"A man can get discouraged many times, but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying."
John Burroughs
Questions to ask your customers
by Clay Campbell
You can improve your business if you know your customers better.
Since many businesses now have fewer customers, this is a good time to work on your data base
by gathering more information from your customer. How do you do that? Ask the customer questions
during the polite chit chat conversation that happens when people contact you or come in and buy
things. However, be polite. You should practice this with a friend or another employee so it does
not seem like you are interrogating them. Immediately after they leave, enter in the information you
gleaned from the encounter.
I listened carefully to a talk by one of the most successful furniture store owners in our
region; Dan Kelley from Fleming Furniture. He has everyone of his employees in his four locations,
observing and asking questions of the people who walk through his doors. We do too, at our
business. While he was talking, silently I was saying amen.
So now what question should you ask?
- Is this the first time they have been in your store? (If you have every employee ask that
question, in a short time you could have a percentage of how many of customers are first time visitors.)
- Write down the information you glean after every encounter with a customer.
- Take note if they are male or female
- Note their approximate age, (don’t ask this)
- Ask where they are from
- Ask if they would like to get info from you about future events, sales, or updates
- Ask for their email, phone number
- Note their preferences on brands, size, colors, categories, or styles
- Note what they say about what they like, or don’t like, about your prices, store décor,
temperature, products, your service or employees.
- Ask what Radio Station they listen to
Most small business owners neglect gathering this information when times are good. I
suggest gathering this kind of info always, and whenever you can. Then in times when your
business is really in a slump, and you want to help get in more customers, you can go to your
list, and stimulate future business, by contacting them. You could send a flyer, an email or
calling them on the phone. The best thing you could send them is a Thank You Gram.
While this seems obvious, most business owners won’t take the time to implement this. But
not you. Be like Nike, and just do it. You be different! Start NOW! Begin collecting information
for a good data base of your customers.
Four Kinds of Ads
by Roy H. Williams
Great ads can be either product-specific or store-specific. Bad ads are generally category-specific.
And then there are franchise ads. Franchise ads build the master brand. The hope of every franchisee
is that the ads provided by the franchisor will generate enough brand magnetism to pull customers
into their store. Due to the fact that a franchisor can afford to create a higher quality ad
campaign than the typical local merchant, this strategy often succeeds.
Category-specific ads are written broadly enough to fit every advertiser in a category. A
transparent fabric of smoothly woven clichés, a category-specific ad is a generalized template
into which one merely inserts a store name and address. "All you have to do is fill in the blanks."
But remember: Ads that fit everyone don't work very well for anyone. These were once called
institutional ads. I do not recommend them.
Product-specific ads benefit every retailer who sells the product, but they aren't really
about the retailer at all. They're about the product. This is why the independent retailer
should question whether or not to take the manufacturer's fifty cents to run their product-specific
ads. Are they really paying for half of your advertising, or are you paying for half of theirs?
Only when the co-op requirements are extremely flexible do I recommend that independent retailers
accept the so-called "free money" offered by manufacturers. If you're paying half the cost,
be sure at least half the message is about you.
Store-specific ads are the foundation of local branding, but to write them requires
intimate, detailed research on the part of an expert ad writer. Rarely will a good, store-specific
ad fit another advertiser in the same category. The story I'm about to tell you is true. I've
changed only the name of the store, the town, and the vegetable:
Heisenberg's Jewelers had been in the same building on Main Street in Cabbage Valley for
105 years. A facelift 7 years earlier had given the store white carpet, walnut paneling and a
huge chandelier in a high, domed ceiling. Heisenberg's was the Sistine Chapel of jewelry
stores. Not a problem, except that Cabbage Valley is the turnip capital of the world, a
little farming community of about 45,000 people. Even the wealthiest of Cabbage Valley's
farmers felt they weren't dressed well enough to enter that store. Heisenberg's was truly an
intimidating place.
"You need to understand who our customer is," my client told me as soon as I arrived. "Our
customer is a 40 year-old woman with money. Upscale. Very upscale. Well dressed. Always buys
the best. That's our customer. That's who you need to target." This was in mid-October. I had
been hired by Heisenberg's to help save Christmas because if they had another season as bad as
the previous six, they were going to have to close their doors in January.
"Let's get something straight," I told them. "There's no handle I can crank that will spit out
40 year-old rich women. I'm going to have to write ads that appeal to men or you're going to have
to find another way to make a living." It's statements like those that separate consultants from
salesmen.
This is the radio ad that saved Heisenberg's:
"Ladies, many of you will be fortunate enough this Christmas to find a small, but beautifully
wrapped package under your tree bearing a simple gold seal that says 'Heisenberg's.' Now you and
I both know there's jewelry in the box. But the man who put it there for you is trying desperately
to tell you that you are more precious than diamonds, more valuable than gold, and very, very
special. You see, he could have gone to a department store and bought department store jewelry, or
picked up something at the mall like all the other husbands. But the men who come to Heisenberg's
aren't trying to get off cheap or easy. Men who come to Heisenberg's believe their wives deserve
the best. And whether they spend 99 dollars or 99 hundred, the message is the same: Men who come
to Heisenberg's are still very much in love... We just thought you should know."
That ad was delivered slowly and thoughtfully with style and grace. No hurry. No street address.
No store hours. No phone number. We simply told listeners what they already knew about Heisenberg's
but made them feel differently about it. What we said in essence was, "If your husband voluntarily
came to this scarily expensive store, he must really be in love with you." It worked like magic.
Throughout the month of December, men wedged themselves into Heisenberg's, waved stacks of
cash at the register and shouted, "I don't care what you put in the box, but make sure it's got
that damn gold sticker." Heisenberg's made a blistering fortune that year and reversed their
downward trend.
Thirteen months later I got a phone call from a jeweler in Connecticut. "You the man they
call the Wizard of Ads?"
"Who is this?" I asked.
"I ran one of them 'wizard' radio ads that's supposed to work. Had the worst Christmas I ever
had. Didn't work at all. Terrible. What've you got to say for yourself?"
A few probing questions revealed that my client in Cabbage Valley had given this fellow a
copy of my "simple gold seal" ad as though it were some kind of miracle cure.
"I have to disagree with you," I told the man. "That ad didn't fail. It worked extremely
well for whoever is the scary expensive jeweler in your town. He had a tremendous Christmas. And
he has you to thank for it. The people in your town just knew that your store wasn't the one
described in the ad."
Like every great store-specific ad, the Heisenberg's gold seal campaign would never have
worked if Heisenberg's hadn't already had the reputation of being extremely intimidating and
expensive. That same ad could just as easily have been delivered by newspaper, direct mail or
television and it would have worked just as well. It was the message - not the media - that
delivered our miracle.
Franchise ads are for team players who want to help build a strong collective brand.
Product-specific ads are for special promotions.
Store-specific ads are for local branding.
Category-specific "institutional" ads are a waste of money.
What kind of ads are you running?
Roy H. Williams
Perhaps now would be a good time to have a complimentary meeting with a Wizard of Ads Partner. Links to their websites and blogs are listed down the right side of The Wizard Times. Hundreds of their articles with free insightful advice can been seen at www.americansmallbusiness.com 2009 would be a great year to attend a class at the Wizard Academy 21st Century Business School in Austin Texas. What is the Wizard Academy?
See you next week.
Clay Campbell
Wizard of Ads
PS. Need help to attract more customers and grow your business?
