Coddle Local and Lucrative Niche Customers

Last Valentine’s Day, several neighborhood businesses including an event planner (she organized it), dentist, women’s medical clinic, florist, health food store, clothing boutique, shopper newspaper, museum store, gym, bookstore and beauty salon joined forces for a month-long promotion to attract and serve women, especially those 30 and older. 

The bookstore hosted a series of “Beauty Inside Out” - themed series of in-store demonstrations and mini-seminars each led by a manager of one of the participating businesses and highlighting a book collection and the local partners’ related products and services. 

Each presenter provided a handout that included reference to at least one of the other partnering organizations, plus a joint offer of services with one of them.

As well, each partner wrote a guest column based on her presentation. The columns were featured in the shopper newspaper. Of course each column contributor quoted partners in this mutually beneficial alliance.

Get Introduced to Potential Buyers by People They Already Trust

You don’t have to go it alone any longer. Want to spend less time selling and promoting and more time doing the work you love?

You can.  Just join forces with other reputable organizations that serve the same kind of customers. Generate extra value and visibility together. Join forces with others who serve your kind of customers and become a bigger customer magnet together.

Act now, before your competitor grabs the best partners and uses the most profitable method.

Here’s two more quick snapshots of real life SmartPartnering successes that you can adapt to get your local business growing faster …

Become a Bigger Customer Magnet

When pillow-maker, Leo Hollander decided to drop private labeling work in favor of launching his own brand, he recruited complementary partners. On his “Live Comfortably” web site, he provided articles by a feng shui consultant, chiropractor and color specialist.  Result?  He boosted all partners’ visibility and credibility – in front of their mutual market of customers.

 Trade Benefits to Lower Your Overhead - While Attracting Attention with a “First Ever” Offer

 That’s how T-shirt designer Tami Minatelli could exhibit at nine street fairs last summer without paying for her booth space. A manufacturer of a new, unique, no-stain suntan lotion paid for Tami’s booth.

Why? Because she wore their lotion and her T-shirts, with a sign above her head, describing her original painting-on-cotton method and the lotion’s “do no harm” guarantee. Next to burn protection, that’s the biggest concern of people who use suntan lotions

 First, ask yourself these questions to find the right partner and method:

• What other businesses (or non-profits) are popular with your kind of customer?

• What groups could add extra value to your kind of product or service? 

• How could a bundled offer of you and your partner’s products better respond to a customer’s situational reason to buy?

See links http://howwepartner.com/2009/04/coddle-local-and-lucrative-niche-customers/

• Voted one of Top 5 speakers on Communication: http://speaking.com/top5/

• See how much others have accomplished in consulting with Kare http://www.sayitbetter.com/coaching.php - or bring her to speak http://www.sayitbetter.com/meeting_planners.php 

http://twitter.com/KareAnderson  + http://howwepartner.com/

• Two of her blogs are featured on http://collaboration.alltop.com/ and another, Say it Better, on http://lifehacks.alltop.com/

Kare Anderson

Posted via email from Kare Anderson on Coummunicating to Connect

Offer Special Touches (Your Partners Provide) That Your Competition Doesn’t

Who knows how many people choose to stay at the Ritz Carlton rather than at another luxury hotel because of an added thrill, 

complimentary use of a brand new Mercedes during their stay? (They’re “both synonymous with sophisticated styling.”)

Holiday Inn Express partnered with Kohler to roll out a SimplySmart “shower program”, offering guests an “upgrade” - the opportunity to try Kohler’s new multi-function showerhead and spa bath.

Holiday Inn then collaborated with the children’s TV folks to createNickelodeon Family Suites, offering a water park, arcade and other family-friendly attractions.

Do you have independently-owned lodging – or a restaurant, clinic, retirement community, office or other consumer-serving place?

Then, you too, could invite other local business owners to get introduced to the people you serve by providing the extra touches that the on-site experience you offer stand out from your competitors. What photographs, furniture, snacks or other products could help differentiate your place from your competitors? Both online and inside, graciously display a helpful list of the businesses that participated in creating that experience.

