Tony Hseih (pronounced Shay), an investor, CEO, serial entrepreneur, and author shared wow insights about growing businesses, building a killer company culture, hiring and working with (the best) employees and the greatest non-marketing   non-advertising) strategy ever.

Tony Hseih’s new book Delivering Happiness, A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose will be out on June 7, 2010.  In the book he’s sharing his insights, success and mistakes.  And Tony wants other businesses to avoid the mistakes he’s made.

Here are highlights from Tony’s speech at the HBS Business Growth Summit that I think can benefit small all business owners:

Early on in Zappos’ life as a start up company, the management team decided they were a “customer service company that happens to sell shoes and clothing.” All decisions were then  based on how do we create the best customer experience possible? No lip service here.  Zappos went from zero to over a billion dollars in sales in less than 10 years.

Where Do You Invest Capital?

How to invest your capital:  Zappos decided to invest its capital in other functional areas than marketing.  No big advertising campaigns.  Here are some investment examples if you’re interested in building a lifelong relationship with your customers like Tony is:

• Customer service call centers with staffed with employees that genuinely share Zappos values. Keys: several interviews.

• Operating warehouses around the clock to provide faster deliveries, improved service.

• Free shipping for both purchases and returns.

• Surprising customers occasionally with overnight delivery at no extra charge.

• Sending all employees—regardless of job function—to customer service training and having all employees spend 2 weeks in a call center.

• Being willing to fire employees who are not a culture fit, even if they do everything else about their job well.

• Asking themselves,” what are the stories our customers will tell their friends?’ and how do we make those stories happen?
• Offering new employees $2,000 to leave Zappos at the end of new-hire training.  This  ensures that all employees are the right fit with Zappos culture and values.

How Non-Marketing Investments Pay Off

The management team (correctly) determined that if Zappos delivered exceptional customer service, that their customers would do their marketing for them.  And boy have they.

Listening to Tony speak was a lot like my shopping experience with Zappos over the last several years.  Always pleasant,  delightful, and more than you expected.

I only wish companies like Sony—where the price tags are way higher for televisions, etc.—could be a fraction as responsive and fun to deal with as Zappos.  But that’s a post for another day…

Do order yourself a copy of Delivering Happiness.  We all got an advance copy as part of the Conference, so I am reading mine now.  Will share more insights soon.

Here are some juicy links to “Delivering Happiness” resources Tony’s book team has assembled, click here.

How Service-now.com is Beating the Goliath(s) in the IT  Management Software Space

Shannon Free-Cleveland, UCSD Extension, Matt French & Rhett Glauser of Service-now.com  (San Diego, Dec. 3, 2009)

• Does your small B2B business have a great story to tell and no one is listening?

• Are your primary B2B lead generation tools cold calling and large (pricey) industry events?

• Do you have more than 1 mention each month by your industry analysts/influencers?  Less than 1 mention each month?

If so, you’re where Service-now.com was about two years ago with their marketing efforts. Think: small team, small budget.  You may benefit from reviewing a presentation made at a recent Marketing Boot Camp I put together for the TechAmerica San Diego Sales & Marketing Roundtable.

Service-now.com is the industry’s first IT management software as a service (SaaS) provider. Two years ago the small startup company’s marketing efforts were not increasing visibility and awareness for the Service-now.com brand.  Service-now’s then 2-person marketing team dug in and tried new marketing tactics like content marketing using webinars, Twitter to drive attendance at webinars, blogging to keep customers and prospects informed and more.

The results? Service-now.com has nearly doubled annual revenues to north of $35 million, has won 335 of the world’s biggest companies as customers, and has over 130 employees.  And the marketing team is all the way up to 4 folks.

Find out how Service-now.com:

1. Dove into social media—Twitter, blogging, Ning and more—learning as they went along and began to get their story out.
2. Put their raving fan customers to work telling the Service-now.com story without asking anyone to spend hours/days writing a detailed document.
3. Created valuable content in the customers’ own words using cost- and time-effective webinars.

Here is Service-now.com’s PowerPoint from the TechAmerica San Diego event.   Enjoy:

If you’re looking for from-the-trenches B2B marketing strategies and tactics that work, you’ll want to check out what two marketing gurus from Service-Now.com have to share.

Tuesday night in San Diego, two marketing superstars from 4-year old startup Service-now.com delivered an in-depth, insightful view of a business and marketing success story.

