Where do Plugs come from? pt 2

Continuing from the last post, we add to our ‘Ask for Plugs’ strategy;

  1. From now on, every time you finish with a customer, ask them for a Plug
  2. Get hold of some P.O.S material from iplug and put it strategically around your workplace, or wherever customers can see it – counter, vehicle etc.
  3. Next time you get your business cards printed, put a request for Plugs on the cards themselves
  4. Put a link on your website to your iplug page, and ask your visitors to check out your Plug Rating. Customers who then do business with you are more likely to Plug you afterward
  5. Encourage your staff to earn Plugs and ask for them with the same enthusiasm as yourself. Perhaps run a competition, or offer a reward to staff members who are mentioned individually in a Plug
  6. Put a Please Plug Me logo on all your marketing and advertising. The very fact that you’re on iplug and are promoting your quest for Plugs signifies that you have huge faith in your own customer service.

And that last one says it all. Would a dodgy business or rip-off artist so heartily promote their request for feedback? (Or even be on iplug in the first place?)

Hardly.

Just by advertising that you’re in the market for Plugs could be enough to draw in new customers – before they even get to check out your Plug Rating.

And a spin-off to the campaign…

One business we know followed our advice and sent out a swag of emails to past customers asking for Plugs. They got a pretty good response and picked up several Plugs in a few days. But more importantly, the very act of contacting former clients and customers with whom they hadn’t spoken for months actually brought in new business.

So… where do Plugs come from? They come from your customers, of course. But you have to ask for them. And keep asking. And keep asking.

And one more thing… if a past customer hasn’t responded, try asking them why they haven’t Plugged you. They may actually have a slight problem and here is your chance to remedy it for them.

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Before you Slap, pt 1

It’s easy to be quick on the Slap Trigger. A business screws something up, you get mucked around, and then you seethe with annoyance. iplug offers the perfect release for all that pent-up frustration; log in and Slap the rotters! It’s instant, it’s cathartic and it’s convenient. We should all do it – like installing a blow-up punching-boss in the corner of the office.

But…

Let’s step back for a moment and be realistic. How many times in your life have you had to apologise for being too quick out of the blocks, even if only in your mind? You know the scenario; one of your co-workers is late to work and you have to shoulder the burden for a few hours, swearing at them under your breath… until you learn that they had to shoot away early that morning because their mother passed away.

Or you blame one of the kids for something and yell at them, only to discover later that it was actually your fault.

This happens to us all, and those who are quick off the mark often have to eat humble pie in order to restore a prior relationship. We sometimes say things we regret, we act on insufficient information, we make assumptions – it’s all part of being human.

But what happens when the target of your instant assumption of guilt is a total stranger? Like, for example, an employee of a business that you are dealing with? And what if you rush home, jump online to www.iplug.co.nz and give them a jolly good SLAP? All within minutes of the incident?

If it turns out that they weren’t at fault, or that mitigating circumstances meant they had no control over the situation, what have you done? At the very least you’ve been unjustly harsh and at worst you may have damaged a perfect reputation.

All of which offers up the suggestion that as with vacationing and lovemaking, it’s best to take your time; calm down and think about it first – before you Slap someone. It’s a given that you never shop when you’re hungry, and never negotiate when you’re angry. Take the time to cool off. Then if, after careful consideration (and after your blood pressure and heart rate have dropped) you still feel that the business deserves a Slap, so be it. Just be sure that it’s a rational and calm Slap, not a spur-of-the-moment, impulsive, back hand Slap.

And of course if they really do deserve a Slap, don’t be shy about telling them why – in detail.

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Is your business the best in its class?

People like dealing with the best. The only barriers to everyone having the very best of everything are price and ignorance.

Price

Not all motorists drive Beemers, Jags and Bentleys. Why? Because they cost more than Fords, Mazdas and Kias, that’s why. If the price tags of the former were lowered to match the latter – while keeping the same levels of quality, comfort and performance – the latter manufacturers would either have to raise their game or shut down.

