Are You Telling or Asking?

Great Info and advice as always Danny! Thanks for sharing it!

Danny
Just posted the blog on my Facebook page directed at the followers who keep trying to sell me nightclub tickets.
I'd rather have my fingernails removed than go out on the town.
There are so many on Facebook & Twitter who adopt the "Yellow Pages" mentality of selling rather than sharing & listening.

Danny - I've had this topic in mind quite a bit lately, as we have three new marketing initiatives in mind, which I'm hoping will bring large returns. The only way for any marketing to be successful is to keep the customer/client in mind first. Love this post, my friend. I'll be sharing it with my network.

How Now Brown Cow..? Haha – great post Danny

There’s many ways to listen to the consumer these days… now more than ever.

Although good listening skills has always been an advantage in business, the social web has certainly amplified the importance of listening to consumers.

Any business that delivers what consumers really want will be market leaders in the future. There’s tremendous opportunity for businesses that recognize and act on this in a timely manner.

All markets are still relatively untapped for businesses with listening skills. All that’s necessary to position you at the top of just about any market niche is to tune out all of the old school marketing dribble and strap on a big set of ears.

This is one viable way to get a step ahead of the competition right now :)

I never did share my list of what you need with you yet have I Danny?

The premise of your post goes to the heart of my current business. I don't own any nor have any dedicated advertising platforms so I can help clients select what is best for their needs. An example I use is if you go to a Print Media Buyer the solution is always more Print. A TV Commercial shop will tell you more TV is the solution. An Interactive Agency..Ahem..Cough...

Let me ask you this Danny. If a potential client could be sold on Bonsai's services, even if you knew services you do not offer are best fit...what do you do?

You've touched on a very important subject here Danny. I've found over the last 14 years in my business that the most effective tool is sitting down with my clients 3-4 times per year to take stock. During these meetings I find out how they are doing, how their business is doing and offer suggestions and support.

Sometimes the support is simply introducing them to someone that can help them. Sometimes it is suggesting they replace some old equipment that is getting more costly to maintain. In recent years it is often suggesting blogging and social media as an avenue to achieve some of their goals. The possibilities are endless but the listening portion is the most critical as you've pointed out. So much of what is done is simply solving problems, it's hard to do that if you don't know what they are.

Hi Danny.

Pointless "customer benefits" with no value are indeed a wasted opportunity. I think that smaller businesses may worry that they cannot offer something to reward loyalty. For me, it doesn't need to be very much. Perhaps a small discount on my next order. A small gift to say thank-you at the end of the year. Even just a nice letter to say thank-you for your custom makes a huge difference.

Lets not get lost in thinking "big gestures" - the smaller things can often be more potent.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always.

Cheers
Barney

Great post danny,

I notice the mistakes happening a lot in Hypermarkets in my town. They offer weird gifts for purchasing some items, most of the time I don't bother to collect them.

What a great idea, Danny.
I can relate with the frequent flier story, since I have flied a lot (too much) over the last years. But although some companies offer things I can actually use, some just don't care.

I mean, if I keep flying Africa - Dubai - Europe several times this year, please tell me how can I use a discount on Australian flights (I kid you not).

I mean it goes to simple things, like buying 10 coffees in a coffee shop and getting the 11th for free, and it is vanilla taste. I hate vanilla.

I wish they would give us a choice and more personalized experience when it comes to incentives. Cause I am a pretty loyal costumer when I like something.

So no airline can have my love as Emirates can, after upgrading me to Business class just for being cute :)

You made a really great point here and made me think more about some things.

P.S. Should I send you my address for that Barnes and Nobles thing :)

Hi Danny

Great wake-up call as I get my fledgling business up and moving forward. I too, don't see the point in 'air miles' offered when I have hopefully done most of my flying over the years.

With my customers, I have limited scope but I am working on what reward to give loyal customers. At the moment it is a surprise gift with their order. The choices are from a range they have already purchased, but as I expand my business, hopefully there will be more choices too ;-)

Patricia Perth Australia

Thanks for the advice Danny.

