Category Archives: Business Strategy

The posts in this category go into great detail on what other business are doing well and their strategy behind it.

Made Right Here: Wholefoods

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whole foods logo

I love Wholefoods. I do. But, it is always double the price on everything. Everyone knows that … but when I’m inside Wholefoods I always am able to justify the higher prices.

One thing that Wholefoods does really well is the “Made Right Here” signs in their produce section. When you think about the people behind the counter making the food, you realize why it is priced a little higher. It is also ready to go. You literally can start eating the produce right out of the bin (no need to cut or add seasoning).

Made Right Here Sign at Whole foods

Here are some ways to charge more money in your business:
1. Offer a service – setup, installation, design, etc

2. Complete all the steps for them. For example: just don’t give them a watermelon. Cut the watermelon, put it in a nice bowl, add some nice seasoning, and give them a fork to eat.

Top 10 Ways to Stop Your Customer from Having Buyers Remorse

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Nothing is worse than a customer signing up, paying you, not using your product because they are frustrated and then canceling. Uggggghhh so frustrating – I hate this so much. I focus HARD on making sure they stay.

Here are my top 10 tips that I use every day, every night. 24/7 baby! All right, here we go:

10. Pick up the Damn Phone and Call Them

Yes, I know you aren’t suppose to call a girl until 3 days after the first date. This isn’t dating. They gave you their billing information (which is pretty much a homerun in business) – call them ASAP and ask if you can help them out with anything. If they don’t pick up – leave a voicemail. Follow Up with an email. Text them as well – because honestly no one checks voicemail anymore.

9. Make Training Sessions Mandatory

Boom! Tell them every customer has to go through a training session. It is mandatory – No Questions Asked. Book the training session right after you close the deal. Make sure they attend – don’t let them weasel out of it. Offer incentives like a Free Edible Arrangements when the complete the session.

Make the training session fun and effective. I like to do a reverse screen share. Where I watch them use our product. I also like to get the product working for them on the call.

If you can get away with it, charge for the training session. Otherwise, let the customer know it is included in the cost. They will love it.

8. Make them Successful in Whatever Means Necessary

Know their business and make them successful. Do whatever it takes to make sure they see ROI on your product. If you have to use other tools or methods to make them successful – DO IT! Don’t be annoying about it, think outside the box and make it happen for them.

  • Do they need the data also in their Salesforce account – just do it, build the damn integration.
  • They need extra reports every month – put it on you calendar, and manually send them reports.
  • They want you to train their intern who also happens to be their bosses son who doesn’t give a damn? Train the hell out of him – make him an Expert.

7. Charge More Money

If you really care about the customer. Start charing them more so you can give them more attention. Build your top notch service into the price. Customers don’t mind paying you a little extra coin, if you can actually provide results.

Business owners are sick and tired of crappy internet products that just don’t work or are too complicated to use. Smart customers are willing to pay more for excellent service for something that actually helps their business grow.

6. Actually Care

Yes, this one shouldn’t be on the list but it is and it actually matters.

When your customer wins, you win BIG! You have a life long customer and they will probably tell customers about you.

5. Find out what your customer wants – they are the BOSS!

In most cases you work with the “Manager” and not the “CEO”. The customer is the manager and not the CEO. Make the manager look good. You report to the manager – that guy is your boss. You make your manager look good and don’t worry about the rest. Make suggestions about what will work for their business – but always always focus on making your “Boss” look amazing.

4. Be a High End Concierge Service

Think of yourself as a concierge service. Lets say you run a hotel and one of your regulars mentions that he is about to propose to his girlfriend of 12 years. Boom! This is your chance – give him a free upgrade to the presidential suite. Decorate their bed with rose petals, throw in some free champagne. Now, you have a customer for a life and story he will tell everyone.

Same thing with software products. Remember what types of features your top customers are suggesting and when you launch them – send them a personal email about it. Tell them you not only want to help implement it for them but also show them it over a screenshare so they can see the full power of it.

3. Figure out why they aren’t launching

If they bought the product, you know they are excited about it but a few weeks have gone by and they have not launched. FIND OUT WHY! Call, text, voicemail, snapchat, meerkat, badger, prowler, whatever they are on – you be on now and get to them ASAP!

There are 3 reasons…. I mean 3 Excuses why people buy and don’t launch, and this sucks for you. Everyday they don’t launch, is a day closer to them canceling.

Reason #1 They are “busy”
Reason #2 They need to get approval from their team
Reason #3 Waiting for something else to happen before (like a website redesign, a new person to start, etc, etc)

These are NOT reasons, they are EXCUSES.

If they are busy, ask when they are next available – you can work their hours if needed (weekend or nights if needed – just offer this, most probably they won’t take you up on this, but this lets them know you are serious). Get a date, book it on the calendar. If they try to cancel on you next time – let them know that you booked this way in advance around their schedule – so it is pretty rude of them to pull that one you.

If they need approval. Book a meeting with their entire team so you can get buy in. At the end of the call – get buy in from all team members. “Okay, does everyone here approve? Perfect, lets get this launched right now!”

If they are waiting for X … this is a tough one and a total cop out. Talk about how your service can provide value NOW and they are losing money every second they don’t launch.

2. Be FAST

Don’t be one of those software providers that takes 3 months to implement. No one, I mean no one appreciates that. Get to the launch quickly. Setup your entire team around speed.

You are on a ticking timer as soon as your customer pays you. Everyday you don’t launch for them is another day, your “Boss” looks bad in front of his company.

1. Be an Expert and Let Them Know That

You have to get the customer’s trust. Without the customer’s trust you have NOTHING! No trust, no agreement, no launch, no money.

When the customer believes in your expertise, they will give you the freedom to implement things without their buy-in on every little detail. Be up front about the fact that you do this for a living day-in and day-out. Ask for their trust if you have to. Let them know what has worked for other similar clients in the past which is why you are suggesting the strategy you are proposing.

Didn’t read this massive list of awesome stuff?

TLDR; Make the customer successful as soon as possible

How ClassPass Retains Its Customers and other Thoughts on Retention

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quit-gym

Gyms are notorious for making it impossible to actually quit. They have an entire system built around not letting you cancel. A new company called ClassPass – allows you to easily go to classes from a bunch of gyms. They are pretty much a gym membership service that allows you to go to other gyms. It is a really cool concept, because it doesn’t tie you down to one gym. The total charge is $79/mo.

I read this Quora post on How Class Pass Retains Its Users, and one thing they do is charge you a reactivation fee, if you cancel and sign up again. This makes the user want to stay to avoid that penalty later on.

Some other thoughts on retention:

  1. HubSpot and Infusionsoft charge a setup and training fee ($3k+) when you sign up. This makes sure you are committed and if you decide to cancel later on it makes you think twice about losing that setup fee.
  2. Only allow canceling over the phone. This gives you the opportunity to figure out what the real problem is and allows you to solve it and keep the customer. Gyms, make you come into the gym to cancel and usually show you the spa and massage chairs to keep you … (totally worked on me unfortunately).
  3. Focus hard on making the customer successful. This is by far the best method. If your customers business is more successful because of you – they will never cancel. This is something Salesforce swears by. Keep investing in the customer until you get an email that says “OMG I Love Your Service and Product”
  4. Take over their main operations so if they remove your software it is really hard for their business to function without you. For example HubSpot takes over your entire website, blogging platform, analytics systems, CRM, and more. Great product and super sticky because of this. Another example is ZenDesk, they take over your entire customer service portal.
  5. Only allow yearly contracts and make it super hard to get out of them. This is something Oracle does well.

Kissmetrics had a really great blog post on SaaS retention: 8 Advanced Tips for Never Losing SaaS Customers.

Disclosure: HubSpot is a Digioh customer and HubSpot, Salesforce, and InfusionSoft are Digioh Technology Partners.

30-day Free Trial or 30-day Money Back Guarantee

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30-Day Free Trial, means you collect money after 30 days. This is great if you have a very sticky product or your customer acquisition cost is low. You will for sure get more sign ups because there is very limited barrier to entry. However, the downside is most of the users will not turn into paying customers. So you have to be make sure your product conveys value quickly.

30-Day Money Back Guarantee, means you collect money now! This allows you to collect the cash up front but have to work hard to keep the customer happy (so they don’t cancel next month). You will get less initial sign ups because it requires the customer to take out their billing information. This method is good if you have a sales team and your product is at least $100/mo. This method will require some convincing which can be done in the form of a sales demo.

Both methods look similar but are actually 2 very different strategies. I first learned about the Money Back Guarantee Strategy from Jason Cohen, here is the interview where he talks about it.

 

 

How LinkedIn Premium, Keeps its Subscribers: “Put it on the Personal Card, then Get it Expensed”

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I thought this email was pretty genius. I signed up for LinkedIn Premium about 2 weeks ago and then I see this email. It pretty much tells me to switch out my personal card and expense it to the company.

LinkedIn Premium Email

This is pretty smart. If I’m paying for this out of pocket, I’m more likely to see and cancel a $50 recurring charge ($50=like 6 Netflix accounts). But, if my boss (or bosses boss) is paying for it, $50 isn’t that big of a deal in the Marketing/Recruiting Budget.

The other really interesting thing is they most of detected that I bought it on my personal credit card by not putting in a “Company Name”. Very clever!

This makes a lot of sense. A product that costs under $50/mo is cheap enough where it makes sense to just sign up with your own credit card especially if it makes you more efficient at your own job. Then, you get an email like this and start thinking “Hey, why not, let me get this expensed”.

Uber … The Partnering Machine

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Uber-Horizontal-Logo

Uber Uber Uber!!! Uber is all the rage these days. They have built an amazing partner marketing machine. I wanted to point out 2 things they are doing that I’m blown away by.

1. Partnership with Google Maps

get-an-uber

If you use Google Maps and you have the Uber app installed on your phone. Google Maps will suggest Uber as an option along with the public transit options! This is a pretty big up-sell given that they show you travel times (twice as fast in most cases).

I have no idea how they pulled this off or if there is any money exchange here, but this is some serious prime placement. This is equivalent to going into a grocery store and having your product right next to the cash register.

2. Coupon Codes on Steroids

lord-taylor

Every startup is doing the “Get $20 off your first purchase”. This works great, because who doesn’t want free money and startups need to incentive new users to try out their app.

hyatt-uber

What Uber is doing differently is they are using this strategy with big brands like Lord & Taylor, with major hotels like Hyatt, and big concert venues. This is a pretty amazing strategy, because all those places have customers that need transportation and can afford a cab.

Uber also makes it super easy for you to partner with them. According to their support docs, all you have to do is submit a request here. Well done Uber! Excited to learn more from you.

50% of Your Meetings Will Get Cancelled… and that’s okay!

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cancelled

I had no idea how often meetings in the “Real World” would get cancelled or moved. In college you expect meetings to be in stone, mainly because classes and office hours are always on.

Being, 10 years into my professional career I’ve come to terms with meetings getting cancelled and I wanted to share a few of my tips with you.

3 Things to Do When Your Meeting gets Cancelled

  1. People have more important things to do than your meeting. Accept it.
  2. NEVER get mad, this is a way of life! Especially if you asked for the meeting.
  3. Use this email script: “No problem, at all. I totally know how these things can happen. What day/time works for you next week?”. This way you get them to find a time that works for them, the key is to use the word “next week” far enough away for them, and pretty near term for you 🙂

How to Avoid Cancelled Meetings

  1. Send a calendar invite and ask them to confirm.
  2. Make it a phone call or GoToMeeting unless it has to be in person. If it has to be in-person, you go to their office. People hate traveling for meetings. If it is in-person bring cookies and mention that in the email so people can look forward to something.
  3. Get to the point quickly. Reserve the first 3 minutes to “shoot the shit” and ask how their weekend is but after that get to the point. This will help you get a 2nd meeting.
  4. Make your meetings short. I like sending 15 minute meeting requests, that usually gets more “yes’es” than a full hour.
  5. Don’t assume your meeting is going to get cancelled. If you start doing this, you will get sloppy. Always assume IT’S ON!

What are your meeting tips? I’d love to learn yours!

Good Brand and have a free plan? Use less Sales Copy

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If you have a good brand, a free plan, and a clear reason on why people should sign up. Less sales copy is the way to go. Sales copy and going over all your features on your landing page just creates more distraction.

1. Good Brand – people already know you exist, their co-worker, a friend, or another bigger company talks about you. The person on your website knows you exist they just haven’t gotten around to signing up.

2. Free Plan – no credit card is required, you just need their email address so they can start using your product. If you have a free plan people aren’t interested in reading a bunch of jargon, they just want to kick the tires and see what they can do with it.

3. BIG Clear Reason – yes we know you have tens of thousands of features but really people just sign up for one main reason. As long as you state that main reason in a big bold manner they will give you their email address.

Sales copy gets people lost on your homepage. People usually have 10 tabs open at a time and just don’t want to put the effort in reading every single detail. Remember this rule especially only applies if you have a free plan. If you don’t have a free plan, you need sales copy and lots of it.

Here are some examples of companies that fit the bill.

Evernote Homepage Nov 2013

 

Evernote has a great brand, free plan, and 1 BIG reason to sign up “Remember Everything”. They have lots of features but they hide everything below the fold and in their “Product” tab. Distraction free signing up!

Stripe Homepage

Stripe has a 3-slides (but they do not automatically rotate) and they focus on getting people to sign up. They tuck away their features on its own page.

Box WebsiteDropbox-1

Dropbox and Box both focus on getting people to sign up. Dropbox is way more minimalistic than Box. But notice how they both have clear prominent “Sign Up” buttons and not lot of sales copy.

Facebook Homepage

Social networks do this especially well. Check out Facebook’s sign up page. What is interesting is they don’t offer any images just 3 icons and a form to fill out.

Tumblr Homepage

This is Tumblr’s sign up page. Just a big cool image and 3 form fields. What is cool, is if you clicked on the “Tumblr” link on someone else’s blog the background image is actually from the blog you were just on.

So, what is my point here? If you have an online business and you have a free plan. Make your landing page 3 bullet points and a sign up form.

Tesla selling cars out of Parking Garages

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Tesla Dealership in Parking Garage

Last weekend I went to the Santa Row shopping center and parked in their free garage. As we walked out we saw a few Teslas parked next to each other and started checking them out. We then realized we inadvertently walked through a Tesla dealership.

I thought this was a great tactic. Traditional car dealers make you go into the store… even though all you want to do is drive the car! This allows the customer to get the full Tesla experience faster.

Tesla Side Shot

Tesla-pic2

What do you think of this showroom tactic, do you think it will get you to test drive a Tesla?