There’s this thinking in business that if you strive to provide the best service possible and keep customers extremely satisfied, for the most part they’ll remain loyal and continue to do business with you.  The general consensus is that if we provide good service and good quality products, then customer retention will take care of itself.

That’s the general thinking anyways…

Of course, it’s a myth.

Retention is far more complex than simply providing exceptional and high quality customer service or claiming you make the best lasagna in town. Everyone has better service than everyone else. Everyone makes the best lasagna in town. Everyone’s positioning is the best. Yet, everyone is looking for the magic customer faucet that keeps the water flowing into the bucket.

You, on the other hand, are much smarter than that. Rather than racing to fill the constantly emptying bucket, you’re focused on patching the existing holes. Retention isn’t a natural consequence of everything else – it’s something that you must work towards constantly and consciously.  Of course it’s easier when everything else is in place!  But if you don’t focus specifically on it, then you’re only going to end up disappointed.

Effective marketing means effective retention of current customers and not just focusing on getting new ones.

For the most part, I kept my mouth shut. Marketing, to me, is the story you tell. It’s the story you tell to the world of who you are and what you’ve got to offer. In the case of a small town, what’s the story we’re telling our visitors? What’s the story we’re telling the people who we’re trying to convince to move here? What’s the story our current residents are telling their friends who complain about the high-cost of city living?

If we don’t have a story to tell we’re just as boring as the next town. Now I know what you’re thinking, of course we have a story to tell. We’re a community that’s diverse and rich in history! Well hold on there buckeroo… everyone’s got a similar story.

Hang around me long enough and you’re bound to hear about the Purple Cow. Seth Godin taught me about the Purple Cow.

When you drive through the French Countryside, all you’ll see are cows, black & white cows. Momentarily, you’re enchanted by the cows. After all, you’re in France. But after three hours of seeing the same old cows, you’re bored. They’re all the same. Every cow looks identical.

But what happens if you see a purple cow? A purple cow is remarkable! You stop the car, you take photos, you spend time & money. You might even want to live near that purple cow.

How exactly do you become remarkable? Here’s what I think.

Every town has the same tourist guide. Jokers are wild – they’re all the same. Will the next retired couple looking for a weekend getaway pick up your town’s guide off the shelf? It’s the luck of the draw.

Every town has the same website.

Every town has limited funds and ability to market itself the way we’re taught to market in school, let alone remarkable marketing.

Every town is black & white.

Of course, every so often you run into a purple town.

Using the word “every” is never fair because there are always exceptions to the rule. Every is too concrete. But the simple truth? You don’t want to be part of “every.” We’re at a moment in time where another study or survey isn’t going to tell us the story. We already know the story. It’s up to us to take the story and bring it to life. It’s up to us to make sure the story is purple enough.

And if it’s not purple – well… keep driving, there’s another town a few kilometres away.

The trick is to position yourself as the underdog against the big bad wolf. Great copywriters have been using this trick for a long time, now it’s your turn.

The big bad wolf is the enemy of your industry and pitting yourself against the bad guys can be extremely effective in making your case.

Here are a few examples off the top of my head.

Good guys are on the left – bad guys are on the right.

Niagara-On-The-Lake (small, quant, quiet village ) versus Niagara Falls. (loud, noisy, and touristy)

The small tax preparer versus the IRS or CRA. (Canada Revenue Agency)

The local restaurant (local food, local ingredients) versus the local fast food restaurant (processed crap).

Your own business versus working for the “Man.”

The possibilities to using this strategy are endless…

Step up to the plate for your customers. And, if you’re stepping up, don’t be afraid to let them know it. If you have our backs, against the big bad wolf, we’ll have yours.

I’m going to break it down real easy here.

It’s all about the human connections you make. No longer does the one-way flow of information jive with any of your customers.

Sure, there are the odd folks that might simply want to see your menu, find out your hours of operation, check out what your rooms look like, or how much you charge for an oil change.

But the real secret is the human connection.

Remember the early days of the internet and all the uses for the word “link?”

Linking meant that I would put a link to your blog from my blog or website for whatever reason. You might pay me for the link, or I might like your content and want to spread the word. Then we started doing “reciprocal linking.” Which meant I’d give you a link, if you gave me a link.

Now, the name of the game is the human link.

The businesses who are getting it, are using the human link to create a person-to-person connection. It’s no longer about the brand saying, “this is what we’ve got, come buy our stuff.”  Instead, it’s about the brand, corporation, or small business, that’s making an outreach on a personal level.

If your business is struggling, and you’re looking for marketing solutions to solve your problems, stop looking.  The solution is simple. Start creating real human connections.

I read a great post once and, unfortunately I can’t remember where now, but the marketer was asked by a client what she should do with only $2 left in her business account. She couldn’t afford to place an ad in the newspaper, or send out mail, or create a radio advertisement.

