You Matter

One of the all time marketing all stars on the planet is Seth Godin, author, speaker, consultant and internet guru. I wish I was as smart as him. He wrote an article a while back that I have held for New Years Eve. Its not really about marketing, but in a way it is about "approach"; the way we all view what matters to us, what is important and what works for us. And ultimately how we engage other people. So maybe it really is about marketing. I'll let you decide.

Please enjoy this.

You Matter
by
Seth Godin

When you love the work you do and the people you do it with, you matter.
When you are so gracious and generous and aware that you think of other people before yourself, you matter.
When you leave the world a better place than you found it, you matter.
When you continue to raise the bar on what you do and how you do it, you matter.
When you teach and forgive and teach more before you rush to judge and demean, you matter.
When you touch the people in your life through your actions (and your words), you matter.
When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.
When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.
When you inspire a Nobel prize winner or a slum dweller, you matter.
When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.
And when the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

On this eve of the New Year, I wish all of you love and laughter, health and happiness and peace and prosperity. Thank you for reading my blog and thank you for your comments and good wishes.

The Comfort Zone

I took the week off; hardly opened the computer, but still addicted to Blackberry so was able to check messages and send some emails.

On Christmas day, I woke up in Santa Monica California; sunshine and 65 degrees, It was the first time, in many a year, that I woke up in a warm climate on Christmas It seemed strange to be jogging around palisades park, near the ocean, in shorts and t shirt.

This is usually the time of the year I get my winter gear out and jog through central park in the snow. That's when I feel all wintry. Hard to get Wintry in southern California.

Clearly, I was out of my comfort zone. And it wasn't a bad thing.

This change of venue did me good. I thought about new ways to use social networks to promote my clients business; books I want to read and new strategies I want to test and implement.

Want to get out of your comfort zone and get your creative juices going? Try some of these techniques

Listen to a TV news station whose views are opposite your views. See what you can earn. At worst, you'll pick up some ammunition to use in cocktail party chatter

Listen to your teenagers music or watch MTV, VH1 or Spike TV and get some new input about this key bowling segment (15 to 29 yr olds)

Visit different stores and test their customer service; what can you learn from them?

Read "Getting Things Done" by David Allen; a great book about managing your time and working efficiently

Sometimes, getting out of the comfort zone gets us thinking in new ways. Give it a try

A Day in The Life of The Internet

Some of us never realize how big the internet really is or how big it has become, so being the statistical geek that I am, I thought I would share some of this with you; kind of a friendly reminder of its importance and how much you and I have to learn every day just to stay in the game


Factoid #1: Over 210 billion emails are sent out every day…MORE THAN A WHOLE YEARS WORTH of letter mail. There are only 5 billion people in the world!!

Factoid #2: 3 million IMAGES ARE UPLOADED TO FLIKR every day; enough images TO FILL A 375,000 page photo album.

Factoid #3: Every day, information sent over the mobile telephone networks, if SAVED TO DISCS, IT WOULD TAKE 9.2 million disks, 1.7 million blu-ray disks and 63.9 trillion diskettes a day.

Factoid #4: 700,000 NEW FACEBOOK MEMBERS ARE BEING ADDED EVERY DAY; the approximate population of Guyana. 45 million status updates are recorded daily vs. 5 million tweets per day.

Factoid #5: 900,000 articles are POSTED DAILY BY BLOGGERS like me


What it means is obvious – what you actually do about “this new game” is another thing. Having a website and an email address is no longer enough.

The game is changing again. The rules are different.

Read more than ever before. I will pass on some books to you that are great reads for you to “bone up” on and will stimulate your creative juices. When you get finished with them, give them to other people in the center to read. Get them into it. Brainstorm new ideas.

Just remember, this new technology; these social networks that we speak of; they are all about building relationships, trust and honesty.

…and then you can sell them something that you KNOW YOUR NETWORK MAY WANT.

Enrichment

Rajeh Sety is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon valley. His blog is Life Beyond Code.


His recent entry on "Enrichment" is worth reading and I wanted to pass this on to you, given the spirit of the holiday season. So here it is:

"We are all on a search- a search for more meaning in our lives. Through choosing to enrich other people's lives, you add meaning to their life and your own.

Some simple steps to follow:

1. Commit: Commit to lifetime - relationships that span events, companies, causes and geographic boundaries.

2. Care: care for the concerns of others as if they are your own.

3. Connect: Aim to connect those who will benefit and enrich each others lives in equal measure

4. Communication: Communicate candidly. Tell people what they should hear rather than what they want to hear.

5. Expand capacity: Aim to expand people's capacity to help them give and get more from their own lives.

The Litmus Test: If you are truly enriching someone's life, they will typically miss you in their past. They think their lives would have been even better if they had met you earlier.

You are only as rich as the enrichment you bring to the world around you."

"TRYITVERTISING

One of my followers dropped me a comment that this was originally a blank post. I am not quite sure how that happened, but no doubt it did, because I am editing it as I'm thinking.

I was going to write about an idea I had called "tryitvertising".

Simply stated, every 3 months, you sell your customer, via email, a pass for $5. This pass entitles the customer (and up to x# of people?) to get1 hour of bowling and shoe rentals.

Why would you do this?

Because it just might activate someone who has not been in the center in a while (remember, the average open play customer only comes to your center twice in one year!!) and you just might get the opportunity to sell that customer on the benefits of a specific short season league you are trying to form or get their interest on a about a special event.

Each pass would have a 3 month expiration and once it was gone, it is gone. This would be set up as an automatic bill that hits the customer's credit card every 3 months. No hassle for you, easy for the customer.

The customer must sign up for a minimum of 4 passes. So lets assume that 500 customers sign up for this; that would be $10,000 annually coming in over the internet? Bang, you have a money making machine while you sleep!


Any "triers" out there?

Lessons from Apple

With a friend, you can talk for hours about health care, recession, housing, taxes and the environment. With all these issues (oh yes, don't forget the eye of the Tiger fiasco), is it any wonder that we seek more and more information to be more informed; to make better decisions; and to be more responsible).

But something is happening out there. Our need for information is completely and totally saturated by the volume of information we receive knowingly and unknowingly. "Enough", we say, yet our email box continually runneth over.

And we are blaming Google. A 21 billion dollar company that some claim is the most successful in the history of the world. That's quite a claim!

The anti-Google people have emerged saying that the all consuming search engine is not only eating the world, but is eating itself. Its very strategy of SEO (Search engine Optimization) drives a finite market to an ever increasing number of messages which are ultimately sold at lower and lower prices.

What got me thinking about this was a link to an MSNBC article "Why Apple Does Everything Wrong", sent to me by Wood Foss, Proprietor of Alley Katz in Westerly RI. Apple is not a great internet marketer. It doesn't blog, has a limited presence on face book and believes more in brand focus.

They also makes great products.

Ask anyone who owns Ipods, MAC computers, Iphones; zealots everyone. Thy proclaim the sanctity of their purchasers...and they tell everyone who asks and some who don't.

They also build their brand with very cool television advertising combined with dimensionally hip billboards and exhaustive and credible sales training (check out an Apple Retail store, whew!! and let me know your experience with the sales people) they rock. So here is the irony. A new media company spending more money on traditional forms of old media than on new media internet based platforms.

Whats going on?

I think its the backlash that is making Apple cool. They are doing what everybody talks about, but no "new media" company has had the guts to do except Apple; and that is to not flood the finite market with seemingly "another email" or "another blog" or even "another face book posting"; established by the SEO genies.

Now I am not saying that these tools are not important. Any one in their right mind knows that. It's just that we have become addicted to this "digital crack", so much so that we may have forgotten about human behavior. In fact, a Nasdaq listed company called eXelate has just completed a study that shows 80% of all advertising clicks are done by 16% of the total audience. Sounds like the old 80/20 rule to me.

As new as the new media is, it should teach us that new gets old pretty quickly these days. More importantly, we all need to know how to mix the new media and the old media together to get to our customers with our "message of opportunity" for him

Oh yes, a great product would help too.

The Voice

You know, its hell when you're sick and when you lose your voice like I did this past week, it's hell especially if you are a marketer.

But how many of us occasionally lose our marketing voice?. Look at companies like Caldor, Montgomery Wards, Woolworth and other big box retailers that have lost their voice. They just didn't know how to talk to their customer about satisfying their customers changing needs. More recently, GM and Chrysler lost their voice and we all know what happened to them.

The voice, as I call it is our marketing mantra; it is who we are, it is how we communicate; it is the tone we set. It is the trust we have built.

