Mission Statement: Change The World

Mission statements, when done right, are as brilliant and specific as the North Star, serving as a reliable guide for your journey of many years called "your business" and "your life."   In the past 25 years the consultants in my firm have participated in more than 200 executive retreats and national conventions where the business owners and professional leaders worked very thoughtfully on constructing a mission statement.  We know a great mission statement when we see one.   

What is especially exciting about the mission statement of NetBooks is that the founder and CEO of the company, Ridgely Evers, has a blog and deconstructs his company's mission statement.  If you ever struggled with constructing a mission statement, this is the best way to understand how to construct one with meaning and teeth in it. 

If you are a small business with 50 employees or fewer, you live in the Sweet Spot of Service Excellence that fits with NetBooks and the Ultimate Duct Tape Marketing System.

What is most appealing about NetBooks and their mission is that it works just as well for the small business that has been attracting and serving customers, very well, for 50 to 100 years or more, as it does for the small business that just started in the past five years. 

Here's the NetBooks mission:
Our mission is nothing less than to revolutionize the way small businesses are managed. We do this for your company by uniting technology, people, and partners into solutions that are as simple as possible, and as powerful as necessary, to run your whole business.

Can this be the silver bullet small businesses have been actively seeking? For every business owner who  discovered there was a management, marketing and customer relationship aspect to what they thought was their "main business"  this is a mission may bring a national sigh of relief.   While we think we are in the accounting business or health business or engineering business, for example, we are first in the business of attracting, wowing and keeping the trust of customers. Service and product excellence is now assumed and required to do business and that leaves management and customer connections as the areas we must master as well.

One last thought came to me as we read the Ridgely Evers bio on the NetBooks site and thought about all of the business owners we've coached who are around the same age as Evers and lived many of the same, small business adventures.   The owner of a successful veterinary practice said it best. "This is what they will say about our generation--the boomers and those who came right behind us.  Nobody has ever been ready for us.  We never left anything the way we found it.  All of us had a three word mission statement --Change The World--and many of us achieved it."

We are all rooting for NetBooks to achieve their mission, which will permanently alter the way the world perceives, services and resets business models for the economic engine of this country--23 million small businesses.

Can You Know Too Much About Your Customers?

What if you knew more information about your customer than ever before?  What if that information told you where they are, what they normally buy and what they need next? How would that transform your business and the way you related to customers?

Can you have too much data?  Can you know too much about each customer and their network of referrals who might do business with you?  We are all about to find out.  This will be bigger and more significant to your business than the introduction of bar codes, which we use to track the movement of everything from a box of toothpicks to a boxcar full of lumber heading north.

Remember your world before bar codes?  It's hard to remember business, inventory and sales without them.  What do you know about RFID?  It's bigger than bar codes.

Read this: RFID Set To Change Everything and you'd see how a decade old technology known as radio frequency identification is taking off.  As you read that article, just notice how many RFID devices you have in your own daily living.  It's more than you realize. You might as well go ahead and tag your ear, like a wild animal in the Antarctic, so we can watch your every movement with satellites and become experts at studying the movements of you, as a customer.

RFID uses an integrated circuit and a mini antenna to transmit identifying information wirelessly to a receiver. RFID reduces the time and labor needed to track objects while improving the accuracy of the transmissions.  How many RFID devices go with you and tell the world your every movement and patterns of buying?  What about that EZ-pass on your car allows you to zoom through the Speed Pass lane while others are waiting to try their luck at hitting the basket with their handful of toll coins? 

What about your cell phone?  It's a radio transmitter, for crying out loud! That's the easiest way to know where all your customers are.  It's a handy way for parents to know exactly where their children are.We have the technology today to do that--"beam up" someone you are looking for.

What about that time saving little wand thingies on your key chain that you use at the gas pump to let them know "you've arrived and your are ready to gas up."?  Same thing.  And did you realize your credit card has an RFID chip in it?  My American Express Blue even uses that chip as part of the card design.  What is means is it is entirely possible to just pick up what I want and walk out of the store, and a receipt for all of those goods can be ready at curbside, when the valet brings my car around.

Sometimes customers are called patients.  Do you ever get sick of being sick?  How many times have you filled out the same forms with the same information every time you visit a doctor or medical care facility?  What if your medical history--up to date with the last pill you took an hour ago, went with you?  That means no more repeating your medical history, for one.

