BE DiFFERENT:The Key to Stayin’ Alive!

BCAB 63rd Annual ConferenceMay 7, 2010

BE DiFFERENT Agenda

• This session will give you a “Taste” of the Practices in my new book, BE DiFFERENT or be dead: Your Business Survival Guide

To give you practical and proven ways to market and grow your business

And Stay Alive in these unpredictable, and unforgiving chaotic times

Hot Buttons as I see it…

• ECONOMY COMING BACK • PEOPLE NEEDED • COMPETITIVE TSUNAMI• TECHNOLOGY DISRUPTION• MARKETS FRAGMENTING• AD INVENTORIES UP; PRICE PRESSURE

Hot Buttons as I see it…

• CUSTOMERS ARE EMPOWERED• SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLODING• PASSIVE MOVING TO INTERACTIVE• CONTENT VS. EXPERIENCE• REGULATORY POLICY• TELECOM DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN!

BE DiFFERENT Theme

• If you’re not different, you’re DEAD (or soon will be)

• If you can’t deliver VALUE which is relevant (something people really care about) and unique (something that ONLY you provide) to your target audience, you won’t have a business!

• EVOLVE + DISTINGUISH

BE DiFFERENT Practices

Strategy CreationMarketingServing Customers (not customer

service)Sales

BE DiFFERENT - Strategy

• Strategic Renew non-negotiable• Your ‘old’ business model is OLD• Observe the competition; Focus on your

Customers • Not ‘what are my competitors doing and how

can I keep them at bay?’ • But ‘what do I have to do to attract the right

customers in the face of their alternatives?’

BE DiFFERENT - Strategy

• Dumb down your planning process– Get to the ‘gut’ issues and ACT!

• Answer 3 questions & you have your strategy– HOW BIG do you want to be? – Top Line $$

– WHO (audience, ‘tribe’) do you want to SERVE?

– HOW will you compete and WIN? VALUE; Relevant; Unique

The ‘ONLY’ Statement

• ‘You don’t want merely to be the best of the best. You want to be the ONLY one’s who do what you do’ --- Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead

The ‘ONLY’ Statement

• The Only Statement…

‘ We are the only ones that (offer, provide, serve) (value/experience)...’

The ‘ONLY’ Statement

MUG Solutions, Vancouver:

‘We provide the ONLY solution that permanently stops people from depositing biohazard contaminants through manhole covers.’

Roy’s Television, White Rock:‘We are the ONLY TV Enterprise that creates interactive experiences around live “must-see” television events’

BE DiFFERENT - Strategy

• Be ANAL about Execution– 20% on planning; 80% on execution

– Plan just about right: Execute flawlessly

• Cut the CRAP– Cut list/Keep list

– Beware of custodians of the past

– Eliminate the ‘Grunge’ preventing progress

– Customer Moments are untouchable

BE DiFFERENT - Strategy

• Focus. Focus. Focus– Roy’s Rule of 3

– Focus on the critical few

• Plan on the RunLearn and adjust your strategy as you goBe ‘good’ at anticipating; ‘great’ at reactingPlan, Execute, Learn, Adjust, Execute …

BE DiFFERENT - Marketing

• Customerize!• Move from a mass market mentality to small-

is-good; smaller-is-better.• SEGMENT• SEGMENT AGAIN ….• SEGMENT AGAIN ….• The deeper you segment the more you know

about the WHO and the more relevant you can become in what you provide them

BE DiFFERENT - Marketing

• Customerize Objective: Get groups of connected raving maniacal fans not more mass market reach.

• Advertiser Relevance increases with the number of highly differentiated Raving Fan segments.

• Create packages of VALUE• How? Take a program and create an experience

around it…

Customerized Marketing

‘The Worthy’

Mass Marke

t

Packages of Value

Program

“Oscar Live”

Oscar program…

+ streaming video – mobile devices

+ Oscar telecom data plan

+ Twitter to exchange comments

+ Live blogging from Entertainment ‘experts’

= Interactive Experience

BE DiFFERENT - Marketing

• PACKAGES OF VALUE… Powered by– Customer Learning – continuous learning

process to discover the “Secrets” of the Audiences chosen to SERVE

– Social Media tools useful– Customer Secrets – Intimate, deep knowledge of

the individual– Your top 10 Advertisers: how many Secrets do

you know about them?

BE DiFFERENT Marketing

• Think >>MANY SMALL AUDIENCE SEGMENTSPERSONALIZEDDISTINCTIVEEXPERIENCIALINTERACTIVEVALUE PACKAGESMEASURABLE

BE DiFFERENT - Serve

• Serve customers don’t ‘service’ them• Serving =

– Satisfy with your core service – meet expectations 24X7X52 – you get C’s – if not, they will leave you kicking, screaming and telling others how crummy you are!

– Dazzle with the service experience – exceed expectations – you get A’s – source of loyalty – raving Fans!

BE DiFFERENT - Serve

• How to Dazzle? VARY THE TREATMENT…

1. Hire & KEEP ‘Human Being Lovers’

2. Empower your frontline to bend the rules & ‘say yes’

3. Kill Dumb Rules that infuriate customers

4. Recover from your Service Blunders; Fix it and do the unexpected (secrets)

BE DiFFERENT - Sales

• You have two choices:– Generate $ by selling ads (the “flogger”), or

– By building intimate relationships with your clients and have them buy ads because they see the VALUE

• Relationship – building is key to long term business success

Roy’s Sales Report Card

× Infatuation with acquiring new customers× Taking the loyal ones for granted× Too much product flogging× Little Recovery, Secret-gathering activity× Not enough problem solving, follow-up × Not enough senior leadership involvement

with customers – calendar?

BE DiFFERENT - Sales

• Build compensation plan on Relationship – building behaviors– Start at 80% sales revenue; 20% RB

– Increase RB component over time

• Get customers to rate sales people on RB competencies – Customer Report Card

• They will pay attention!

BE DiFFERENT In Sum

BE Relevant, Unique and Driven (simple strategy; bias to execute)

+ BE Holistic (create customer value) + BE Dazzling (serve customers) + BE Intimate (develop deep

relationships) = BE DiFFERENT

bedifferentorbedead.com

• Connect with me on my website:– Take the BE DiFFERENT Quiz: Are you DiFFERENT or

are you Dead?– Join my Blog on BE DiFFERENT Practices

• Strategy Creation• Marketing• Sales• Serving Customers

– Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

THANK YOU BCAB!www.bedifferentorbedead.com