Reach out and grab your customers!!!…Part Four…Where the Luddites Live!

Posted on February 16, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

Last post I focused on the General Adopters and their place on the Adopter Pyramid.

This week, I will focus on the lowest level of the pyramid — #4 – The Latent Adopter.

Adopter Pyramid

Adopter Pyramid

A few years ago I walked into a video rental store and stopped cold. I did a very slow 360° turn and realized that, yes, indeed, I must finally go out a buy a DVD player because the walls were now lined with DVDs only.

This is a perfect example of a Latent Adopter. They adopt your idea long after it has become the standard and they are forced to use the new technology because the old technology is gone. Latent Adopters are a mixed bag. If businesses are your customers, Latent Adopters can be slow-moving companies, start-ups with tiny budgets, or new, under-funded divisions of companies. In the case of consumers, they can be those who hate change, have less to spend, or buy only when forced to.

Latent Adopters – the PLUS: they are the largest market on the pyramid and when they buy, they buy in volume; — the MINUS: you have to stay in business long enough for this market adopter to catch up. If you’re a typical entrepreneur, then there’s a fairly good chance that you will no longer even be with the company at that point (which leads me to this suggestion: make sure there are provisions in your contract to cover yourself for this influx of money).

Chart and content from my book, Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing www.holtzmancom.com/thought_book_title.php

Sandra is a Fast Trac facilitator at the Levin Institute, SUNY

And teaches Licensing at FIT’s Entpreneur’s Institute

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Reach Out and … Grab Your Customers … Where the Big $$$ Lives! Part 3

Posted on February 2, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

This week, I will focus on the third level of the pyramid — #3 – The General Adopter. Adopter Pyramid

General Adopters tend to be more cautious about new trends.  They tend to have big budget constraints which encourage them to have a “wait and see” attitude, especially where new technologies are concerned.  They don’t take risks the way the way the upper two tiers of the pyramid do.  They will never take a risk on a new technology that might fail, which could ultimately cost them their job. Similarly, they don’t want to recommend a restaurant or fashion item that hasn’t been fully proven by others. They look up the pyramid for guidance and assurance.

The pyramid shows that General Adopters are a very large market, and as a rule, they will generate most of your significant revenues.  You can think of them as your general use market.

This group, like the ones above it, influence the group below, in this case the Latent Adopter market.

 

Chart and content from my book, Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing 

 

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Reach Out and … Grab Your Customers..By the Wallet! Part 2

Posted on January 27, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

 Last post I focused on the Early Adopters and their importance to you in launching a company or product.

Now I will focus on the second level of the pyramid — #2 – The Professional Adopter.
The Adopter Pyramid
Professional Adopters, like the Early Adopters are also capable of understanding your product and seeing where it will fit into the marketplace.  This group is looking for a competitive advantage.  They’re in touch with the Early Adopters on a regular basis because they know that this is where they will find   news and information on the latest thing in their area of interest.

So both the top two tiers of the pyramid are the most likely to pick up your product and use it. First.

As you can see by their place on the pyramid, Professional Adopters represent a wider base of potential users and influencers. Because this group of users is larger, you will need to spend more to reach and convert them from their existing habits and product usage.

 

If your product is a technology or business product, this is the group that will be likely to adopt it across departments and whole corporations. The same is true for consumer products – a store buyer may place an order to see how the product sells. This means that you’re most likely see your first meaningful profits when you convert this group to your product.  It is also the point at which your product or business starts to enter the mainstream and begins to achieve legitimacy.

Chart and content from my book, Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing.

A version of this blog was previously published at the FIT Blog, Hot Topics, under Small Business. I am on the faculty there where I teach licensing.

