UBT One Sale and Marketing Magazine by Deliverabilities

online magazine Q4 2019

SALES & MARKETING TRAINING TO HELP MOTORCOACH OPERATORS SELL MORE, TO MORE PEOPLE, FOR MORE MONEY.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christian Riddell President United Bus Technology Inc.

Christian Riddell is a native of the bus business. He started in the industry as a driver and dispatcher and later moved up to the direcator of sales for a small satellite operation in Portland, Oregon. Later, after becoming the creative director for a Fortune 1000 company, Chris returned to his roots when he founded Deliverabilities, a full-service marketing firm dedicated to the motorcoach industry. As the former Executive Director of the Motorcoach Marketing Council, he spent five years traveling North America teaching charter businesses about sales and marketing and working to develop a suite of tools dedicated to helping those operators sell more, to more people, for more money. Chris is currently the President of United Bus Technology, where he now leads the charge for one of the most exciting tech companies in the transportation industry and is pioneering new tools and technologies designed to help operators make more money. He is the father of five, lives in South Texas, and loves to spend any free time he has in the outdoors.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;To accomplish something you have never accomplished, you must first do something you have never done. Greatness, mastery, accomplishment are all achieved not by some magical moment but by a consistent commitment to small changes and adjustments. We become great as we constantly do those things that cause us to become something different than we are.â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Chris Riddell

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CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR......................................................................................... 2 THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM........................................................................... 6 ALWAYS BE EDUCATING...................................................................................10 THE POWER OF COMMON SENSE....................................................................14 LOYAL BUYERS PAY MORE...............................................................................20 SELL ‘VALUE’ OVER PRICE................................................................................26 WHY THE BUS BUSINESS IS DIFFERENT..........................................................27 RIP ALL-INCLUSIVE PRICING.............................................................................32

THE REAL COST OF DISCOUNTING..................................................................37 SELLING YOUR PRICES.....................................................................................43 NEW YEAR, NEW PRICES..................................................................................46 CAN THE ANCILLARY FEE STRATEGY WORK FOR US?....................................49 FOUR WAYS TO GATHER DATA, INCREASE BUSINESS.....................................55 FOLLOWING UP ON QUOTE REQUESTS IS KEY TO CLOSING SALES..............61 SYNERGY MARKETING......................................................................................68 COCONUT SHRIMP...........................................................................................74 CHANGE............................................................................................................82 BOB SELLS BANANAS.......................................................................................91 THE KEY TO MARKETING IS THE DRIP, DRIP, DRIP OF REPETITION ................99 WHAT IS YOUR USP?.......................................................................................105 WITH JULY GONE IT’S TIME TO MOVE ON YOUR GOALS...............................110 IGNORING NEGATIVE ONLINE REVIEWS IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA..................116 AN OUNCE OF PROACTIVE MARKETING IS WORTH A TON OF BUSINESS....123 HERE ARE SOME ITEMS TO ADD TO YOUR MARKETING TOOLBOX..............129 ONCE PERSONS MOTORCOACH IS ANOTHER PARTY BUS...........................133 THE TRUTH IS, THERE IS ONLY ONE QUESTION THAT MATTERS...................139 HERE IS SOME ADVICE ABOUT EMAIL MARKETING: DO IT NOW...................149 YOUR FUTURE CUSTOMERS ARE ALREADY RIDING ON YOUR BUSES.........153 GETTING MUCH BETTER FLEET PHOTOGRAPHY (FOR LESS $$$).................159 IS IT TIME TO ADOPT SOCIAL MEDIA IN YOUR COMPANY?............................166 WHEN DOES THE MARKETING OF YOUR COMPANY STOP?..........................172 SOCIAL MEDIA: EIGHT TIPS/SUGGESTIONS FOR DOING IT RIGHT................178 TROLLING FOR CUSTOMERS IS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE FISHING......................186 USING MOUTHWATERING PHOTOGRAPHY TO HELP WOO BUYERS.............191 WHY SELLING TO“MILLENNIALS” WILL NEVER WORK...................................194 THE BALANCE OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND......................................................202 THE JULY FACTOR...........................................................................................210 TIME CAN BE THE ULTIMATE KILLER OF MARKETING....................................218 THE IMPORTANCE OF RESPONDING..............................................................224

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THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

just returned from BusWorld in Brussels, and my feet still hurt. My FitBit told me that walking the show, end to end, was over six miles. It was a massive show that combined what we know as both public and private transit equipment, technology, and services.

