NEW ZEALAND’S E-MAG FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND BUSINESS OWNERS

January 2015

Are You On Your Customers Radar?

Achieving Success With Your Head in the Cloud s

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

GIVE A LITTLE,GIVE A LOT

2 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

ABOUT / Short and sharp, New

Zealand Entrepreneur is a free

e-magazine delivering thought

provoking and enlightening articles,

industry news and information to

forward-thinking entrepreneurs.

EDITOR / Justin Cunningham

ART DIRECTOR / Jodi Olsson

GROUP EDITOR / Richard Liew

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER /

Alastair Noble

CONTENT ENQUIRIES /

Phone Justin on 0212396144 or

email justin@nzentrepreneur.co.nz

ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES /

Phone Jennifer on (09) 522 7257 or

email jenniferl@espiremedia.com

WEBSITE / nzentrepreneur.co.nz

ISSN 2253-5683

NZ Entrepreneur is a GREEN MAG created and distributed without the use of paper so it’s

environmentally friendly. Please think before you print. Thank you!

3 From the Editor

4 Are You On Your Customers Radar?

8 The Rise of the Webinar

12 Give a little, Give a lot

18 Young Enterprise Trust

22 Achieving Success With Your Head in the Cloud

28 Stand Up or Sit Down 31 Parting Shot

CONTENTS

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 3

EDITORIAL

NZ ENTREPRENEUR IS PROUDLY BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

DO YOU MODEL? Not fashion modelling, but modelling success. In 2015 education is everywhere, but achieving results is still the holy grail.

To model the result-achieving expert seems a no-brainer, but too often we model the industry norm and that norm is getting by, not trying to fly.

In this issue we look at ways you can go deeper on understanding, connecting

and communicating with your audience. We look at modelling the most effective methods.

So if you think you would never make the catwalk, never fret, your chance to model is here! Good luck for your new year results and let’s get you off to a good start helping you look good where it counts.

- Justin Cunningham

✉

4 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

INTERVIEW

Are You On Your Customers Radar?

Mat Wylie of Customer Radar is fast becoming New Zealand’s Customer Service Guru. Customer Radar has New Zealand’s largest

individual dataset and to date, they have 750,000 pieces of individual feedback. This figure will hit one million this year. They have brought

on some massive clients and Mat’s story is proof that persistence pays off. Justin Cunningham asked him about his fast growing

business Customer Radar and the journey so far.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 5

Hi Mat, Tell me what does Customer Radar do for its clients? Customer Radar helps clients see their business through their customer’s eyes, every day. Ok, that sounds interesting. How did you come up with this idea?

My background is in marketing communications and that showed me that many companies had no concept of what their customers thought of them, and were using the mystery shopper model as their only measuring tool.

While I was working in mobile technologies, I saw the convergence and capabilities of new technologies and from there, the idea of Customer Radar was born.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur, and to build your dream? I’ve had one job interview in my life, and then after that I was retrenched from the role at 20.

From there, I began an ad agency, which was my first step into entrepreneurship, not even really knowing I was going down that path. I’ve owned a couple of companies, including

direct marketing agency Dynamite Ideas, which turns 20 this year. However now, my attention is on Customer Radar.

What is your vision for Customer Radar? The vision has always been to grow Customer Radar into the most trusted customer feedback platform available worldwide. We want it to be a world-class New Zealand company that can be used anywhere across the globe to deliver valuable insights.

Can you tell our readers how Customer Radar can help aspiring businesses grow faster? The whole concept of Customer Radar is to help businesses understand what their customers think, as the more they know, the more they can adapt and give their customer what they want.

By doing this, you increase loyalty, generate repeat business, and see profit growth. Business is quite simple: give your customers more of what they like, and less of what they don’t like. Customer Radar makes it easy to do that.

6 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

What do you think is the #1 thing that has contributed to Customer Radar’s success? We’ve always had a solid belief in what we are doing. We know that we can make a significant difference to the companies we work alongside.

