Two good articles on Branding have popped up in our trade magazines lately. One in this months JLC Blueprint for Successful Marketing and Brand Aid in the October issue of Remodeling.
And as long as we’re talking about marketing and branding I have to highly recommend Seth Godin’s book All Marketers Are Liars : The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World. Boy did I pick up a lot listening to and now reading that one. I listened to the unabridged edition of it from Audible.com on my ipod while working out in the field (twice) and then bought the book so I could highlight and notate the parts I really wanted to look at again. Just a great book.
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One of the notable passages from the Brand Aid article that sticks in my mind:
“Not a single customer said anything about quality,....but they can judge how well they're taken care of.” I think that's really important. We often hear folks here talk about how they or their company builds "Quality" but customers don't seem to notice or care about that. Well they do care, when something breaks down, doesn't line up, doesn't close, or fails so you can't forget or neglect quality but builders and remodelers for the most part seem to ignore or not even understand is that what really matters to our clients is the EXPERIENCE they have working with your company. So why aren't we really researching and working on how to create Quality Experiences for our customers?
We should all be walking aroud repeating to ourselves "It's the Experience Stupid".
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Jerrald,I have read both of those articles as well. Lots of good advice.I think the point about the "experience" is crucial. I would bet that if you did a postmortem on "bad" jobs you would note that a breakdown in communication was the likely root cause.Obviously the quality needs to be present but I would bet that most contractor's who have the "experience" down have their critical systems and processes written down and distributed to all who need them. Since they focus so much on making sure the job is well-managed and communication is clear the high quality is almost a by-product.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Jon Blakemore - "Obviously the quality needs to be present but I would bet that most contractor's who have the "experience" down have their critical systems and processes written down and distributed to all who need them. Since they focus so much on making sure the job is well-managed and communication is clear the high quality is almost a by-product."
But unfortunatly most contractors don't have delivering an "Experience" down at all. And even those that do (and I think we are pretty good at that) they still don't deliver Wow! level experiences. We've delivered a few by accidient just stumbling on to doing the right thing but I think the real trick to enduring success (and higher profits too) is delivering Wow Experiences! consistantly over time by design. That's what we need work on. We need to design it into our company culture.
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Jerrald,Would you mind expounding on your "Wow" experience creation techniques?
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Jon Blakemore - "
Jerrald,
Would you mind expounding on your "Wow" experience creation techniques?"
Jon, I wish I could but I'm not that smart. As I just mentioned to Stephen we've just stumbled accidentally across them and when we struck a nerve we just kept doing what worked. What I do do and might suggest to everyone is to read books about companies that deliver Wow Experiences! Disney, Starbucks, FedEx etc. and also study them in real life too and think about how you might be able to integrate something about them into what you do. Even the exercise of fitting in one of their far fetched impossible for a contracting company ideas will stimulate your own creative thinking and you might stumble across something else that works for you.
I've always said that the key to creativity and creative thinking is rapid iteration. You need to think of and look at lots of ideas so that you can find the one in a hundred that works. And there nothing wrong with stupid silly ideas too and in fact I think they really help by breaking up the log jams and brain freezes.
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Jerrald,
In my business I eventually found out that a lot of people could put on as good a roof as I could-------as long as it didn't leak---how was the customer to judge quality?
they judge it by nails in the driveway and shingle grit on the sidewalk. A BROOM is profitable---especially when they see ME sweeping their driveway( WOW he must really care!)
I have had 3 " jobs from hell" in 18 years---and several smaller versions ( jobs from purgatory?)
In all cases I could have fairly easily avoided the problems with better people skills. for the most part they are never product problems---but people problems.
Eventually I learned that outcompeting and outselling---was really out-communicating.
Not having very good person to person verbal skills---I try to communicate in other ways----there is a certain amount of showmanship---promptness, appearance, equipment etc.
Stephen
Stephen two of us once made a real dusty mess of a driveway where we had set up a temporary onsite shop for a few days and while we kept it clean an organized during our stay and as were were working when we cleaned up for good after the final sweeping of the driveway it was still dusty so we vacuumed it (it was virtually a brand new driveway so it was still very black). Turns out that was the best and most memorable thing we did on that job in our clients eye's. Sure she was thrilled with the railings and wainscoting we fabricated and installed but she expected that from us. She didn't expect the extraordinary care and that's what she told her friends about. Vacuuming driveways is now SOP for us even when it doesn't need it.
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Im forwarding this thread to DWs marketing research person for review. Sounds like a sales training aid.
What struck me as interresting was , "I have to highly recommend Seth Godin's book All Marketers Are Liars : The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World
They cold call market along with following up on established accounts.
Thanks.
Tim
Edited 11/3/2005 12:52 pm by Mooney
Mooney - "What struck me as interresting was , "I have to highly recommend Seth Godin's book All Marketers Are Liars : The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World"
Are you saying my saying that struck you as interesting or that the premise All Marketers Are Liars : The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World struck you as interesting?
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Edited 11/3/2005 9:44 pm ET by JerraldHayes
All Marketers Are Liars.