Europe is ahead of the US in many aspects in the motorcoach industry, but they are especially advanced when it comes to electric buses. They will beat us to the electric bus punch for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the EU is pushing them harder to get there. I

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believe Europe’s push towards electric coaches will ultimately be a good thing for us here in the states. They will work out all the bugs and most likely drive down the cost of the equipment by sheer economy of scales. While the advancement in electric buses seems like all good news, it also comes with some other sub currents that I find remarkably interesting. If you have ever driven or been in a Tesla, you may have noticed the amount of data that is available to the driver is extraordinary. Where traditional cars have a remarkable focus on controlling the explosions that are happening under the hood, electric cars have allowed manufacturers to spend more time looking beyond that. They have begun to make the driving experience more data-driven. Drivers can learn about their driving habits, all with the tap of a screen. From battery statistics to g force and breaking and from tire data to the nearest charging station, all the data you could ever need is available at your fingertips. This connected world is driving an unparalleled level of visibility about what is happening in near real-time. Soon the days of a blinking check engine light will be as distant a memory as a rotary phone or a fax machine and it will be replaced with a detailed diagnosis of issues that are forecasted to happen in your vehicle. So how in the world could this be a bad thing? In the US, we have a very specific

difference from our cousins across the Atlantic. That difference is in our ability and propensity to sue one another. This singular difference between the two locales drives some of the most critical issues, including the stifling insurance cost in the US vs. the EU. As I walked around the show and saw technology being demoed, everything from driver behavior monitoring, where real-time video is being used to monitor drivers for distraction, to suites of products designed to consolidate every conceivable sensor in a vehicle and create dashboards of real-time vehicle health status, I could not help but think of the unintended liability that this could create. The more I saw, the more I realized that this is the elephant in the room for us as an industry in this new frontier of visibility and connectedness. Imagine yourself sitting in a deposition with a plaintiff’s attorney reviewing data that you didn’t even know you had. Imagine yourself on a witness stand trying to defend why an accident happened when you had data that could have shown that there were risks. If that thought doesn’t give you the chills, it should. Data is not just a tool; it is a responsibility and even a liability. One that we must take very seriously as we look forward to tomorrow. While data should be something that we use to refine and develop our business, we also need to make sure that we don’t

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allow it to become a noose. The cold hard truth is that there will no longer be a defense of “we didn’t know,” when we have data that could have prevented the incident. While data can and should be a big part of our plan to refine and develop our business and to make us safer and more efficient, it requires that we use it wisely. We must constantly monitor it and not allow it to pile up unattended if we want it to be an asset rather than a liability. The fact is, we will continue to see technology evolve in the future of our industry. We will continue to see advances made in the ability to track every part of our business. Unfortunately, we will also see a continuation in the trend towards more and more lawsuits where data will play an important role. Now is the time to take a look at how you use the data you have access to. Now is the time to make sure that you are using your data responsibly. It is time to realize that while more and more data will become part of our next chapter as an industry, it will require us to take a good hard look at our operations and make sure that we adopt it in a way that is good for business. The future is exciting and connected, but like all changes, it will require us to take the initiative to look at what we do know and to find ways to integrate this new frontier of real-time data into our existing operations. ¦

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ALWAYS BE EDUCATING

here is an old adage in the sales world... ABC... Always Be Closing. This tactic has been taught over and over at sales retreats and conferences, in books, and by sales gurus the world round. However, it doesn’t work when you are selling charters. I have talked at length about the idea of asking for the sale, and I stand by that advice. I think the most powerful words in a charter sales person’s vocabulary are, “can I book this for you today?” That little bit of “closing” should be a mandatory component of any sales process at a motorcoach company, but even that will fail often. The reason that phrase fails is almost always price. If you are proudly and consistently, the low-cost provider in your market, stop reading now. Chances are all you need to know is in that last paragraph. Put it to work. However, if you are not always the lowest cost provider in your area, read on. Over the last year, I have talked to a lot of charter sales folks. Typically when this subject comes up, I hear the same complaint... it usually goes like this, “We tried asking “the question”, but it was almost always met with a request for a discount before they would

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book.” When pressed further, I can usually get them to admit that when that started to happen, the question was asked more and more infrequently and that ultimately, it was abandoned completely. Here is the thing, in order to understand this problem we need to all agree on a few things. First, most people off the street have no idea what the difference is between motorcoach companies. If you are a part of a company that invests heavily in new equipment, training, safety, and pays your drivers more, Joe Plumber or Sally CEO won’t know the difference between you and the guy down the street who doesn’t. In today’s digital world, the shopping experience has been homogenized to the point where anyone can have a decent website, everyone is listed in the local search results, and, to the untrained buyer, a big white bus with some letters on the side looks just like any other big white bus with letters on the side. Back when I was selling charters, this digitally leveled playing field was just being birthed. It wasn’t even out of diapers yet, and as such, buyers were often more involved in the buying process. Every week I would have people come to the office to get on the buses and see the equipment. This