Persistence and perseverance has also been a vital key to Customer Radar’s success.

Why do you think data has become the golden-haired child of digital marketing and sales? Data has the ability to provide so much insight, and give a view of your business that you have never had before. Companies that have data already are often not getting the potential out of it. Our technology and insights give businesses a really powerful tool.

“ Data has the ability to provide so much insight, and give a view of your business that you have never had before. Companies that have data already are often not getting the potential out of it. Our technology and insights give businesses a really powerful tool..

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 7

“What has been your greatest obstacle in growing Customer Radar? Because Customer Radar is a new and disruptive technology, education has been crucial. We often have to educate people about what we do, and how we can help their business. Having a clear understanding of the technology and its uses are key.

What are the pros and cons of building a digital business from NZ? Pros: New Zealand is an innovative culture, and we are small country. You have to be innovative to survive. Being a Kiwi brings out the best in entrepreneurs.

Cons: We don’t have the population to fall back on! You’ve got to be good. It’s not like in the States where you can have an average idea and build a business off the back of it.

Tell us Mat what does the future hold for yourself and Customer radar? We want to build a world-class business from here in New Zealand, and achieve international growth. We will continue to foster great relationships with our clients and, by looping back with our own technology, improve the business every day.

Personally, it’s been hugely rewarding to build a successful company that creates livelihoods for people, and the business has huge potential. I’m excited about the future and seeing where we go next. ■

Mat Wylie is the owner of Customer Radar. He is a father of twins and is looking forward to 2015 where the All Blacks win the world cup – again. See more of his great work at customerradar.com

New Zealand is an innovative culture, and we are small country. You have to be innovative to survive. Being a Kiwi brings out the best in entrepreneurs.

8 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

INTERVIEW

What does your business do with webinars? We run webinars to engage and teach our target audience how to shift their business forward, our motto is ‘More Profits, More Easily, so you Work Less and Live More’. During the webinar we have an offer to the attendees to work with us moving forwards, these are training and coaching programs that they can join. The delivery of some of these programs use webinars as well, so we use them both for potential clients and current clients.

What are the benefits for business owners of running webinars? The benefits of running webinars are that you can reach a global audience; we’ve generated sales everywhere from Cambodia to Japan! It also means you don’t have to worry about Room Hire /Parking and all the other headaches that crop up when running live events.

No crew to bring in, and you can do it in your track pants instead of a three piece suit! Because it allows you to reach many people at once

What is the sharpest weapon in your marketing arsenal? Andrew Baird of Amazing Business reveals his primary

weapon and why it’s so effective

Webinar

The Rise of the

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 9

it’s great for adding leverage to a business and it’s our top performing online sales strategy, you can achieve conversions of over 10% and we’ve even achieved as high as 50% conversions on a live webinar.

What are the vital steps to making a webinar get results? We teach a super simple three step formula to getting results on Webinars: Attract>Wow>Convert. At a high level it really is as simple as Attracting people to register and turn up for your webinar. Then on the webinar have amazing content so you Wow them, and follow that up with a great offer to Convert them into becoming ongoing clients.

Each step has strategies you use to make it as effective as possible, this all starts by knowing who your ideal client is, because this way you can make all parts of the formula as compelling and useful as possible to convert as many attendees as possible.

How can you set this up quickly and easily? Fortunately the web has come a long way. When we first started running webinars over four years ago there were lots of technical challenges! Today it’s very simple to set up a webinar opt in; we combine GoToWebinar with LeadPages and our AutoResponder system (Otraport) which gets over all the technical issues and makes it easy to promote and run them.

What are the biggest mistakes people make? Under preparing for the webinar is the top mistake we see; this is a live event and people can easily get distracted when they’re online so you have to keep it on point and absolutely #NoWaffle!

