Best (and worst) practices -- the best advice there is!

This one is for the girls and boys on the front line, those out there building relationships with advertisers and prospects for advertising in our publications. It's a little bit like Dragnet...the stories you're about to hear are true, but some names have been changed or omitted to prevent embarrassment or lawsuits. These are just a few ideas and war stories that we can all learn from in today's hectic selling environment.

EXAMPLE 1: The fine line between use and abuse:

I shared this at our sales meeting last week. A good friend of mine who works for an area competitor sent me an e-mail, touting the benefits of doing business with one of her clients. "I'm sending this to all my friends. If you ever need (omitted) repair services, you should call (omitted). I know him and trust him and I'm sure you will too." I have no idea if her advertiser paid for this or if she was adding value or maybe just helping out a friend. All I know is (a) I didn't really mind receiving it even though (b) I never signed up for it and (c) was not given an opt out link. I don't mind being "used" a little...but I don't want to be "abused" either. I'll see what other e-mails the future brings but the lesson here is to be careful when crossing the business and personal address books in the interest of doing business with your clients. Be nice to your friends.

EXAMPLE 2: Ask questions before committing.

I know the person who made this goof, know him very well. His name rhymes with "me". Got in my car last week, drove 45 minutes to spend an hour with one of our representatives and one of her customers, helping develop a plan for their "spring campaign". (Then drove back, too). There are many things I am not very good at, but I think a do a pretty fair job of working with customers on a marketing analysis model and was pretty proud of the work I did for this client. What I didn't know (because I didn't ask) was that this customer runs the smallest ad he can and might bump up to the next bigger size based on our planning session. Bottom line: two of us invested the better part of a morning in a session that held little if any promise of growth, all because I didn't do my due diligence (nor did my colleague). Spend time with customers, call on everyone but invest quality time in direct relation to the results you might garner. Just makes sense.

EXAMPLE 3: If you don't have something good to say...

An auto sales pro I know shared a story about a salesperson for another print media outlet who visited their dealership recently. This person mentioned how well they were doing but pointed out that other area print outlets were not doing well to the best of his knowledge. He may have thought he was putting himself in a good light but the impact on the auto person was highly negative. I'm paraphrasing but the summation was "if the only thing good you can say is something bad about your competitors, then say nothing at all." Great advice...the salesperson didn't hear it, though. He won't get a chance to, either. Don't throw mud...you can't do it without getting your hands dirty.

I can't promise our advertisers that our salespeople will always be the answer to their needs, but I know we will knock ourselves out trying to find solutions. For more information, call us at 315-472-7825 or e-mail us at info@scotsmanmediagroup.com. Thank you!

Super lessons for the rest of us

It's over! It's over! Giants win! Anybody win...please!

With all due respect to the Giants, their fans and any other related groups, I am so glad that the "big game" (as we who have no license must refer to it) is over. I love football, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. But there is happiness in watching the two week, non-stop, overdone media frenzy finally wind down to just one more day of post-game analysis. And then we can get back to our normal mundane media experiences.

For our purposes, the question of what is normal looms large. Two "super" points to reflect on:

1. Commercials -- an annual highlight of the game. What did you think? Is it me, or was the big picture of big game commercials a little lackluster this year? Or are our expectations so high at this point -- because we have been conditioned by past experiences -- that we expect to be bowled over (no pun) by every spot that airs?

2. Big money -- yes, those spots cost millions just for air time. Production costs must soar, too. Do polar bears really sell more Coke? Does the Dorito dog (my favorite, by the way) really sell more crunchy chips by burying the missing cat? Enough chips and soda to justify the cost?

There are likely no definitive answers to these questions. Only the sponsors can determine if they got the value they paid for, and building on their brand recognition is certainly a bigger priority for super commercials than just selling product. Thus, here are the takeaways for the small business people like you and me:

a. Careful not to overdo it -- most small businesses don't have the time and budget to over-promote an event. But too many e-mail blasts or Facebook updates or value-less coupons can have the same effect on your customer database as too much big game hype can have on fans.

b. Establish a marketing goal -- every campaign, every ad you do must bring you some value. But before you promote, be sure to establish a goal for the event and determine how you will realistically measure results so you'll know if you're on the right track or not. Whether you're selling your brand or hoping to move a specific product off your shelves, make it a measurable event.

c. Don't be missing in action -- I will venture a guess that part of the decision making process for Coke and Doritos is their past experience and the expectations of a loyal fan base. Their spots have become part of the big game experience and viewers might notice them as much by their absence as they do their presence. In other words, if you are considering changes in your media mix, always make allowances that some of your customers expect to find your ads where they currently do. If you move the ads you may lose some of the faithful you've attracted. Jumping around in the media can increase your expenditure and make it hard for your loyal fans to stay in touch with your brand and products.

Our ad staff at the Scotsman can help you plan campaigns and ads so problems like these never happen. Just give us a call at 315-472-7825 or e-mail us at info@scotsmanmediagroup.com. As always, thank you so much for your time!