This probably sounds a little far-fetched, and of course it is. When it comes to products and goods, the better quality examples almost exclusively cost more to produce, and use materials and processes that are much more expensive. That consigns the vision of a car buyer having a genuine choice between a $400,000 Bentley and a $25,000 Kia to the realms of the ridiculous.

But what about mortgage brokers? Or real estate agents? Or motor repair garages? Is the best option in these service categories 16 times more expensive that the worst? (Apologies to Kia – it’s not the worst, just the least expensive!)

Obviously not. Imagine a real estate agent telling you that their fees are ten times their competitors’ because they’re the best in the business. You’d laugh in their latte. Which brings us to the second barrier;

Ignorance

When businesses compete with each other for your custom, they can never be completely truthful. For the very best plumber in your region to successfully advertise this fact, it would take the second best to follow suit and the third, and so on. ‘Bloggs the Plumber’ would have to head up their advertisements “The ninth best plumber in Auckchurch”.

Clearly that doesn’t happen, and instead we’re bombarded with a multitude of advertisements and listings and billboards and banner ads and radio chatter, all proclaiming ‘pick me!’ Which renders choosing the best business in any category pretty much impossible.

Which brings us to the question; How do you determine who is the best? And the answer can only be that the customer or client is the only judge.

If only there were a fair and equitable way in which businesses could be ranked by their customers regardless of how much the business paid and what they put in their ads?

Well gee… now there is. www.iplug.co.nz

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Business cancers

At the risk of sounding a little controversial, let me make a statement here; there are a lot of parallels between running a business and preventing cancer.

Cancer is a debilitating disease that can begin in any part of the body, spread to healthy flesh and organs under its own steam, and if left untreated can destroy the host completely. But the treatments for cancer can be as damaging as the disease itself, a fact which results in numerous compromises between management, treatment and prevention.

But by far the worst aspect of cancer is its furtive approach. When you fall from a tree and break your arm, you’re aware instantly that there’s a problem, and consequently you’re able to take measures to remedy it. But cancers begin slowly and out of sight, often growing to an unstoppable level before you’re even aware that something is wrong. That, more than anything else, is the biggest issue with cancer.

Cancer starts with a single cell going out of whack (excuse the technical terminology). But imagine, if you will, that there was a machine that could detect a single cancerous cell and alert the body that something was awry. A single cell can be excised with a lot less damage to the host than if it were allowed to grow to many tens of thousands of cells. Therefore, if this machine existed, cancer would not.

All of which means that – as I’m sure you’ve heard before – early detection is the key to cancer prevention.

Like the human body, there are many furtive maladies that can affect businesses, and the similarities to cancer are undeniable. These business cancers can begin anywhere, and if left untreated can build to the point at which the prognosis is poor. But like human cancers, business cancers can be far more easily controlled or treated if detected early.

However, unlike human disease control there actually is a machine that can detect early onset of business cancer. It’s called feedback.

Whether a business supplies a service or sells a product, the customer is always king. More customers spending more money almost always means more profit, and happy customers will keep coming back again and again. Conversely anything that upsets a customer is ultimately going to upset the business. Yet many business owners or managers are unaware that their customers are getting frustrated, or not coming back, or spending less, until it’s too late.

Here’s a scenario; a business manufactures baby buggies. They’re state-of-the-art, they’re shiny and they look good. The business spends a fortune on marketing their baby buggies and initially sales are good. But their buggy has a major flaw; the collapse catches are fiddly and pinch fingers, and many mums are injured trying to fold down their buggies. Now as it happens, mums gather in herds (in places like daycare centres and play groups) and talk to each other. Soon the word gets around that these baby buggies are too difficult to collapse and sales slow down. The business then spends more on marketing – and sells more buggies. But the cost of the campaign offsets the profits from the new sales.

Ultimately the business fails due to lack of word-of-mouth sales.

Now imagine what would have happened if the management team of the buggy business had received several Slaps* from the early purchasers;

“It caught my fingers!”

“I can’t collapse it!”

“I’ve had to buy another buggy!”