Mount Ascutney Hospital has already contracted with a New Hampshire technology firm to test an RFID system involving patient bracelets and staff badges. In tandem with the 99-bed Windsor hospital's other information networks, the RFID innovation is intended to ensure patients' identification and location while delivering medical data to the point of treatment.

What does RFID mean to your business?  How will you use it to tune in --literally, to what your customer wants you to know about their every movement and needs?  If your marketing slogan boasts about how much you listen to customers and give them what, how will you stand out when every business can know what you do, just by being an RFID player in the world?

More important.  How is this a small business advantage?  How nimble are you? How quickly could you act on the information that you learn abut customers and prospects?  How valuable can you become when you know who is actively seeking what you offer?

Visible Value for Customers

If you could find a way to make yourself instantly famous and more valuable with all of your customers, would you do it?  And if I said it would also eliminate clutter on your desk and guarantee that nothing slips past a deadline, would that get your attention?  As they say on the infomercials, "Wait, there's more..." Suppose your clients called you up and said, "You have all the neatest marketing tools and I want what you have," what would you say?

Ever since John Jantsch sent us the recommendation for Basecamp, our world has not been the same.  Today's blog by John Jantsch about another cool tool coming from the Basecamp folks at 37 Signals just makes it more exciting.   We have worked directly with the Project Management Institute and their famous certification program, so we know what we are talking about.

Why are we wild about this?  Because our clients love it.  What our clients love, we embrace.  Why do customers love it?  Because it is you, plus their projects and terrific communication.  Value added on top of value add and that just screams customer loyalty. 

All these years, when you wanted your customers to value you more because you are working your heart out for them but have no energy or time left as the end of each project stage to do a big, fancy summary report for them, what happened?  That's right--they never really saw all that you were doing for them so how would they appreciate it all?  Now they not only see everything we do, they get to play along.  And they are just wild about that. Everyone is on the same sheet, literally, all of the time.

If there was ever a small business poster child for project management, it's my company, The Communicators.  In the past 20 years, this firm has tried every kind of project management software out there and nothing was easy to learn or worked for small business.

Working in chaos is unacceptable.   Trying to make software, designed for a construction firm that bills $50 million a year, work for a professional services business is just plain nuts.  For too long there has been absolutely NOTHING out there for small businesses with 30 to 40 projects going on at the same time.   Nothing between chaos and software overkill. Zip. Nada. Not a blinking thing.

Now there is Basecamp, and it works. No software to download and nothing to learn.  Intuitive is an understatement.  Just follow your nose.  Open your account and pay only for the size business you are.  In a matter of minutes or two albums of jazz, we set up all of our projects, all of our customers (specific to the project), upload the documents for each project and then we saw results, immediately.

Here's the wow part.  As soon as we enter each client's information and give them a Username and Password, an e-mail goes out automatically, letting them know the good news and how to access their project.

Curious, yet always sure to open emails from us, customers click on the link that takes them to the Basecamp log in, where they plop in their new Username and Password. Then,like high-class concierge on the top floor of the hotel, Basecamp escorts them into THEIR project area and shows them everything that is going on with that project.  Their comfort level and our value to them just went through the roof.  They love what they see and how easy it is to put their "hands on" their project without ever disturbing what we are doing or causing any delays or detours.

Here's the best part.  We don't have to write up progress reports any more.  The clients see exactly what is happening, where there project is heading, what they need to do next and when to expect more deliverables.  Plus, it puts in their hands all of the web-based, extremely easy to use, tools, which they use and love, to participate in their own success.   

Sweet.  This means more time for our customers and less time "looking for stuff" or scrambling on a deadline. That makes everyone happier and more profitable.

Birthing Blogs

Every day 8,000 new blogs are born.  That's just a statistic, unless you are the one in labor, giving birth to a new blog.  Then it's personal and joyous.

Is there customer value in all of this?  How many of these blogs are written for self, and hardly anyone notices?  How many feed thousands, hungry for the content and connections they provide?  At Duct Tape Marketing Coach camp, it's like a blog delivery room and there are two new blogs today that might bring you some joy, also.