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Reach Out – Grab Your Customers!!! Part 1

Posted on January 5, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

Customers, as a group, are not all going to be interested in your product for the same reason at the same time – even if they need it or want it. So what’s the dynamics of reaching your customer? This is important to know because it will help you focus your selling and marketing efforts to the right group, with the right message at the right time.  There are four basic customer groups as shown below.  This post will focus on the top of the pyramid — #1 – The Early Adopter.
The Adopter Pyramid
Early Adopters are a critical group of people who will immediately want to buy, wear, or use your product. I was an Early Adopter of SKYPE.  I had to let friends know about it – friends who I thought are much more tech trendy than me. You know who they are. They are often the first people on the block with the latest gadget or wearing the latest fashion. They can’t wait to show it to you and explain how it works or tell you why it’s going to be trendy in a few weeks or months. These people are always on the lookout for the latest thing.  In corporations, Early Adopters often have the ear of the CEO.  They are seen as authorities and, as such, help build your product’s credibility by providing evidence that your product works in the real world. Every product or service has its Early Adopters. You see them at trendy new restaurants and wearing new fashions. The pyramid shows that Early Adopters are the smallest market. They are, therefore, the most economical to reach.  Like the guy on your block, they are willing to take the risk with something new.  They also expect kink that come with a new technology and are much more forgiving of them. They are the authorities and trend-setters that introduce your product to the next group of Adopters called the Professional Adopters.  I’ll talk about them next week.
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Chart and content from my book, Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing.

A version of this blog was previously published at the FIT Blog, Hot Topics, under Small Business. I am on the faculty there where I teach licensing.

 

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Bad Encounters of the Sales Clerk Kind — Watch Out Retailers!

Posted on December 20, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

Hey Retailers: Your Employees Can Kill Your Marketing Efforts and Business

On two recent occasions, I had bad encounters of the sales clerk kind. The first was in a small chain clothing store where at checkout I asked if I could apply two different coupons I had (hey, no harm in asking…usually). The sales clerk said no. OK. So I continue checking out. But the sales clerk standing next to her at the register made a snide remark under her breath.

The exact same thing happened at Barnes & Noble in the Village. This time it was aggravated when another sales clerk said, “Yahoo” as I walked away. And he wasn’t talking about the internet service.

Both instances left a bad taste in my mouth and a bad impression of the store employees. It won’t be soon that I return to those particular stores.

If you’re going to send coupons, a sales tactic specifically designed to drive traffic to your store or website, then your staff MUST respect them when they appear at the register. Snottiness and pretentiousness undercuts the store’s efforts to maximize sales at this peak time of year. Or any time for that matter.

Your whole sales and marketing effort can be torpedoed by sales clerks. Particularly holiday temps. Your business culture must ooze through the pores of every employee, ESPECIALLY THOSE IN DIRECT CONTACT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS.

A successful illustrator acquaintance hired a rep. Months later business had fallen off. On a phone call, a client said that he loved the illustrator’s work but his rep was an a**hole. Rep fired immediately. Most of the damage was repaired. But not so easily in today’s economic environment.

Watch out for this in your business. It can be a $$$ killer.

Send in mystery shoppers. Follow up with your clients on a regular basis. Have open ended conversations so they have an opportunity to talk freely.

And remember, your whole sales cycle can be sabotaged by one lousy employee. So put as much effort into hiring the right people as you do your sales and marketing.

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Posted in Business Start-up, Life/business experience, Uncategorized

Linking in…make it work for you

Posted on November 28, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

Linked in is a great way to make connections. But it has the potential to be  more than just posting a passive profile.  Be active and proactive. Search for people with similar interests and for affinity groups, which are especially good. Once you’re in a group, it’s easy to search the other members and connect that way.  They will be searching you as well. This gets you on more sets of radar than ever before.  You can also start an affinity group.

All the CEO’s of the top 50 companies in the Us are on Linked In. That means they are accessible in some form.  It also shows how important a tool this is.

One method of “linking” in that has worked for me is erasing the system’s automatic message and inserting my own …. like, “I’ve done business with so and so at your company”…. in other words, personalize your message.  It tells the other person that  it’s okay to connect with you. Once they’ve accepted, you have access to each other’s contacts. Just make the connection. If they are interested, they’ll check out your profile.