The marketer’s answer was brilliant.

Take a new customer out for a piece of pie. Yup, that was it.

The real solution is to start with an honest, true, and single human connection and build from there. Everything else is just pie in the sky.

Of course, there’s one thing that can make or break a great campfire.

The ghost story.

I grew up going to camp every Summer and each night we’d have a campfire. Sadly, I don’t remember each individual marshmallow, but I do remember the times I jumped four feet out of my seat. And I do remember the shrieks and shrills of those around me. And I do remember the clever use of your flashlight and the shadows cast upon your face. And I do remember talking about the story for hours afterwards with my cabin mates.

But if the story is no good, or it’s boring, or you try to pull a fast one on us, then people will start yawning, and people will leave, and the kids will go to bed. We won’t remember a thing. And eventually the fire will burn out.

The thing is, we want a great story. We want to be inching ‘just a bit closer’ to the girl (or guy) sitting next to us. We’re hanging on to your every word. We’re depending on you for a good unexpected twist at the end.

And without it, it’s just ‘another campfire. There’s another one somewhere else.

Your business is like the campfire. Tell me a good story.

Sometimes we want to believe we’re all on the same page, and we’ve got a similar understanding of things. The thing is, every page is a bit different.

And every page is written by a unique set of eyes. Each set of eyes writes their own page based on their own unique perception of reality.

When I tell you that the chicken crossed the road, your chicken and your road, are different from my chicken and my road. This is what James Newman referred to as your personal and unique “reality structure.”

Of course, different strokes for different folks. While every single person sees the world a bit differently, in what we’re referring to as reality structure, different groups of people can share similar worldviews.

As Seth Godin says, “Some people hear a politician say something and hate it, while others are thrilled by it. Is it the thing that was said or the person who said it? Some people hear that Apple is about to launch a new product and they get out their wallets; others flee–before they even know what it is. If you don’t understand the worldview of the people you’re selling to, you will fail.”

And this, my friends, is the point of all marketing. Don’t wave your hands like a crazy person trying to get everyone under the sun to pay attention. The easiest, and most reliable, route is to speak to people who share the same worldviews. That’s the first key.

Have you ever heard someone in business ask someone, “Who’s your target market?” and the person responds, “Everyone and anyone.”

Wrong. Not everyone will love bacon flavored ice cream. Your target market is only to those where your product or service speaks to their specific worldviews. That’s the second key.

The third key, in my opinion, is the most important. It’s realizing that success will come a helluva lot easier when you start ignoring the wrong people and focusing on the right people. This is the hard part. You may need to piss a few people off along the way. The trade-off is that if you do it right, those who share the same worldviews will never let you down.

And if you want proof of this, look no further than Apple. The iPhone 4 has been a total bust. It’s riddled with problems. The antenna is messed up. It’s dropping calls left and right. Consumer Reports gave it two big thumbs down.

Now go try to find one in stock.

P.S. Here’s the kicker though. Apple has no choice but to make this right. Our reality structures are nearly impossible to change, but our worldviews can be shifted more readily.

Again, if you need proof of this, look no further than Apple (again). Consider all the people you know who said they’d never own a MacBook, or an iPod, or an iPhone, or an iMac…..They once belonged to the group who shared a similar worldview of Microsoft, and that worldview changed.

Repetition, repetition, repetition. The message needs to remain the same. Keep your brand in tact.

Some businesses go insane when it comes to branding.

The only font we use is size 14 Arial Bold in color #367286

Here’s the thing. Small businesses don’t need to worry about this as much as say Nike does, and we all prove this point every day.

Think about a local restaurant that you drive by every single day. Every single day you drive by this place.  You  may even have driven by it for the past 15 years! And yet, you’ve never ever stopped.

Maybe it’s not a restaurant. Who knows? It doesn’t matter. But you know what I’m talking about, right? There’s that place that has maybe piqued your interest on occasion, maybe even daily, but you’ve never take the time to stop and check it out.

The thing is, they did what they were told. This is what all the books on marketing say about branding through repetition. The sign never changes. The branding is always the same. So if brand consistency is the key, we would have stopped after driving by the first 60, or so, times. I’ve now driven by 6000 times and still haven’t stopped.

This is a small business mistake. Your brand and branding is 100% absolutely important, but sometimes small businesses need to shake it up!

Branding for big business is even more important. Over the years, big brands have written their stories. It might be a story of trust, or customer service, or great taste, or quality engineering. It resonates with us. We all know what many of the big brands stand for.