WindStar Wildlife Institute, a 12 year old, national, nonprofit association that teaches individuals and companies how to create a wildlife habitat on their property, created a new blog and new website at the same time.  A small army of Certified Wildlife Habitat Naturalists, many of whom are fabulous at photography and writing, are following the model created by this blog, specifically, engaging right from the start a line up of blog writers -- experts in many of the specific areas organized for search engine speed and unique to the Institute.

Grame Thickins announced the birth of his new blog today as well --Tech~Surf~Blog. He is a technology industry player and serves up great content and collective wisdom (from his collection of customers) on marketing, innovation, venture capital, entrepreneurship, IT and software, utility computing, web technology, web content, "Web.2.0," blogging, messaging and collaboration, and consumer electronics.

Is this your week, your month or your year to give birth to a new blog?    It's not as easy as many would like you to believe, nor is it as difficult as creating or relaunching a web site.  It's one of the most powerful marketing tools you can provide. 

And like any baby, it requires feeding every day and attention. It thrives on everyone wanting to visit your baby and watch it grow, day by day, stronger and bigger with each feeding of content that you can't find anywhere else. Comments from blog visitors are mother's milk.

Goodby Transactions; Hello Relationships

The hot new toy among business owners and executives of all sizes of enterprises is the new combination mobile phone/PDA/e-mail/web browser/MP3 player.  It's so hot that all who see it say "cool" and it is a great way to understand the fast and permanent changes happening on the marketing landscape.

Welcome back to the soapbox series on "dialogue" here at Customers Count. We already had a few chats about what dialogue is and why it takes some folks years to understand this is at the heart of the new world order of marketing and business.  It's simple to understand and hard to do.  That's why there are a bazillion reports and white papers on CRM (Customer Relationship Management), Customer Loyalty, Permission Marketing, etc.

Dialogue is about a better conversation with your customers, carried on by the customer on one end the dialogue and everyone in your company on the other end--with a complete and total, running record of everything that customers says, buys, wants, refers, and expects next from your business.  Do you remember how fast the iPod grabbed our hearts and wallets? This will go faster.

This "total mobile dialogue device" in everyone's pocket is going to rock your world.

The business that is still thinking about customers in terms of transactions will soon be eclipsed by the business that understands the opportunity for an ongoing relationship through dialogue.  For every customer, there will be a scanario.  It's that powerful and personal. So that's hundreds of millions of scenarios.  Let's start with one and get your comments on this before going further.

Imagine your best customer.  Now envision that everyone in their company has one of these "total mobile dialogue devices" and the first thing they can do is download music and interesting podcasts of information from your website--like a white paper, news item, or blog on the go.  And let's say your information is specific to the needs of each one of them(they chose to download it) and far more interesting than anything on the radio as they drive along.  What will they listen to?  Your stuff and maybe it's even your voice. Further, you ask some questions in that podcast you just did yesterday and they downloaded this morning or make some offers.  To answer back, all your customer has to do is dial a number to call, or send an email or text message from that phone, which goes immediately into the databases and communications systems at your business--24/7. 

And so the dialogue can continue.  Rather than a transaction or "sale," the exchange of information is now like an ongoing conversation, with the customer adding more and more value to the relationship with every exchange. You are getting smarter about each other at warp speed.  The competition never saw what hit them.

No longer are you a supplier or service provider.  You've elevated your relationship to that of "traveling companion" and that makes you the trusted friend, invited to go everywhere with them.   When the marketing conversation is no longer limited to transaction-- a sales call, an e-mail campaign, a presentation, a dinner meeting, three days at a trade show, or any form of advertising, the power of individually-addressable, immediately-available dialogue will be the new drug of choice for every customer.   

Think like a customer:If you can have exactly the information you want, when you want it, and most of your time back from reading e-mail, sorting through messages and comparison shopping, what do you think you would do?

Smaller Gets the Customer

The next time you are thinking through your brilliant approach for a proposal or presentation, will you remember to emphasize the advantages of being a smaller business?   A lot of customers say they prefer working with a team they will actually see after the sales presentation.  Everyone who stopped by our offices for coffee and a warm handshake last week said they perferred talking with humans rather than "job tickets" and email.