If you are not reacting to your customers needs, they won't hear your voice. Here is an example. To us, a short season bowling league may be 12 to 24 weeks, but to today's open play bowler who may want some more competition and camaraderie that league bowling offers, their idea of a short season is 6 to 8 weeks. You may not like to hear that, but that's what they are saying. And they are also saying they only want to do this once a month or every other week. What's our voice going to be? Will it be "yes we hear you, but you can only have a 12 week or 16 week product because well, gee, its easier for us and besides you'll really like it?" Or are we going to say "We hear you and well, gee, we have a dynamite short season adult child program on a weekend day (when they want to bowl)that you are just going to love?"

Get your message strong in January; its the best time to start short season programs and the best time for our customers to hear our marketing "voice".

And take your Tami Flu.

A Coupon Cornucopia

Package goods marketers describe the distribution of free product as a way to get trial - the ability to get new purchases from non users or low users. In our industry we describe the process of getting trial as the distribution of free games.

In our business, free games are a marketing staple. We use it as a reward, as an incentive, as a gift, as a donation and as an apology.

When we get people to join a have a ball league, we might give them 5 free games or 10 free games at the end of the program. When we want to generate additional traffic we can distribute thousands of free games within our community, via shoe leather, via direct mail and now via email, facebook or twitter. If the lanes break down during open play, we will give free games to those unlucky participants too. Overall, it is a very useful tool.

What is not as well used is the bounce back coupon and if it is being used, it is stuck at "just one offer". The purpose of the bounce back is to give the customer an incentive to return to our business again by offering a reduced price offering for one of our products.

However we should be testing a series of offers. Test a "$5 off when you spend $15". Put a 1 month expiration on it. "This coupon valid 30 days from (date)".

Then after the month is over, test a straight $5 offer, valid Monday through Thursday from 9a to close. Again put a 30 day expiration on it.

The following month, test another offer. Maybe a FREE pizza. After 3 months test them all by distributing one of the three to a different customer every day. at the end of the fourth month you will know which one "pulled better".

You can even distribute bounce backs for a specific program. Give your cosmic bowlers a reason to come in on Wednesdays at 930pm. What incentive can you give them to bring a friend. Dollars off? Free Games? Food? Contributions to a Charity?

Why go through this process?

Because what you or I think is a great offer does not mean a lot.
In fact, it means nothing.

We need to let the customer tell us what offer motivates him off to get off his apathy and into our center.

Every day in every way.

Who is Buying?

In visiting my clients, I often here the lamentable phrases like, " our programs are really good, we offer great stuff, but as hard as we try, people just aren't buying it; its just not selling".

The second lamentable phrase I hear is, "We're a league based house; we only offer 32 week programs, now they want shorter and shorter league seasons, its just not fair!".

To these phrases I often say, "Hey Larry, your center is basing its marketing strategy on what you want to offer, not what the prospective customer wants to buy.

Would you buy something from someone who says you ought to buy this product even though you know there is something out there that's a better product or a cooler product?

Just because you try hard or sell better, doesn't mean that customers are going to go looking for your same old product. You wouldn't either, right?

If a product doesn't meet your needs as a consumer, why would it be good enough for you as a marketer?

Would you really buy into a 32 week program, when NEW consumers (like you) tell us they just want 6 to 8 week sessions?

Change is a good thing.
Try it.

It will make your marketing more productive.

Thanksgving Every Day

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Many of us will be at home with our families basking in the joy of good food, fun and lively conversation intermingled with a healthy dose of football.

The warmth of the home and hearth; a day off from the daily routine and, perhaps, even seeing some old friends we haven't seen in a while will make a day we can well remember.

Wouldn't it be great if our existing customers and new customers feel that kind of feeling every time they come into our bowling and entertainment center?

Start out with a "Welcome to Happy Lanes" sign in your front entrance.

Train your desk people to at least say "Welcome to Happy Lanes, My name is Fred" and ask "Have you been here before?" to any one who comes in.

Then make sure your person shakes hands, smiles and says "Welcome to Happy Lanes, how may I help you today?" or "Welcome back to Happy Lanes, how may I help you today."

Just start with this small step.
And maybe it will start to feel like Thanksgiving day, every day.

The New Marketing

It seems that the new marketing is all about "social marketing"; all about electronic and or digital marketing; and all about reaching people individually.

We like this new marketing. It makes our professional lives more precise. We now have measurement. There's no BS about how well you did on line. People either opened, clicked through or bought. "The numbers", as my friend Max says, "is the numbers".

But what has happened to the definition of marketing? It used to be that marketing was "The process of satisfying consumers needs and desires". Or how about this one? "The art and science of developing a product, a price and a promotion and distributing it in order to meet the demands of the market place". I guess these were as good as it got...back then.

Today, the new marketers are defining marketing as a "service". That's right, "a service" that helps people decide; while "sales" helps people buy.

By moving away from the old think of "creating demand, meeting demand or even making people buy things they don't want", we now can view the marketing process as a service that provides information to help people decide.

Skeptics will say, "wait a minute isn't marketing about creating dollars and increasing profits?" Sure it is, but isn't that the job of everyone in the company and not just the marketing person or department?

Wouldn't it be cool if we all saw marketing as a service to help people decide?

How would that change your approach to your business?
What information would you provide that you are not currently providing?

REI and Customer Loyalty

In an never ending search to bring you interesting information about world class companies, I wanted to share the story of REI (Recreational Equipment Inc); a chain of sporing goods stores with over $1.4 billion in annual sales employing over 9500 employees. REI has been ranked in the top 100 Companies to work for in the United States by Fortune Magazine since 1998, which earned them a place in the Fortune Magazine's "Hall of Fame". REI ranked as #12 in 2009.[3]

Lloyd and Mary Anderson founded REI in Seattle, Washington in 1938. The Andersons imported an Academ Pickel ice axe from Austria for themselves, and decided to set up a cooperative to help outdoor enthusiasts acquire good quality climbing gear at reasonable prices. However, in the 1980s, with changes to its Board of Directors, the emphasis shifted toward family camping and branched out into kayaking, bicycling, and other outdoor sports. Clothing, particularly "sport casual" clothes, also became a greater part of the company's product line. Although the company is still a cooperative, providing special services to its members, the "co-op" moniker has been dropped from much of its literature and advertising as it solicits business from the general public, even if they are not members.


Now here is the twist and here is how they develop a VERY loyal following

There is a one-time fee of $20 for lifetime membership to the co-op. REI normally pays an annual dividend check to its members equal to 10% of what they spent at REI on regular-priced merchandise in the prior year. The refund, which expires on December 31 two years from the date of issue, can be used as credit for further purchases or taken as cash or check between July 1 and December 31 of the year that the dividend is valid. Summaries of the financial statements are mailed with the member's dividend statement and are posted on the REI website.

Members are able to buy returned/used/damaged goods at significant discounts. Other benefits of REI membership include discounts on rentals and shop services, as well as rock wall access at locations that feature indoor climbing walls.

How can you apply this kind of marketing strategy to you bowling center or entertainment center? A store that gives money back to its customers for future purchases. If you think this is a great concept and you would like to implement something like this for your entertainment center or bowling center go to "www.bowlingrewards.com" and see for yourself what the future of bowling/entertainment marketing looks like.

Is E-mail Dead?

Clara Shih, author of "The Facebook Era," says social networks are slowly replacing email. I know you're saying, "Fred, I just figured this email thing out and now you're saying its dead?" No it's not dead, but it is being replaced by Facebook and Twitter for "social communications". Email will always leave a "paper trail" and will be perfectly acceptable for business, but from a social standpoint, that's another story.

Here's what Clara Shih's take is:

"Over 300 million people on Facebook, up 153% from last year. But not only are they signing up they are logging in. In fact, people are spending over 8 billion minutes a day on Facebook. That's an incredible amount of time and whatever business we're in whatever role or function we may play we need to be where our audience is.

We need to communicate through the channels preferred by those audiences whether it's internal audiences with our employees or external audiences with our customers. Twitter and IPhone show similar spectacular growth. 58 million users on Twitter today and nearly the same amount on the IPhone and so the question is is email dead?

I spoke with a lot of younger people in college and high school in researching while I was writing the Facebook Era and I was astonished to learn that many university students say just don't use email. They'll use email occasionally to communicate with their parents, or professor, prospective employer, other so called adults but with each other they're using Facebook, Facebook wall posts, Facebook messages and they're using SMS and that has real profound implications for how we as business leaders communicate.

