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Business Survival is a Multiple-Choice Question

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Feb 23, 2009; Category: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Business, Economy, Future, New Rules; No Comments

Times are tough, and they’ll get tougher, according to just about every expert opinion you can find. Optimistic experts say the recession will last through 2010; pessimists forecast hardship for the next decade. The wailing and gnashing of teeth among business owners and their employees (not to mention the experts) has reached almost biblical proportions. According to the common wisdom, if you’re not whining and shivering with fear, you look a little foolish, like you don’t know what’s up.

But what does whining, wailing, and teeth-gnashing accomplish that is helpful to your business? Anything? No, I thought not. Times are tough, and business owners need to accept that as what is (gosh, that sounds so…Zen). But tough times don’t render us powerless. Along with tough decisions about cutting back, there’s potential for finding new and better ways of doing things that create new opportunities.

As the downturn worsens (and all the experts say that it will), every business owner has to choose one of three options:

1. Fold up the tent and go home.
2. Hunker down and try to survive.
3. Recognize there is an opportunity in tough times to thrive, and decide that you have the courage and determination to take advantage of it.

Whichever choice you make, do it consciously, because it’s the unconscious choices that will do you in. If you choose "C," recognize that you will have to do things differently than in the past, that the changed economic landscape is no longer fertile ground for the "tried and true."

Choosing option C isn’t about "manifesting wealth" or "attracting good fortune." It’s about finding better ways to engage customers and working hard to gain their loyalty. It’s about having confidence in the value you have to offer. It’s about knowing that, whether the recession ends in 2010 or 2020, you’ll still be here, providing that value.

Blogging for Business in New Mexico

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Feb 11, 2009; Category: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging, Business, Economy, Marketing, New Mexico; No Comments

Evo operates in New Mexico, a state ranked at or near the bottom of the nation in too many business, economic development, public education, and social equity categories. I’m not saying anything that isn’t common knowledge in New Mexico, though many would prefer it not be known outside the state.

We have natural beauty (out the wazoo), a rich and varied cultural heritage, and loads of creative, passionate people. People live here because they want to live in a beautiful place that has soul, and New Mexico delivers big on that score. But business-wise: let’s just say that when a recession comes along, we don’t have as far to fall. Alongside all the passion and creativity, there is a stubborn resistance to things new and different (especially, perhaps, in Santa Fe, the "City Different").

Very few New Mexico businesses understand the opportunities offered by social media marketing (isn’t that something the kids do on, whadyacallit, face-space?), although many of them understand that their brochure website that hasn’t been updated in the last year or two isn’t doing a lot for them (and come to think of it, neither is their yellow pages ad). Even fewer understand social media marketing as a lower cost, more effective alternative than traditional marketing efforts. We look at this as an opportunity, but changing mindsets is an uphill battle with few allies available.

One group who is listening, however, is the City of Santa Fe’s Economic Development division. They know they have to be creative to provide meaningful support for economic development with their limited resources, and they’re struggling with how to best accomplish that. I appreciate their willingness to hear what I have to say about social media’s place in stimulating economic development, and I want to give them a shout out for considering something outside traditional approaches, outside the usual economic development box.

Nine Steps to Featuring Customer Successes on Your Business Blog

Author: Guest Author; Published: Feb 10, 2009; Category: Business, Guest Post, Marketing; Tags: Blogging, Case Studies, Economy, Marketing; No Comments

This is a Guest Post by Casey Hibbard of Compelling Cases Inc., author of Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset. For more tips on creating and using customer stories, sign up for her monthly e-tip or get RSS feeds for her Stories That Sell blog.

Running interviews with industry experts and other individuals of interest to your audience is a great way to get engaging, keyword-rich content on your blog. You don’t need to go far to find viable interview subjects. In fact, one of the best sources is right in front of you— your own successful customers.

Sharing a story about a customer’s experience boosts your credibility, educates your audience, and validates what you offer. Plus, it makes your customers the stars of your blog. They are sharing a completely positive story about their best practices efforts— providing coveted positive PR.

Here are 9 steps to interviewing and featuring your best customers:

1. Choose your topic – Choose a lesson or point you want to make to your audience.
2. Pick the customer – Select the customer that is the best example of that lesson in action.
3. Get the OK – Make sure the customer is willing and able to be featured, and let them know what topic and questions you’ll be covering.
4. Schedule the interview – Schedule an in-person or phone interview.
5. Ask the right questions – These questions are the foundation of a great success story:
   What’s the customer’s business?
   What are their goals and challenges as a business?
   What challenge was the customer hoping to solve, or goal accomplish, with your solution?
   Briefly, in what ways is the customer using (or did use) the product or service?
   What is the end result? Try to quantify any business benefits.
   Next steps or plans for the future?
   What advice would the customer offer to other businesses going down the same path?
6. Write the story – You can either write it in story format, or interview format (easier for non-writers). Either way, follow a storyline, taking readers from an orientation of who the business is, its goals and challenges, how the solution made a difference, and the successful outcome.
7. Don’t be overly promotional – Always keep the focus on the customer and its successes, rather than how great your product or service is.
8. Get approval – If the customer needs to approve the content before it runs, send it to them and ask for feedback by a certain day.
9. Post it!