So, here are amazing factoids to sprinkle in your next presentation or conversation about advantages of working with you.  According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses make the major contributions to U.S. economy in these ways:

• Represent more than 99 percent of all employers and employ more than half of all private sector employees.  (We are where the jobs are!)
• Generated between 60 to 80 percent of new new jobs over the past decade.
• Created more than 50 percent of non-farm private gross domestic product (GDP).
• Supplied more than 23 percent of the total value of federal prime contracts.
• Employs half of all workers and 39 percent of high tech workers.

There are more than 23 million small businesses in the U.S.  Two thirds of new small businesses survive at least two years and about half survive four years and beyond.  In a nutshell, you can say your business is a vital part of the economic engine driving all business and money in the U.S.  Put that in your proposal or dialogue with the new customer.

Be sure to ask your customers and prospective customers if the size of your business is an advantage.  Don't assume--ask!  This is part of finding out what customers prefer. 

I wish folks would ask us that question before they unleash their sales presentation.   Take a guess how many calls we get at our company from someone selling CRM "solutions"?   Here's the second part of the question.  Guess how many say in the first two minutes that their customers are Fortune 500 companies?   Now guess how often that carries no meaning or value to the owner of a small business.   

Our response usually sounds like this: "Sir?  Could you stop a moment and take a breath?  Good. Now breath slowly and tell us, calmly, exactly how many small businesses are in your long list of happy customers?  And please, don't just drop a name--tell us a story. Make it a success story with a happy ending.  Tell us how your company generated great results for a small business, directly, because of something you did or provided.

As the statistics show you, there is a lot of money and satisfaction when you do business with smaller businesses. The contracts can be large.  Sometimes they are no different or any larger than your contract with the Fortune 500 company.

Better Than E-Mail

Do you remember where you were in your computer-tethered business life when someone told you about Adobe—or was that Acrobat?  It sounded like two different things but you eventually downloaded the free reader and learned why everyone couldn’t live without this.  Soon after that you bought the program that made the PDF files and now you can hardly remember why you questioned doing this.

Do you remember what search engines you were using when someone told you about Google?  Not that long ago, was it?  Do you even remember the names of all of those other search engines you were using? In just a few months, Google was all over your desktop and now you can’t live without it.

Now there is RSS and you find yourself, again, asking, what is this and why does everyone say I can’t live without it?  The more important question on RSS is how many of my customers are using it already to connect faster—and every day, with others who have the same information and services you have? 

The best, AOPA (Art of the Painfully Obvious) explanation on RSS comes from Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverpop and leader of the blog called The Quiet Revolution in E-mail Marketing. Among his list of really good, compelling reasons for using RSS included these:

• Readers can comment on the RSS posts.  With e-mail, it would get ugly if everyone used “reply to all” every time. 
• RSS will be built into Microsoft Outlook and every other Internet tool in the future.  So the extra trouble now will become nil over time.
• We should all be learning about RSS because it is the future.
• The bottom line:  For certain kinds of communications, RSS is a slightly better mechanism than e-mail for information.

What was that?  Better than e-mail?  Can you even remember what it cost to do business before e-mail? When the electricity goes out and you have no computer for more than an hour, how much do you miss e-mail?  Not a pretty sight, is it? So if this RSS how customers will prefer to find their thought leaders, news and what’s relevant and actionable for them, why are you still reading and not typing?

Get your hands on that keyboard and put RSS into your business!  Go ahead.  You can do it – right now.  How about FeedReader?    It’s a free download and easy to figure out.  When you have the Feed Reader installed on your computer and open, go to “new” in the pull down menu and see how that pops open a window where you type in the URL for the blog you want.  This is a good blog.  Start with this one.  Where do you find the RSS URL (not the same as the browser URL)?  Come back to this blog and right click on that little orange thing that says XML.  That shows you the URL that the little window in Feed Reader wants you to type in.

Try this out.  It won’t mess up your computer or expose you to any virus.  Honest.  Go to the Blogging Business site and look to the right where it says Subscribe to Blogging Business.  If you click on any of those icons, you will get some instructions for those new to the RSS routine.  Follow the steps. There—you are now in the RSS mainstream.  It took you all of 10 minutes.  Congratulations. You are one giant step closer to better customer communication management.  Go get yourself another cup of coffee.