gave us the opportunity to showcase our customer service. I knew that if someone got on my equipment and then did the same with my budget competitors, the smells alone would ensure that they didn’t ask me to match the price. My potential customers would know that they were dealing with totally different calibers of companies. Today, we rarely have that luxury. The attention span of our buyers has shrunk, and what they used to do in a few days or a week, they expect to do in a few minutes. This leads to more and more buyers who simply believe that price is the only meaningful differentiator. However, we know that simply isn’t any more true today than it was 15, 20, or 50 years ago. Technology hasn’t actually leveled the playing field; it just looks like that to the uninitiated. So, what do we do about it? I call it the XCD sales method. That is, while the AB of the aforementioned ABC still holds true in “Always Be,” I challenge you do drop the C and the D and look for more E . People who are natural-born closers have their place in the world; I think that most of them find their way into highpressure sales positions like timeshares

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or selling cell phone plans and direct TV to unprepared passers-by in Costco. While they have their place in the world, it most likely won’t be in a charter department. The “D” I am challenging you to drop is “Defending.” So often, I run into people in this industry who, when faced with the question “can you match the price of XYZ company,” launch into a rage-fueled diatribe about the other company and “how dare you compare us to them” type rant. I think this is a natural response when we know what we know about the other company, but this does little to convince a customer to choose to work with us. After all, when was the last time you made a buying decision that went like this... “yes, I think I will go with the more expensive angry, frustrated, person who treated me like an uninformed idiot... I think that ultimately will be my best bet!” So, if we eliminate the C and the D, that only leaves us with E. Educating. Always Be Educating. While this may seem cliche, the reality is that if you have a buyer asking you for a discount, what they are saying is that they don’t understand why they should pay you more for your service over another’s. While the knee jerk response may be to “D” the reality is that it probably won’t land a booking. Education is an important part of any sales person’s arsenal. It is what gives

them the power to turn uninformed shoppers into informed buyers. As an industry, we must realize that our standard tennis style of quoting, where we simply lob a quote across the net and hope that the buyer will at some point lob it back, won’t get us where we want to go. We must realize that the vast majority of the population are not savvy about what sets one company apart from another. We must be willing to accept that until a customer sets foot on a bus, the chances are they can’t tell a 2000 from a 2019, and well, that’s too late. We must be willing to entertain at least the fact that if we are doing a good job as a company to get

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the phone to ring, that many of the buyers on the other end won’t know enough to even be good consumers of our product. This manifests in people not wanting to give us all the details we need to generate a full quote, who “just want to know how much it costs.” They have no idea what to say when we ask them about the type of equipment they want, or they don’t know what we are on about when we say mini-coach or motorcoach. Uneducated buyers cant be expected to pay more for a product. Some may, but most won’t. Uneducated buyers won’t magically become educated

because we sent them to our website or because they listened to our hold message. Buyers will become educated because salespeople realize that, in order to get to a signed charter order, the shortest path is education. When a buyer feels like you are equipping them, in a respectful and compelling way, to be a better consumer and to help them make a good buying decision, you will see more sales. Perhaps more importantly than more sales, you will also see more loyal buyers. People who are willing to give you their business now and in the future because they realize that any company willing to educate is a better company than one that simply shoots a quote over and hopes for a call back. Closing is important in any sales role, but knowing when the time is right to ask for the sale is what sets the best salespeople apart from the rest. Informed buyers are willing to pay more, be more loyal, and are easier to work with. Spend more time educating your way towards knowledgeable buyers, and you will watch your sales go up today and into the future. Nothing will help you sell more, to more people, for more money than shifting your focus to turning uneducated price centered shoppers into educated buyers through an increased focus on education as a part of the sale process!¦

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THE POWER OF COMMON SENSE

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ast weekend I took my two oldest kids to a state park. As we pulled up to the entrance, we were met by a park ranger with a shiny badge looking like the poster boy for the Texas parks system. He was proudly wearing his neatly starched-and-pressed brown uniform with a big white-toothed grin, grasping a clipboard as if it held the secrets of cold fusion. As an annual pass holder, this was a scene I was familiar with and I wasn’t at all worried. I climbed out of my truck and met him with the enthusiasm that you would expect from a busy dad who had finally carved out some time to spend in nature with his kids. “Welcome,” he said as I approached him, matching him tooth for tooth with a smile. “Thanks,” I responded. “Do you have a pass?” he asked. “Yep,” I answered, handing him my pass. “Great! I see that you have people with you. Who are they?” “They are my kids,” I responded with more than a modicum of fatherly pride. “How old are they?” he asked, still clinging to the Ranger Rick persona.