Young people between the ages of 18 and 25 still comprise the largest group - 29% - but you'll see that the group 26 and 34 isn't far behind and the fastest growing group is actually people between the ages of 35 and 49 and surprisingly the second fastest growing group are women over the age of 55".

In a time when we are being cautious about the economic recovery and slow to expand our budgets again, the one area that is growing for people is social media and that's where the big boys are spending their money. Check out Disney or MGM or any major Theme Park on Facebook and you will see what Clara is talking about.

Everybody is Nobody

How much time do you and your staff spend on trying to get everyone to come bowling? After the flier is made, what happens next? Do you speak to everyone who comes into the center? Do you go to businesses in the area and distribute fliers?

If you are trying to go after everybody, you are going after NOBODY and unfortunately that's who usually responds to your offer. With open play being soft this fall, you have to be more precise in your marketing effort and go after specific segments; groups of people who have a greater possibility to buy your product.

Here is an example. Suppose you are trying to build a weekday 9pm open play program. The prime candidates for that product would be the 18 to 34 audience with a core group of 21 to 25. To reach this group, we hope you have a data base of emails of former customers with birthdays. This should be your first line of attack. Second, put the offer up on your web site. Third, send a 4 color postcard to a mailing list of 18 to 34 yr olds; send it 2 or 3 times.

Fourth, listen to various radio stations or cable TV and see where the local bars are advertising; then buy radio or cable on those networks or radio station (call the local "bar who is advertising" and ask them if their advertising is pulling results. then contact the media people and get their input. make them prove who their audience is. Make them show you results from other advertisers and do NOT ever buy a schedule that gives you the whole day (ROS schedule). It is not a targeted campaign and you will be wasting dollars...big time.

You need to find the right person to spread the word, to carry your message, to love your program and willing to tell other people. If you don't discipline your business to target the right "someone", you might end up with no one...and that will be expensive.

Zappos for Bowling

THE ZAPPOS PHILOSOPHY

Finding the right people is difficult. Keeping them is even more challenging.
But, would you pay someone to leave your company?

This is exactly what Zappos.com does. Haven't heard of Zappos? They are an Internet retailer that sells shoes (even bowling shoes). They are known for their customer service. Internally they have a saying: "We are a service company that happens to sell shoes. And apparel. And handbags. And accessories. And eventually anything and everything."

Zappos offers $1,500 to anyone who wants to quit. The firm actually offers to buy their new employees out of their jobs. (Between 2-3% of the people accept the offer.)

You see, Zappos only wants people working there who want to be there. They have an incredibly successful company, and realize that it is not about selling "stuff," but creating an experience that people love. No matter how great their website is, or how great their products are, their people back up the entire customer experience.

According to Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, "...in addition to trying to WOW our customers, we also try to WOW our employees, and the vendors and business partners..." And, they do.

Zappos has created a culture that has employees saying, "I love working here." How do they do it? First, everyone knows the "mantra." Second, Zappos trains well. Third, there are really cool perks that WOW the employees. No, not the usual corporate perks. They have pot-luck lunches, bowling parties, haunted houses at Halloween, holiday decorating, karaoke, picnics, go-carting and much more. The culture is fun. Most important, they have an environment where people can just be themselves.

All of this is a lesson on taking care of your internal customers so you can better serve your outside customers.


ZAPPOS' CORE PHILOSOPHY IS:
1. Deliver WOW through service.
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Create fun and a little weirdness.
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10.Be humble.

We Have Been Down This Road Before

We have been down this road before. Its early November and we are hoping the weather will turn and our open play business will pick up. So we send out a bevy of emails, direct mail, facebook and twitter communiques and maybe even use some traditional advertising and "hope for the best."

What if it doesn't pick up? What will you do now?

The answer is not simple but rather it involves the word "better". Better is relative. Are you better than your competition, better than you were yesterday or better than you expected?

The real better is to get "better customers, better prospects and find better people who believe in your product" and will buzz 25 other people about your product and how much fun they had at your center.

Customers who see the value of your product; customers who understand that it doesn't have to be cheap to be a good experience (In fact, it doesn't have to be cheap at all) are customers who are better. Simply because they are different. So stop treating all customers the same. Is there a gold level of service and appreciation for your most gold level customers?

Some of your league bowlers are better customers because they come to your center so often, and in their way, appreciate your facility and the fact that you are providing a quality recreation experience for them. The trick is to find those league bowlers that really love your product and cater to them; hug them if you have to! Just treat them differently.

League bowlers are hardly ever spoken to outside of a quick "how you doing?" When was the last time any of them spread the word for you? When was the last time they really invited some other person to bowl with them in another league or in their existing league? And if they did, did you know about it and thank them, reward them or show your appreciation for their effort? Do you know who they are?

There may also be some open play bowlers out there as well that are loyal and happy about your product. Find these people and find them now; treat them differently because they are better. Cater to them. Appreciate them. Love them

And stop worrying about the weather turning.

Ducks Quack - Eagles Soar

My friend and client Willis Johnson of the Tivoli Movie Chain in Downers Grove Illinois preaches customer service. His chain of movie theatres and his bowling center are the epitome of great service. If you get to Chicagoland, be sure to catch a movie in one of his theatres or go bowling at the Tivoli Bowl, a great little center that has a unique selling proposition . It’s called “hometown feel”. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t. It reflects Willis’ personality. Straight to the point. No BS. What you see is what you get. So when he sent me this article, I just had to share it with you.

No one can make you serve customers well....that's because great service is a choice.
Harvey Mackay tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.

He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine.. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey.

He handed my friend a laminated card and said: 'I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.'

Taken aback, Harvey read the card.. It said: Wally's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment....

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.' My friend said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.' Wally smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice..' Almost stuttering, Harvey said, 'I'll take a Diet Coke.'

Handing him his drink, Wally said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today..'

As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'

And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts...

'Tell me, Wally, my amazed friend asked the driver, 'have you always served customers like this?'

Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. 'No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day.

He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself.. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'

'That hit me right between the eyes,' said Wally. 'Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers.. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'

'I take it that has paid off for you,' Harvey said.

'It sure has,' Wally replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.'

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I've probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn't do any of what I was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.
How about us? Smile and the whole world smiles with you.... The ball is in our hands!
A man reaps what he sows. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up... let us do good to all people.
Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar.

Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans.

Words To The Wise

Lately I have been falling a bit behind on some books. My Kindle has about 20 books on it (can hold 2,000 I am told!) and I have been reading three or four simultaneously. It makes for interesting multi task actions, but also one where, unlike hard cover books or paper back books,it requires a more focused approach to reading and understanding.

So with that in mind, here are some of my recent and favorite reads that I hope you will like.

1. "How To Sell When Nobody's Buying" by Dave Lakhani
If you have ever had to sell to a group of decision makers or just make some outside sales for your company parties or fund raisers, then this book is for you. It will also give you some very specific ways to up sell, down sell your prospects. Its an easy read on "adapting to newer strategies like social media or video presentations

2. Word of Mouth Advertising - How Smart Companies Get People Talking by Andy Sernovitz, Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin
The book is a quick read - 4hrs total, give or take, and it's packed full not only of WOM theory and a bit of history, but also with some concrete ideas from real WOM marketers and a checklist or two to boot. I love checklists!

3. Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Ram Brafman
The Brafmans do an excellent job showcasing the irrational behavior all around us. Whether you're a doctor, venture capitalist, teacher, or even a college football coach, there are subtle psychological cues driving you to engage in irrational behaviors that can have a significant negative impact on your life. Reading the anecdotes, one might wonder 'how can anyone ever do that?' The book's close inspection of many different situations shows us that we all do it, and in fact, most of us are guilty of irrationality every single day. 'Sway' lifts the mystery behind these subtleties of irrational thinking and allows us to be more critical of ourselves so we can understand really what is driving the decisions we make day in and day out. It will provide an insight into some irrational customers you may face

Read On!

Maybe It's Me

Maybe its me.

I have been immersed for two days in email marketing, blog marketing, twitter and facebook marketing. Been up to my eyeballs in SEO, auto responders, linkages, and cross optimization. It's all great stuff. It's all good information and learning how to do it is absolutely essential for all of us. Or if we choose not to do it, to know what we want so we can hire someone to do it for us. No doubt it is a TACTIC that has become omnipresent.

Tactics are what we all love. We spend oodles of time on checking copy, art work, types of paper, music, scripts, web design, email templates, etc. etc. etc. And we love very minute of it because we can touch it and see it and hear it. Sometimes we even feel it and taste it.