*You’ll find out more about Slaps at www.iplug.go.nz

The problematic catch could have been changed at design level and the buggy improved before ‘word’ got around about it’s drawbacks. Then, when the mums gathered in their herds, the ‘word’ would have been good, and buggy sales would climb without recourse to expensive marketing campaigns.

The moral of the story is that negative feedback need not be detrimental to a business. In fact, when launching a brand new business or service or product, a whole swag of ‘nice one’s is not nearly as beneficial as a few decent, well considered criticisms.

Prepare for Slaps and welcome them.

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How do I get more sales?

An often-asked question from business owners, and on the surface it’s perfectly sound. More sales means more profit, right? So how DO you get more sales?

Hang on though, before we get into this, do more sales really mean more profit?

If you owned, say, a Plasma TV shop, and you halved all your prices, you’d get more sales. I guarantee it. But you’d be selling each set for less than what you paid for it, and not only would you NOT make more profit, you’d be going backwards. Likewise if a plumber halved her charges or a lawyer slashed his hourly rate. More sales, but less profit (or none at all).

Here’s another example; if you took out full page colour advertisements in every newspaper in the country, you’d also get more sales. But a typical cost structure might be this; turnover up by $50,000 during the campaign, gross profit up by $12,000, additional net profit of $6,000 – and all it cost you was $30,000 for the ads!

More sales are easy. But the question should be ‘How do I make more profit?’

One of the best ways to increase profit is certainly to get more sales – but to attract those sales for NO COST to your business. And the best source of no-cost additional sales is your current customer base.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before; it’s far easier and more cost effective to draw additional sales out of happy customers than it is to attract new ones. That’s why a decent email database and marketing campaign is so good for business. These people already trust you! They’ve experienced what it’s like to do business with you. (And if they shy away now, you have a problem.) Every marketer in the world worth their salt will advise that you keep plumbing the depths of this resource.

But here’s the kicker… don’t restrict yourself to selling to these people.

Use their experience with you to convince others that you’re reputable, efficient, cost-effective and (fill in attribute here). In other words, use your present customers as a source of more sales from new customers. Ask them for referrals. Ask them if they know anyone else that you might be able to help. And if that’s a little difficult for you to do, at the very least ask them to PLUG you! Get them telling others how great you are, and new customers will come to you.

This is how you get more sales – that equate directly to extra profits. It doesn’t cost anything to market to existing customers, and any new customers that you attract will be pre-qualified (unlike those who come from expensive advertising campaigns or serious price-cutting).

You have a page on iplug.co.nz, and it’s available for all to see, so why not start using it!

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The millionaire’s plea

Several years ago a would-be entrepreneur advertised his plight on a community television station. He was poor, had no job and couldn’t afford to continue his attendance at university. So what did he do? He told the viewers that if one million people each sent him one dollar, he’d not only be able to finish his studies, but upon graduation he’d be able to start a business and employ a dozen people.

Because this was the first plea of its kind he received more than $1,000,000 through the mail to his Post Office box. He did this because, although the TV program had minimal coverage, the story spread virally and was repeated on mainstream news stations (this was before the Internet). The whole story created such a storm in the US, that this kind of ‘marketing’ was ultimately outlawed.

Ever since that first viral success, many variations on the theme have occurred, especially with the introduction of the World Wide Web. In one instance an entrepreneur sold pixels on a page for a dollar each and financed his start-up company. You probably know a few examples yourself.

Some might say that this form of viral get-rich-quick scheme has done its dash. The Nigerians have helped on that score. Suspicions of scams and natural reticence have combined to prevent anyone else from exploiting this loophole to the human heart.

So why am I raising this phenomenon here? Because I think I can see a new version on the horizon, that’s why.

The reason this form of ‘marketing’ worked in the first place was because the successful schemes had three key factors;

  1. They appealed to the viewer’s conscience,
  2. The amount involved was negligible (or would have been spent regardless), and
  3. There was no ‘downside’.

