SURFACES | StonExpo Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Success’

Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is quoted as having said “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.” Trust is similar – if you have to ask people to trust you, they probably shouldn’t. Trust needs to be earned.

Trust is becoming increasingly important as you try to serve your customers. It’s part of the reason why they

-check your Web site and your competitors’ Web sites, or Google you and review sites like angieslist.com before coming to your store;

-check with their friends on facebook.com and twitter.com for second, third and fourth opinions before buying from you; and

-bring friends to your store and want to check with their family before committing to buy new flooring.

How do you earn their trust, then? Certainly your reputation and brand are critical to ever getting them in your door. Once they walk in, what can you then do to earn their trust? Because they can’t trust someone they don’t know, it’s critical to build a relationship with your customers.

First, we need to listen to each customer, both online and when she comes into the store. Each customer has a unique situation and we need to be ready to provide unique solutions, not the same solution as we try to give everyone else based on go-to products.

We need to demonstrate by our actions – good eye contact, sincerity, and listening – that we genuinely have the customer’s best interests in mind. We are her partner in finding that unique solution. Nothing is more important than she is.

She needs to believe that the options you present serve her interests as well as your own. What do I mean by this? Just because you have three rolls of a beige texture in the back doesn’t mean that you should put it first on her list of carpet options! Make sure the products you show her deliver on her unique needs in a way she’ll understand. This is possible if we have listened well and demonstrated our partnership role.

And, your customer needs to understand the selection process, and that it truly is her selection. You’re not selling – you’re enabling her selection of the best product for her.

Trust based on this kind of a relationship with your customer will strengthen your reputation in your market. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Glass, china and reputations are easily cracked and never well mended.” Protect your reputation by building trust with your customer.

 

The beauty of natural stone – rock as old as time, harvested from some of the most delicate and unforgiving lands on our planet, trucked, floated, or flown to any imaginable destination, and customized to the most exacting specifications of your unique project – and all yours for the low price of $27.00 per square foot installed.

Where did we go wrong? When did one of the oldest, richest, and most storied crafts known to man become a commoditized industry replete with bargain pricing, blinking neon signs, free undermount sinks included with purchase, incompetent workers, and unprincipled business practices? When did we pervert the art and beauty of natural stone by categorizing these inimitable natural resources into groups and colors that we sell at prices that severely undermine the value of our product and integrity of our industry?

Ladies and Gentlemen: we have done this to ourselves. Fortunately, current economic forces are providing us the ideal opportunity to repair our broken industry.

The business of stone fabrication is expensive and labor-intensive – cumbersome at best. The downfall of our industry began when uneducated individuals dove headfirst into the business convinced that the limitless profits of fabricating natural stone would greatly outweigh the paltry cost of operating a fabrication facility. All you need is slabs, laborers to fabricate those slabs, and some overeager customers who are willing to part with their hard-earned cash for a poorly crafted countertop… right?

Wrong. An intelligent and experienced fabricator will quickly inform you that these basic costs do not begin to scratch the surface of the burdensome expense of the stone business. A truly responsible stone fabricator will have a significant overhead, which will include myriad tangible costs: facilities, machinery and equipment, product, personnel, vehicles, safety equipment, liability and workers’ compensation insurances, and federal and state taxes- just to name a few. There will also be a multitude of intangible costs: knowledge, skill, experience, and ethics.

The intelligent and experienced fabricator cannot compete with the parasite whose sole purpose is to pocket as much cash as possible before vanishing without a trace, leaving the stone industry in disrepair with street prices that are irresponsible, unsustainable, and degrading to our craft.

The effects of industry reticence to combat and discourage these destructive practices are immeasurable. We are fractured, discouraged, and fatigued. Coincidentally, the economic forces currently threatening each of our businesses have created a unique opportunity for intelligent and experienced fabricators to finally take a stand against this industry perversion. There is no better time for candid discussion and discovery than now.  Through education, awareness, accountability, and principle, intelligent and experienced fabricators throughout our country and around the world can save our broken industry. I hope you will join me.

 

You can also join John Kilfoyle for the Countertop Installers Forum: Solutions to the Most Common Problems (WE23T) on Wednesday, January 25, 2012, 4:00pm – 5:30pm at StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas.  Click here to register for StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas.