If you’re a small business looking to grow, you can stop fretting about the traditional big-business rules of  branding. I’m waiting for this restaurant to surprise me. Six thousand brand repetitions and I’m still bored. And I don’t mean throwing snowballs at my car, or paying someone to stand outside and shake a sign. I want you to find a way to disrupt my image of your brand; because right now, you’re just the boring little restaurant I know nothing about. I know your physical logo inside and out. On a moments notice, I can conjure up your logo, its color, and the font you use instantly. That part of the branding has done its job.

But I want a shake-up.

I want this to happen through my friends and your friends. I want you to create buzz. I want to hear your story told and retold, or I want you to create a new one. In a nutshell, I’m begging you to kick me when I’m not expecting it, please.

This morning, I stumbled over to our local classifieds website and saw a sponsored (paid) advertisement along the top banner for an “upscale spa 4 men.”

I kid you not. Somebody’s advertising budget paid for this ad. I wish I could make this stuff up.

What interested me about the ad was the tiny thumbnail photo that went along with the ad. I couldn’t make out what it was. So my curiosity got the best of me, and I clicked through.

Upon clicking through the ad, I gagged a little bit. As I realized, the picture was a closeup of a half-shaved man’s nipple. I don’t know about this. But what I do know, is that it’s not a pretty picture.

OK, let’s have a little discussion about this.

The Problem:

I’m happy your spa offers the services to deal with the sometimes rather gruesome task of manscaping a manzilla, but I’m confused at to just exactly what’s upscale about this?

Sure, your spa may have some leather chairs. You might even have flat screen TV’s for me to watch the ball game. But I’m not seeing it.

It seems to me that we’re mixing two very different messages here.

If you’re promoting and adverting your “Upscale Spa,” and using this photo to do it, you’re totally missing the mark.

The headline doesn’t fit. There’s nothing upscale about the half-shaved gorilla nipple photo.

One Simple Solution:

Rewrite the Headline.

If this is the route you’re set on taking, it could actually work. It could tell a story. It could have actually produced a return on your investment. Instead, we have two very mixed, off-the-mark messages.

Make a story out of the hairy chested man.

Make it fun! Add a little humor to it.

How about something like:

“Living with Big Foot? We can help – The Perfect Father’s Day Gift!”

More Solutions:

According to the 2007 bestselling book, “Made to Stick,” by Dan & Chip Heath, for a message to be “sticky” it needs to make use of the following traits for SUCCESs.

Simple: The message needs to be clear and concise. Upscale Spa 4 Men. Good enough. It’s simple, but it’s incorrect. Better would be, “Hairy Men Rejoice With Opening of New Local Spa!”

Unexpected: There’s no doubt it’s unexpected. The problem is it’s the wrong type of unexpectedness. In this case, we might say something like, “Bet you didn’t expect see a close-up photo of a half-shaven hairy nipple from an upscale spa did ya?.”

Concrete: We want our messages to tap into the senses of our readers. This does, but again, there’s a disconnect here between the senses we’re trying to tap into.

Credible: Messages need to be credible. This is upscale? According to whom?

Emotional: We want our messages to appeal to the emotions of who we’re trying to attract. For example, “Tired of people thinking they’ve spotted Big Foot when they see you on the beach? Come visit our spa, we can help.”

Stories: The most powerful messages are built around stories. Remember Jared from Subway? That’s the perfect example of a sticky message built around a story. Fat guy loses weight eating fast food. P.S. It’s simple, unexpected, credible, concrete, emotional…etc.

For example, here we might say,”Meet Bob. Bob is very hairy man. So hairy that when Bob removes his shirt people mistake Bob for a wild animal. You can see before and after pictures of Bob below. If you’re like Bob, we can help.”

But if you’re really sold on the whole upscale thing, make it upscale! This ad won’t appeal to the affluent one bit.

——————————————————————

P.S. Here’s something new and a simple request for you.

If you like this post, or know someone who might benefit from reading what I’m saying, please pass it along. You can easily do so by using the buttons below.

If you use Twitter, consider ‘re-tweeting’ this post.

If you use Facebook, consider clicking the “like” button.

If you use eMail, consider sending this to a friend.

If you agree, disagree, or have something to say about this post, please leave a comment.

Thanks,
Noah

I remember years ago, I had heard the story of Elisha Graves Otis. Otis invented the first safety elevator back in 1850.

Have you ever been inside an elevator and wondered what would happen if the supporting cable broke? Well, before Otis came along, it would come crashing to the ground. Thanks to Otis we don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Otis had a chance to demonstrate his invention at the New York World Fair in 1853. As the crowd looked on to Otis standing on an open elevator platform, he requested the single supporting cable be cut.

As the crowd gasped in shock, Otis’s assistant chopped the cable with his axe. The elevator fell only a few inches before coming to a stop. After the demonstration, Otis never had to worry about proving his point to sell his product again.

The following video reminds me of modern-day demonstration as powerful as the safety elevator demonstration.

It’s a classic sales and marketing message that’s repeated in nearly every book on the subject.

