If you are like many others out there, the current economic conditions might be having an impact on your top and bottom lines. The challenging environment means that we need to find new ways to generate sales, hold on to current customer and attract new ones. I’ve had three interactions with sales and customer service folks that left me shaking my head and wondering aloud, “who told them to say that?” These are NOT winning strategies. Please do not replicate them.

1. The car service department catastrophe
My car, fortunately, has an extended warranty that lasts for a few years and tens of thousands of miles. I am in year three of ownership of said vehicle and I am still below the milage threshold. I called to make an appointment for one of the scheduled tune-ups. The woman on the other end of the phone barely eeked out a polite “hello-and-how-can-I-help-you?”. I told her that I needed to make an appointment for service. She asked the make, model and year of my car. I supplied the information not a second after I’d finished, she shot back with, “this will be your last complimentary tune up.” I was taken aback for a couple of reasons. 1. It wasn’t correct. 2. If it was correct, why would you inform me like that? Here’s a suggestion, let me enjoy my last complimentary tune up, then tell me that I am off warranty, but that you can help with my future needs.

I was so turned off by her attitude, all I could think was, “great! I’ll start looking for a new mechanic, because I know I don’t want to send any money your way.”

If an organization has a customer in a complimentary/free program and that customer is going to have to start paying for a product or service somewhere, why not retain that customer and transition them into a paying customer? If I’d had a great experience with this car service place, I’d be happy to give them my future business. Don’t alientate your free customers and make them feel like they are the unwashed masses - they are leads you already have. You have a chance to interact with and perform for them and make them realize how much they love you and that they can’t live without you.

2. The HVAC company that blows hot air
My friend’s central air started acting funny during a heat wave we had last week. The unit on their house is on its last legs, but it’s not dead yet. She called the company she uses for servicing the A/C and and made an appointment to have it checked out. The repairman showed up, asked her a few questions, took a BRIEF look at the system and told her the unit was dead. There was NO way to repair it. He started talking in techincal jargon and said that he could have his Sr. Technician come by to double check that the system was, in fact, dead. The “Sr. Technician,” Tommy, was not a repairman. He was the company’s salesman. My friend had not planned on spending hours on this appoinment or on purchasing a big ticket item that day.

Tommy started by telling her that the unit was dead, then started throwing around four and five figure estimates to replace the A/C unit. He had sheets of paper for her to sign and asked if that Friday would be a good day for the new system to be delivered and installed. She was so disgusted by this bait, switch and fib tactic, that she has vowed never to use this company again. Furthermore, she has told all her friends (including me) about their slimy sales tactics. Word of mouth works both ways - good and bad. Unfortunately for this company, studies have shown that BAD word of mouth spreads ten times faster than glowing WOM.

She got a second opinion from a guy who has a small HVAC company. He came highly recommended and got her A/C working for $20. He said that she could call him anytime the system acts up and he’ll fix it until it is unfixable. Although he can’t sell and install a new unit, he offered to help her get fair estimates when the time comes (at no charge!) Guess who she will be using for all her future repairs?

I know times are tough and we have sales quotas, but in this case David’s approach beats Goliath’s. The small business that was honest and met the customer’s needs (she needed the unit repaired, she didn’t need to be sold a new unit) wins. Twenty bucks isn’t a lot, but lots of customers at $20 and a steady stream of happy repair customers is probably a more sustainable business model than one-off sales of big ticket items with 10-12 year life spans.

3. Let me tell you what I CAN’T do for you
There is a vendor that I work with (that will remain nameless) that has some pretty odd customer retention policies. I have been working with them for about three years. During that time, I have upgraded my services with them as needed. However, right now, I just do not need the capacity that I had in the past. I downgraded my services with them in January, then needed to do so again last month. I didn’t need to be paying for something that I wasn’t using. Instead of saying “thanks for your business, we appreciate you as a customer no matter what size you are,” I got a note that said, “I notice[d] that this was the 2nd request to downgrade your account so far this year. Unfortunately we do have a limit of 2 downgrades per year and will be unable to honor any further downgrade requests for the remainder of 2009.” What kind of inflexible policy is that? Next time I need to “downgrade” I might just downgrade myself right off your client list and over to another vendor. And, when my demand for your service picks up, my upgrade will be with the other guy.