Matt French, Brian Surritt, Marketing Director, and Rhett Glauser, 
Communications Manager, at the the only enterprise service desk (ITSM) via SaaS (Software-as a-service)  help-desk company, shared killer marketing insights.

The program title was “Achieving Leading B-to-B Brand Awareness On a Shoestring Budget” but their tactics/strategies have resulted in mouth-watering business growth and customer engagement.  The Service-Now.com approach makes other ‘branding’ strategies look wimpy by comparison.

It doesn’t hurt that Service-Now is loved by its customer base (F1000 to Global 2000 companies) and has tons of loyal fans that spread the love via word of mouth.  The big takeaway for me was how smart Service-Now’s (small) marketing team (we had half of them in the room) has been about integrating traditional marketing, social media and word of mouth. They stay in touch with analysts, the press and since “Our clients really want to see us grow…” as Rhett said, they really leverage word of mouth.

Results? According to San Diego Business Journal on February 13, 2009: “Service-now.com, an information technology support company in Solana Beach, said it has generated $20 million in revenues in fiscal year 2009, which ends July 1, following a record first half.”

Here are some of Service-Now.com’s marketing strategies:

Let their raving fan customers speak for them. Customers regularly join the company’s webinars as guest speakers and participate on panels at trade shows.  Word of mouth marketing doesn’t get any better than that.  The company captures the testimonials for re-use.

Event marketing. The company puts on 6-7 events per month.  Webinars attract 300-500 attendees.  They never miss the IT industry key trade events and leverage them for all they can.  Service-Now.com’s customer fans stand in their trade show booth, pull in passers-by and rave about the service.

Regional Industry events: They are finding more success at Regional events with the tight economy and lower travel budgets (Have you looked for regional industry events to participate in and find new customers?)

Leverage Partners’ databases. They use partners’ databases to promote webinars.  Could be how attendance numbers are so enviable. (Think about your partners—can you create a cross-event-promotion partnership?)

Social Media & Web 2.0. Service-Now offers customers and prospects a number of ways to participate with the company, and each other online.  Transparency is their mantra;  they require user, web visitor registration in very few places.  Here is a list of all Service-Now.com employees on Twitter.  CEO-Founder Fred Luddy included.  The company was nominated for a Groundswell Award from Forrester.

Wiki: all product documentation and info about software update is provided here.

Community: 7,000 of Service-Now.com’s 36,000 users participate in their online community.  Forums are here Groups here and there are several employees blogging.

On demand Demos: here http://www.service-now.com/what-we-do/demo/
Free instant access to the software—no registration required.

Customer Advisory Board:  Members are listed here from companies like Qualcomm, UBS, Staples.

Training Videos are here.  These are in big demand by customers—even though the web-based software is very intuitive.

Thanks to the sponsorship of Southern California BMA (Business Marketing Assn.) and local HTMA (High-Tech Marketing Alliance) San Diego for the event.

P.S.  Service-Now.com is looking for a web-designer, developer to hire among

P. P. S.  Update 5-26-09: I got Brian Surritt’s name wrong!  That’s what happens when you forget to ask for a business card–Brian is a great presenter.

Thanks to the credit-crunch/growing-unemployment end of the recession, many small businesses are losing sales and customers. They’re in a crisis situation, in danger of closing.  Desperate times call for, well, any measure you can get your hands on.  So, I thought it might help you, or a small business owner you know, to revisit a story that I blogged about in April.

A Success Story About Tapping Into a Community

Earlier this year a small business in Minnesota, the St. Paul Cookie Company was facing hard times.   Really tough times.  St. Paul Cookie needed to boost their customer visits.  Quickly. Using good old fashioned email and her blog, the owner, Katherine Novotny, reached out to her loyal customers with an authentic, open email about the company’s financial situation.

Katherine talked about her short term need for customers and cash flow.  Both in an email and on her company’s website/blog.  She appealed for help to her customers and her network.  Word of mouth kicked in as her customers, friends and colleagues spread the messages.  Customers began showing up.  She found that the community (her customers and friends) rallied around the St. Paul Cookie Company and the company survived.  They even now sell online here.

If you’re facing a crisis, what kind of a message can you send to your customers, friends, colleagues?  Your community?

Related posts:

Small Business Marketing In the Down Economy

Building Word of Mouth Marketing in Startups & Small Business: DiRTY Red Athletic Gear for Women

It’s hard to read a business publication or go online without finding an article on the pros or cons of participating in social networking web sites. So I joined the fray last week when I was interviewed, along with some others, by Lauren Tara LaCapra of TheStreet.com for her small business article, Social Networking Can Be a Friend Indeed.