See links here http://howwepartner.com/2009/04/offer-special-touches-your-partners-provides-that-your-competition-doesnt/

• Voted one of Top 5 speakers on Communication: http://speaking.com/top5/

• See how much others have accomplished in consulting with Kare http://www.sayitbetter.com/coaching.php - or bring her to speak http://www.sayitbetter.com/meeting_planners.php 

http://twitter.com/KareAnderson  + http://howwepartner.com/

• Two of her blogs are featured on http://collaboration.alltop.com/ and another, Say it Better, on http://lifehacks.alltop.com/

Posted via email from Kare Anderson on Coummunicating to Connect

Viral Loop: When Partnering Means Getting Others to Share Your Product

Without advertising, several businesses have attracted 

millions of users by getting individuals to share their “product” with others.

This effect was dubbed a Viral Loop and described by Adam Penenberg who just came out with a book by that name. Like Tuperware, Ning and others, here’s how you, too, may be able to reward people who spread the word about your business in this new New Normal world.  For example, adapt your version of the tools that Penenberg is using to boost booksales.  

1. Can you tie an iPhone application to use of your service or product?

After Raven Zachary enabled Obama’s supporters to follow the campaign via the iPhone app he created, a whole iPhone-based business sprang up for him and his colleagues, one that begat acluster of such businesses in the Silicon Forest.

Perhaps one of these firms could build a client-attracting app for you, as they have for zipcar,Urbanspoon, Rick Steves’ travel guides and others.  Each app added convenience, versatility and/or excitement or other value for customers.

2. Can your customers gain bragging rights and/or attract clients to their business by becoming involved in your company or cause’s Facebook group? Then create the widget to enable them to succeed – with you. 

3. Praise your vendors and sources of ideas as cherished partners -  Penenberg does with Marc Andreessen, StudioE9  and others - and they are more likely to return the favor. 

Andrew Chen takes you through the client-attracting steps of a Viral Loop. 

See links: http://howwepartner.com/2009/10/viral-loop-when-partnering-means-getting-others-to-share-your-product/

• Voted one of Top 5 speakers on Communication: http://speaking.com/top5/

• See how much others have accomplished in consulting with Kare http://www.sayitbetter.com/coaching.php - or bring her to speak http://www.sayitbetter.com/meeting_planners.php 

http://twitter.com/KareAnderson  + http://howwepartner.com/

• Two of her blogs are featured on http://collaboration.alltop.com/ and another, Say it Better, on http://lifehacks.alltop.com/

Posted via email from Kare Anderson on Coummunicating to Connect

Situational Selling Inspires More Customers to Buy and Spend More

“Where’re the shovels?” I ask the hardware store clerk.

 

‘”Aisle four.”  Now many people use a shovel to dig  holes for plants. That means they are buying plants and fertilizer.

The closer these items are to each other the more likely we will go to that place to buy them. How would we know that store has all three?  Three ways: We’ve been to the store before, we say the items in different parts of an ad or we called and asked.

Of course not all products should be displayed by situation.  Yet every consumer-serving outlet could benefit from displaying at least one situation-centered product grouping and signage and/or a poster with a picture of the situation.

Reduce the number of motions it takes for someone to buy (more) from you

That’s because most people sell by category of product or service rather than by situation – how that product will be used. The customer must become the collector of information – what to get where.  That takes time.  And if all the products are not in the same store – or are located in different parts of the store, then the customer has to spend more time on the task.

Sell by Situation

What if the hardware store created large posters on the wall, featuring a situation sale  “Fall Garden Fix-Up” with an image of the assembled products one might need?  What if that store set aside a small display place where these products were gathered – a place customers would glance at, coming in the door – to see if the current situational display interested them? Per-customer buying might go up.

Give Customers a Picture of the Solved Situation

Some posters might show the products needed to serve the situation.  Others might show the successful end result of using them – say a before and after photo of bushes that had been cut back for Fall Fix-Up?

How might this work for you? Here are three other examples to prime the pump of your creative thinking:

1. Offer business start-ups a mix of office support services so they can buy the one that matches their specific situation. That’s what Sunshine Suites does. From a virtual office ( place to meet clients and mail and receive packages) to a co-working space or  office space  - just for your start-up all located in a building with other start-ups. What “space available”-related situation could you serve frugal-minded people?