Also not making the webinar engaging and entertaining − if you want people to invest an hour or two of their time, not only do you have to give them great content you also have to make sure that they enjoy the experience. You don’t have to crack jokes, but tell interesting stories, ask questions and engaging with the audience is crucial to getting webinars working.

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What sort of results can you expect from webinars? The results from webinars can range massively. Our first client we taught webinars to made $41,500 in her first year by using the webinar to warm leads and send them to an existing offer.

We were taught webinars by an experienced online marketer who generated $1.8 million in one year using webinars. But even people starting out can make money, one of our partners ran her first ever webinar and made over $2000.

What is your #1 secret trick to get results? Knowing your audience and content. You have to know your audience and make sure that what you teach them on the webinar is what you promised, while creating the opportunity for them to continue to work with you. This truly is the magic sauce to running webinars that attract, wow and convert. ■

Andrew and Kim Baird run their business from their home in St Heliers in Auckland and have helped many NZ businesses design winning marketing and sales strategies that convert to results.

Contact Andrew and Kim by going to: www.amazingbusiness.com

You have to know your audience and make sure

that what you teach them on the

webinar is what you promised,

while creating the opportunity for

them to continue to work with you.

This truly is the magic sauce to

running webinars that attract, wow

and convert.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 11

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12 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

PHILANTHROPY

Steve and David Hiller are brothers on a mission: Find easier ways to donate to good causes through new technology models. Two years on from the birth of their

‘baby’ they are now ready to take on the world. Could this be the start of a giving revolution?

GIVE A LITTLE,GIVE A LOT

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 13

Thanks for accepting this interview guys. Tell our readers why did you start Little Lot? Little Lot has been an exceptionally ambitious project to get off the ground and has really required Dave and myself to give it everything. The decision to start it was very much based on the potential of the underlying concept. We believe our value proposition – creating a charitable donation stream from advertising revenue is a particularly powerful concept.

Naturally, as with any startup, we have dreams of growing Little Lot. Once the model is validated, it has massive potential to scale internationally. However, Little Lot was especially attractive as its returns are both profitable and social. For every dollar of revenue we retain, we give three to our partner charities.

Tell us guys, Is this your first business? Dave launched a successful architectural animation business straight out of university and has run it for more than 10 years now. Along the way he has tried and failed a few other businesses.

I have dabbled in a few small business ideas but hadn’t fully committed to launching a business until we created Little Lot.

What inspired you both to become entrepreneurs? Both Dave and I are entrepreneurs at heart. We both have a passion for business and for solving problems.

What is your vision for LittleLot? We ultimately want to create the world’s largest fundraising channel. We think Little Lot will change the face of fundraising and media.

14 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

“ “What have been your greatest learnings on your entrepreneurial path? It’s been a whole lot slower and harder to get Little Lot out there than we had originally expected!

I laugh that a couple of years ago when we launched the beta version of Little Lot called ‘Donate Your Desktop’ and we were concerned that “it’d go viral and what’d happen if the servers overload”.

We quickly realised in a saturated application market that growing an audience is a lot more difficult and strategic than we could have anticipated.

We’ve been working on the project for more than two

years now, so while it has been slow to gain traction, we have learned a huge amount during our beta, and these learnings will be valuable as we scale up the business.

As winners of ‘Talent International’s 2014 Talent Unleashed awards program for tech start ups’, I [Steve] was lucky to attend a week-long workshop at the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in South Africa. I spent the week with inspirational individuals and learned from many experienced people.

Many of the tips I picked up during the week we’re looking at incorporating into how we run (and grow) Little Lot.

As an entrepreneur you have to be a manager, salesman, capital

raiser, lawyer and product developer amongst other things. If you focus too strongly on one area and let another

slide, the business can suffer.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 15

What do you think is the #1 thing that has contributed to your success? Persistence. There have been some serious highs and lows and you need to keep focused, motivated and driving forward. It’s never going to be an easy ride!