According to her article (and others) there are two primary reasons small businesses use social networking sites:

1. Finding help. Getting answers and opinions from other small business owners facing similar problems, finding partners, recruiting employees or locating other resources.

2. Growing a business. Attracting prospects, learning what’s on the minds of their target markets and gaining new customers.

Getting Answers from Like-minded People

I shared my recent LinkedIn experience with LaCapra. I needed a video company for a client of mine located in Northern California. (I’m in sunny Southern California.) I went onto LinkedIn and put the question out to folks in my LinkedIn contacts that are based up north. This was just more efficient for me than going to my Outlook contacts. I received lots of good, quality referrals in a couple of hours. Thank you LinkedIn!

One CEO of an 80-person software company told me that he never used recruiters again to hire new employees after discovering LinkedIn. He now always uses his online network and asks for referrals.

In her article, LaCapra found that Bank of America and VISA, in an effort to expand their own brands, are launching social networking sites (online communities) aimed at small business owners. These large companies (or their marketing departments) want to be viewed as a resource to entrepreneurs and small businesses.

These sites offer message boards, forums and guest experts as a way to provide value to small businesses. The entrepreneurs at the BofA site are asking questions on nagging issues like customer service, how much to budget for marketing (that’s the $64,000 question) and how to finance a business.

I’d rather see Corporate America invest marketing dollars in creating social networking sites/online communities that provide real value for their target market vs. producing traditional, glitzy advertising (interruption marketing). But I digress…

See my post here about Autodesk, maker of design software. Small businesses can learn much from Autodesk about building customer and user loyalty by hosting an online community.

Why Should You Create a Social Networking Site for Your Prospects & Customers?

The most important to-do for small businesses from all of this is to find out how other companies are using social networking sites/online communities. How are others attracting prospects, learning what’s on a buyer’s mind, and winning them as customers?

7 Benefits of Building Your Own Online Community

What are the benefits of creating your own social networking site or online community? You can:

1. Attract prospects and build loyalty.

2. Learn from your customers what is on their (rapidly changing) mind.

3. Open the door for two-way conversations online with customers and prospects—often way better than the one-way dialogue of email newsletters or print marketing.

4. Get ideas about what problems you can help them solve—new ways to use your products/services.

5. Listen to the online customer conversations and figure out how to make your products and services better.

6. Be a valuable online resource, you can build loyalty with your current customers.

7. Leverage social networking, social media, online communities, and blogs to build the best marketing of all—word of mouth.

These are the reasons Bank of America launched a social networking site. I say if BofA can do it—you can too! You don’t need a large budget.

I’ll offer ideas on how to accomplish these benefits in future posts. You can read the entire Social Networking article by Lauren Tara LaCapra here.

This post is from: SmallCompanyBigImage

Related post:

Using Social Media to Connect Directly with Customers

When speaking with startup company founders and small business owners, I constantly ask how they are marketing their products and services.   How are they getting the word out to their target customers?   How do startups build buzz? 

In short, how do small businesses leverage that best of all possible small business marketing power tools—word of mouth?  I blogged about the kind of word of mouth marketing efforts using a well-known blog that resulted in sales and (overnight) business growth for a startup company here.

Recently I met a young woman entrepreneur here in San Diego and her marketing approach is insightful for small business owners.  Nicol Atkins, Founder and CEO of DiRTY ReD, Athletic Wear for Women, is combining her passion for running and her love of design to start up an exciting athletic wear venture.

Nicol is an experienced designer who has a degree in Apparel Manufacturing and Design working for companies like JCPenney, private label design companies and Mattel.  She was later inspired to build her own company, using everything she learned about design and understanding customers.

She designed her brand’s look and feel (logo, web site design) to stand out from the others in her space. It is an inspired look; one she needs going up against giant competitors like Nike and Reebok.

The mission for DiRTY ReD is to provide busy women who love to work out with a comfortable, stylish alternative in running and exercise wear.  Busy moms who carve out time to run or work out, often must run errands and pick up kids in their workout wear.  That was Nicol’s challenge.  So this marathon-runner, former fashion designer and mother of two created this great line of workout wear. 

Nicol spends a lot of time at racing events and fitness expositions, selling product and talking to other female athletes.   Even though she does very well at the events most of her time is spent getting customer feedback. Customer likes, dislikes and how they would love to feel in athletic wear that fits great.  It fits great because it is designed specifically for women.  