It's the other stuff, before we get to the tactics, that we may be ignoring; its a 2 step process;

1. Approach: are you domineering or bossy or even authoritative. Or are you subservient, non confrontational? Do you get a lot of input from books? Do you test your gut and set up cells for that purpose? Are you ever wrong or do you ever admit it? Is your approach or rather your style a fundamental building block to the business you are in or contemplating? Choose a bad style and all the great tactics in the world go away.

Ever have someone say, "Man, this is a great business if it wasn't for the stupid customers." Now there's someone who will be on life support pretty damn soon!

2. Attitude: some people think this is the most important aspect of the plan because it indicates why you started the business, what you want from it, what kind of people you will hire and how you treat them both as employees and as people. it asks the fundamental question, "why are you doing this at all...besides the money?"

If we dance around these two building blocks and never reach a viable strategy, all the slick tricks, meta tags, embedded codes, auto responders, e-mails, templates and copy points, (with benefits and guarantees), will be merely window dressing if the direction we plotted is just plain wrong.

Translation: Mess up your attitude and approach and even the best tactics will fail, and fail badly.

When was the last time you had a strategy check up?

E Mail From Hell

With the proliferation of email, I find, and I am sure that you do as well, that our email mailboxes are stuffed every morning. In fact, even our spam boxes are filled with hundreds of unwanted emails that have to be cleared out. A bit of a pain, but we put up with it. Billions of emails are now floating out there in cyberspace, ready to hit your PC every micro-second.

So what's a government to do with all the complaints of "unwanted" or "spam" email. Easy, just a question of time before the government does what governments always do; they will tax email distribution or charge a fee for it. Think how that will help to DECREASE the deficit. Not! I guess there will soon be a US Department of Special Emailing Taxation that will be funded by the tax. The tax won't do anything, but it will make the lawyers happy because they will have another issue to litigate. No doubt, it will impact the big guys that send out 100,000 or more emails a day, but it will impact us too. Just a question of time, my friends, just a question of time.

But, and here is what mass email proliferation means for us; the honest email marketer, just trying to personally and economically communicate with people who gave us permission. It jades our customers. It makes them suspicious. It makes our business, the email provider, equally suspicious. Consumers will ask, "is it real or is it spam"? Consumers really don't remember who they gave permission to any more and as a result "open rates" on emails are less than 10%. LESS THAN 10%. (Some reports show email open rates at less than 5%) If you think this number is exaggerated, think about all the emails you deleter every day!

So, if you are counting on your email as a substitute for more traditional forms of advertising, you may be miscounting.

The fact is, a consistently layered approach that adds social networking, direct mail, postcards, letters, as well as radio and or cable TV (by the way because of the recession, media rates have gotten less expensive)to your marketing program is really the only way to go if you want the kinds of results you deserve!

If you want some creative solutions to these issues, give me a jingle at 212 867 2577 or my cell @ 516 359 4874 or comment or email me.

I won't hit the delete key.

The Leader of The Pack

For those of you who have ever seen "The Dog Whisperer" with Cesar Milan, or for those who have not seen it, you might be interested to know that Cesar Milan has built a multimillion dollar business based on his skill with pets and their owners.

Now, in its 6th season, "The Dog Whisperer", on the National Geographic Network, premiered in 2004 and has grown into an hour long show with over 11 million weekly viewers. Some of his clients have been famous pet owners such as Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Michael Eisner and Oprah Winfrey. For these "rock star" people, he typically charges $10,000 to $100,000 for his time.

His philosophy of dog training is simple; train the HUMAN to become the pack leader in their own homes. Since dogs are by nature creatures of the pack, the human must be the pack leader so the dog will follow his instructions. He bases his training on three pillars; exercise, discipline and affection.

One of Cesar Milan's favorite authors, Dr. Wayne Dwyer has taught Mr. Milan the power of intention. According to Mr Milan, "the power of intention teaches that anything that is realistic, if I can create it in my own mind, it can become a reality". He further states that by combining this power of intention with balance, "our most important tool; calm assertive energy", any one can become a pack leader.

Perhaps that's what it takes to lead our pack of employees. If we exercise our employees' minds by challenging them to solve little problems at first and then bigger problems later, we can train them into shape. Then by creating a disciplined environment where name badges, uniforms, precise telephone answering techniques; and a customer centered approach to customer service is always present, we can bring structure to an environment that is inherently chaotic. Discipline will also come into play if we consistently "inspect what we expect" and teach accountability to our employees...and maybe to ourselves as well. And finally, if we as owners become that pack leader, we can do it with affection, with a sense of humor and with a feeling that we are moving our organization to a new level of performance.

Woof.

Pricing For Profit

A recent article in The Daily Beast, an on line news source says,"the recession has consumers paying with debit cards instead of credit cards. This spring, Visa announced that spending on debit cards increased 4.1% while spending on credit cards sank 14.8%. And the Federal Reserve announced that revolving credit, primarily credit cards, plummeted $6.1 billion or 8% annually in July".

With more people using debit cards, it tips us off that people are no longer wiling to carry big balances on their cards, but would rather adopt "pay as you go" spending.

It could also be a reaction to high credit card fees that banks have been charging and now, once stung, consumers have moved to using debit cards with lower or no fees.

Is this an opportunity for all of us in the "discretionary income" business? I think so...but with caution. We have seen how consumers can sacrifice and save (savings rates are moving toward 6% - the highest in decades) and also curtail their discretionary spending. After all, its easy to decrease your spending when you don't have any money or credit to spend!

However; as bad as spending is today, the US Consumer will still spend as much as he did in 2005 and that was a good year!

But the debit card phenomenon lets customers pay with their plastic cash and therefore they receive no MONTHLY bill at the end of the billing cycle. if there is no pain at the end of the month and no bill to stop them next month, maybe slightly higher prices won't stop them either. After all haven't your costs increased?

As we move into the colder months, check your pricing. That Pizza Pins N Pop program that you have had at $49.95 forever - maybe by raising it to $54.95 with 4 weeks of $5 bounce backs, delivered via email and press releases to MOMS groups in the area, can generate increased cash flow. That $2.50 shoe rental? Can you get to $2.75? Or better yet; build it into your open play pricing and proclaim "NEVER PAY FOR SHOE RENTALS AGAIN."

How about the cosmic nights for $13.95 per person or $25.00 per hour? Can you move that to $14.95 and $27.50 an hour; introduced with a series of bounce backs to keep your regular customers coming back and as an offer for new customers.

The secret is and this is one of our FredQuarters Marketing rules: When you raise prices, create an offer that is so enticing that the increased price is tangential and just becomes absorbed into your "new normal".

Maybe they will even put it on their debit card.

The Rude Customer...Handled

One of my followers sent me this and I wanted to pass it on to you. While I cannot verify the accuracy of this story, it should make those of us, who work with the customer every day, smile because even though the customer is not always right, he is still the customer.

For all Employees Who Work with Rude Customers - An award should go to the Westjet gate attendant in Kelowna , British Columbia some 12 months ago for being smart and funny, while making her point, when confronted with a passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo.

A crowded flight was canceled after Westjet's 767s had been withdrawn from service. A single attendant was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it HAS to be FIRST CLASS".

The attendant replied, "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these people first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out." The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?"

Without hesitating, the attendant smiled and grabbed her public address microphone: "May I have your attention please; may I have your attention please, " she began - her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at Gate 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to Gate 14."

With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the attendant, gritted his teeth and said, "F...You!" Without flinching, she smiled and said, (I love this bit) "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to get in line for that too."

The Hotel Lobby

it used to be, before there were social networks, that chatting and having a conversation with colleagues or friends occurred in a hotel lobby, usually over drinks and usually before or after dinner. It was a pleasant time when people let their hair down and discussed both business and personal issues. It was a time when opinions were given, facts offered and disputed, beliefs expressed and non verbal communications displayed.

Today the "informal communication" is a social network phenomenon. Twitter, Facebook, My Space, old fashioned email and even this blog are the "new media"; the new way we communicate.

While this new media is both powerful and pervasive, it lacks the so called non verbal communication cues we, as humans, find so helpful in understanding the message.

So here's the tip: when using this new media, make sure that your communication tells a story; that it become a conversation that speaks to one person, like "talking in a hotel lobby" to a friend or business acquaintance.

For those of you that have a facebook page or a twitter account or even a regular old email, before you put your flier up on your page, try to tell a story about your center, your offer, and your benefits.

Make it personal. Because communication is always personal and is always created by the receiver.

Then maybe, just maybe I will read it.