What are the top three things you would teach a start-up to get results?

1. Get the right team of people around you and make sure they’re vested in the company. It’s easier to start with the right skills than have to raise the money to pay for them.

2. Don’t assume raising a heap of money and throwing money at marketing will make an ‘invalidated’ business successful.

3. Develop an MVP, find a product/market fit and push hard to get some results.

What has been your greatest obstacle as an entrepreneur? Constantly being under-resourced. As an entrepreneur you have to be a manager, salesman, capital raiser, lawyer and product developer amongst other things. If you focus too strongly on one area and let another slide, the business can suffer.

Who are the pros and cons of building a business from Auckland? Auckland’s our home so we have a good network of contacts which is important to leverage for capital, partnerships, sales etc. On the negative side I guess being in Auckland/New Zealand, we’re geographically quite isolated from big opportunities in the US and UK.

16 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

What does the future hold for yourselves and LittleLot?Recently we’ve been finding a demand for our software in corporate environments, so in early 2015 we will be launching our enterprise application. This is an exciting direction for growing our audience and channel, driving it in the ‘corporate social responsibility’ direction.

We’re launching our first major marketing campaign with World Vision next week – we’ve got some awesome celebs on board with the aim of growing an audience of 30,000 people to support World Vision to develop an impoverished community.

On top of all of that we’re also working with a team in the UK and have been doing some early planning for a 2015 launch there. ■

“

“There have been some serious highs and lows and you need to keep focused,

motivated and driving forward. It’s never going to be an easy ride!

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 17

Talk to one of our Business Consultants today and we’ll help drive your business forward.Call 0800 022 249 or visit 2degreesmobile.co.nz/businessM

C25

27A

NEW ZEALAND’S SMARTEST BUSINESS PEOPLE ARE SWITCHING TO 2DEGREES.

MIKI SZIKSZAI CEO, SNAPPER

“We were saving between 35% and 40% off our telecommunications bill right off the bat. It also has opened up the opportunity for us to potentially reduce our reliance on landline phones in the office, which we’re now exploring. And again, that will probably take another 20% to 30% off our comms bill.”

To see the full story about Snapper, and hear about other companies who have made the move to 2degrees Business, visit: 2degreesmobile.co.nz/business.

MC2527A NZ Entrepreneur e-mag A4V V3.indd 1 11/08/14 1:25 pm

18 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

*Terry from the Young Enterprise Scheme shares about the dynamic entrerpeneurial NZ talent taking on the world in 2014,

and who rose to the top to take their national title.

WE HAVE SO MANY reasons to celebrate our amazing students, they really make it easy for us. In November we held the National Awards for The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme. This event showcases many of the most successful YES teams of the year. The National Awards function is preceded by a competition to establish the top three teams nationally. Every year the competition seems to get stronger and the judges are always blown away by the business acumen displayed.

For us, the National Awards signify two very important things. The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme provides participants with

many hard skills, such as business planning, production, sales and marketing skills. But perhaps even more important are the soft skills that students develop through the programme – flexibility, motivation, teamwork.

It is always such a pleasure to hear the acceptance speeches from the students. One student in particular commented how the YES programme had given her so much confidence, and this was said onstage in front of 350 guests, including MP’s and the Governor-General. A huge congratulations to the YES Class of 2014! We look forward to seeing where your endeavours take you.

Terry Shubkin, CEO

TOMORROW’S ENTREPRENEURS

Young Enterprise Trust

The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise National Awards

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 19

THE WINNERS OF THE NEW ZEALAND YOUNG ENTERPRISE TITLEA group of students from Waikato Diocesan School for Girls have been named as The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Company of the Year for 2014.

Just Kidding Babysitting received the top award at the 2014 National Awards for The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme held in Wellington. The students received their trophies from the Governor General, His Excellency Lt Gen. The Rt Hon. Sir Jerry Mateparae; and Murray Reade, CEO of The Lion Foundation.