Here are some highlights from this entrepreneur’s new marketing approach. 

• DiRTY ReD Athletic Wear for women’s designs are based on personal experience and feedback Nicol gathers from her core audience:  women who love to run and workout.
• She constantly attends running and other athletic events where women athletes participate.  She spends time in conversations with them about their needs and preferences for workout clothing.
• To encourage word of mouth, Nicol has formed groups of women that share a common passion for working out and supporting each other. These groups have grown into communities–the best possible outcome for small businesses.  This community is now called TEAM DiRTY ReD and they workout and compete with each other buying gear at a group rate and having parties similar to your basic Avon/Tupperware parties to promote the line to their friends.
• Nicol faithfully publishes a monthly e-newsletter, sharing company updates, running events and workout tips.  Email newsletters, with great content and pass-long value, like DiRTY ReD’s, continue to be highly effective word of mouth marketing tools.

Nicol recently added a blog page for her TEAM DiRTY ReD groups here.  This blog will share race, friendship and product experiences across the country.  It will be a great cross-promote for the brand.

I plan to record a podcast interview with Nicol Akins about launching and marketing DiRTY ReD Gear soon.  Check back and learn more about DiRTY ReD’s approach.

This is a post from: SmallCompanyBigImage

Related posts:

What Is Social Media & Why Should Small Businesses Care?

Email Marketing Is Like Smart Farming

Now is the time when, among tons of other business and personal decisions (do I just take a room at the local fitness center?), we must decide on the best strategies and tools to generate leads and grow our businesses in the New Year.

And by best of course we mean: what is the cheapest, fastest and most successful way to keep new leads coming in to meet our sales and revenue goals?

Hum, cheapest and fastest and most successful… How happy are you with traditional direct (postal) mail programs, email newsletters and traditional web site lead generation results?  Maybe these types of programs are working for you and you can stay on the same path for 08.  If not, you may need to invest more time to find marketing tools that work for you.

If you are ready to try something new, and invest time on your marketing, here my top 5 recommendations for a new small business marketing and lead generation program.

1. Increase the number of two-way conversations you have with prospects and customers. Okay, this is a thinly-veiled attempt to talk you into blogging for your business.  I think one of my favorite company bloggers CB Whittemore her blog Flooring the Consumer here says it best, “”I blog to get the word out about topics that matter to our industry and marketplace as quickly as possible to demonstrate that our brand is paying attention to the issues that matter; to digitally capture reference materials and ideas that add value to our customers; to better appreciate how social media works [and figure out how to apply it elsewhere].”
Use your company blog to talk about how to solve problems using your products and services.  Share your knowledge and expertise. Establish yourself and your company as a thought leader.

The two way conversation comes in when visitors to your blog post their opinions and ask you questions.  There’s not a direct mail piece anywhere that does that. If your competition is not blogging–get started today!  Also, search engines love blogs.  They are updated frequently.

2. Make it easier for buyers to find you on the Internet. Get your company’s content out there.  Publish news releases that explain how customers solve problems using your products/services often. Write and publish lots of them. Be sure to use the same keywords in each news release that your customers use when describing their problem.  Add additional how-to information and turn your news releases into expert articles. Find Web sites that publish free articles and publish them there.

3. Build and launch a word of mouth marketing program. Identify your raving fan customers (evangelists) and ask them how to make it easier for them to spread the word about your company.  Customers are talking about your company.  Word of mouth is a cost-effective marketing method. If you enlist your evangelist fans to help extend your marketing programs, you could save time and expense.  Countless surveys show that buyers trust “someone like me” when making choices.  Make sure the raving fans of your company have a forum to spread the word about how your products help improve their jobs and their lives.

4. Increase the number of the right people on your own prospect list. The best list any business can have for any marketing purpose is the one you build yourself. Dust off the old contacts database and purge out contacts that do not fit.   Make sure to add in all new contacts.

5. Create a social media marketing strategy. Ask 12 of your most loyal customers what type of web site interaction they would like to have with your company.  Would they like a message board? A blog? What are their favorite social media sites (online communities) that they rely on when they need information in your market space, to solve a problem or make a decision? Is it Facebook? LinkedIn? If so, make sure your company is represented on those sites with good quality content.

Social media marketing and these other recommendation are just new methods to accomplish an old business goal: establishing and nourishing customer relationships.    They all take what it has always taken to be successful in business.  Time.

Here’s to a successful New Marketing Year. Cheers!

Why?  New media, blog, web sites typically provide:

• frequently updated content
• inbound links, or link popularity
• ability to register with directories to get the content out on the web

You can accomplish all of these things for your business with a company blog.  And starting your own company blog is best. If you’re not familiar with why a business blog is an important tool to execute your marketing strategy, see my earlier posts here and here.

But if you’re not quite ready to take the plunge and launch the corporate blog, here’s another two-step option. 

1. Find key business blogs in your industry.
2. Just as you would establish a relationship with an editor or business journalist, create and cultivate business blogger relationships.

Tips for creating and maintaining business blogger relationships:

1. Review each blog carefully to determine how that blogger likes to be contacted (some prefer email, some prefer that you introduce your self by leaving comments on their blog)
2. Get to know their unique point of view/interests by following their blog
   Develop relationship over time—before asking for coverage for your company. Again, just like with traditional, print journalists. You always read their recent articles in the magazine or newspaper before contacting them.
3. Comment on their blogs.  All business blog authors love ‘commenters’. (Think of letters to the editor in the print newspaper world.)
4. Find out if a key blogger also produces a Podcast.  Listen to, follow the Podcast. Commenting on the Podcast is another good way to reach out to the blogger.  You can find Podcasts on iTunes or entries on the blog about his/her Podcast series.
5. Help them by sharing items in their industry, that you might find, know about first
6. Let the bloggers know about your products, services that would interest them. Now, after beginning this relationship carefully and respectfully. Now you can politely inquire if a business blog author would like to know more about your offerings and maybe cover them on his or her blog. 

Next post. How to more quickly find and follow business blogs that are written by influential people in your industry space.

Building Buyer Personas is the (new) marketing approach to what we called (back in the day) profiling customers.   David Meerman Scott, the well-known and respected author, blogger, speaker and my favorite evangelist of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” (the title of his newest book) does a fabulous job of explaining why small businesses, really all businesses, can benefit from building “The Buyer Persona Profile” (David’s explanation begins on page 118 of the new book).

David reminds us we want to know as much as possible about our buyers.  And we want to know in detail the things that are important to them.  Interviewing them is the best approach.  (What business person doesn’t want another chance to talk to their customers?)

David recommends using such questions such as:

• What are their goals and aspirations?
• What are their problems?
• What words and phrases do they use?
• What sorts of images and multimedia appeal to them?
• What web sites, blogs or Podcasts do they subscribe to?

David quotes Adele Revella, expert in buyer personas: “A buyer persona profile is a short biography of the typical customer, not just a job description but a person description… The buyer persona profile includes information on the typical buyer’s background, daily activities and current solutions for their problems.  The more experience you have in your market, the more obvious the personas become.”  Adele Revella’s blog is here.

I would add these questions to your list:

1. What print publications do they read?
2. What print and online analysts, journalists do they follow?
3. What industry associations do they belong to?
4. What are their personal views on the industry direction?
5. Who do they go to for recommendations when they’re considering a purchase? 

(This last question sets the stage for you to find out who influences your target market.  A key piece of information you’ll need to start your own word of mouth marketing program.)

Once you have assembled this information, you use the Buyer Personas to create/revamp individual marketing programs for each one of your ‘personas’ (think of them as categories).  David suggests having sections on your web site with specific content for each persona. 

It’s important for you to capture and document detail about each persona.  The goal is for each persona to recognize themselves and their needs when landing on your web site and finding your content.  It will be easier to craft messages that appeal to each persona.  David says, each buyer should say: “Yes, that’s me.  This organization understands me and my problems and will therefore have products that fit my needs.”

How many personas do you need?  David suggests looking at the factors that differentiate them. He suggests companies might have US personas, and European personas.  Or, if you sell in the automotive industry to both the private sector and to the government, these would be different. 

I think if you’re selling IT products and services, you might have personas that cover your decision makers and key influencers.  You must also cover the different sizes of companies, because in smaller companies some people wear many different hats, such as:

• IT Manager (small company)
• CIO (Chief Information Officer)
• IT Manager/Director (mid-size company)
• Software engineer (might be an influencer that does research on products to buy)
• Small Business Owner (that does all of her own research and purchasing)
• Company Accountant or Controller(that influences IT purchases)

Building Buyer Personas is a tall order, right?  I agree. It is hard work, but crucial.  Anyone have examples of companies with web sites that are clearly based on their buyer personas?