In recent years, it has crossed most business owner’s minds to cut back on their advertising budget.  Traditional advertising such as magazines, newspaper and television can be expensive. And while these outlets are still important, we must admit that times have changed.  Social media is taking over the world and none more-so than Facebook. If you haven’t already created a business page… it’s time.

Setting up your page is the easy part. Getting ‘Likes’ and keeping your customers entertained is the hard part. To help you out, I’ve put together a list of 20 ways to promote your Facebook page:

Showroom Signage
-Type ‘like {page name}’ and send to FBOOK (32665)
-QR codes
-Bathroom Stall Door

Business Essentials
-Business Cards
-Outgoing Envelopes

Marketing Collateral
-Company Brochures
-Trade-show Giveaways (pens, balloons, etc.)
-Print Ads

Website
-Like Button
-Comment Box

Other
-Incoming Answering Service

Email
-Signature
-E-Newsletter

Company Property
-Vehicle Bumper Stickers
-Employee Apparel
-Store Front Marquee

Within Facebook
-Tag Your Customers In Pictures
-Ask Your Employees to LIKE You
-LIKE Other Local Businesses/Causes/Personalities/Organizations

The BEST Way
-WORD OF MOUTH!

If you need more direction in the best practices of social media for your flooring or stone business, I invite you to join us during Surfaces │StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas 2012 for the following how-to workshop.

Social Media: How To For Business
January 23, 2012, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Presented by: Sarah B Johnson, MKG Department (www.mkgdept.net) and Christine B Whittemore, Simple Marketing Now, LLC (www.simplemarketingnow.com)

For more information about the session, visit:
http://connect.surfaces.com/connect/public/SessionDetails.aspx?SessionID=7236&maxSessions=91&aeid=257,258

If I said, “Save money. Live better™.” you’d think of Walmart®. If I said “Let’s Build Something Together™” you might think of Lowe’s®. If I said “Better Living Through Chemistry™”, you might think of DuPont® even though DuPont changed its slogan almost 30 years ago. And if I said “Compromise elsewhere™”, you’d think… (Well, I don’t know what you’d think, but Boar’s Head® uses these words as part of their branding.) These short slogans, or taglines, are part of a company’s brand and are intended to be memorable, identifiable, and very brief descriptors of who they are and what they mean to customers.

Some of you may have taglines that work well for your business. But, many of you probably don’t have a tagline, because your name itself is a strong brand in your markets. I’m not suggesting that you must have a tagline – it’s got to be right for your business and add value – but I am suggesting that you and your staff think about what it could be. By doing so, you’ll develop a clearer view of who you are, why you are special in your market, and why people should buy from you.  Maybe you should hold a staff contest to develop and explain potential taglines as a way of engaging your staff and improving their ability to concisely explain your business to customers.

Mark Twain is credited as saying “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.” It’s hard to capture your business essence in a 2-4 word tagline, right? Would it be easier if you could use up to, say, 20 words? In Hollywood, loglines are used to briefly describe the essence of a movie. For example, if I said “A betrayed Roman general seeks vengeance in the arena” you might think of the movie “Gladiator”. If I said “Lovers from different social classes on an ill-fated voyage” you’d probably think of “Titanic”.

So, what would your logline be? What’s your unique story, in 20 words or less? Again, you can ask your staff to develop potential loglines for your business. Then, you can use a good logline when greeting your customers (in ads, online, or in the store) to give them a brief summary of what your business is all about, and why they should buy from you.

I’ll have more about taglines and loglines in my SURFACES│StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas 2012 Seminar “Why And How To Sharpen Your Selling Skills”: http://connect.surfaces.com/connect/public/SessionDetails.aspx?SessionID=7362&maxSessions=85&aeid=257,258

It still amazes me how so many of top business executives shy away from social media. In fact, I’ve run across corporate online “social phobia”: a fear that disgruntled customers will run amuck if given the chance at a digital soap box. These otherwise shrewd and enlightened professionals still believe that things like Facebook and Twitter are just the purview of their teenaged kids – much like their grandparents thought television would never amount to anything when there’s perfectly good radio to listen to. Are they in denial or what?

Consider a few of the many unbelievably compelling growth stats since 2005:

• Facebook has gone from 6 million members to an estimated 750 million today.
• Female Boomers are the fastest growing Facebook demographic.
• Twitter began in 2005 and has 110 million users.
• YouTube’s domain name was activated in 2005 and is now 2^nd only to Google

… and owned by Google.

• Online advertising expenditures surpassed radio advertising.
• ~ 40% of US Companies use blogs for marketing purposes.
• More mobile devices are used in the US than TV’s and PC’s combined.
• 75% of the millennial demographic group has an online profile.

Whether you agree with it or not, social media is here to stay. It is the hottest communication channel in the known universe. Ignore it and scoff at it at your peril. The written word may be rapidly dying in newspapers across the country, but it is alive and well, having migrated to cyberspace thank you very much.

The definition of marketing is selling more things to more people more often. One way you do that successfully is to go where the people are. Which is why marketers are also discovering smart phones. Smart phone penetration is reaching upwards of 75%. Now combine that with how often each of us check our own smart phone each day for tweets, Facebook wall posts, LinkedIn updates, emails, texts, news, scores, etc. and you have an understanding about the rise in popularity of these devices to the marketer. Learn more at http://www.madisonavemedia.com/.

Granted, we will still continue to watch TV, listen to radio and read magazines. But any media strategy for any advertiser of any size for any product or service must build on a social foundation. If you’re one of those who still believe it’s a bunch of hype or kid’s stuff, I’ve got a buggy whip factory I’d like to sell you.

Want to get really psyched about this topic? Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuNx0UrnEo

Today I listened to some economists talking about, well, the economy on a radio program today and heard an amazing story about Apple. I love Apple. I’m typing this on an Apple laptop right now and make no secret that I crave an iPad (Note: my birthday’s coming up in a couple of months.)

Now we all know Apple has finally surpassed Microsoft in value and even, at least for a few days, Exxon Mobile as the largest company in the U.S. But did you know that Apple has more cash on hand ($72 billion) than Uncle Sam? When I heard this I almost wrecked. More than the government that can print more money when it wants too? Evidently. How’s that possible?

There are lots of reasons you can point to, the brilliance of Steve Jobs, the persistence of the company, the fanaticism of its followers. Note I said “followers” not “customers” … there’s a difference and I’m one of them. I’d like to suggest they’ve succeeded and continue to succeed by virtue of their ideas. Great ideas. Inventive ideas. BIG IDEAS.

Apple ideas take many forms, obviously. From their unique operating system to the way they package the lowly computer mouse. It began with an idea summed-up as “A computer for the rest of us” and went from there. Sure, they’ve had some duds. Even Babe Ruth struck out a lot. But Apple has defined our culture in ways no one believed a little engine that could ever could.

Big ideas are original. They take you where your competition has dared not go. They creatively solve problems for customers. And as we all know, they become followers. Just ask Apple.

Five years have passed and it appears the recession will impact our industry for some time to come.  During that time I have read and written articles about “Adapting to Change,” the “Need for Education and Product Knowledge,” “Improve Selling Skills,” “Expanding Your Market” and so on.  These are all great suggestions from successful and knowledgeable people and they all have the same premise – success starts with the right attitude and expectations.  

Attitude and expectations can either promote complacency which keeps one locked in old habits or it can prompt you to look outside yourself for new resources and opportunities.  It is those who practice the latter that are more likely to succeed in the best of times and survive the worst.  How you approach adversity can dramatically influence the outcome.  Can you think of anyone who has survived the downturn so far that believed they wouldn’t?

I have received dozens of phone calls over the last few years from people who have lost their jobs due to cutbacks, layoffs and bankruptcies.  Interestingly, they fall into two main categories.  One will say “I am going to start, create, look into…,” while the next will say “if you know anyone looking for an XYZ would you give them my name?”  Both are calling to network; hoping for a fresh start.  The difference is the first caller has assessed the needs of the industry with the expectation of creating a new opportunity while the second is hoping opportunity will find him.  This is not to say that both callers might not land what they are looking for, but it illustrates the difference in expectations.

In either case, networking plays a big part in the process of adapting to change and our changing industry.  I am a big proponent of trade shows because I know that they are an important source of inspiration, opportunity and resources.  SURFACES │StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas and other trade shows are excellent places to build invaluable networks.  By exhibiting, a company has the chance to find customers they might otherwise never meet and to see their competition face to face.  By attending, you will become more knowledgeable about your industry and trends, meet new people and be more prepared for whatever comes.

There are lots of ways to “create” opportunities but it all starts with the right attitude and willingness.  What are some of the things you have done during the recession that have made you successful?