Experience Building

Marketing face-to-face can be difficult for many (most?) people. I know I feel a sense of envy when a door-to-door salesman appears completely at ease talking to me about their product on my front porch!

Welcome to Full Contact Marketing.

Full Contact Marketing is any face-to-face meeting with any (potential) customer. It can be door-to-door sales or working a trade show booth or taking orders over a counter. Often, Full Contact Marketing is considered just customer service.

But it is so much more!

Your poeple on the front lines represent your business brand more than any advertisement or PR campaign ever could. People relate to people. And if that relationship goes bad…

Front line people = Your brand

Are you inspecting your people before they go out to represent you? Do you offer coaching to help them polish their pitch, service and appearance? How can you inject confidense into your Full Contact Marketing program?

I used to work for an international chain of stores and by far the best experience was working under Melissa Fish. Melissa was a world-class manager who broke all company records moving from $0 - $100,000 per month in revenue in less than 6 months!

How did Melissa do it?

• Trust
• Clear job positions
• Clear chain of command
• Training!
• High expectations
• Transparency!
• Honest, open dialogue with every employee (even - especially? - the front line)
• Extra helpings of care

Melissa’s trust created an atmosphere of employee ownership. Nobody wanted to disappoint Melissa. Not because she was the boss. Because she was honest, strait-forward and opened the whole operation to every employee. We all felt like we made a difference. And we all learned how the business operated.

In those days I was surprised by the level of transparency at this one branch. I had worked at other locations and none of them had the same spirit of employee entrepreneurship that this one did.

In fact, when I left that job to return to school, my Introduction to Business course was a breeze because I already knew the topics, I only had to apply labels to them! My whole business career was jump-started by Melissa.

Melissa, if you are reading this, thanks!

PS. On the topics of “big picture” I’m taking this weekend off from posting in celebration of my wedding anniversary. See you next week!

Simple will sink in.

Simple will be read.

Simple will be understood.

Simple will be remembered.

Simple will be used.

Simple will be purchased.

Making things simple can be the hardest work there is to do! And the most rewarding.

Apply simple to everything from company memos to systems to the products you sell and see how powerful simple can be.

All of your vendors have a vested interest in your success. After all, the better you do, the more you’ll buy from them. And the more you will rely on them.

Most of your customers have a vested interest in your success as well. People like to support success (even if they are rooting for the underdog). People will root for you to win because if you win, they can claim part of your glory. And they will share in that glory in their own small, vicarious way. (“I was there!”)

So now that everybody is behind you, your business should take off like a rocket right? And survive the tough times - no problem! Right?

Only. Only. Only if you lead the charge. You cannot take the support of others for granted. If you do, the work will become harder. People resent being taken for granted. And they will distance themselves from you as a result (even if it hurts them).

It is your job to keep things moving. To give your people a rallying point. To give them something bigger than themselves to be part of. And with that, gain their loyalty.

What is the difference between a $50 hotel room and a $500 hotel room? When looking for a hotel room you need only a few things:

1. Shelter
2. Bed
3. Shower

Everything else is extra. A room with a nice decor costs extra. Bigger bed - bigger price tag. Add amenities like a pool or gym, add some dollars. These “extras” have become standard in the hotel business and with good reason: people will pay more for them!

And all of these “extras” have a small up-front cost to a long-term (extra) income generator.

But the Accounting Trap will say that you need to bring in an extra X% before you can add these “extras”.

The essence of the Accounting Trap is that you have to save the money you want to invest instead of invest the money to enjoy the savings. Many a great business has fallen to the Accounting Trap. After all, “the numbers don’t lie.”

The numbers don’t lie. They are limited by what was, not what could be. Smart investments build value. Value is what your customers buy.

Experience marketing is all the rage and has been for quite a while. So how do you build an experience?

First, you need to define what the experience is you want to give away (we’ll get to that later - stay tuned). Then you need to work on your people. Stop hiring “customer service reps” and start hiring performers. You want people trained to deliver a world-class experience to deliver your world-class experience, right?

Think about how Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have revolutionized infotainment.

Call it… performance marketing.

Your product is not what you sell. It isn’t the thing-in-the-box. It isn’t the quality of the thing-in-the-box either. Or how the thing-in-the-box is better than your competitors things-in-the-boxes. Your product isn’t even the experience of using the thing-in-the-box!

Your product is the experience the customer has after they are done using the thing-in-the-box: satisfaction, wealth, belonging… Your product is as intangible as the idea it came from! Your product is a feeling.

What feeling are you selling today?

Is it in your advertising? How is it reflected in your brand?

Years ago I worked at an art gallery while attending school. My major bounced between business and art so running a gallery was a good fit. I even got to work on my homework when it was slow.

Most of the business at this gallery came from custom framing. The owner, Miya, was brilliant. She had people driving in from all over the Sacramento area to work with her in Folsom. She even had customers from the Bay Area - a 2 hour drive!

Miya taught me how to do what she did. There was a lot to it, but the most important thing about custom framing is that when it is done right, nobody notices.

A frame should guide the viewer’s eye into the picture.

If the first thing someone says when they see your art, carefully hung on the walls is, “what a great frame” there is a problem! They should say, “great picture!” (or painting).

Business Design is similar. When your business is well designed, the customer does not notice the process. They are naturally led to the finished product. The result.

Where do your “extras” distract from the sale? Where does your process interrupt a smooth experience? Debugging your systems can save you thousands of dollars and earn committed repeat business.

The proof is that within a few months I had customers driving 2 or more hours to come work with me! You can too.

If marketers aren’t responsible for the customer experience, for the brand, then who is any way?

Those are not rhetorical questions.  I really want to know.

Let’s hear it for Tom Asacker of A Clear Eye who posted something that finally gave me a leaping-off point for this site!

Many companies put the “customer experience” experience in the hands of the front line customer service agents. That’s fine. Who leads them? Accounting? Acquisitions?

It has to be Marketing. Marketing is more than the 3 P’s and the brand is more than just a logo. If you want to (need to!) justify your department’s budget in these lean times take a look at the “big picture”. You know, the one the front-line people don’t have time to see as they are making up an experience.