Value Inspired

We have been packaging open play products now for quite some time. Whether it be pizza and bowling, burgers and bowling or chicken wings and bowling (anybody for wing it n' fling it?), our customers have found great value in the bowling and food experience we present to them.

To hitchhike on these ideas, we created simple league programs like Party Animals where every team gets a pizza and a pitcher of beer during league play. Pricing is done to create a great value with the idea that one beer leads to two and that one "smallish" pizza leads to more food over a two and one half hour experience. More often than not, this is exactly what happens.

However, with league play still in a bit of a free fall, creating league programs that are more value inspired will become the norm.

For example, offering league bowlers a 3 game experience and their first drink for $x is a value experience and one where many young adults 21 to 34 would find attractive. The drinks we include are well drinks and domestic bottles or drafts. You are NOT giving the drink away; it is not FREE; you can ring up the drink at retail price and the remainder is rung up as lineage. Maybe this is an October start for you on second shift or a first shift fill. Run with it if you like.

What would you name this program? How would you market it?

Strategy Vest

This internet stuff is pretty new to many of us.

Some of us have immersed ourselves in it. Others have given control to "the geeks, the gurus and the computer guys" We have taken to trust them to move us up on Google search; to build our sites; to send out the tweets; to update the face book pages and my space pages; to add coupons and to count clicks.

In many cases, we have turned our marketing efforts over to these new media manipulators, without considering the strategy behind the communications. Yes, these 21st century media mavericks know their stuff and they are no doubt good at what they do because people hire them. And they produce results; that is getting people to the site. Or getting people to surrender their email address and cell phone number.

New media is based upon the fact that you can track purchasing behavior and frequency and all the other good things about segmentation we can think of, but without the great offer and the emotional call to action, what are we doing?

In our quest for the magic pill,the miracle elixir, we continue to turn our future over to those who know less about our particular operation than we do. We rarely ask them to study our market or to define what our objectives should be or what we should expect. Why don't we demand this level of accountability?

The magic pill is only as good as the strategy behind it. The tactics must be based upon analytical, strategic conclusions garnered from empirical data. It is not about embedded images or invisible codes or anything else. All these machinations do is to get the prospect to your site more efficiently to see something that is not relevant to them. Duh!

But, if your offer sucks or is not on target, getting people to your web site is really counterproductive. After all, isn't that what "old media" used to do?

So before you hire Merlin to do "his internet thing", make sure your objectives and strategy are bullet proof. Now go put on your strategy vest.

Square One

Whenever you think you know it all, it’s probably time to go back to square one. What does it mean to go back to square one? Does it mean that everything up until that point has to be redone or can we take everything we have learned up to this point and move forward, only in a different direction?

I think we have to start over. The very thought process that brought us to this “NO Go decision” point assumed certain variables were in play. As the world turned and new events occurred to alter our perspective, these existing variables may still be the right ones, but the importance of each one may have changed, the weight we attach to each one may have changed and a new variable may be coming into play. Or maybe several new variables.

“What has changed”? That is the simple question. What variables will impact your business MORE (either negatively or positively) next week, next month, next year is the more complex question?.

But if you ask that question frequently enough, you will be able to find answers you cannot even imagine. And maybe some new opportunities

And that's a good thing.

Creativity

Same old, same old just doesn't sell anymore.

To make your marketing stand out, you need to get creative. Below are five tips designed to get your creative juices flowing.

Some tips may appeal to you more than others. My suggestion is to try them all. Even the ones you're not drawn to may still open some doors that wouldn't have opened any other way.

These tips will work whether you sell a product, a service or both.

1. Find the "second right answer." Roger von Oech talks about this in A Whack on the Side of the Head. Don't be content with the first good idea you come up with. Take the time to think of a second, or third or 50th idea. Quantity counts – the more ideas you have to choose from, the more likely you'll discover an excellent or even a brilliant one. Remember, Thomas Edison discovered thousands of ways a light bulb didn't work.

2. Change the question. If you change the question, you're probably going to get a different answer. You say you want to sell more games? What if you changed the question to how can you make more money? Well, there are other ways to make more money than to sell more games – maybe you invent new products that offer bonuses or rewards for performance and people pay for that. Hey, if you had www.bowlingrewards.com, you could reward people for strikes, spares, 3 6 9 games and a whole bunch of other competitive fun stuff. Now, you suddenly have new avenues to explore rather than just going down the same tired path.

3. Ask your product or service how it wants to be sold. Now we move into more intuitive techniques. OK, take a deep breath and say, "this is crazy, but who knows”? Take a few deep breaths or practice some relaxation techniques. Imagine your product or service in front of you. Now, ask it questions. I mean, if you were a game of bowling or an hour of bowling how would you like to be sold? Would you want to be wrapped up in a pretty box and get delivered to all the companies in town? Who do you want to be sold to? How do you want to be sold? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Who do you think you can help? Why do you want to help them?. Write down the question and answer. See what bubbles up onto the paper.


4. Paint a public relations campaign. No, not a press release with a paint by numbers image, but something that might get you remembered. I once sent one rose to 100 female HR directors to remind them that their employees would "love them" if they had a bowling party. Did pretty well too! What would a press release look like if you painted it? Or sculpted it? How would you paint FUN. What would the kids in the local school think about fun? Maybe you could sponsor a coloring contest and ask them to show what fun is in a bowling center or at a bowling birthday party. Take any part of your marketing that you are not happy with and turn it into a piece of art. By combining two dissimilar acts, you may discover your answer. Or you may not come up with anything at all, but just the act of "playing" and "creating" could break something loose. Hours or days later your idea may suddenly be staring you in your face!

5. Walk away from it. If nothing is working, then stop. You can literally walk away by taking a walk (or go for a run; it produces those good endorphins that make you feel better than two martinis), or just quit thinking about it. This is especially important if you find yourself getting frustrated or discouraged. Give your subconscious time to mull things over. The idea may just suddenly appear to you. Or, after a few days, try another exercise or two. That may be the catalyst you need.

The most important tip of all? Make sure you have a blast. Having fun is its own reward. But having fun that rings the cash register, ah that’s a whole other feeling. Being creative is not a struggle; it’s a process that will reward you with many opportunities. So Have Fun!

How To Compete

A friend of mine, Wood Foss, owner of Alley Katz lanes in Westerly RI who is also a client, passed along some interesting information about how we compete with other companies. It was in a blog by Chris Brogan, a very savvy internet marketer who speaks about the key differentiators that make one company unique from its competitors.

He makes the key point that being "helpful" is a great way to compete. He sights several companies that have built their business on being helpful. Zappos, the remarkable online shoe retailer built a billion dollar business based on making their customers buying experience unbelievably easy, seamless and enjoyable.

Craigslist built a 100 million dollar company around the idea that excellent service, combined with being a member of the community were his key differentiators

Here's a Brogan key differentiators can you solve a problem I don't know I have? Think Sony Walkman (who needed earphones strapped to their head?); and VirginUSA who solves the problem of "flying is kind of boring" Think Apple I-Phone and the bzillion applications you didn't know you need, but now you want it!

What problems do you think your entertainment customers don't know they have that you can solve?ts worth a comment back to us if you come up with something cool. And we'll publish it too.

Brogan goes through over 10 ways to compete, but saves the best for last. "Its a dodgy game to compete on price. Its always a race to the bottom", he says. I tend to agree. Just ask Caldor or Montgomery Wards or Woolworth or other big box guys that are GONE. They won the race to the bottom.

Oh, there are other ways to compete. But I suggest you go to www.chrisbrogan.com and see for yourself. Share it with your employees. They may just come up with a few differentiators of their own.

9.7%

9.7% unemployment is the new number.

Is it just a number? Or does it mean that some 13mm people are out of work (based on 132mm in the workforce)? Or does it mean that another 5mm have basically stopped looking? Who knows what the real numbers are or for that matter who is really helping your local customers to find jobs?

The people who got hurt the most are in the manufacturing and construction industries; however, there are thousands of white collar employees, especially between the ages of 35 to 54, who got bumped also. They are the "forgotten people", inside the unemployment number, currently in the news.

For those of you in hard hit communities, why not establish a "network night" and see if you can get local employers to set up a few tables on your concourse, at 930pm, and interview locals for jobs. Or can you get with some local politicos and ask for their help to establish a support group where locals can come and speak to other people who are in the same boat?

You can do something. And when the economy picks up, the community will remember what you did and reward you with loyalty and business.

If you care, do something. Just be authentic.

