Marketing | Teik Oh

Beat Competition with a Niche!

Oct 13 2015

It’s been bad before but it’s got worse!

What am I talking about? Competition, that’s what!

Once upon a time, all you had to do was hang up a sign, know what you were doing, smile, and start selling, right?

Yeah right! It’s NEVER been that easy because as soon as Cavewoman Jane started her pelt scraping business for all those people too busy hunting Woolly Mammoths to clean their own pelts, Caveman Joe next door started in competition. And once those two were showing signs of success every Tom, Dick and Hairy decided they would open their pelt-scraping businesses too!

However it has become increasingly difficult to get your business out there and differentiated in today’s social-media world. What is true is that once, you may have been able to develop brand leadership. The leather bags you made and sold may have competed with others, but you could distinguish yourself by better quality or the extra service, perhaps offering free leather renovation every 5 years. Today however it is hard to be heard above the noise that comes from increased competition, better trained entrepreneurs competing, cheap social media advertising and marketing – disruption is in the marketplace. Read More

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The A C D B’s of Business

Oct 06 2015

It came to me in a cone of light.

Business is as easy as A C D B!

As you know I have spent my consulting career synthesising my learning and experience into procedures that you can use in your business. Why reinvent the wheel when you can use tried and tested practical experience backed up by academic study in proven processes?

Recently it struck me how all of these processes – marketing, customer service, brand development, business planning – followed a big-picture model. And this model is as simple as a mixed up alphabet – A C D B!

Once you work it out, every business moves along the same path.

You first have to Acquire leads. Then you have to Convert those leads into warm customers. Having customers you need to Deliver your product or service. Then as your customer makes their first purchases you need to Build relationships so that they keep buying.

The acquisition of leads is all about marketing. You need to know about your sales funnel and the difference between broadcasting to potential customers who may not yet be aware of you or your product and the act of screening and targeting those potential customers. Acquisition involves knowing your product as well as your customer.

What do I mean by that? Read More

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Create systems for better customer service

Jul 21 2015

Have you ever received truly exceptional customer service? What was it like and why did you think it was exceptional customer service?

Each experience is different but I bet you can tick off a couple of common characteristics in what happened:-

You felt individual attention
You felt that every detail of the service or product was meant for your satisfaction
You felt that whatever you received was timely
You felt that you not only got the product or service, you got that extra something that accompanied it.

Am I right?

Firstly do you see it is about what you felt? Exceptional customer service is not only about the quality of the box you bought, it is about how you felt during the transaction.

Secondly it is about “extras” – and these need not be something tangible like a bonus product. In customer service “extra” is about listening to you as an individual and perhaps providing nothing more extra than a courteous word.

Yet people also get it wrong don’t they? For every instance of exceptional service I would bet you have 10 examples of poor service.

If only every business realised that excellent customer service is not about spending more money or even putting in more effort – it’s about being consistent and predictable in what you offer. That’s it! Consistency and predictability!

Watch this video to see why you should implement simple systems that create excellent customer service.

Now let’s get back to how you should make your customers feel and how that can be done with some simple systems.

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Do you live up to your “Brand”?

Apr 24 2015

What is your “Brand”? Do you live up to it?

Branding is not about your logo, or corporate colours, it is about the way your team behaves in front of customers and other stakeholders. Your brand emanates from your Vision. Your Vision should provide a clear and distinctive picture about what you aspire to be, and it should have inherent in it the types of values you uphold – this is what we do, this is how we do it, this is who we are.

Instilling your brand culture into your people is as much about leadership as it is about marketing. If your people believe in the vision, and behave in a way as if they are already there, then they will display to the inside and outside world what kind of business you are. If you talk about the “quality” of your business but your people can’t deal with customers in a quality way, you are being hypocritical about your brand. If you talk about “customer service” but your people don’t return phone calls, who will believe what you say?

I was facilitating a planning session for a Not-For-Profit recently when it struck me how similar “branding” is with For-Profit companies. Are you doing what you do best? Do you do it as if you were living your Vision?

As usual, the best comes after the viewing – come to the website https://teikoh.com and tell me what your brand is. Tell me how you live it (or not!).

While you’re there, sign up with your name and email address and I’ll make sure that these tips on growing your business get sent to you. Oh and don’t worry, we value our subscribers and we will never provide your information to any spammy people!

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How to get ready for a major event

Apr 10 2015

The episode this week is about you, the business owner, rather than being about your business per se.

I thought it would be useful to discuss how you might get ready for a major event.

Now this might be a sales presentation you have to make, or perhaps getting ready to attend a meeting, or giving a speech, or any kind of event that you as business owner could find yourself involved in. As I was about to rush off to the airport to fly to an event where I was giving a keynote speech, I found myself with a few spare minutes and pondered how I actually got myself ready for an event such as this. So I sat in front of my computer and decided to share it with you.

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

The SMART Marketing Workbook: Companion to “SMART Marketing”, this workbook sets out the SMART Marketing process in 7 workshops for you and your staff to complete questionnaires and templates that at the end, form the marketing plan you need to sell your REAL product to your REAL customer! View now...

Category - Marketing

Get FREE weekly ideas to grow your business

Beat Competition with a Niche!

The A C D B’s of Business

Create systems for better customer service

Do you live up to your “Brand”?

How to get ready for a major event