The reason that recent attempts have failed is generally due to the perpetrators breaking two or more of the above rules – they would lie and be caught (rule 1), they would be greedy and ask for too much (rule 2) and there would be a downside; generally that the money at risk was more than ‘negligible’ – not to mention the shame accompanying eventual discovery that they’d been scammed (rule 3).

Now let’s take a look at the iplug Rewards scheme for a moment. This is a simple plan; as a citizen you can Plug any business that you want to, and receive Plug Points from iplug in return. Moreover, because the Plug Points are transferable (uniquely!) you can also ask for Plug Points from other Pluggers.

Most of us have experienced or read about unemployed entrepreneurs standing on busy street corners with signs reading “Programmer seeks programs to build” or “Will do anything for $50k plus benefits” or words to that effect. In every case that I’ve heard of, the dude or dudette ultimately got a job.

So how about appealing to other Pluggers’ consciences? If your ’cause’ is just or captures the imagination, there’s no limit to the amount of Plug Points you might receive – especially if you use a social network tool like Facebook to spread the message.

“I’m a poor student and I’ve had my laptop stolen… please help me by giving me a few Plug Points towards getting a new one?”

And be creative. It’s the creative ideas that attract the attention. Advertise in the local paper, or better yet, pull a stunt that attracts the attention of the news department (legal of course). “Man in bunny suit promotes business improvement site in return for funds to pay speeding fines!”

The gist of this story is this; in addition to Plugging away yourself (pun intended), don’t be afraid to engage the imagination of other Pluggers.

You never know…

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A Plug is like a Smile

“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight” : Phyllis Diller

“A winning smile makes winners of us all” : Anonymous

“Life is short but a smile takes barely a second” : Cuban proverb

“Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles” : George Eliot

“If you’re not using your smile, you’re like a man with a million dollars in the bank and no chequebook” : Les Gilbin

“Smile, and the world smiles with you” : Anonymous

A lot of people have written about smiles. And as you can see, a pattern is forming. As a general rule if you smile at someone, they will smile back (or at least wonder what it is that you know and they don’t).

Smiling is easy, doesn’t cost a thing, and brings many rewards. While the opposite – scowling or frowning – only forms wrinkles and sets the world against you.

A few people have asked the question; “Why should I plug someone? What’s the point?”

As part answer, here’s another quote;

“Nothing makes people so worthy of compliments as receiving them. One is more delightful for being told one is delightful – just as one is more angry for being told one is angry” : Katherine F. Gerould

If you Plug someone for being happy and continuously smiling as they work, they’re far more likely to be smiling the next time you visit them – and smiles are contagious. But if no one ever Plugs the smiler, there’s a chance that it might wear off.

This holds true for all business activities. If you don’t tell the business operator what it is that you like, then you risk that part of the operation disappearing.

There was a case a few years ago involving a bakery in a small city in the US. They had a shop from which they sold all their products, and behind the long counter there was a plate glass window through to the bakery. The customers could watch the bakers toil away at the ovens while they paid for their buns and bread and cakes. Then in a shop revamp, the window was taken away. And guess what? Business dropped off. It turned out that in a world of centralized bakeries delivering product by truck to branches, it was comforting for the customers to see actual bakers making real products. The thing is, though, none of the customers had ever told the bakery that this was the case. (As a result of a customer survey the window was put back, and subsequent marketing shouted ‘see the bakers at work!’)

If you like what you’re receiving, tell the supplier. Give a compliment, give a smile.

Give a Plug.

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What if my competitors Slap me? Part 2

If you recall, there were two answers;

  1. It’s unlikely they will, and
  2. They very well might (you hope).

Let’s expand on them. First of all, it’s unlikely that they will.

  1. The iplug Terms and Conditions expressly forbid malicious use of the iplug feedback system for personal gain, and we like to think that most business owners and managers are honest.
  2. Only a genuine customer of yours can Plug or Slap you, and it’s unlikely that a direct competitor is utilising your services.
  3. Should a direct competitor actually use your business and genuinely feel the need to render a Slap, then you must have done something wrong or failed to achieve a minimum standard (so you probably deserve a Slap).
  4. Any business owner who goes out of their way to Slap their competitors is risking a reciprocal response, and as the Mafia learned, infighting is bad for the bottom line.
  5. Finally, it’s an oxymoron that a competing business owner is savvy enough to attempt to slight your business in this way, yet be unable to see the dangers in doing so (risking being kicked off iplug, risking a reciprocal attack, and taking their eyes off their own road ahead in the process).