Just Kidding Babysitting came up with a modern, safe way to provide babysitting services to parents. JKB provides vetted babysitters and can match babysitters

with children specifically to help with homework, hobbies or shared interests.

Parents book their babysitter online via their website and pay JKB in advance, thus reducing cash flow problems or bad debt problems on the night.

More than 350 guests attended the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme National Awards in December.

The room was packed to bursting with young talent, super-teachers, nationally recognised entrepreneurs, change-makers, members of parliament and guests of honour Their Excellencies Lieutenant General the Right Honourable Sir Jerry Mateparae and Lady Janine Mateparae. More than $25,000 in cash prizes was awarded to student teams.

Just Kidding Babysitting,

winners of The Lion Foundation Young

Enterprise Scheme Company of the Year. Back row:

His Excellency Lt General The Rt Hon. Sir Jerry Mateparae

(Governor-General andPatron of Young

Enterprise Trust), Grace Reid, Selina

Smith, Bronte Douglas, Taylay

Warren, Remy Garrett and Murray Reade

(CEO of The Lion Foundation). Front row: Phoebe Havill,

Sophie Thomas, Victoria Chan.

20 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

*The full list of winners is

National Title & The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme Company of the Year Just Kidding Babysitting, Waikato Diocesan School for Girls

The Todd Corporation Award for second place Nude Water, St Cuthbert’s College

The Todd Corporation Award for third place Bizz Bros, Pakuranga College

Category WinnersMinistry of Pacific Island Affairs Award for Excellence in Pasifika Business El Paleo, Henderson High School (Auckland)

HSBC Award for Excellence in Sales & Marketing El Paleo, Henderson High School (Auckland)

Xero Award for Innovation in ICT Tutorlink, Macleans College (Auckland)

Award for Excellence in Global Sales & Marketing Planning Luna & Co, St Cuthbert’s College (Auckland)

BP Award for Excellence in Innovation Closing the Loop, Takapuna Grammar School (Auckland)

MYD Award for commitment Perpetuum, Tauranga Girls’ College (Bay of Plenty)

Unitec Award for Excellence in Enterprising Technology Chariot Brothers, St Thomas of Canterbury College (Canterbury)

MOVAC Award for High Growth Potential Chariot Brothers, St Thomas of Canterbury College (Canterbury)

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Award for Excellence in Economic Sustainability Chariot Brothers, St Thomas of Canterbury College (Canterbury)

Victoria Chan, CEO of Just Kidding Babysitting, accepts The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme Company of the Year Award on behalf of her teammates.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 21

Award for Excellence in Enterprising Music Madhouse Music, John Paul College (Rotorua)

Global Future Charitable Trust Award for Excellence in Environmental Sustainability Jesh Designs, Palmerston North Girls’ High School (Manawatu)

Gallagher Group Award for Excellence in Social Enterprise Ventus, Linwood College (Canterbury)

NZ Aid Programme Award for a Product Solving a Development Problem Eiko Organics, Mt Aspiring College (Central Otago)

AUT Scholar of the Year Anna Skeggs, Palmerston North Girls’ High School (Manawatu)

CAANZ Award for Young Managing Director of the Year Emily McCarthy, Tauranga Girls’ College (Bay of Plenty)

Sir James Fletcher Award for Outstanding Contribution to Enterprise Janet Lang, Whangarei Girls’ High School (Northland)

He Kai Kei Aku Ringa Award for Rangatahi Entrepreneurs KTNT, Northland College (Northland)

Start Up Company of the Year DexTech Ltd, Liston College (Auckland)

Start Up Special Award for Commitment BACK, Kingslea School (Canterbury)

It’s been another amazing year for The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme and this event left attendees inspired and confident in the future strength of New Zealand. More than 350 guests attended The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme National Awards. ■

Hon. Bill English chats to Young Enterprise students at The Lion

Foundation Young EnterpriseScheme

National Awards.