Please do not follow that example. I would never want a business to operate at a loss to be accomodating, but seriously, what would it cost them to be flexible and accomodate my needs? If you can help out a customer, do it. It’s likely that they will remember your kindness and stick with you as they grow.

Have you had experiences with any sales tactics that left you thinking “what are they thinking?!?”

Do you have any success stories to share? Leave ‘em in the comments section!

by Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva®

The past two weeks my dining regime has been upside down. I’m doing some remodeling to my condo in Tampa and with the war zone of construction, I have not had a kitchen. So I’ve been eating up a lot more fast food than I normally do. To my surprise it’s been pretty tasty and shockingly affordable.

Meet the 59 cent cheeseburger from McDonalds. Protein, vegetable, niacin and great starch, too. How do they do that and make any money? Then, I met the $1.69 small Orange High C. Now the math works and so does the psychology.

I enjoyed these cheap burgers, and they made me feel good, too.

This is a simple strategy that can work with selling creative services also. Create an offering that is a ton of value at an unbelieveble price. Deliver it with a smile, use good ingredients and make your customer feel as important as if they were buying 1,000 burgers for the entire office. Using this menu concept to solve propects’ business issues provides a great way to encourage trial buying. Showcase the very attractively priced product or service and then give equal focus to other offerings that have your normal margins.

If you are a writer, maybe you offer a first assignment at a flat fee below your normal rates.
If you are a printer, why not print double the quanitity for same price.
Or, if you are an agency, package some type of marketing audit (for a flat fee) that provides a check list of the prospect’s current activities with a scoring card.

Sure, this may bring in the over-the-top penny pinchers, which you can spot and weed out or direct to other better suited vendors, but it’s also likely to bring in some very good candidates for your other menu items. This not only lets them test you, it lets you test them.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She is has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com, an idea engine for creative professionals and business. Her work has benefited large and small organizations in the United States and around the world.

Why not a better way to run a sales team?

by Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva®

Last month I made a trip to Tampa to source out suppliers to help me remodel my condo. One of my needs was carpeting. I went to a couple of places, looked at materials, researched pricing, and also considered the salesperson behind the product. I decided on a family-owned business called Castle One Carpets. My salesperson was Joe. He was knowledgeable, friendly, and did not impose any not hard pressure tactics. I returned one month later, on a Saturday, ready to place my order. I entered the store. Joe was not working. I was greeted by another salesperson, who asked if I he could help me. I explained I was in last month, had selected something, and was ready to place my order. He informed me that Joe would need to write the order and he, the owner, never worked on Saturdays so I would need to come back. I asked him if everyone worked on commission. And he said yes.

Wow, what a screwy system. And, a nice way to lose a customer. Even if a company compensates the sales team with a performance commission, they should have a side support process to serve everyone who wants to buy. It wasn’t as if the salesman was even busy with another customer. I was the only customer in the store.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated situation. I’ve experienced this in furniture stores, car dealerships, and even clothing boutiques. So what can be done to improve this anti-customer service policy?

Three ways to make commission sales program a win/win for the sales person, the customer, and the brand:

1)Empower and educate your staff with training and tools on best customer service practices. Make “we (not me) are here to serve customers” a value of your brand culture.
2)Create shared commission programs when one or more associates are involved.
3)Keep a client information file system that is accessible to all when someone else needs to jump in to help a customer.