DON’T START SELLING YOURSELF OR YOUR SERVICES / PRODUCT!! Occasionally I get an email from someone who found me (usually in a group). The email goes on forever about the company and all their services. If the sender had taken a few minutes to review my profile, they would have found out that maybe I’m their competition. Or maybe I have no interest in their product at all.  So not only is it a waste of their time, but they also run the risk of annoying me. That’s a bad way to get on someone’s radar. If you don’t like that being done to you, don’t do it to someone else.

If you’ve already mastered Linked In, and even if you  haven’t, another good resource to help you maximize your Linked In effectiveness, is www.mashable.com.  Enter Linked In in the search box at the top right hand corner of the page. It will bring up valuable information to further help you in your linking in process.

 

A version of this post was previously published at the FIT blog, Hot Topics under small business. I am on the faculty there.

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Posted in Business Start-up, Customer-focused market research, Customer-focused marketing, Life/business experience

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You Need to Fail – The Sooner the Better

Posted on October 13, 2011 by admin| 1 Comment

Failure is not an option.  It’s an opportunity.  Take it.

Whether it’s a project, a product, a business, a division of a company, getting laid off, whatever. Failure is an opportunity, an opening, an opportunity to move forward in ways you have not considered before.

So take risks – calculated ones. Don’t worry about failure.  You may not get the client, the company may need to change direction, your partner may betray you, you have to dissolve the business and start over.  A million things will happen.  And each of those things opens a door to something better.

Steve Jobs, who was a founder of Apple in the 70’s, wound up losing a power struggle with the board of directors (guys he probably helped bring on) in 1985. He resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform which was bought out by….Apple. That brought Jobs back to the company. He served as its CEO from 1997 until 2011.

Bobby Darin flunked music at Bronx Science (and his music teacher was proud of having done it — how do I know? I had the same music teacher).

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because they said he lacked imagination and had no original ideas.

Thomas Edison said “”I have not failed 1000 times. I have successfully discovered 1000 ways to NOT make a light bulb…”

You can say with all these examples, the rest is history.

When you fail, you become more experienced, and thus more valuable at the helm.

Or as Woody Allen said, “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sure sign that you’re not doing anything very innovative.”

 

A version of this post was previously published at the FIT blog, Hot Topics under small business. I am on the faculty there.

 

 

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No One Ever Got FIred for Hiring IBM

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

OR…..How Do You Get Admission to a Club Requiring You Already Have Been Inside?

TODAY’S GUEST BLOGGER IS GLENN ZIMMERMAN, FORMER NBC NEWS REPORTER AND ANCHOR AND CURRENTLY CEO, CO-FOUNDER  AND DIRECTOR OF STORYTELLING AT   MAD BEAR PRODUCTIONS.  (See bio below)
Let’s say you’ve just developed a nifty hospital service.  Now, suppose a hospital is considering using your services. BUT… they want to see other hospitals in your resume or portfolio. Which you don’t have. Later you hear that they went with a similar (more expensive, less innovative) service from one of the big guys. And that’s when it hits you. Developing something new is the fun part. Selling it… is the real challenge.
It is not that IBM (or any large company) is necessarily the best solution for a client or even has the most interesting offering. It is all about the audience.

For businesses like mine, the audience would be a VP of marketing at a company or an executive at an advertising agency. They do not want to fail.
Notice I did not say “they want to succeed” because success in this context is not even the opposite of failure. The potential of success may not even factor into the thought process.

In this context, failure means sticking their necks out by partnering with a smaller company and risking their jobs if it goes badly.
On the other hand, if they chose to partner with a larger vendor (like an IBM) and the offering does not work out. Their boss would likely be more understanding because they clearly were not the first to take the leap (or at least that is what I’ve heard over and over again from people on the inside).

At the core of the problem is the question (and title of this article): How do you get admission to a club requiring you already have been inside?

You don’t even have to stay in the club long. Just slip in long enough to be noticed sipping some Dom or Remy in order to make your audience comfortable with you.

