amazing how much information you can get from the programs. Entrepreneurs tend to be
independent, but there’s a lot of help available out there and you’d be crazy not to take advantage of it. I know Lori Auten (area director) of the Columbus SBDC office was a tremendous help to me.”
Blackstock sold his tire center and auto parts companies in 2005 to devote his full attention to other businesses that make up S.S. Blackstock Inc. This includes the Tidal Wave business, which is now the core of his corporate holdings.

“Our car washes are designed to make it so convenient, so easy and so cheap that it’s just not worthwhile to do it yourself,” Blackstock says. “It’s also much better for the environment. We only use 15 gallons of fresh water for each wash while the average person washing his car on the driveway uses 90 gallons.” In Georgia, the company has car wash locations in Athens, Griffin, Hampton, Morrow, Decatur,Thomaston, College Park and Stone Mountain. There’s also one location in Alabama and three in Charlotte.

Despite the economic downturn, Blackstock says, “Our business is booming. The express car wash business actually seems to thrive during a recession. People are still getting their cars washed, but instead of paying $35 at other places, they pay $3 at our car washes.”

For anyone thinking about starting his or her own business, Blackstock offers this advice: “First, don’t do it thinking it’s going to be an easy job. It’s rewarding, but it’s not easy. Second, find out all you can...get with your local SBDC office and get advice.

For more information about the Georgia SBDC Network, please go to www.GeorgiaSBDC.org.
Story taken from Georgia Trend Small Business Guide, 2009/2010.