Castle One Carpet, I love my new floor treatment, but the come back on Monday when the person who will earn their commission is here, no follow up or thank you for a several thousand-dollar order, sucks.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She is has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com, an idea engine for creative professionals and business. Her work has benefited large and small organizations in the United States and around the world.

by Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva®

Appearances can be deceiving.
One vendor does not fit all and size matters.
Here are three critical questions you should ask before you engage a vendor or service provider.

When shopping for creative services, many companies look and sound alike. They show you their history of work with big-name clients, offer a suite of services, initially price themselves in a seemingly fair and simple manner and everyone aims to please. The big ones and small ones all promise to care and assure you they are right for the assignment.

While I don’t think companies who fall short on meeting expectations set out to be malicious, I’m convinced asking these three questions can save you a lot of money and headaches.

1) Do you have good communication/work style chemistry with your daily point person, (not the sales department)?
Sales teams are great at sales, but many times once you contract with a firm, you never see those folks again. Make sure you interview the actual team working on your project. Be up front with your expectations. If you require conference follow-up notes, agendas, and changes in writing, state that up front. If they have requests from you, learn that too. One of the best ways to assess working chemistry is spend an hour with the provider team off property and talk about work and non-work matters. You can learn a lot.

2) Is the vendor’s billing/fee formula aligned to what you can afford at this time?
Most professional service firms operate from 30/30/30 pricing formula: one part staff cost, one part overhead, one part margin.
Dealing with larger firms will generally cost you more, unless they are willing to lose money on you; most are not. The size of the vendor has its trade-offs. A larger firm may have more resources, but depending on the firm, this is no guarantee you will get them. Smaller firms can cost less per project, but often, your project can be at risk from stretched staffing resources. If you are a smaller company and price is an issue, don’t skimp on doing your homework to find out as much as you can about pricing, scheduling, and resource allocation in advance. Sometimes it makes sense to have two resources, just in case one gets goofy on you. I’m not recommending all decisions are made on lowest price, I am suggesting the size of your company and available funding is a reality.

3) What happens when the person working on your project gets hit by a bus? Or leaves the company?
Again, ask hard questions, before you engage, and document your understandings and expectations up front in writing. Be careful when firms request to be paid 100 percent up front, this takes away any leveraging power, should something change in the project with staffing and resources.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She is has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com, an idea engine for creative professionals and business. Her work has benefited large and small organizations in the United States and around the world.

By Karen Post The Branding Diva®, co-founder of Oddpodz.

“Wanted” the nitwit who created the type justification feature on the Microsoft Word® program, or any word processing program for that matter. And all the nitwit followers who always justify documents (proposals, letters, and even PowerPoint® presentations) and continue to use goofy outdated typefaces; underscore, bold, and capitalize letters in long phrases, and then separate them from the body copy with floating headlines.

This is not cool. I don’t care if your attorney does it, he or she is mislead too. It just makes your document look cheesy and your brand unprofessional.
Just because a computer or word processing application has these type features, does not make them right. Typography was born to help you communicate. Using type correctly can act as a visual tool in conveying your cause, selling your idea, or expressing your message; not to degrade your brand with bad type practices.

Here are five tips to polish up your documents, so they work with you.

1) Justifying type dramatically reduces readability. If you want to make your reader’s experience pleasant and reader-friendly, flush-left your type.

2) If you want to draw attention to a word, select one type style, like bold, not three. Less is more.

3) Designer typefaces are like fashion. They look good when they are in vogue. When they are out of style, they look worse than a light blue leisure suit showing up in a swanky, hip bar.

4) Headlines are meant to guide the reader’s eye to the body copy. Floating headlines with space between them (under the headline) serves no purpose except to make it more work for your reader to get your communication.

5) In most cases, all caps communicates that you are screaming. If that is your intent, go for it. If it’s not, try upper and lower case letters.