“16 and 18,” I answered with even more pride. It was at this point that what had been a friendly conversation took a turn for the bizarre, ultimately inspiring me to write this article... “Does your 18-year-old have her own pass?” he asked. His tone was noticeably different and his eyebrows raised accusingly. “No. Does she need one?” I asked, happy to comply with whatever needed to be done. “She is an adult, and as such, she is not covered by your family pass. As you can see here,” he said, producing a regulation book from his starched hip pocket, “in section 63.345, a family pass covers any children who are under the age of 18.” “Huh, ok. Well, she has only been 18 for about a week and it never crossed my mind. What do I need to do?” I responded, ready to do whatever needed to be done. “She needs to have a pass of her own,” he said again. “I understand that. How do I go about getting that right now so that we can go in and do what we are going to do?” I asked.

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“Our offices are closed, so she can’t get one.” he said with a tone of finality. “Huh. Can I pay you?” I asked, trying to diffuse the situation. “No, we don’t accept money here,” he responded. “Can I go online and buy her an annual pass?” I asked, already launching the website on my phone. “Yes, but once you buy that, you have to wait 2 weeks for the sticker to be mailed to you; she couldn’t come in today.” “Ok, so what are my options?” I asked in an obviously exacerbated tone. “There is another park 10 miles away that you can drive to and pay a $4 entry in the unattended lock box. If you do that, I will let you in.” He said that with a look like he’d just discovered the cure for cancer. “Okay, I would be happy to do that. Is there any way that I can do that on the way home since it will take me 30 minutes to go there and back and we only have about 2 hours before the park closes?” I asked, trying to salvage what I could of the little time we had left. “No,” he said coldly, taking a

crossed-arm stance and puffing out his chest as far as he could. “Um....ok,” I responded, already halfway back to my truck. I sped away, drove the 20-mile roundtrip distance to an unattended lock box, filled out a piece of paper and deposited $10 (because I didn’t have change), and sped back. When I got back, he had the same Cheshire grin. When I tried to produce some photo evidence of my deposit, he said, “I trust you, come on in.” As I’ve reflected on this experience over the last few days, I’ve realized that far too often in the motorcoach business, we are this park ranger: well-intentioned, but so set on enforcing policy and so focused on our operational and procedural norms that customers have the same frustrations with us that I had with him. First, I want to say that I am not advocating any policies that include the customer always being right. They aren’t. But I am saying that we need to teach common sense when it comes to working with a general public increasingly used to point-and-click, tap-and-go type solutions to their issues. When we enforce policies that seem outdated and difficult to comply with because that’s how we’ve always done

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it, we actually encourage upset customers or potential customers that pigeonhole our industry as a group of companies that can’t be bothered to provide customers with the experience they want. Change is happening fast— really fast—in terms of technology. Digital natives (those who’ve grown up never knowing a time before Google, iPhones, and YouTube) are now decision makers that control a great deal of the nation’s spending. Older generations are also reporting the old ways to be “tiresome and annoying”, embracing the idea that these newfangled devices really do make life easier. What we referred to as a “point and click” revolution just a few years ago is no longer even that, as that term specifically referenced the use of a desktop computer and a mouse. Today’s world is “tap-and-go”, with people having most of their daily online interactions with the web through touch interfaced mobile devices. We must realize that the new normal is simple, fast, and easy. Our customers use things like Uber, Amazon, and Doordash all the time. One tap, and boom: someone picks them up, groceries are delivered to their house in a few hours, or a hot meal is on their doorstep in minutes. All of these advances encourage a

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reliance on technology to simplify our lives. Let’s go back to Ranger Rick. In situations like that where the protocol seems so antiquated, unfriendly, and backwards, we tend to react because we don’t do things as they were done in the past; we live our lives now, in today’s modern and convenient world. I am sure that this particular park ranger went home feeling great. He probably congratulated himself on keeping the world safe from those wanting to take advantage of the great Texas park system. He may have even had the support of his superiors who would have congratulated him on enforcing an established policy with someone who was trying to “break a rule”. I left feeling like the policy was inane and enforced in a remarkably limiting way. It felt like I had been forced to jump through stupid hoops and pushed to do something totally illogical, and I lost precious time with my kids as a result. I also left feeling like they’d missed an opportunity from a business standpoint. I would have happily bought a daily pass online for 10 times what they wanted, or paid a convenience fee or penalty in exchange for my time. I had good cell coverage and could be on the web, and they could have had a

credit card app for phones or a lock box at this location. If this was going to be an “on your honor” program, the park ranger could have allowed me to go after the fact, or accepted the cash and put it in the box the next time he drove by. The point is: there were simple solutions that were not on the table, and the whole interaction was ultimately frustrating. How often do you think a soccer mom feels this same way when she calls to inquire how much it would cost to get the team to the regional finals, and we require a 20-minute phone call to discuss logistics before we’ll even give her a quote? How often do you think a group feels like this when a driver is unwilling to deviate from their dispatch paperwork? How often do our customers feel like this when we push them into our way of doing things instead of rethinking what we do in order to create a better overall experience for them? Businesses of all kinds need to be careful to not allow business practices to stand in the way of success. They need to help employees understand the difference between customer service and policy enforcement, and empower them to use the golden rule more. In the motorcoach industry, we need to treat customers how we want to be treated. We need to look more at how we can help a customer