This sounds fairly simple in a post, but it gets a bit tricky in practice.

The artist gives you what you didn't know you needed.

The successful marketer gives you what you asked for.

I'm sure these two concepts meet somewhere. Finding that convergence is what I'm struggling with right now. Any ideas?

It's good to join your blog sphere! I admire your dedication and ability to proliferate.

I've been thinking a lot about the buying process vs the sales cycle. And musing about the huge disconnects - most often because there is deafness on the part of the "seller" that, at a minimum, is annoying to the buyer and at a maximum (a la no-breath telephone solicitors) is downright infuriating.

Sales training programs seem now to pay lip service to getting the customer listened to... but still way too much effort (and I'm guilty too) is spent mentally preparing the response, so is listening really happening? I suppose all listening, in some strange way, is autobiographical - so perhaps we should just suggest that humility is a great virtue, hard to learn, that will improve our ability to listen. And then, we need to be somewhat systematic - the listening posts that you allude to are terribly "listened" to in our modern business world. It always shocks me when I ask about VoC listening posts and get a blank stare - perhaps it is just terminological, or my troll-like appearance has finally dawned on my discussion partner at that point, but there seems to me to be a dearth at a time when so much is available and can happen.

Glad to have your comments on this, Danny; keep up the deep thinking.

Great Info and advice as always Danny! Thanks for sharing it!

Danny
Just posted the blog on my Facebook page directed at the followers who keep trying to sell me nightclub tickets.
I'd rather have my fingernails removed than go out on the town.
There are so many on Facebook & Twitter who adopt the "Yellow Pages" mentality of selling rather than sharing & listening.

Awesome advice of course...as always. Great minds think alike....just yesterday I sent out an email to my subscribers asking them whats on their plate. Got some awesome responses and few great ideas for future posts...talk about a win-win-win :-)

Danny, very perceptive post my friend!

At least 500 of my 600 or so products have come straight from the questions and comments of...
#1 my customers
#2 my subscribers
#3 people who comment and question on public forums.

Without those 3 categories, my business would have been much more difficult and much less internally rewarding...not to mention financially.

Thanks for the time you spend on your posts, I appreciate it.

Dennis Lively

So let me get this straight Danny.....Are you telling me I can't force-feed perks and services on my customers?? What the heck is up with that?!

Seriously though, great point. I do think we often times try to make our customers fit into a box of our liking....and that doesn't always fly.

Marcus

Danny - I've had this topic in mind quite a bit lately, as we have three new marketing initiatives in mind, which I'm hoping will bring large returns. The only way for any marketing to be successful is to keep the customer/client in mind first. Love this post, my friend. I'll be sharing it with my network.

How Now Brown Cow..? Haha – great post Danny

There’s many ways to listen to the consumer these days… now more than ever.

Although good listening skills has always been an advantage in business, the social web has certainly amplified the importance of listening to consumers.

Any business that delivers what consumers really want will be market leaders in the future. There’s tremendous opportunity for businesses that recognize and act on this in a timely manner.

All markets are still relatively untapped for businesses with listening skills. All that’s necessary to position you at the top of just about any market niche is to tune out all of the old school marketing dribble and strap on a big set of ears.

This is one viable way to get a step ahead of the competition right now :)

This is great, Danny...

Client service types who work with any sort of small biz can learn from this mantra...

One thing that I have found in listening to small business people is that they have two buckets of stuff. One is what they need to do to keep their business running - so restaurateurs need to know how to cook, how to hire staff, how to keep the bills paid. THE OTHER BUCKET? Every. Thing. Else.

We - I am guilty of this - run the risk of trying to shoehorn our stuff into their needs. You need a shiny web thingamajig.

If we asked: "what do you need?" and they say "customers," or, more specifically, "couples in their 30s with disposable income who like organic, grass-fed beef" we'll probably be much farther along in helping them - even if helping them means sending them another direction.

I never did share my list of what you need with you yet have I Danny?