Applying these simple guidelines can drastically improve the effectiveness and quality image of your documents. Share these tips with every attorney you know. Who knows: together maybe we can eliminate these goofy, uninformed document producers’ bad type practices.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She is has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com, an idea engine for creative professionals and business. Her work has benefited large and small organizations in the United States and around the world.

by Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva®

I recently got a call from an international hotel company who was hosting a small event in New York City for 8 of their top execs. Because the group was small, the budget they had in mind for this event was, too. While negotiating with them, I said, “your group may be small, but my message is not, so how about an adjusted fee for this intimate event and a commitment to another engagement with in the next 12 months?” They loved this approach and I not only did I book the event in New York, but a month later, I’m headed to Stockholm. So many times it’s how one packages their services and presents value.

Got a client with a limited budget or a limited project investment desire? Think about adding another assignment within a calendar year. Consider bartering for something of value or bundle it with another service of value.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She is has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com, an idea engine for creative professionals and business. Her work has benefited large and small organizations in the United States and around the world.

By Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva®

Verizon spends gazillions on marketing. They are in your face everywhere. TV, print online, direct mail you name it. I’ve been a customer of Verizon’s for nearly 20 years. They used to be GTE. Over all, I’ve been pleased with my relationship until this week. I’m moving back to Tampa and needed to set up my land line phone service. With all their outbound messaging and seductive sales initiatives, why in the world would they not be able to take my call for two busy days to place an order? This is a cardinal sin for any brand. Tell me you’re hot and the best thing since sliced bread, then you can’t manage your call center flow for two solid days!?!?!? And, to make things worse, not only was I on hold for 3-4 hours each day, if I decided to hang up and try again, I would have had to experience this annoying computer, voice activated 5-minute torture just to get started again. Verizon is a technology leader; so, I thought surely their Web site would have some option to get me some help. Wrong. It’s a maze of no help what so ever. Madness! And the assistance email kept locking up. Wednesday, three days later, I got through. Screaming at the operator is not the answer. They likely had no contribution to this disastrous customer service system. Verizon leadership where ever you are, you should be ashamed. And if you know this is a problem and you are working on it, why not a little communication? This would go along way. If you can’t dance, don’t invite me to the party.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She is has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com, an idea engine for creative professionals and business. Her work has benefited large and small organizations in the United States and around the world.

HOW magazine is teaming with creative-industry consulting firm Marketing Mentor to present the first and only business conference for self-employed creative professionals, the Creative Freelancer Conference, August 27-29, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

The event is expected to draw several hundred solopreneurs from a variety of creative disciplines—graphic designers, copywriters, illustrators and photographers, as well as solo practitioners of interactive, interior and industrial design.

“Anyone who makes a living selling creative services on a freelance basis (or would like to) will benefit,” said HOW editor Bryn Mooth. “The business challenges we’ll address are not unique to designers, but they are unique to creatives who are flying solo.”

Those challenges will be addressed by a panel of creative-business experts, including Marketing Mentor co-founders Ilise Benun and Peleg Top. They’ll share best practices for marketing and positioning, talking to clients about money, building client loyalty, crafting proposals and contracts, maintaining a work/life balance and other skills critical to freelance success.

The conference program also includes breakfast roundtables by topic, networking events and optional, one-on-one business reviews of attendee portfolios, proposals and marketing materials.

Online registration is now available at CreativeFreelancerConference.com. Attendees who register by July 15 will save $60 off the $495 registration fee. Groups of three or more will also receive the discounted rate.

Published since 1985, HOW is the creativity, business and technology magazine for graphic designers. It’s also the force behind the HOW Design Conference, the Mind Your Own Business Conference and the In-HOWse Designer Conference.

Marketing Mentor is a mentoring and consulting firm specializing in the creative industry. Founded by Ilise Benun and Peleg Top, their expertise lies in marketing and business development. Their mission is to help creative firms market their services, get their ideal clients and create the work/life balance they want.

CONTACT: Beth Dean
(513) 531-2690 ext. 11552
beth[dot]dean[at]fwpubs[dot]com