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use our companies in the ways they want to use them. I have spent a great deal of time with companies all over North America talking about competitive advantages and how to use them to differentiate themselves and ultimately charge more for their services. This may be the ultimate competitive advantage: the ability to be easy to

work with, use common sense to solve issues that cause frustration, and capitalize on the willingness of people to pay more for convenience. If you spend more time thinking about how you can do things in an everchanging, technology-embracing, tapand-go world, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find yourself selling more of your services to more people for more money! ÂŚ

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LOYAL BUYERS PAY MORE

have spent a lot of time talking about the prices that consumers pay for motorcoach services in North America and my belief that they need to increase to offset the continual cost increase creep that has proliferated our industry for the past few decades. While in a perfect world we would all hold hands and in beautiful harmony sing a chorus of justified price hikes, unfortunately, the reality is that will never happen. There will always be the threat of that “one guy” who’s willing to slash his prices to undercut our efforts. As they say, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat. Although in all honesty, I have never really understood that particular euphemism. One of the most successful ways to drive prices up in any business is through creating loyal customers. When I ask people at seminars if they have customers that

will stick with them even if they aren’t the low cost provider in a market, I am always met with firsthand experiences that prove this point. From customers who call and report to a company that they were approached by a competitor offering a lower rate just to reassure them that they aren’t going anywhere to customers who will “tell off” a competitor for having the audacity to contact them when another company is doing things so well, the examples are numerous. When you have loyal customers you have pushed them beyond price and have helped them see the true value of working with your company. Value is not a number, but rather a very personal calculation that we all make. One of the things that weighs in our value calculation is the loyalty we feel for that company. This one element of that very complex calculation can

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weigh heavily on our willingness to pay more for a product or service. So how then does one create loyalty? One of the most interesting things that I have learned in the past few years is the biological truth behind the buying process. It turns out that buying decisions are made in the limbic system in our brains. What is so very interesting about this is that this part of the brain does not respond to analytics, price, or detailed analysis, but rather it deals with emotions. This reality proves what most great sales people have always thought to be true, when consumers make buying decisions they make them based on some emotional trigger.

I have had the opportunity to sell a lot of things, but nothing taught me more than selling real estate. As an agent, I was a serial listener when I would work with a new buyer. I would listen to what they wanted â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how many bedrooms, budget, what neighborhoods and schools they were interested in, everything down to the smallest detail. Then I would spend my days and nights digging through listings looking for the perfect home. I would narrow it down to a few and would then take the buyers out to see what I had found. To my amazement, even though the homes checked every single box, more often than not, I would be met with a less than enthusiastic response. Often

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“ This all starts with one word. Empathy. It is easy to hear the word empathy in terms of business and feel like it is simply too “touchy feely” to really be put to work. In fact you are probably far more likely to hear empathy talked about in a marriage counseling session than a sales summit, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. This is because the fastest, most effective, way to influence someone’s buying decisions and long-term loyalty is to teach and create a culture around empathetic selling techniques.

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saying things like, “we don’t like the drapes” or “we just didn’t feel like it was THE ONE.” I would inevitably get frustrated and go back to the drawing board looking for homes that met the same set of criteria as the first. I was always bewildered when I would get a call that my buyers were out walking the dog, passed a home with an open house sign, walked in, fell in love, and decided to make an offer. That house almost inevitably met very few, if any, of those same criteria that I was using in my search. The reason wasn’t that they didn’t mean what they said when they told me what they told me, but rather that they had indeed made an emotional

decision and pulled the trigger on something all together different. These emotional decisions are easy to relate with in terms of searching for a home, as any homeowner knows the euphoria of finding “the one.” However, how that relates to the bus business is more nuanced. Creating loyalty and understanding emotional buying isn’t about crafting a more powerful website or designing a new brochure, it is about realizing that buyers need something unique from you in order to achieve both increasing their loyalty to you and subsequently being willing to pay you more for your service.