The New "Multi Minded" Women

"Forget multi tasking - women like Varma - are 'multi minding', a newly coined phrase that describes the process of simultaneously thinking about various concepts."
Gogoi in Business Week - online


Pallavi Gogoi, for Business Week, wrote that "multitasking is passe and that multi minding- not tasking but MINDING - is the new process that today's women use to manage the complex aspects of mixing family, career, and decisions about self and the ability to switch from concept to concept without missing a beat".

Women now account for $3.3 trillion dollars in consumer spending (that's three times our current national debt!!!) and are responsible for 85% of ALL purchase decisions. They also take 50% of all business trips.

Women also account for 1 in 10 motorcycle riders and make up 1 in 8 Harley Davidson purchases. Are we breaking down the old stereotypes? We're talking purchasing power and decision making!

The Business Week reporter continues: "Today's woman may be appearing to relax in front of late night television, or reading a magazine at a pediatrician's office or tackling a complicated analytical project at work, but she could just as easily be thinking about the other dimensions of her life like her 401k program; plotting a garden, clipping coupons, working on an analytical problem and also thinking about a neck massage."

As Tom Peters and Marti Belleta say in their book "Re - Imagine!", "...we must wake up and smell the truth; women are the primary purchasers of...damn near everything."

So what is the secret ingredient that will motivate women to buy your product? There is no silver bullet or a one stop answer about how to more effectively engage women. But one hint to this answer is to read a great book called "Too Busy To Shop", marketing to multi minding women by Kelley Murray Skoloda.

You can choose to dwell on old stereotypes about today's women or you can choose to honestly try to connect and engage this powerful economic force that influences birthday party decisions, youth bowling, mixed league bowling,food purchases and even bar sales. Read the Book!

p.s. Hint, hint, hint: Think connection, networking, social networks and social issue marketing.

Getting To Yes

Why is it when I go to some big box retailers and ask for some help in my buying decision there is nary a sales person present? And if I want an item gift wrapped after 6pm, the wrapping department is closed. Why is that? Is it because there are not enough "Yes Men" or Yes Women"? Have these people been trained to say, "we cannot solve this issue" as sweetly as possible; always smiling and saying "I wish I could help you, but the company says blah, blah, blah". Why is that?

Because they have no incentive to get to Yes.

In over 85% of the cases, they just don't care. The remaining 15% will try to help you, even working to gift wrap the packages themselves...under penalty of Big Brother and The Holding Company (Sorry Janis)

On the other hand, when I go to my local mom and pop retailer, they are almost killing themselves to wait on me, to sell me something, to gift wrap it,to thank me profusely for my business and to ask me to join their E-mailing list. Some will even deliver it to my home if it is too heavy. They get it. They get to Yes quickly and consistently.

If you find your employees are too busy apologizing to customers for lack of service or just lack the service skills they need to get to Yes, then send them to one of these big box retailers and let them ask for something out of the ordinary. They will soon understand the frustration your customer feels when your employees cannot get them to Yes.

If you find them saying that "the task is impossible or we don't do that here", ask them to go to the DMV or the Post office for a wonderful experience. "Can't mail that package; too heavy; box is too big; needs more wrapping and so on might be just some of the things they will hear at Uncle Sam's post office. UPS, Fed Ex and any of the "for profit" companies will gladly take your package and give you whatever you need to ship that puppy.

It doesn't matter if you are a small company, a big company, a government bureaucracy or a family entertainment center, ALL of your people need to get to Yes every time they interact with a customer. Every single time. With no exceptions.

If they don't believe how important this is or don't understand your insiistence on this issue, give them this sticker to put up on their refrigerator door: "Dear Customer; Thanks for the Food".

Maybe that will get them to Yes and get you to greater profitability.

The Labor Day Question

For the past 30 years, Labor day has always signaled the kick off of the league season. It was, and is, a time of wonderment. "Will our leagues fill in as they have in the past? What will my season look like? Can I fill those holes that I ended up with last year?"

With today's technological advances in data base marketing, the use of social media networking, emailing and IM'ing, you should have those answers now, before Labor day.

You do have them don't you?

If you do not have those answers, it's just another reason to get your data base tuned up and optimized to bring in new customers and to get existing customers to come back .

Speak to the experts at www.bowlingrewards.com
or the folks at www.kidsbowlfree.com

Otherwise, there will be surprises.
And surprises are only appreciated at Birthdays.

Compared to Who?

It is that time of year again, when many entertainment venues, especially bowling centers, are working over time to make sure their league customers are coming back, that their centers are in the best possible shape and that their staffs are trained and ready to go.

At the same time this full court press on league development is occurring, these same venues also make critical decisions on open play pricing; new league and casual play product offerings as well as how to best communicate these offers to their customers. Too often, these decisions are based on what other bowling centers are doing. The comparison is usually only made between one center and neighboring centers.

Now, if there are similar centers with similar services and similar price/value products, how will the customer choose? What will make one center stand out over others? What benefit, or set of benefits that you can implement, will persuade the customer to choose your center instead of "the other guy"?

The problem is in the comparison.
You're measuring yourself against the wrong matrix.

Compare your entertainment center to Disney or Nordstrom or Zappos.com or any of the great service providers. These providers are your benchmarks, not the center down the street, around the corner or across town.

When I was a high school basketball player and wanted to improve my basketball game, I had to play against better players to learn better moves and to to have my skills challenged. It didn't do me any good to play against players of similar skill levels or lesser levels; after all what could I learn?

If you continue to measure yourself similar centers, you are comparing yourself to businesses with similar skill levels. What will you learn? What can you improve? What benefits and attributes can you take away from these other great providers and apply to your center?

Raise the measurement bar, compare yourself to better service providers and you will raise your customer awareness, initial attendance and repeat business.

So when you say your center is "better" or gives "great customer service", ask one more question, "compared to who?"

Good to Great

In his new book, "Outliers", author Malcolm Gladwell claims that the difference between good and great is about 10,000 hours. In studying great musicians, artists, business people and other creative types who practice their trade, he noted that the "great" performers, those who are truly outstanding, have devoted 10,000 hours or more to their endeavors. These are the few who are truly great.

In real terms, that means if you had spent 20 hours a week at your chosen profession or craft for 10 years you would have put in over 10,000 hours, and because of that, you should be a great performer; a truly "world class" performer.

Being "good" at what we do makes us just average, but being "great" requires that we hone our marketing and management skills to a fine edge over a 10,000 hour period; that what we do every day is being done with a surgeon's skill. "Precision Marketing" as I call it means that we understand the problem definition process, understand strategy, tactics and implementation time lines. The great ones know how to get it done and how to get it done right. There is no room in today's brutally competitive environment to miss a note, to play off key or to miss a stroke. The great ones always perform.

For those of us in the entertainment business who have put in this kind of time, how many of us feel we are truly great? How many of us can look at issues and quickly, with precision accuracy, define the issues as well as developing potential solutions?

If you haven't put in your time and spent the 10,000 required hours, what would you do now to become great at what you do?

The Good. The Bad. And The Ugly

This is the story about a good customer service experience and a bad customer service experience from the same company, all in about a space of 37 minutes.

On a recent business trip, I was slowly making my way from Toronto to NYC, when a severe thunderstorm interrupted those plans and caused me to get canceled out of a connecting flight from Philadelphia to NYC. I quickly jumped on my cell phone and within a pretty short time was able to get a hotel room at the local airport as well as make train reservations to see a client in Annapolis the following day


In a fairly agitated state of mind, I told the Fairfield INN reservation lady my plight and asked for a room at the Inn. She proceeded to give me all the guarantee information and "if I should cancel I would be charged". She paid absolutely no attention to the fact that it was 1235am and I needed a room NOW; not after 6pm on the same day. When she made the reservation for me, she again repeated the corporate policy. I interrupted her and said, "thank you but I know all that". Her reaction? A very curt good bye accompanied by a very abrupt "hang up". Click and she was gone.

At that point, I did not know where to catch the shuttle bus to the hotel, what terminal I was at or when the driver would be coming to pick me up. A quick call to the Inn and they reassured me where to get picked up and that the driver would be on his way.

Once at the hotel, check in proceeded . As I inserted my key into the room and opened the door I saw two people were "kind of" sleeping there. After the appropriate screams, I went back to the desk manager and told him what had just occurred. The manager was mortified and immediately called the room, personally apologized to the people and told them he would give them a remunerative credit. He offered me an upgraded room at the same cost, apologized profusely and gave me a credit for a future stay.

Great service and bad service from the same company in one short period. The "good" was negated by "The bad". How often does that happen in your business?

To be remarkable, you have to be consistently consistent.

Woodstock

Forty years ago this weekend,the seminal event that defined a generation took place in Bethel NY. At this "quaint little music event" held on Max Yagur's farm in Bethel NY, millions of young people, hippies, flower children and other labeled types of people descended on this town for a weekend of music, love and fun.

Who would have thought that 40 years later those who attended this Woodstock event would be reminiscing about it and telling their friends "I was there". It probably never occurred to these people that 40 years later this concert would be analyzed, dissected, defined, redefined and discussed to the degree that it has been discussed; so much so that the legend of Woodstock grew larger every year.

Many people who attended the concert did so on a whim, not knowing what it would mean to them for the rest of their lives, not knowing that amongst the music and good "vibes" there would be rain, mud, lack of food and shelter and massive traffic jams to endure.

No doubt Woodstock mania must drive the younger generation nuts because it is another reminder of how the baby boomer generation had endured the isolation; the feelings of being disconnected and stranded and how everybody slept in the rain because no one wanted to miss Jimmy or Janis or Richie sing their songs.

Current young people may have their own concerts with hundreds of thousands of people in some remote location listening to music, eating and drinking and just having a heck of a good time. With one exception, young people today would never be cut off from the rest of the world.

From texting to twittering to IM-ing to emailing, young people today never feel that sense of being 'cut off; of being isolated and alone. No, they are all connected and always will be. Even as I write this, there is someone in some garage figuring out a new social network idea to "revolutionize" the way we communicate and market our products.

The message to remember is: their "connectivity" and the ability to spread your message far more quickly then ever before, while perhaps started by the younger generation is by no means confined to the younger generation.

Give your customers a Woodstock experience that they will be talking about until they are "64"!

Maybe It's a Problem with the Bowl

Lots of small business owners bump their heads against figurative walls when trying to grow. No matter what they do, nothing seems to change.

I would like to suggest that perhaps the simple Goldfish can offer some aid in illustrating my point today. Anyone who has owned more than one Goldfish, for more than a month, can attest to the fact that these fish will grow only to the extent of the size of the bowl or tank they live in. So, if you're experiencing problems growing your business, maybe it's not the fish, maybe it's a problem with the size of your bowl.

Here's a little of what I mean -
If you want to grow, it's not enough to just do more of what you are currently doing:

You must grow your definition of what's possible
You must be confidently willing to charge much more than you do currently
You must clearly raise your sites on what makes an ideal customer for your center
You must re-evaluate how you go to work each day and what you decide is a priority
You must consider finding vendors that can help you get where you are going
You must make receiving a referral from every customer the goal of customer service
You must enjoy swimming in open water, trusting that the other side of the tank will appear!

OK, maybe a little goofy to make a point, but it's better than getting flushed down the toilet; the fate of far too many a Goldfish and small business

Recession Changes Consumers Behavior Now and In Future

Here are some sobering statistics for any small-business owner:

"Two-thirds of respondents to a recent survey by online marketing
company Performics say, 'the recession has fundamentally changed the way they
think about saving and spending money now and the future'.

What's more, the'2009 Online Buyer Economic Trend Study' showed 8 out of 10
respondents say,'the recession will have a lasting impact on how they buy
products and services.'

In this type of climate, how do you market your products and services to capture consumers precious dollars?

Here are four (4) ideas that work NOW.

1. Help customers save money. Saving money is probably your customers biggest concern right now - so you need to be able to show how your entertainment product or service will do this. the use of a rewards or frequency program (www.bowlingrewards.com) does just that (not to mention an easy way to get a real live database; not just a bunch of emails with no purchasing behaviour patters; an essential ingredient for future marketing). One small firm I read about recently has gotten more business than it can handle by auditing commercial customers shipping expenditures and finding cheaper solutions. key to making the sale, the company doesn't charge any upfront fee, but takes a percentage of the savings - so clients don't pay anything unless they save money.


2. Get out in the community. The online community is important, of course, but I am also talking about the physical community. There is a growing trend of consumers "thinking local" when they spend money. Consumers also care more than ever about social responsibility-so if they see that your business is an active, involved part of the local community, they will be more likely to patronize it. There are many ways to get involved, from sponsoring local schools, special events or sports teams, to participating in charitable causes, to speaking in front of local organizations relevant to your business. Whatever the activity, the key is to make sure there is a relevant tie-in. For instance, if you own a bowling center or a soft play center, childrens physical fitness can be your "cause". You could sponsor bowling events, school fun runs or community sports teams. You could donate athletic equipment to schools and speak with parent groups about how to help their kids stay fit. Leave behind handouts,coupons or other special offers for the people at any event in which you are involved. In addition, make sure to publicize your activities with a press release.

3. Get niche. I recently read about a realtor who had one of his best years ever last year. Yes, you read that right. Why? Because he had developed a specialty - selling homes built in one particular style of mid-century modern architecture. By becoming known in the national and local community as an expert in this area, whehever homebuyers were searching for someone who could help them buy this type of home, they would be directed to him. Most successful small companies already have a niche, but consider how you can narrow down your niche even more. Are there more targeted subsets of your target market you could be reaching? Is there one product or service area where spinning off something into a niche item would yield big rewards? Then validate these claims with real testimonials or letters from your customers that you can post on your social media sites (i.e. best birthday party specialists for the under 6 year old crowd, home of the HIP party, the place to be for Rock N Bowl, or the "most fun" short season bowling programs, or world class coaching for existing league bowlers or newbies).

4. Convince customers you are worth it. Many small businesses focus on upscale, or luxury products. While some of these are taking a hit, others are doing surprisingly well. Why? With less money to spend, consumers are thinking harder about where to spend it, and they want products that are special in some way. If your entertainment product is unique and you can create a remarkable position for your center, then your marketing should emphasize that position. Make sure your Website, marketing materials and packaging tells the story that makes what you are selling unique. For example, you could post a chart on your website comparing your center to the competition based upon these variables:

* cost for a family of four
* close to home
* one stop for fun,food and socialinteraction
* get rewards for participating
* total family time
* friendly competition
* other?

To market in a recession, put on your guerilla marketing hat,dig a little deeper, and do something remarkable.

Strawberry Fields

Management Tips from the Beatles

Andrew Sobel, a management consultant and author of Strategy and Business says, "the Beatles are a textbook example of how to forge cooperation and creativity inside an organization".

To paraphrase Sobel, he says there are at least four lessons to be learned from the Beatles success:

1. Their early years performing in small clubs forged a true sense of spirit decorps that is rare today when virtual teams are common. Invest in and build time, especially face time, among key members.

2. The Beatles music evolved over time, so must your center’s products and programs. Keep testing, introducing and refining your products. If it is going to generate new ideas, it can’t be a one hit wonder.

3. While John and Paul wrote most of the songs, from time to time, Ringo and George were given a chance to shine. “It’s great to feel part of a team”, says Sobel, “but in the end every one needs a sense of personal importance as well.” The lesson to be learned: give team members a project of their own that will make them look good in their own right?”

4. And finally, the make up of the group is important. Each member must be able to contribute different skills and be of different temperaments to encourage creativity and problem solving

Of course, nothing lasts forever, (except for “Strawberry Fields”) and the Beatles broke up in April 1970

Social Media Thoughts

You know, we are doing something wrong.

I see so many bowling centers, mini golf courses, FEC's and other types of entertainment facilities that are so proud they have a Facebook page that they cannot wait to show and tell it to every body who will care to see it. In fact, their "Social" media page has turned into a 21st century fax or a traditional print advertisement or, worse, a flier to blatantly sell their product.

No, no,no. Social media is just that. Its social. Think of all these social networks as a party. You wouldn't go to a party, and after you say, "Hi I'm Fred", then say, "I'm only at this party to sell you my consulting services; here's what I'm selling, here's what it costs, so sign up today." Hell No! These folks would look at you like you're the biggest *%$#@ on the planet.

Yet that's exactly what we do with our Facebook pages and Twitter tweets. I must get 20 tweets a day that are trying to sell me something and just as many Facebook notifications about the great entertainment programs XYZ center is offering and why I should buy it NOW. Why should I? I really don't even know you. Just because i signed up to be your friend (because you are a friend of a friend) doesn't mean I always want to be sold by you.

Treat me like a friend first. That's what social media is about. Its about making friends at a party and then, if I have a nice conversation with my new acquaintances, I might invite them to my party for drinks, dinner and some friendly conversation. My party is my blog. It is where I tell you more about me, my family, my experiences, what I do, what my interest are and what I do for a living.

And it is in my blog where I try to share some information, some ideas and some thoughts with them; to tell them a little bit more about me as a person. I still treat them like a friend and just talk to them. I tell them what I'm thinking, what I like, where I have been and where I want to go. But I don't sell.

