AMiable Solution #224: Love It or Leave It?

If you market a charity that benefits children, you probably don’t have any trouble getting behind your organization and the services it offers. 

You know that the work you do helps kids get the medical attention or the everyday necessities or the clean water that they need to survive and thrive.  You’ve seen pictures of volunteers and smiling little faces in action.  You can write impassioned marketing copy because you love being part of something so wonderful and fulfilling.

But if you market a trash collection service, you may feel less than enthusiastic about what you sell.  After all, trash is trash, right?  There’s nothing glamorous or life-changing about a truck that picks it up, right?

Does it matter?  Do you have to love, even like, what you market?

No.  You don’t have to love what you sell, but you do have to believe in it.  You do have to take the time to understand it.  To understand who it helps and how.  To understand what makes your company or organization good at what it does.  To understand what it does or how it does it that’s unique.

And you have to love helping people.  If you don’t, your market will hear it in your tone.  They’ll sense it in your descriptions. 

And they’ll wonder why they should care if you don’t.

AMiable Solution #223: Love Thy Competitor

As humans, our tendency is to speak poorly about people we don’t like.  As professionals, we tend not to like competing businesses or organizations.  The truth is, we should love them.

Why?  Competition helps us grow.  It makes us work harder and perform better.  It also helps create better opportunities for us.  Consider the following:

·        Studying your competition can help you choose your “pick me” strategy.  You can identify what makes your company or offer unique and gives you a differentiating factor to market to your audience.

·        Knowing who your competition targets can help you create your own niche.  Why fight over the same customers if you don’t have to?

·        Understanding your competition’s product lines or services can create new products or services for you.  You might like something your competition’s doing but have your own ideas for making it better or doing it differently.  You might simply have the expertise or resources to create a product or service that works great in conjunction with something your competitor offers.

Understanding what your competition’s doing not only helps you create a better marketing strategy, but it also gives you more perspective on what your target audience wants so that you can create better products and services for them.

So don’t bad-mouth your competitors.  Be thankful for them.  You’ll be better for it.

AMiable Solution #222: Three Ways to Show Your Customers Love

We all say we love our clients, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to send them mushy Valentine’s Day cards.  It’s not that type of relationship.  It is, however, a human one, one that demands that we treat our clients, donors, and members in the same caring, respectful way we treat our significant others.

How do you show love to your customers? 

1.      Listen to them.  And not just occasionally.  Every day.  Make it easy for them to communicate questions, concerns, complaints, compliments, and suggestions to you.  Be gracious and receptive to their feedback and insight.  Build trust and a relationship.

2.      Hire good people.  And we’re not just talking about good customer service people.  Your customer service department must be friendly and patient to help maintain good customer relationships, but the rest of your company should be filled with good people, too.  People who work well with others.  People who like to solve problems.  People with great imaginations and solid knowledge bases.

3.      Don’t be a poser.  You’ve met them.  People who pretended to be something they weren’t.  How long did those relationships last?  Not long, most likely.  No one wants to be in a relationship with someone who isn’t truthful with themselves or others, and no one wants to do business with an organization that puts up fronts or hides things from its market, either.  Be honest.  Be yourself.  And let your company’s personality shine.

Not all relationships last forever, but treating them with courtesy and kindness will give you a future worth talking about.