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Translated directly into “bus,” this means that you have charter booking agents that aren’t so busy taking down details and responding to online quote requests that they don’t have time to really listen to a customer and to build a relationship. It means that every customer-facing employee is working on ways to make the customer experience “magic,” not just churning a never ending string of quotes or operational demands out the door. To create loyalty we have to look beyond price, amenities, fleet size, and compliance and begin to realize that the long list of reasons we may believe our customers should be loyal and pay us more may mean very little if we have missed the step of building a more empathetic sales process. It’s time we went back to the golden rule. We need to treat others like we would like to be treated. It’s amazing to me to see the dichotomy created between how we as individuals would like to be treated and how we as companies are willing to treat our customers. Far too often customers are met with a cold indifference. This indifference is driven by an overwhelming pace of business that becomes our operational reality. We forget what it’s like to be a charter customer or a bus passenger and we build businesses that move farther and father away from the things that ultimately drive the loyalty we want and need.

Loyalty isn’t created because someone did business with us, it’s created because someone did business with us and we did something special. That something caused there to be an emotional response, a response that not only impacted their one interaction but that created memories and that set in stone that you are the company they will continue to work with. When we choose to integrate this objective and the activities necessary to accomplish that into our businesses, we see loyalty increase. In direct relation to an increase in loyalty is our our ability to raise prices and sell value as a company above and beyond the price of our competitors. When we do that, we take the steps necessary to increase our margins and have the luxury of spending the money we need to take our companies to the next level. If you find yourself looking for more money every month and are worried that you need to raise your prices, but you’re afraid of the ramifications of doing it, spend time focused on being empathetic with your customers. It will help you sell more, to more people, for more money! ¦

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SELL ‘VALUE’ OVER PRICE If you are in the charter business, you also seem to be unavoidably in the discount business. We use lots of ways to justify it, and we are under what feels like constant pressure to hand out discounts like candy at a parade.

hat’s the case from the ubiquitous “can you match this price?” to pressure to “sharpen the pencil” on an RFP response. From professional consumers like tour operators and corporate transportation coordinators to churches calling looking for donations and discounts appealing to your “higher” self, discounts are a part of the business of being in the bus business.

So, if discounts are part of the business and foundational to the game, why are we taking your valuable time to discuss them? Because they are costing you, your company and our industry more than you can imagine. Like so many things in life, recognizing you have a problem is the first step to fixing it.

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Obviously, discounts are not unique to the transportation industry. In fact, there are not many industries that I am aware of that don’t offer discounts in their business model in some form or fashion. What may be unique to the bus industry is the impact that discounting has on our businesses.

Why the bus business is different For many industries, discounts are a part of the pricing structure. Simply mark it up, so you can mark it down. Car manufacturers, for example, create inflated MSRP pricing so dealers can “mark them down,” offering manufactured “sales” that drive consumers to act. Other industries offer discounts based on things such as volume. For example, if I buy 10 widgets, they will cost me one unit price per widget. However, if I buy 10,000, the per widget cost can go down significantly. Scale economics are at play in these types of discounts. Unfortunately, in the bus business we don’t benefit from either of these scenarios. Falsely inflating prices just to offer consumers discounts does very little when it comes to our core consumer group. They understand daily and mileage rates and have a fairly good grasp of what our costs actually are. Economy of scale in this business does very little for us as well. When we offer a discount to a customer, very

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little in our cost structure changes. Fuel may vary a little based on volume, but drivers’ wages, insurance, vehicle maintenance, compliance and the rest stay fundamentally the same. That leaves us offering discounts out of nothing but our profit margins, which may be affecting more in your operation than you might think. Take, for example, a charter that was quoted at $1,100 a day for two days. But then the phone rings and you get the question that so many have to deal with: “I have a quote from the guy down the street. He is willing to do it for $950 a day. Can you

match that price?” Having sold charters myself, the logic often goes as follows: “Well… I don’t want to lose the chance at $950 a day. If I say no, this guy books with my competition. I have drivers that need work; I should probably just take the deal and get my bus on the road.”

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Where does it stop? If you are like so many other operators, you will probably push back a little trying to get more. However, if the customer resists even a little, you take the work and put the driver and the bus on the road. Over the last five years, I have heard a lot of justifications for doing discounted business—everything from keeping staff working to having buses on the road “advertising” for future business. While I know that there is some truth to these reasons, they are justifications. Here is the reality.

Every dollar that you give away in discounts every month is money that could have been directly on your bottom line. There are no additional fixed or variable costs associated with it. Every person in the chain from the charter sales person to the bus washers and drivers to dispatchers will have to do exactly the same amount of work regardless of the discount. The bus will still get the same wear and tear, the same fuel will be consumed… literally the exact same things will happen to deliver that trip, just with less upside for the company.

Dig into the economics of discounts for bus tours Let’s look at a real world example here. First, let’s take a look at company A. They run at a profit margin of 20 percent. They take the charter that was originally quoted at $1,100 a day for two days at the rate of $950 a day in order to “get the work.” A move that costs them $300. Based on their profit margin, they would have made a company profit of $440 on the trip at the original rate. That means that in the case of this trip, the 10 percent discount on the front end, resulted in a 75 percent discount in actual profits on that trip. Yep…75 percent.