Gut check -- I'm not so hot after all!

Humility always wears well. I pray daily to be blessed with wisdom, patience and humility; folks who know me will likely say that I am still waiting for those prayers to be answered. I know I'm not a wise man. Wise guy, yes. Wise man, no. I also lack in patience most of the time but I do think I'm a humble kind of guy. Except when it comes to sales training. You see, I perceive myself to be kind of a hotshot trainer. Give me a couple of hours and a crowded room of sales types and I'll turn them all into passionate pros. How wrong I must be!

A professional colleague of mine spent a little field time recently with some of our sales staff visiting some of our best customers. He had nothing but great things to say about this experience...loved our people & loved our customers. But his final comment to me cut to the bone: "I don't know that I got a real sense of what the value in your product is, though." Ouch! Pain! We have very good salespeople, but apparently they don't have a very good trainer because today's message is all about value. A good manager should make sure that value oozes from everything a salesperson says. I didn't get that done.

I shared this with a co-worker who was quick to point out that the sample used to arrive at this conclusion wasn't very scientific; "these are our best customers...they know about our value already," he said. He was trying to make me feel better and I appreciate that. But we all need to appreciate that every customer needs to hear about the value we provide every time we have an opportunity to chat with them. That may be especially true of our best customers. We have all heard the stats on how much effort it takes to get new customers -- that same effort should go into keeping our current ones. Lord knows our competitors will be filling their ears with value statements so we should always be doing the same.

Our job at the Scotsman Media Group is to help businesses make the strongest value statement they can to their target markets. Give us a shout at 315-472-7825 or e-mail us at info@scotsmanmediagroup.com any time you need help making your value known. Thank you for being here today!

A little "religious education" to share

Belated wishes for a happy and productive new year!

Here is my only prediction for 2012: some businesses and business people will have a great year, some won't and the rest will fall in between. Nostradamus I am not. But my prediction could be correctly made any year, boom economy or bust, because whenever two or more are competing for the same dollars, someone is going to come in first and someone is going to come in last. Where you come in is thankfully up to you.

For those who don't know my total background, I lead something of a double life; in addition to the business world I am also an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church. Don't worry -- a spiritual message is not contained herein, but valuable marketing lessons can be learned almost anywhere. Like your car.

I recently leased a new car for work and one of the "extras" is the standard three month free trial of satellite radio. I'm a big believer in free so I am making the most of the 90 days. Given my deacon life, I was especially interested when I flipped the dial past the "Catholic Channel." Now for those who don't know it, the Church has its share of, shall we say, marketing concerns:

1. The whole sexual abuse of children chapter of church history was mishandled and it has understandably turned some of the faithful away. Corrections have been made but it takes time to heal.

2. Church attendance for almost all denominations is down over the last 10 to 15 years, especially in the Northeast. Demographic and sociological shifts.

3. In spite of declining attendance, there are not enough priests to take care of the number of parishes and churches that exist, and closing and consolidating churches makes even more people unhappy.

Make you feel a little better about your own business fortunes? There are a lot of aspects to what I have briefly listed above but the bottom line is that the Church is making big efforts to re-engage their membership. Unfortunately, I'm not sure they know what's going on with the Catholic Channel. I listened for 15 minutes and decided that (a) if I wasn't Catholic I wouldn't want to be one after listening and (b) would I want to publicly identify myself as a Catholic after listening. I admit it just was a narrow slice of their programming but the two people casually chatting on this program were obnoxious, unfocused and flippant. And as anyone in business and sales has learned, an unfocused knucklehead can erase more goodwill in ten minutes than a competent marketing staff can achieve in ten months.  And the public is happy to form an incorrect opinion of you based on knowing very little of what you really do.

The first of the year is an excellent time to do inventory of all your efforts: your signage, collateral material, advertising campaigns, marketing and customer service staff to make sure your message is put forward in a consistent, effective manner. And it's time to make one resolution: don't wait a year to re-evaluate it. Do it consistently.

Our Scotsman staff is ready to help you with your business needs -- call 315-472-7825 or e-mail us at info@scotsmanmediagroup.com. And, again, best wishes for a great 2012!

The New Math of Ad Success

I was reminded yesterday during our weekly staff sales meeting of a simple formula that helps put a different light on why some ad campaigns work and others don't. I borrowed the knowledge from one of The Leadership Institute training modules (I figured it was OK to do so...I'm on the faculty, after all). Whether you're an advertiser or an ad marketing person, this is a necessary piece of your pie:

I x C x C = V

I stands for IMPACT. How big is the ad, especially in relation to what everyone else is doing? How big is the offer, both in terms of the physical size of the text in the ad, and in the size of value that it offers? 10% off a bagel isn't worth starting your car over...25% off interior satin paint is worth remodeling your home for.

C stands for CIRCULATION. How many homes, how many readers are you reaching? If you're selling pizza, you need homes close to your store. If you're selling life insurance you need a wider coverage area in that there are fewer prospects per neighborhood for a long term, bigger ticket purchase.