Let’s take the club analogy literally for an instant. If you want to get into some “swanky nightclub” (I don’t even know if that term is even used anymore), it probably would make sense to get to know the doorman. Not that Iʼm clubbinʼ much these days. Not that clubbinʼ was ever my thing (all right maybe for a little while in my early 20ʼs) but you get the point.

The doorman is the gatekeeper of the club!

If you do not have the corporate portfolio and are not “big enough” to make an impression on brand manager “X” … you are S.O.L. (thatʼs Sadly Out of Luck… Iʼm a dad now… I donʼt curse), unless you know someone who has access to open that door for you.
What I have found especially interesting is you never know who will end up connecting you with whom. So, that is why I am all about meeting people of kinds (it is truly fun for me) and in the process breaking down doors with a personal introduction to either the doorman or someone on the inside.

Also, this is where some social media tools (especially LinkedIn for me) is extraordinarily effective. You have the ability to engage the exact person you are looking for with a pretty high degree of success. For a nice range of strategies, go to www.mashable.com and then in the search window type LinkedIn. A slew of great resources will come up.

Once you get the ear of your audience online, it is crucial that you make the transition to the real world. Whatever works best for you: phone, Skype or a cup of coffee.

Now whether or not any of these connections turn into sales is probably an article for another day… maybe Iʼll call it “C-L-O-S-I-N-G spells the ultimate form of R-E-L-I-E-F.”

GLENN’S BIO:

Glenn Zimmerman directs the storytelling at Mad Bear Productions (www.madbearproductions.com), a unique video marketing company he co-founded that helps businesses find and share their stories online.

For more than 14 years, he honed his storytelling craft as a television news reporter and anchor. Whether it was at NBC’s flagship station in New York (WNBC-TV) or the number one station in Detroit (WXYZ-TV); Glenn brought a sense of creativity, intelligence and excitement to every story. In his career, he covered the highest of highs to the lowest of lows life has to offer but always understood what about a story was memorable.  He has interviewed presidents, models, athletes, actors, musicians, and everyone in between. As a reporter, he has been honored with an Emmy and numerous other awards and accolades for his storytelling and investigative reporting.

Glenn has a BA from Boston University in International Relations and an MS from Syracuse University in Mass Communications.

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Public Relations: Do it for the Long Haul — Six Months or Not At All

Posted on September 21, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

Why I don’t do PR for less than six months or a year and why you shouldn’t pay for anything less than that.

Here’s why.

When you start a PR campaign (as in launching your company or product usually) it takes the first two or three months to develop a list (especially a customized one) plus develop the message and then shape it to appeal to the media. And then you have to start pitching it to the media. Sometimes market research needs to be conducted. This takes time. When you finally launch, it takes two to three months to get traction and see any results. A lot of companies want instant results immediately and that’s not how PR usually works.

There are a lot of variables in a campaign but as a general guideline the most activity in the media is seen between months 3 and 9 after launch. Often the campaign is stretched out for additional months due to lead-times of media outlets, interest from consumers, and changing facets of the campaign. Each campaign is unique.

And remember, if you are aiming for holiday coverage, magazines and TV shows tend to close, and retail wholesale orders are taken, in August if not before, depending on the industry (in the toy industry, for instance, shelf space is booked in early February). Yes, there’s always room for something unique. August is also when many companies plan their budgets for the next year.

The most effective time of the year for media exposure, and thus, for launching, is the second quarter (2nd three months that you’re campaign is running) – when coverage is almost double what it is the rest of the year. When your story goes out in June and July, you’ve aroused interest for the August push.
It all makes sense. IF you give it the right amount of time.

This post was previously published at the FIT blog, Hot Topics under small business. I am on the faculty there.

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Welcome to Holtzman Communications’ blog

Posted on August 5, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

The blog will officially launch in September.

Sandra Holtzman is currently writing the Small Business blog for Fashion Institute of Technology’s  blog called Hot Topics Insider. She posts a new entry every week. Check it out on your right.

You can start following by subscribing.

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