Now, I know that there are those who will say, but they still made $140. They put drivers in seats, rolled the bus and at the end of the day that is a win. That is of course a business decision. With all that said, let me ask you this: When was the last time you thought to yourself, “I want to do that… but where would I get the money?” Whether it is a marketing opportunity, hiring a new GM, building a new facility, buying a piece of equipment or outfitting the fleet with a new tool. If you are like most operators, not very long ago.

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In single charter terms, giving up a few hundred dollars to “rescue” the charter from a competitor can seem like a plausible decision. When that same strategy becomes a major part of day to day operations, it can gut a company of its ability to do anything but survive. In simple math terms, if you look at this as a linear equation, you can often be fooled into a sense of complacency. Taking from the example, if you give

this discount and figure that you will make 20 percent as a profit margin, then the math says that you would have made $440 and after the discount you would make $380… so you may say that’s not a big deal. The issue lies in the fact that we make 20 percent profit not on whatever we end up charging, but rather on our full rates. In this case, when you should have made $440, you ended up making $140.

Opportunities as challenges The future of the charter business is filled with as many opportunities as challenges. Many of the challenges we face come with a price tag. From unfunded mandates for compliance from the government to the need to shift how we employ drivers, what we pay and what benefits we offer. Challenges seem to be around every corner. Facing these challenges will be infinitely easier with well-stocked war chests. One of the fastest ways to address this is to work to fix the constant backslide that erodes the

profits of so many charter businesses. The way to do this is to learn how to sell value over price. This is something that I am excited to teach at the upcoming Sales Summit at the end of May. We will be covering specifically how to address discount requests, how to develop, and leverage, a USP (unique selling proposition) and what you need to do to empower a team to sell from your price sheet and stop needing to provide discounts to get deals done! We will see you there! ¦

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MEGA TRAC

A GPS FLEET TRACKING SYSTEM THAT WAS BUILT TO GIVE OPERATORS WHAT THEY NEED AND PROVIDE PASSENGERS WITH WHAT THEY WANT?...Welcome to MegaTrac! MegaTrac combines everything you have come to expect from your fleet tracking solution with a passengerfacing interface designed to put you in the driver’s seat when it comes to providing the technologies that passengers want and need. Give your patrons customized visibility of where you are on the road with just the click of a button! MegaTrac is now included at no additional cost with the NetBox Suite. Start your no-risk trial today!

One question: Does “customized visibility of their move” mean that riders can see exactly where they are on the road (en route to the destination)? If so, I think I’d reword it like I did above. If that phrase doesn’t mean that, let me know and I can reword/rephrase that accordingly.

www.unitedbustech.com

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RIP ALL-INCLUSIVE PRICING

eventeen years ago my wife, young daughter and I went on a cruise to Mexico. The allure of the cruise was that it was “all-inclusive” and it lived up to the hype. Want lobster tails in your room at 2:00 a.m.? “No problem, sir, be right there.” About the only things you had to pay for were the spa, the slot machines and the shore excursions.

Fast forward to today. We just returned from a cruise all these years later and the changes were noticeable… and expensive. One of the main things that struck me as we looked at the prices for this cruise was that the ticket prices hadn’t really gone up much between our first cruise and this one. Honestly, it was less than 20 percent different, which doesn’t even cover cost increases over that same

period of time. But I soon found out how they were able to do what they were doing. Although the cost to get on the ship was nearly the same, the price changes once onboard were significant. You see, during our first cruise, one of the things that amazed me, probably because I was a broke 20-something newlywed, was that everything was

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included. You would walk around the ship and everything from the coffee shop pastries to the pizza place were all included. Just stand in line, order what you want, and sit down and enjoy. Now what they do is different. While you still can technically take a cruise and only pay the ticket price, what you see is that the ships have been engineered to extract more money from the passengers at every turn. The psychology of this “fee-based price increase” is really quite genius. For example, in my case, had ticket prices been twice or three times more than they were all those years ago, I wouldn’t have gone at all. With a family of six, the price just to get on the ship was something that took some consideration. So the lower price got me on the ship with my entire family. But what we didn’t realize was that the “all-inclusive” model had been chipped

away at over the past 17 years. Now, that little card on your wrist that gets you on and off the ship was really more of a credit card. Want a donut from the coffee shop? No problem, swipe your card. Want sushi instead of the buffet? No problem, swipe your card. Each decision was small and painless. A few bucks here for a donut, a souvenir there, a cute picture of the kids, a few video games in the arcade. Each time you gladly swiped your card knowing that it was something that you wanted, that enhanced the experience. Then came Saturday. Time to get off the ship and the realization that your final statement had a huge pile of expenses. Then the knowledge that if you had added those extras to the price of the tickets in the beginning to what was actually “included,” you would never have gone in the first place.