The tempting bonus benefit Sunshine Suites offers? Enabling tenants to connect and sometimes partner, as this blog advocates: “They hold regular networking events and panel discussions.  They created a database application so Shiners could search for other tenants by industry.  There’s even a ski vacation home in Vermont  for offsite meetings.”  

2. “Plan your post-tax season vacation now so you can daydream about it when your brain is fried from long hours of work.”

 That was the headline in an email and mailing sent to tax professionals. Since CPAs and AEs are busiest in tax season yet need a nudge to plan the getaway time. I worked with my travel agency client to launch a situation sale in September – aimed at this market.  That’s when tax professionals start feeling the tension of the impending workload. Creating suggested vacation packages that are ideal for that post tax season time and offering them now means we stepped into the shoes of the people we sought to serve and saw the world their way.  

3. Travel kit of hair and skin care

That’s the situation sale sign we posted in a hair salon and in a spa. It was above a bag surrounded by travel-size shampoo and other products. Clients saw it, could quickly pick the mix of small items they needed, sometimes including the travel bag and buy it before they headed out the door.

How to start selling situationally

1. Vividly describe and display (on a wall or web site) the situations that your customers face, list and/or show the products they need to serve that situation and enable them to buy the needed items quickly.

2. How can you reduce the number of motions and the time it takes for people to see the situation then buy from you?

3. What other products or services are needed to create that situation  - or solve that problem? For example some hardware stores have nursery sections If one didn’t then the store could partner with a nursery, co-create a poster and refer to the products in each other’s outlets.  Many people don’t want to plant their garden more maintain it. Then the store could recruit reputable landscapers and garden maintenance firms, list them on a single sheet that includes the situational sale items and have s counter-top plexiglass stand to display the sheets.

 Absolute Paradise is the reason that situational selling method popped into my mind today. I crossed paths with the owner of Absolute Paradise, Joyce Cameron. I love the image she evokes and tinkered with it a tiny bit. (Next task: a list of the dream items for the back yard and perhaps one set of “before and after” photos):

Still a bad economy? Come home to a good vacation every day

Let us help you create an absolute paradise in your back yard - a vacation to come home to every day of your life. Your paradise may have an outdoor spa, gazebo or more. With 15 years of experience in creating such getaway places we know how to build them right the first time.  That way you won’t have repair worries and can simply start enjoying great vacation living at home.

• Voted one of Top 5 speakers on Communication: http://speaking.com/top5/

• See how much others have accomplished in consulting with Kare http://www.sayitbetter.com/coaching.php - or bring her to speak http://www.sayitbetter.com/meeting_planners.php 

http://twitter.com/KareAnderson  + http://howwepartner.com/

• Two of her blogs are featured on http://collaboration.alltop.com/ and another, Say it Better, on http://lifehacks.alltop.com/

Posted via email from Kare Anderson on Coummunicating to Connect

SmartPartnering is More Credible Than Advertising – and Costs Less

Following up on the previous post, here’s two more quick snapshots to whet your appetite for profitable partnering. Notice how all partners benefit by showing off their best work – with each other.

1. A newspaper carries a column, “Stay Well” co-written by you, a doctor, a fitness expert and a nutritionist, offering advice, upcoming events and Q & A from readers.

Co-columnists pair up to share a local, weekend, call-in radio show with guest experts on ways to stay well.

A local community college communications professor assigns a class project of producing a video featuring tips from these columnists. The students get experience and something to add to their portfolio when looking for work.

The video is displayed on YouTube, on partners’ web sites and in their offices, carried on local cable TV, and offered as a free rental to video outlets.

2. What happens when dentists, pediatricians, principals, city health directors, newspaper editors and managers of stores offering toys, children's clothing and video rentals join forces to attract and serve their clients – families with young children?

Together, they do what they could not accomplish on their own. They offer a highly valued, emotionally-loaded, and media attracting service AND increase foot traffic to their sites: “I Got Shot and Survived” free immunizations for kids on Saturdays, before school starts.

Immunizations are offered at family-convenient times in a roomy, cheerfulchildren’s store with a party atmosphere where the kids are the center of attention. Parents hear about the offer through the partners - people, organizations and places

After kids receive their shots, their accompanying parents receive coupons for free snacks and music instrument demonstrations that can be redeemed at the outlets.

The results? Partners provide better, more news-catching service at less cost and inspired greater community and patient loyalty- while spending less.

Partners create “passion bond” relationships with each other, their clients and others who don’t need shots but are inspired by the even to try one or more partner’s services.

Tips:

• SmartPartnering offers enable you to reach more people, with a more enticing offer than you could provide on your own.

• The more and more reputable partners you have the higher your visibility and credibility and the lower your costs.

• Voted one of Top 5 speakers on Communication: http://speaking.com/top5/

• See how much others have accomplished in consulting with Kare http://www.sayitbetter.com/coaching.php - or bring her to speak http://www.sayitbetter.com/meeting_planners.php 

Posted via email from Kare Anderson on Coummunicating to Connect

Stand Out From the Competition by Partnering

Business is slower in many restaurants on Tuesday nights it is packed at one  where they host Women’s’ Night Out with 

dim sum-style dinners so women order small dishes and share tables with friends and strangers to ask questions of beauty and health experts or to sing karoke or learn something fun like improv – all provided by the restaurant’s partners who refer to each other when it is their night to engage the crowd.

Stand out from the competition by partnering in smart ways

• The restaurant became known as a fun place to meet, not “just” for dinner but also for fun and learning with friends.

• Those who entertained diners gained a warm-up introduction to prospective clients.

What does this mean for you and your business?

Even the well-to-do have become frugal in this bad economy and so, perhaps have you. To attract and keep customers, patients or clients you need two things:

1. Value that differentiates you from the competition so you become their top-of-mind choice.

2. Visibility so more of your kind of clients hear about you in ways that make them trust you.

The most credible way to do both is, thankfully, also the most cost-effective and efficient. 

It is simply this: Forge value and visibility-generating partnerships with reputable, complementary individuals and businesses (or organizations) that serve the same kind of clients.

Here’s another quick example.With most home prices stalled this is not a happy time for most Realtors yet two I know are doing well. Why? Because they positioned themselves as Homeowner’s Helpers, in partnership with a plumber, contractor, electrician, gardener and hardware store.

Together they write an idea-packed blog and host monthly demonstrations at one of their places. Consequently they have become the sought-after subject matter experts to be quoted in the local media whenever there’s a news story that affects homeowners.

Along the way they have learned a lot about each other’s work and have come to respect each other so it is easy and natural for them to work seamlessly to help a client, co-sponsor an event, cross-refer or praise a partner.

Each time they try out a new partnering method, they are more familiar with each other’s strengths, business slow times and more so it is easier to design and execute the partnership.

The Tom Sawyer Effect

Tom Sawyer in Huckleberry Finn attracted people who wanted to help him whitewash the fence, because he made it look like such fun.

Now that Homeowner’s Helpers have become locally famous for their success in helping homeowners (and are visibly enjoying working together) others who also sell to homeowners are eager to join the partnership.

If they are complementary, reputable businesses they can join yet are expected to prove themselves in the beginning before the partnership is made permanent. This approach enables the partners to maintain their reputation and multiply the number of prospects they credible reach while further reducing their promotional overhead.

In the next few posts you can discover exactly how to partner to grow your service-related business. Because I’ve spoken atseveral dental conventions I wrote this series for dental practices yet you can adapt many of the ideas for your kind of professional practice, from CPAs to veterinarians or as a partner with one.

Just adapt the tips and examples to your kind of work. And please share the ways you - or someone you know – is profitably partnering – or not – and what you’ve learned.

See how much others have accomplished in consulting with Kare http://www.sayitbetter.com/coaching.php - or bring her to speak http://www.sayitbetter.com/meeting_planners.php

Posted via email from Kare Anderson on Coummunicating to Connect

Grow Your Member Organization by Collaborating With Members and Other Groups

Become an opportunity-maker for the member organization that most matters to you. Imagine that your association or special interest group kept innovating to create more value and meaning for members.