And don’t forget, you are able to respond to Slaps. If you suspect that the comment is bogus, and that a competitor is behind it (and you think you have proof), you can defend yourself in the same forum – if you feel it’s worth the bother.

Now… they very well might.

You should hope that they do! That would be a sign that they see you as a threat. The dominant player in a market won’t stoop to that sort of strategy against lesser players, so being Slapped by a competitor is confirmation that whatever you’re doing, it’s working!

There’s nothing worse than being ignored. I once took on one of the biggest newspapers in the country in a lucrative market – and received a three page, carefully worded letter from their lawyers. Wow! I must have stung them big time! (And the legal cost to them…!)

To summarise, being Slapped by a competitor is probably a good thing. It means you’re hurting them. It’s when your competitors ignore you that you should be worried.

And remember, the very best defence for a Slap is ten more Plugs!

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What if my competitors Slap me?

This, more than any other, is the question being asked by potential iplug Listers. And it’s a good one too. In fact, it’s right up there with;

  1. What if I get no customers to my new business?
  2. What if my business fails and I have to lay off all the staff? and
  3. Will I regret leaving my cosy, salaried position in order to go into business for myself and be my own boss?

In other words, it’s a valid question, but only one of the many that plague all business owners throughout their business lives.

What if my competitors Slap me?

There are two instant answers to that question;

  1. It’s unlikely they will, and
  2. They very well might (you hope).

So there you have it; quick and concise answers to the most perplexing of questions, delivered honestly and succinctly.

You want more? Okay, we’ll expand on the answers in Part 2.

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Catch people doing things right…

We’ve got a referendum coming up in New Zealand; yet another stage in the saga of whether it’s OK to smack your kids. Regardless of your personal views on this topic, there’s been plenty of research and observation showing that we get better results with people – both adults and children – by praising the behaviours that we want, than by punishing the behaviours that we don’t. Research has also shown that while ‘positive reinforcement’ is often good, it also needs to be accompanied by some degree of consistent consequence when a person takes an action which is not wanted.

Taken in a home view with children, watching for opportunities to give genuine praise and possibly even rewards of some sort when they do well is far better than watching for things they do wrong and then punishing them.

And a similar situation applies in the workplace. The busy boss with the weight of the business and the responsibility of employees can find it too easy to run around not particularly noticing what people are doing – until they do something wrong.

If you want to create or maintain a workplace where great people want to work, then make it a positive and happy workplace! Watch for people doing things right, and then give them genuine praise, in front of their peers if appropriate. You don’t have to gush; just a simple well-meant acknowledgement and thanks is enough.

It’s a basic human need to feel valued and respected by the people around us. And giving praise when due can really work wonders. Encouraging your team to thank and praise each other will work even bigger wonders. I’ve had many business owner clients whose ‘homework’ for the week was to ‘catch people doing things right’!

Besides all that, here’s a selfish reason to do it – it feels good to give praise or thanks!

If you have looked at the site then you will have noticed that this is the essence of iplug. There’s no shortage of people complaining about this or that, so what we want is to give Kiwis a tool to help recognise and reward those business people who do try their best. So, if you like the idea of positive reinforcement, then think about registering yourself so you can Plug people.

I’ve given a few Plugs for good service I have received and during the few minutes it takes to write out the Plug, I re-lived that positive experience that someone had given me. And I know they will get a moment of joy when they read the Plug I have written.

So here’s my thought for you – ‘catching people doing things right’ is good. It encourages people to do the right things; it spreads joy; it’s positive; it’s free; it’s carbon-neutral; maybe someone will do it back to you one day … and it feels good too. So, why wouldn’t you?

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