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Now the question is, was I mad? No. Was I upset? No. Will I leave a nasty review on Trip Advisor or Google? No. As I went through the list each and every decision was one I made, on purpose, that I was ultimately glad I did. I spent the money not because I had to, but because I wanted to. The truth is, yes, I could have been on the boat and never spent a dime. There was no obligation or requirement. I could have skipped every single thing that we did that was extra. But we didn’t and that is the point.

The idea of “all-inclusive” is dying, not only in the cruise ship industry, but at every place that it had once existed. All-inclusive resorts now almost always have a “what’s included” and “what’s not” list, which is ironic considering the idea of “all-inclusive.” Everything from airlines and car rental companies to resorts and insurance plans are walking away from the idea that “our price includes everything.” Everyone but motorcoach operators. The motorcoach industry has, as long as I have been a part of it, had their

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“all-inclusive” price. With charters, it’s their daily rate. With line runs, it’s the ticket price. In these prices everything has been “included.” Now there are those who will say that’s not true, we have done things like charge for dropping off at the airport or tolls, but that is not what I am talking about here. In those cases, operators are passing on actual costs to the customer. Even fuel surcharges are not part of this equation. This is about giving people the ability to choose to spend more money when they book with you. The cruise ship was a great example, as are airlines. They give us a pattern that we can follow. Want to get on the ship early or stay late? No problem… click here. Want someone to carry your bags on and off the ship? Click here. Trip insurance, cancelation protection, weather insurance… click here. The airlines are masters of this. Have legs with knees? Click here. Want to get on first so you have a place to put your bags…want a snack that isn’t a shot glass of Sprite and a mouthful of salted bread bits… click here. We live in a world where customers have become conditioned to the idea of being able to spend money above and beyond the “cost” to get what they want. We also live in a world where consumers use price as a shopping criterion. When I talk to operators, I continually see people trying to hang on to the all-inclusive mentality while still battling

to keep prices low. This does nothing for our businesses or our industry. We must look for ways we can keep prices low, but at the same time create ways for our passengers to pay us more for the things they want. Welcome to our bus company. Here is our price. Want luggage service? Click here. Want onboard entertainment? Click here. Want to get on the bus first? Click here. Want to have snacks or water? Click here…. It’s time we buried the idea of all-inclusive and started looking for more ways to let passengers willfully, gladly, pay us more for our services. ¦

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TURNING ONBOARD TECHNOLOGY INTO PROFIT. www.unitedbustech.com

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THE REAL COST OF DISCOUNTING

f you are in the charter business, you are also seemingly unavoidably in the discount business. We use lots of ways to justify it and we are under what feels like a constant pressure to hand out discounts like candy at a parade. From the ubiquitous “can you match this price” question to pressure to “sharpen the pencil” on an RFP response. From professional consumers like tour operators and corporate transportation coordinators to churches calling looking for donations and discounts appealing to your “higher” self, discounts are a part of the business of being in the bus business. So, if they are part of the business and foundational to the game why are we taking your valuable time to discuss them? Because they are costing you, your company, and our industry more than you can imagine. Like so many things in life, recognizing you have a problem is the first step to fixing it. Obviously, discounts are not unique to the transportation industry. In fact, there are not many industries that I am aware of that don’t offer, in some form or fashion, discounts in their business model. What may be unique to the bus industry is the impact that discounting has on our businesses. For many industries, discounts are a part of the pricing structure. Simply mark it up, so you can mark it down. Car manufacturers, for example, create inflated MSRP pricing so dealers can “mark them

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down” offering manufactured “sales” that drive consumers to act. Other industries offer discounts based on things such as volume. For example, if I buy 10 widgets they will cost me one price per widget. However, if I buy 10,000, the per widget cost can go down significantly. Significant economy of scale economics are at play in these types of discounts. Unfortunately, in the bus business, we don’t benefit from either of these scenarios. Falsely inflating prices just to offer consumers discounts, does very little when it comes to our core consumer group. They understand daily and milage rates and have a fairly good grasp of what our costs actually are. Economy of scale in this business does very little for us as well. When we offer a discount to a customer very little in our cost structure changes. Fuel may vary a little based on volume, but drivers wages, insurance, vehicle

maintenance, compliance, and the rest stay fundamentally the same. That leaves us offering discounts out of nothing but our profit margins, which may be affecting more in your operation than you might think. Take, for example, a charter that was quoted at $1100 a day for 2 days. But then the phone rings and you get the question that so many have to deal with. “I Have a quote from the guy down the street. He is willing to do it for $950 a day. