Excuse me. How is that customer-focused?
The fact is it’s not. The concepts still come from the agency, or the client. And respondents are still asked to react to someone else’s idea of what might get them to shell out money. The only thing different is the delivery system.

In true customer-focused market research and marketing, the customer (respondent) solves the problem by coming up with the ideas. This allows the customer a total free range of thought and ideation. They tell you how they want to be “told and sold”. They come up with the concept, ad ideas, new product ideas, even strategies for reaching them!

In short they tell you exactly how to help them want to buy your product.
Your ROI soars when you give the customer exactly what they want. I have the statistics to prove it. Statistically significant statistics…like increasing a $500 million dollar company’s new product sales by 10-fold, or helping a start-up company attract a larger company in order to do a successful exit, or help a sole proprietor’s bookings increase by 60% six months after putting up a customer-focused website.

And it can all happen is a period of days.

There. Now isn’t that better?

Here are some highlights of the JOBS Act compliments of security and regulations attorney Morrie Simkin.

The JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act), signed into law
on April5,2012, has several parts.

• It will help companies with annual sales under $1,000,000,000 go public and file periodic reports with the SEC for up to five years after they go public.
•  It will help a company making a private placement.
• It creates a crowd funding source for raising capital. Offerings under
  this part do not have to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or any state, but they are subject to a maximum of $1,000,000 in any 12 months.
• It raises the limits for the small offering registration requirements under Regulation A of the Securities Act of 1933 (Securities Act) to $50,000,000, and such offering is exempted from state registration requirements.
• The standard for when a company has to register a class of its securities under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Securities Exchange Act) has been raised.

Now, what’s it mean to YOUR small business:

• When the SEC implements the JOBS Act by adopting the rules the law requires, it will make it easier for companies to go public (IPO) and to conduct private placements.
• However, if you are fund raising, the Act will make it more difficult for you because you will now have to report on a regular basis as well as fund your own audits (which could run $30 – $40,000 a year).
• For the finders of the world (those who source money for a fee), there is no help in the JOBS Act. If you register as a finder, then you can neither advertise your services nor can you collect success fees. So basically, you’re in the same place as you were before the Act.

Read the whole article, A User Friendly Primer on the JOBS Act For the Business Person and the Capital Raiser and get additional analysis from the expert.

Sandra Holtzman is the  co-author of  Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing

Morries’ Insights:

While Using the price of legal services as the key criterion in selecting lawyers is a mistake for which the client will pay.  They will get a product that does not do what they want or need it to do, or a bill that is filled with unnecessary charges.

To keep the costs down the cheap lawyer must do things that are not always in the client’s best interest.  If the transaction is a commodity type transaction—the same as every other transaction of that kind, the use of a basic form contract may be sufficient.  However, it is never so simple.  There are at least two sides to a contract.  One party or the other may raise issues, problems, propose terms or raise questions not contemplated in the form or that are at variance with the form.  To make these changes and to make sure the contract is complete and consistent takes time.  The cheap lawyer can not afford to devote the time this requires.  One example I recently saw was a partnership agreement.  One partner could remove the other only on their death, disability or conviction of a felony.  But the partners had fallen out of love, and one wanted to kick the other out.  There was a clause to remove a partner if he did not devote full time and attention to the business.  But there was no way to implement it.  Defined terms necessary to implement this clause were referenced but not defined.  It would have taken too much time for the cheap lawyer to go through the contract and make sure it was complete.

Often in a transaction the cheap lawyer does not or can not take the time to learn what it is the parties want to accomplish.  A variant of this is where the lawyer is so eager to get the assignment that he takes on matters with which he is not familiar or in areas where he is inexperienced.  The result is a cheap fee but a disaster for the parties should issues of contract interpretation or enforcement ever arise.

Another tactic that the lawyer with a too low billing rate uses is to make up in time charges what his low billing rate lacks.  He finds things to bill for—the unnecessary phone calls, the unwanted memos, the unnecessary motions or depositions in litigation, etc.  This way he has more time in the matter for which he can charge the client.

This may sound familiar.  How many RFPs or bids have you lost to a low bidder? Only to find out later that they cha-chinged their pricing up after they won the contract?  Or they screwed up the job?

A version of this blog recently appeared in FIT’s Hot Topics blog where Sandra is the Small Business blogger.  You can reach Morrie Simkin at Msimkin@mclaughlinstern.com

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

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

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 

Now I will focus on the second level of the pyramid — #2 – The Professional Adopter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.