Think of it this way. Suppose I sell RV's (tough time for that business, isn't it?) and some of the people who I have invited to visit my RV blog probably would never buy an RV, not in a million years, but they visit my blog anyway cause I'm a nice guy and they like my ideas, find them thought provoking, interesting and they just like me for who I am.

What if, by chance, they know somebody who is interested in buying an RV and they tell that person, "Hey I just met Fred, he's kind of cool and he sells RV's. Why don't you check out his blog or his web site" See. I just got a great recommendation, a credible referral and a highly qualified prospect who trusts the person who referred me. That's social networking at its best.

Now if your blog (or party)is remarkable as Seth Godin, the author of Purple Cow Marketing, preaches, people will notice you. Remarkable is merely that. Something to remark about. Something for someone else to tell someone else about.

If you stop selling your products on your Facebook page, your Twitter tweets and your umpteen social networking pages, as your guru computer person told you about, you'll make more friends, gain greater word of mouth advertising and get more referrals.

And that's from me to you with no sales. But if you want to send my blog to one of your friends, that's OK too.

The CMO

I think every entertainment center should have a CMO.

The CMO is the one who insists that getting things done is more important than thinking about getting things done. The CMO knows when someone in the organization (hope it is not you) is so hung up on getting it perfect that this someone is standing in the way of "good". Doesn't have to be perfect. Just has to better than the stuff that is out there now. Introduce it fast, perfect it later. We're not talking about a pharmaceutical product or a heart lung machine here. We're talking about fun.

The CMO is the person that does not care that the dog ate your homework or that you had too many other things to do. The CMO knows that excuses are cancerous and everyone is out of excuses as to why it did not get done. If you and your employees are falling behind on deadlines, then you need a CMO, and you need it now!

Know what CMO stands for?
Chief Meaning Officer.

You've got to learn to dance in the rain.

While the current recession may be easing, or so we are told, many small businesses are still reacting the way they have always reacted in difficult times; they cut price on their product and/or services.

Some are more creative than others. Some will package products together for a one price special. Others will discount certain products only if you buy another product at full price and still others will create specials for certain "holidays, day parts or time periods" as is applicable to their specific business.

Is this dancing in the rain? Is this the only way we MUST deal with difficult times? I don't think so. I think its the same old same old that we have always done; only we are more creative now...or so we think.

The real dance in the rain takes place with your existing customers, the people who brought you to the dance in the first place. They are the people to whom your marketing should be directed; the ones who know you and like you. Get them to visit your business more frequently and to spend more on each visit. Chasing new customers is far more expensive and less "long term" than insuring that your existing customers will continue to "prefer" your business rather than a competitor's business.

Have you given them an incentive to refer a friend, bring a friend or sign up a friend to buy your service or product? Have you marketed to these people about NEW programs you have and how you want to invite them in for a FREE screening or VIP guest night (everybody wants to feel special!)? Have you treated them to remarkable experiences?

As good marketers we must be able to precisely define our best customers ; how frequently they come to our business, what they typically spend and when they are most likely to come to our establishment. Then, if we market our product to them, we can essentially ask them to be our ambassadors; to spread the word to their friends and create new customers without necessarily cutting our price.

Why will they do that for us? Simply because they like their experience at our facility. They like the product and think they get good value for their dollar. And all they need is a little reminder and a little incentive to spread some serious Word of or Mouth advertising for you.

If you are relying on email "coupon"blasts to do this for you, you might be wasting lots of time. Broad brush couponing is not nearly as effective as "targeted direct incentives" that are relevant to specific segments. In fact recent studies suggest that less than 15% of these "email blasts" even get opened.

The 21 year old cosmic bowler is far different than the 25 to 44 year old Mom with 2 kids, especially when it comes to choosing an entertainment option. Recognizing their differences is the first step in creating relevant incentives to get them to come back more frequently.

So just because you have a bunch of emails doesn't mean you have a data based marketing system. if you cannot segment your market by usage and again by demographic data, your data base isn't a data base at all. Its an electronic mailing list

And just because a business has survived other hard times by cutting prices to hold onto market share doesn't' mean that the business really knows how to dance in the rain. Look at how many small businesses have folded in the past year. Do you not think they too cut prices, before they went out of business?

If only they knew how to dance in the rain, maybe they would have been around when the sun finally comes out.

vacation

Leaving JFK yesterday i watched the anxiety on the faces of most travelers. Would they get through security on time for their flights? Would their bags get to the destination on time and would they have a safe flight? It was just another consumer buying decision. Every buying decision involves a risk. Every transaction is based on some particle of faith that says "if you buy this product or service, it will meet your expectations". Sometimes the product achieves that goal and sometimes it doesn't. That's because consumers really only want two things: to increase their pleasure or to reduce their pain. You can talk about wants, needs, convenience, problem solving, etc. all you want, but its all about increasing pleasure and reducing pain. And the engine that drives these two needs is HOPE. Hope is that invisible space when the money changes hands and the product or service is delivered. Hope is what consumers have when they come into your entertainment facility. Will they get increased pleasure for their money or find someway to reduce the pain of boredom and tedium?

For your customers, Hope is what they cling to. For your business HOPE is NOT a strategy.
So what is the strategy for your business? Do you just want to make it through another season; fill one more hole; get more traffic or are you really looking at the business from a 3 to 5 year standpoint? Or are you just hoping that something good will happen?

Achieving short term growth at the expense of longer term plans is like selling your first born to protect the other children. No parent would ever do that so why are we so anxious about long range business planning?

Start with one question: "Where do I want to be in 5 years and what do I want my business to look like?" write 'em down, send it to me. It will be interesting.

Read the book "Hope is Not A Strategy" By Rick Page. Learn about complex sales. Learn about strategy. Learn...continuously.

Disconnected

I misplaced my cell phone yesterday; left it in a friend's car as I ran for a plane at the airport. Fortunately my friend was able to send it back via Fed Ex and I will have it tomorrow.

What a terrible feeling. I spoke with quite a few people today and they all said the same thing; "isn't it horrible?". Yes it is, but it got me to thinking.

How would we market our business if we could not connect electronically with our market? How would we try to connect? Would we just rely on traditional forms of media or would we try to invent a new way to connect that isn't yet available? Or maybe invent a non electronic form of Twitter or Face Book.

When we were kids, we might have had a "pen pal?" That was a precursor of Face book. We sent information to people and they wrote back to us. We exchanged pictures and talked about our lives. If we were hip, we could have used it as a sales opportunity. In fact we eventually did. It was called direct response marketing.

Perhaps, being in the retail business, we could go back to our 5 mile rings of influence or 10 mile rings of influence to reach our market, either via direct mail, telemarketing, sales appointments and local or regional advertising. Shouldn't we still do that? Recent reports have stated that marketing results increase exponentially, just by adding postcards, permission based faxes and robo calls to our E marketing efforts.

While conventional wisdom states that E marketing must be a cornerstone of your total marketing effort, it doesn't say that it should be the ONLY part.

Grins, Smiles and Laughs

As an observer of human behavior, I sometimes like to see if I can pick up patterns of behavior among people sharing a common experience; like flying on an airplane. So far I have been able to isolate various segments of fliers. There are the readers, the writers, the sleepers and the lookers. At any given time any one of these people can shift into another group; sometimes they are in two groups (segments) at the same time. And if I studied these groups long enough, I would probably find out what motivated them to be in their respective group to start with.

Now what if you could observe people having fun at your entertainment center, based upon "product usage", and then segment them by how they are experiencing fun? What would you find? Would you find "laughers, grinners and smilers"? Would you find h that each group interpreted and responded to fun differently? Would you find that there was a way to motivate each of these groups to come back more frequently? I think so.

Susan Dunn, Publisher of Self Growth, an on line self improvement magazine (www.selfgrowth.com)has recently come up with an interesting treatise on "having fun".

While she asks people what their definition of fun is, the answers she gets are surprisingly stated in the negative.

"not thinking or feeling"
"being alone"
"anywhere without decisions or arguments"
"something that doesn't end me up with a policeman, a lawyer, a doctor or a therapist."

See what I mean. Fun is expressed as "the absence of a bad thing". Shouldn't fun be expressed in terms of smiles or laughs? What if there was a happiness meter, a "laughometer" or a "smilometer"? We could then gauge how happy people were at our centers or how effective our programs were on delivering fun.

Or we could just go out there every day and try to make just 3 customers a day smile. What do you think that would do to our revenue growth?