That’s what TED has done and we can too by taking three collaborative steps over time:

1. Offer a single major conference  – as most associations already do, of course. Involve the members in choosing topics, speakers and formats, base on core guidelines, chosen by member vote. Create a format that enables members to participate in reach a single – and singular goal.

2. Encourage the launch of local conferences yet don’t try to control them. Instead create ground rules for local leaders to succeed while maintaining the quality of the “brand.”

3. Co-brand a fresh version of your national conference with another respected organization on vital topic that matters to the members of both organizations. Allow the founders of your local conferences to co-sponsor that new conference by enabling their members to view it together in their area.

The team at the TED conference announced this third step today.  See how you could adapt these steps to the member group that most matters to you.

Step One

The national TED conference has grown increasingly popular throughout the past 22 years, with the biggest community of member those who avidly watch the videos of speakers.

Step Two

Building on the strength of that largely online community, TED launched, just last April, local events dubbed TEDx. Rather, in true collaborative fashion, they announced guidelines for these local events and invited people to co-host, design and run them. In just one year local leaders stepped up and hosted over 600 such events around the globe.

Hint: To encourage local events, the guidelines start with the benefits for the local organizers and provides an easy-to-follow toolkit: “In the spirit of ‘Ideas Worth Spreading,’ TEDx is a program that enables schools, businesses, libraries or just groups of friends to enjoy a TED-like experience through events they themselves organize, design and host.

We’re supporting approved organizers by offering a free toolkit that includes detailed advice, the right to use recorded TEDTalks, promotion on our site, connection to other organizers, and a little piece of our brand in the form of the TEDx label.”

In so doing, local communities bonded, learning together and created other local collaborations.  Imagine! In over 25 languages were spoken at these talks with opportunities for translation to spread the messages farther – and make speakers more well-known, thus spurring participation by great speakers.

Hint: the more popular your events become the more people you attract to donate their services.

This is the path to peace – and savoring your life with others. Diverse individuals meeting to learn and share best ideas with each other – and, in conversations during the event and afterwards, to find ways they can accomplish greater things together, than they can alone.

Step Three

Today the third step was announced. A new event is linking local groups to the mother ship of the national group – around a new topic area, yet connected to the underlying TED brand of innovation, new ideas – and solving a problem together.  Local groups will get to meet and share this new event live – with other local chapters around the world.  The announcement was that “On September 20, 2010, more than 150 of the world’s leading thinkers and doers will come together in New York for TEDxChange, convened by Melinda French Gates … and hosted by TED founder Chris Anderson.”

With such member loyalty, interest and clout accumulated by TED it can attract a big-time partner – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Also together they share a Sweet Spot of mutual interest – bringing bright minds together to address a big problem: how to improve health around the world.

Plus smart partners tie their collaboration to as many meaning goals and events as they credibly can.  For example, this conference is tied to the 10th anniversary of the famous Millennium Development Goals.

This is a three- stage template that you could use to grow the value and visibility of your profession association – and make it more meaningful for your members.

In fact any member-based club or special interest group could adapt it to their needs to grow its capacity to make powerful changes while imbuing its members with a sense of meaning in their participation.

Think what the Rotary Clubs have accomplished over 20 years with their single goal, bottom-up approach to wiping out polio.  Imagine local Rotary clubs have rallied around this single cause and have raised about $127.4 million for this cause – plus personally worked on projects to make it happen. That gives their lives meaning and builds extraordinary bonds between members and with those they selflessly serve. That dedication and progress towards a singular goal (key to great collaboration) attracted the Gates foundation as a partner.

Tip: When people bring out each other’s best talents in collaboration around a sweet spot of mutual interest they accomplish greater things together than they ever could on their own – and they savor the experience along the way.

To make your member-based organization a member-attracting tool for major change and a source of meaning in the life of your members what singular goal would you suggest they achieve?  How would you adapt this three-step approach that has been wildly successful for TED to your organization?

See how much others have accomplished in consulting with Kare http://www.sayitbetter.com/coaching.php - or bring her to speak http://www.sayitbetter.com/meeting_planners.php 

Posted via email from Kare Anderson on Coummunicating to Connect