If your product or service is the best, prove it.

If your product does something better than your competitors, prove it.

If you truly believe in what you’re selling, prove it.

As I started doing my research, and carefully mapping out all the places I  wanted to check out, there was one place that started to show up more and more.

That place was Hot Doug’s.

Hot Doug’s, also known as the The Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium is the premier hot dog restaurant of Chicago. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we could debate for hours over who has the best hot dogs or deep dish pizza, but Hot Doug’s just keeps appearing in all the right places.

For example, one of my favorite food celebrities, Anthony Bourdain, named it one of the “Top 13 Places to Eat Before You Die.”

This is coming from a guy who’s been to nearly every nook and cranny of the planet looking for something good to eat. Bourdain wants you to try Hot Doug’s before you die! That’s a pretty strong referral.

When my wife and I decided we would venture to Hot Doug’s, we learned that this place was a bit of an anomaly.

For example, it’s not in the heart of Chicago. Our GPS showed it was about a 20 minute drive from our hotel on the magnificent mile, not exactly walking distance.

We also learned that we’d have to get there early. How early? Between 9:30am and 10:00am at the latest. Seriously…for Hot Dogs?? On a Friday morning?? Yup.

Heather was skeptical of  my planned hot dog pilgrimage. She’s not a hard-core connoisseur of the encased meats, but being the great wife she is, she was ready to go at 9:00 am.

We got in the car and followed the GPS’s directions. As we approached, we got our first glimpse of Hot Doug’s. It looked dark and closed (which it was). There was no line outside. Had Doug’s gone out of business?

And then we turned the corner.

Sure enough, there were loads of people already lined up all the way down the block to Hot Doug’s.

The kicker about Doug’s is that this isn’t your typical tourist hotspot. It’s far enough off the beaten track that you don’t have to deal with buses full of senior citizens. The line includes a mix of tourist and locals.

We were shocked at how many people, waiting in line, were local residents of the area. Imagine that. A local business not relying on the tourism industry.

Shortly after 10:30am, the line started moving…slowly.

Something about entering the doors of Doug’s was like entering the secret garden. It was a pivotal moment in my life.

As we entered, we saw Doug taking orders. It’s been noted that Doug looks like a hot dog and, in a weird way, he kinda does. They’ve even put his face on the logo.

We finally reached Doug and our moment of glory. When Doug realized we were Canadian’s, he told us how much he loved Canada and that he owned a cottage out on the East Coast.

I can’t remember exactly what we ordered, but I know they were two classic “dogs”

The Chicago-Style Hot Dog with all the trimmings: ’nuff said… for a buck seventy-five’

There were some specialty dogs as well.

We could have ordered such amazing specialties like the

Ostrich Sausage with Cumin Mustard Cream, Tabasco Olives, and Aged Piave Cheese

or maybe Doug’s

Bacon and Jalapeno Duck Sausage with Blood Orange Dijonnaise and Goat Cheese

possibly even The Elvis, a Polish Sausage: Smoked and savory – just like the King

or maybe even a

Spicy Beef Hot Link with Coca-Cola BBQ Sauce and Pepper-Jack Cheese.

I know for sure we had Doug’s Friday specialty with french fries fried in Duck Fat. I can’t remember exactly which specialty dogs we tried, but here’s what matters.

Hot Doug’s serves only one thing and they do it better than anyone else on the planet, hot dogs. They do it so well, they don’t struggle for business. Hot Doug’s will never be hurting for business.

Doug works from 10:30-4:00 Monday through Saturday. If you want a hot dog at 4:15 in the afternoon, you’ll have to go elsewhere. Doug has closed.

Doug doesn’t jump around and try all types of new things. He doesn’t latch on to fads in the hopes of making a few extra bucks.

He doesn’t add burgers to the menu so he can capture the attention of the folks who feel like a burger.

He doesn’t add pizza to the menu to try to compete with the all the new pizza joints opening up, but if you’re looking to try a rattlesnake sausage Hot Doug’s will occasionally carry it.

He doesn’t even need to advertise or spend extra dollars on marketing. His fans do that for him.

Oh – and as I mentioned above.. Doug’s actually working. He greets every customer with a smile. Doug will take the time to tell you why putting ketchup on a hot dog is a sin. Doug will tell you about his cottage on the East Coast. Doug will tell you that a large fry is probably too much, and you’ll be fine with a small-size order. Doug is a linchpin. Doug is indispensable.

So why is your business trying to please everyone?

How can you possibly do anything, even half way decently, if you’re trying to please every person’s likes and dislikes?

What if you just try pleasing a small number of people who love what you have to offer and do it so well, they will wait over an hour for what you have to offer?

What if you do ONE thing so well that your business or service is something people want, need, and will try before they die?

Now I have 12 more places left to eat before I die.