22 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

TECH STARTUP

Achieving Success With Your Head

in the Cloud NZ Entrepreneur spoke to Adrian Falvey, the CEO of Touchtech about his

beginnings, and how his business transformed from a bootstrapped model to a expanding team of twelve with global ambitions

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 23 “

“Tell us about your business, what is it exactly that you do? Touchtech is a software development company that specialises in building mobile and cloud apps. We provide a team of developers to successfully deliver projects for other entrepreneurs, agencies and businesses.

What’s the story behind the business? How did it get started and why? We started in early 2012 when the four directors of Touchtech agreed to leave their corporate jobs behind them and stake out a claim in the brave new world of mobile and cloud technology.

We all came from long years spent working in Enterprise IT departments and sensed strong demand for Mobile and Web Application development services in the coming years. Our hunch turned out correct and now we’re up to twelve people working with a bunch of really amazing customers.

How did you survive those early days? Did you have any money? Did you make any sacrifices? How did you pay the bills and keep growing your business? We haven’t invested any of our own money (or that of external investors) into the business. Early on we made a few good decisions that helped get us through the first 12 months.

Firstly we all contracted to the business, meaning that we only paid ourselves for time we actually spent working for the business. This kept our overheads right down.

Surplus funds (when there were any) were retained in the business and used to invest in growth, such as for hiring staff or renting our first office. We sacrificed in the short term, because we all took a pay cut, but longer term we knew we were doing something we all really enjoyed and it’ll pay back in spades in the coming years.

I think it’s really important to pick people who you know can stick with it through the tough times.

24 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

Have you experienced any bad times? What was the most painful lesson you’ve had to learn in business? Like any small business there have been times when we can’t pay ourselves or when you need to stay up late to finish a project. However we’ve been careful to pick good people, and lucky enough for it to turn into a great team who really understand each other.

With the right team you should be able to ride out the bad times. I read somewhere that the most common cause of failure among startups is due to disagreements among the founders. I think it’s really important to pick people who you know can stick with it through the tough times.

How have you managed to get customers? How do you market your products and what advice do you have for others around marketing? We started the business with a well-established network of people around Wellington to tap into. Without that I doubt Touchtech would have been able to get off the ground. Each of the founders had built a substantial reputation in their respective areas and that served us well in knowing who to call and guaranteeing they’d pick up the phone.

We also won a few early awards for our website (back when responsive websites were becoming popular) and that gave us a good Google ranking.

However, most of our business comes from connections, referrals and word of mouth. I’d caution anyone wanting to get started in business to make sure they have a strong personal network that they can mine for prospects.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 25

Do entrepreneurs need lots of money or external funding to build a big business? Any advice for others looking to raise funding or have little money to get going?If you’re a services company like Touchtech then you can start with little or no money and grow your business organically.

We’re also involved with a couple of software product companies - Posboss and Showcase Workshop, and these sorts of companies do need external funding. You can also mix the two together, i.e. sell services to others to pay the bills and work on a growth business on the side.

Unless you have really solid financial backing to start with then I think this mixed approach is the right way to go. Try and get as far as you can under your own resources and only chase external funding when you’re ready to fully commit.

What are the three most important business skills you would advise up and coming entrepreneurs to develop? Know your industry and be prepared to become an expert in it. Get across the basics of accountancy and financials as you’ll need to manage your money wisely from day one.

26 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

Finally, work on your management and personal skills as you’ll be calling on these everyday when you interact with staff, customers and business partners.

What does success mean to you and what do you think are the most important things to think about whilst building a business? In the IT industry one of the biggest constraints that we have is the availability of skilled resource.

Attracting and retaining good people is critical to our success. Because of this building an amazing company culture and an environment where people strive to achieve is something that I spend a lot of my time working on.