The premise of your post goes to the heart of my current business. I don't own any nor have any dedicated advertising platforms so I can help clients select what is best for their needs. An example I use is if you go to a Print Media Buyer the solution is always more Print. A TV Commercial shop will tell you more TV is the solution. An Interactive Agency..Ahem..Cough...

Let me ask you this Danny. If a potential client could be sold on Bonsai's services, even if you knew services you do not offer are best fit...what do you do?

You've touched on a very important subject here Danny. I've found over the last 14 years in my business that the most effective tool is sitting down with my clients 3-4 times per year to take stock. During these meetings I find out how they are doing, how their business is doing and offer suggestions and support.

Sometimes the support is simply introducing them to someone that can help them. Sometimes it is suggesting they replace some old equipment that is getting more costly to maintain. In recent years it is often suggesting blogging and social media as an avenue to achieve some of their goals. The possibilities are endless but the listening portion is the most critical as you've pointed out. So much of what is done is simply solving problems, it's hard to do that if you don't know what they are.

Hi Danny.

Pointless "customer benefits" with no value are indeed a wasted opportunity. I think that smaller businesses may worry that they cannot offer something to reward loyalty. For me, it doesn't need to be very much. Perhaps a small discount on my next order. A small gift to say thank-you at the end of the year. Even just a nice letter to say thank-you for your custom makes a huge difference.

Lets not get lost in thinking "big gestures" - the smaller things can often be more potent.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always.

Cheers
Barney

Love it, need to do more of it. As a mentor once said - you need to be a mouse with elephant ears. That works until a prospect looks at you and expects miracles to fly from your magic wand. It's difficult to listen at that point. One tactic is to improve your questioning skills that are void of opinion while getting to the root of the pain. I'll keep working on that part.

Great post danny,

I notice the mistakes happening a lot in Hypermarkets in my town. They offer weird gifts for purchasing some items, most of the time I don't bother to collect them.

I agree with you on the asking part, Danny. We should be more open to what our customers want than what we think they want. In my line of work, that is one of the most important aspects of keeping an open communication to get the best and most cost-efficient graphic or web design. Of course, there is also the part when I do have to suggest to my clients the better option to what I deem as a wrong approach to achieving what they want. But, when it comes to incentives and freebies, I just throw in an extra concept that they might have wanted because that is what I do, churn out design concepts. I am lucky that I get to go one on one with my clients to know what they want from me.I guess, they wouldn't find any sense in it if I give them discount coupons for a certain store when they are expecting something in line with the service that they availed from me.:D

What a great idea, Danny.
I can relate with the frequent flier story, since I have flied a lot (too much) over the last years. But although some companies offer things I can actually use, some just don't care.

I mean, if I keep flying Africa - Dubai - Europe several times this year, please tell me how can I use a discount on Australian flights (I kid you not).

I mean it goes to simple things, like buying 10 coffees in a coffee shop and getting the 11th for free, and it is vanilla taste. I hate vanilla.

I wish they would give us a choice and more personalized experience when it comes to incentives. Cause I am a pretty loyal costumer when I like something.

So no airline can have my love as Emirates can, after upgrading me to Business class just for being cute :)

You made a really great point here and made me think more about some things.

P.S. Should I send you my address for that Barnes and Nobles thing :)

Hi Danny

Great wake-up call as I get my fledgling business up and moving forward. I too, don't see the point in 'air miles' offered when I have hopefully done most of my flying over the years.

With my customers, I have limited scope but I am working on what reward to give loyal customers. At the moment it is a surprise gift with their order. The choices are from a range they have already purchased, but as I expand my business, hopefully there will be more choices too ;-)

Patricia Perth Australia

Thanks for the advice Danny.

This sounds fairly simple in a post, but it gets a bit tricky in practice.

The artist gives you what you didn't know you needed.

The successful marketer gives you what you asked for.

I'm sure these two concepts meet somewhere. Finding that convergence is what I'm struggling with right now. Any ideas?