C number two stands for CONSISTENCY. How often do you grace the marketplace with your message? Are you consistent in the manner and method in which you grace it? Consistency builds recognition and top of mind awareness.

V is VALUE, value for the advertiser. Results equals value.

Here is where the math comes in. This is a multiplication equation. The more you stress each of the three variables, the greater your results will be. Let's use a 1 to 10 scale. If you run a big ad with a great offer (that's a 10) and you hit 50% of the homes in your market (that's a 5), but you run the ad only once (a 1) you get this:

10 x 5 x 1 = 50

Remember, the best you can do is 10 x 10 x 10...that equals 1000. Fifty isn't very good, is it? Increase the consistency to a 3 (run the ad two more times) and you get a 150...three times the results or value.

The most important thing to remember is to not fail completely at any one of the three...that would be a zero. Zero times anything is zero and there is no value in zero.

We're full of good ideas at the Scotsman...drop us a note at info@scotsmanmediagroup.com and see what we can do to add value to your business. Thanks!

It's my favorite holiday of the year...

Thanksgiving is, yes, my favorite holiday of the year. (Pardon the editorial slant of this episode). Thanksgiving has all the warmth and good will of Christmas without all the extra glitz and pressure. Why any holiday should have pressure is a question unto itself, but Christmas does. Why else would suicides and hotline calls go up dramatically in December each year? Thanksgiving has family, food, fun, football...and it is an All-American holiday. Thank the Pilgrims. Family first. Why then is American business trying so hard to ruin the day?

Black Friday is also an All-American institution and it was kind of fun to watch news coverage of the crowds stampeding into stores at 7AM, then 6AM and then 4AM...and now Thursday evening, 10PM. Some stores have opened all Thanksgiving day in recent years, like there is nothing special to the holiday at all. It's sad. One poor soul lost his life in a Black Friday WalMart shopping surge a couple of years back. Nothing is sadder than that.

Our friends at WalMart have used us to deliver their sale flyers each Thanksgiving, and each year we have been asked to sign a pledge/agreement to provide the utmost security of those flyers so that Black Friday specials would remain a national secret. And they meant business, too, if you were responsible for a leak. This year, WalMart leaked their own specials on their own site. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess. Even 42" flat screen TV prices aren't special anymore.

Hats off to employees of Target and Best Buy who have organized online petitions asking their employers to have a heart and open Friday morning, allowing workers to have the whole Thanksgiving holiday at home. A valiant but futile effort; it's way too competitive out there in the market to allow anyone to get the jump on you.

In spite of my obvious disdain for all of this, I am thankful to live in a land where such things are possible. Where government doesn't tell business what they can or can't do. Where you have a thriving competitiveness, even in a sluggish economy. And where people can freely voice their opinion about their beliefs and not worry about ramifications, assuming those Target and Best Buy employees don't lose their jobs for speaking out.

We at the Scotsman hope you have much to be thankful for this year.

When you send a message, back it up with your actions.

Haven't posted in a couple of weeks -- been a busy time, but it's back to the blog now.

It's a beautiful November day in Central New York. I did my usual Wednesday drive from our Fulton office back to Syracuse at mid-day and as I was coming to the stop at the end of the off ramp, a local homeless guy was there with his sign. I don't want to sound crass or uncaring, but I have often thought there is a well oiled network of these guys and they have the best corners and locations in town allocated among them on some rotating basis. Only one person works each corner and you never see the same guy in the same spot two days in a row. The man I saw today didn't look familiar but his sign did. What caught me, though, is that he didn't pay any attention to me as I slowed down to stop. He appeared to be texting on his smartphone. No joke. I watched carefully to be sure that's what he was doing, and it was. I don’t think it was an iPhone4s, but it looked pretty new. I have to be honest with you: it greatly diminished the effect that his "hungry and homeless veteran" sign had on me.

There are a lot of good folks out there who are in trouble through no fault of their own who need our help. And there are others out there who are waiting to take advantage of us. No surprise there. It happens on street corners and it happens in business every day. Does the message you send to the market clearly reflect who you are, what you do and how you do it? Does it reflect integrity and awareness, and can you back that up with your daily actions? If you hang your advertising hat on being the best in customer service, does your staff back that up by paying close attention to your customers? If you will pardon the comparison, do they blankly text on their cell phones as the customer approaches the counter or are they waiting to greet them and make their best effort to help? I had a customer call me yesterday to share an experience he had with a couple of our staff people recently. Good staffers, too, but obviously not at their best on this occasion. I was glad he called; often a customer who feels wronged just walks away and you may never know there was a problem. We got the chance to fix this one. How many get away without an opportunity?

We're coming in to the busy season for most retailers and professionals; let's make it one of the best. Call us at 315-472-7825 or e-mail us at info@scotsmanmediagroup.com  if we can help you put your best foot forward. Thanks.