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Category - Marketing

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1
Four Steps To Simplify Your Message
2
Change your business model with great care!
3
Client service starts in the car park
4
You must know detail about your business
5
A Branding Opportunity – Hit or Miss?

Four Steps To Simplify Your Message

Do you want to explain difficult facts to clients? Do you want to get a sales message across?

The first few seconds of any interaction is critical, whether you know the other person or not.

This is particularly important in any business interaction today where people’s time seem so limited, people seem so aware of “that sales pitch” coming and are ready to tune off. Today’s SMS and social media world seem to do nothing but ready for us to listen to tweets.

If you want to put your business message across, whether it is advice, technical information or a sales pitch you need to tune yourself and your communication to that frequency which is most clear.

I have found that the best way to do this is to use four simple steps in any business communication.
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Change your business model with great care!

Businesses who decide to change the way they do business need to be careful of unintended consequences. They need to think of the effects to the customer first, but also to the not so obvious stakeholder groups.

For example businesses that generate significant business through referral networks need to be careful how any changes affect their referral base and not just their customers.

In some imagined country, the leading provider of accounting software to SME’s is a company called Record Your Amazing Business or Ryab. Knowing that SME’s made purchasing decisions about accounting software based on their accountants’ opinions, Ryab provided their software free to all public accounting firms. These firms could use multiple copies of the software on a single free license as long as they used it on their own entities – clients would have to buy their own licenses, and accountants even received commissions on these sales to clients.

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Client service starts in the car park

My Post Office box is at the back of the Post Office, and I need to drive around the back to their car park to access the box. Directly next to the Post Office car park are the car bays of an architectural practice, leading to their back door.

One morning, as I was parked in the Post Office car park, opening mail I had just retrieved from my Post Office box, I witnessed an incident that showed me that client service starts, not only at the back door, but out in the car park.
As I sat in my car opening mail, I noticed a well-dressed middle aged man smoking just outside the back door of the architectural practice. It was clearly a professional and well-branded practice as the corporate colours and logo were not only at the front, but also splashed all over the back walls and above the back door.

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You must know detail about your business

I have worked with clients on their businesses and when asked about some detail like ” what profit margin do you make on that product” or “how many hours do your people work on average”, they don’t know.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about micromanagement here – I am a firm believer in systems and procedures and a living vision that explain to team members what they do, how they should do it, and why they should do it, leaving you to concentrate on strategic matters that have impact.
However, you do need to know, nay, must know, the detail of your business model and your business functions.
When I was in my thirties, my mother developed terminal cancer and I looked after her palliative care at home because she wanted to die at home. I was assisted by an effective tertiary care medical system – home nurses, oncology visits, medical equipment supplied and so on. Her GP was also mine and once he asked me what medication she was getting and I replied “I don’t know, some large white pills that the oncologist prescribed” thinking that was the affair of professionals whom I had delegated professional care to. My GP looked me in the eye and said:-

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A Branding Opportunity – Hit or Miss?

sorry closedHere’s something that just happened to me, which I think is a branding opportunity gone amiss, and only somewhat recovered. I am doing home renovations and have to have 2 sensors of the home alarm disconnected, and booked a technician for today (the last day before work starts). I’m waiting and no technician arrives, so I phone the alarm company. I explain the situation.
Alarm: I rang and left a message saying the tech couldn’t come today….
Me: Where did you call?
Alarm: Your home phone.

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