What do you think are the things New Zealand needs to improve upon when it comes to creating more successful businesses? The New Zealand government could give small and medium New Zealand business a huge help by making it easier

for us to win government contracts. In the IT space too much Government work goes to the same cartel of large established companies and it’s really hard for small businesses to break in.

We also need a smarter education system that trains for the skills that our economy needs.

What’s next for you? Where do you see yourself and the business in five years time? We’ve got some really exciting plans to set up an overseas office for Touchtech and offer our development services internationally.

There’s a whole lot of ways that we can leverage the Cloud technology that we use everyday to streamline our operations across borders.

There’s no reason why a Kiwi company can’t run a successful international business from New Zealand and compete internationally. We’re really looking forward to giving this a go and drive our next phase of growth. ■

www.touchtech.co.nz

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 27

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28 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

Stand Up or Sit Down

BUSINESS

Safe, normal, average, traditional businesses are being left behind. Why is that? How can it be changed?

BY JUSTIN CUNNIGHAM

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 29

THE ART OF GETTING yourself heard among 10,000 consumer messages per day is getting harder and harder. The ability to deliver truly unique value to customers is also getting harder and harder. Plus, the market is constantly under threat with international players and franchise groups looking to dominate with their marketing impact.

So what are you going to do about it? Accept it? Give up? Of course not! Let’s look at what you can do to be heard, stand out and develop a unique value proposition that separates you from the pack. It comes down to the human element of greater understanding.

With technology accelerating, competitive differentiation and pricing through technology can be mitigated in a very short time.

However, service and customer understanding is a different kettle of fish. Most businesses think they are professional, friendly and reliable. So that is not unique. It’s expected. So the question is, what is unexpected? What service or customer understanding can we use to help us stand out?

Some of the following ideas may be radical and scary but all paradigm shifting concepts are.Let’s look at some examples of how the unexpected could be created in different emerging industry sectors.

Alternative Health Care: In the health sector you have to be very careful about what you say you can do. However with your sales model there is no reason why you cant have a money-back guarantee. There are a lot of specialist healing practitioners who won’t guarantee the solution they prescribe.

If you were a new practitioner wouldn’t that get you a lot of new customers? Trust, after all, is the corner stone of customer relationships. If you are that good, why not back yourself?

On top of that the amount of people who will act on a money back guarantee is normally around 5%. There may be legal issues around this to iron out, but I think personally it would be worth finding out how to make it work. What a revolution that would be!

30 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

Men’s grooming: This growing industry sector 20 years ago was minute. Now entire supermarket sections are dedicated to it with male skin care, hair care, and more.

How could we revolutionise this sector even further? Most men have a goal in mind when they go out. They want to go to their destination, get it done, and go home. So why not expand our male grooming offering to conquer two or three birds with one stone?

For example: Last month was Movember. A month dedicated to helping men become aware of the importance of prostate and testicular health.

What if you had a testicular or prostate check for free with your haircut if you are over 45, and got a foot massage, and got blood tests done while you sit in the chair getting your hair cut.

The humble haircut could transform in to a relaxing, good looking, health

checking, time saving in-house extravaganza that would make any wife scramble to book their husband.

Perhaps there would be some impracticality with this concept, but if an aspiring health practitioner specialising in men’s issues, a masseuse and a hairdresser got together, I’m sure they could work it out.The over-riding theme is just because it has always been done that way does not mean it has to be done that way.

Remember when there were no TV remote controls, no car alarms, no touch-screen phones and no online dating?

If you truly want to change your results, perhaps its time you make a stand and change your thinking, and deliver through greater customer understanding an exceptional proposition that changes the world. Or, you can sit down and be normal – the choice is yours.■

Justin Cunningham is the owner of JustinCunninghamOnline.com specialising in helping owner operator businesses attract and convert more customers through creative strategies. Justin is also the editor of NZ Entrepreneur magazine.

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‘Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.’

PARTING SHOT

- Buddha