Lessons from General Custer: Why Should You Have a Business Blog?

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Feb 3, 2009; Category: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging, Change, Economy, Marketing; 4 Comments

There’s much talk and growing evidence that businesses that blog are realizing business benefits, including increased sales. Most business owners I talk to, however, are hesitant. They’ve heard about the "next big thing" before, so they’re not ready to get excited about blogging, and they have business to tend to. Their lack of excitement often takes hold after I’ve explained that it may take 6-12 months for blogging benefits to accrue to their bottom line if they do it well, which includes an 8-12 hr/week time commitment. If the results aren’t instantaneous, why bother?

I’m reminded of the classic cartoon [apologies to my Native American friends] in which a machine gun salesman is rebuffed by General Custer amid incoming arrows, saying "Can’t you see I’m too busy to talk right now?" What would you expect of a man who wore his hat so that the first wind that came along would send it flying? This is not a guy who focused on what was important.

The marketing landscape is shifting, or has already shifted, depending on who you talk to. Traditional "outbound" marketing—which includes print advertising, telemarketing, radio and television advertising, direct mail, email blasts, and non-interactive websites—are increasingly being ignored by consumers. Outbound marketing can still work if done effectively, but not to the degree it used to. When was the last time you opened a direct mail ad to see what the offer was? Or sat through the 10 minutes of commercials that accompany a 20-minute TV program? Or read a newspaper ad? You may have done some of those things recently, but if you’re like most people, you’re doing them a lot less than you did 5 or 10 years ago.

People have other options for finding information when they’re ready to buy. For an increasing number of people, their first step in a purchase is Google. If they’re looking for a book, which they can buy online, they probably won’t add a city to their search. But if they’re looking for a woodstove, they probably will. If you’re a local merchant who sells woodstoves and your website has a lot of recently added and updated content on woodstoves, you’re going to show up high in the search results. If you’re a local merchant who sells woodstoves and have a website with little useful information that hasn’t been updated since it was launched 5 years ago, or if you don’t have a website at all, you’re not going to have an opportunity to make the sale.

Increasingly, successful local businesses are the ones who are "findable" on the Internet. Becoming more findable on the Internet is sometimes referred to as "inbound" marketing. Blogging and other inbound marketing activities, accompanied by very basic Search Engine Optimization, are a proven way of raising the findability of your business and, by the way, they cost much less than outbound marketing. Let me help you pull that arrow out of your back (hold still!), then we really should talk about your business and how blogging can help it thrive.

How Some Businesses Thrive in Poor Economies

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Dec 13, 2008; Category: Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Business, Economy; No Comments

If you’re not at least a little concerned about the economy and what it might mean to your business, you just haven’t been paying attention. On the other hand, this is no time to panic. Some businesses thrive in slow times, and not because they sell tin cups or hand-lettered "will work for food" signs. These businesses see opportunities others miss.

People generally don’t stop buying altogether during a downturn: they still need goods and services. But they are a lot more conscious of "value" and getting their money’s worth when they spend money. This value-consciousness creates opportunities for savvy business owners. Taking advantage of those opportunities, however, often means changing some of the ways they do business. Most business owners won’t do that, and most businesses will suffer as a result. Some will even fail, rather than change.

Now is the time to think about the web as a business platform. The days of online brochures being useful are past, even for "brick-and-mortar" businesses. There are efficiencies and competitive advantages to be gained with the use of web-based applications and online marketing techniques. It doesn’t matter what your business is, the people in your market go to the web to begin the sales process, long before you even know they’re looking for your product or service. If they find the information and service they’re looking for on a competitor’s website and don’t see anything helpful on yours (or don’t find yours), you’ve lost an opportunity to make a sale, or worse, a long-term customer.

Here are 3 things you can do right now:

1. Sign up for our newsletter, EvoLetter 2.0, for ideas about how a web-based business platform can help your business thrive.
2. Buy David Meerman Scott’s book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, and (this is the important part) read it.
3. Call us at 505-466-8292 to schedule a meeting to discuss making the web part of your business platform.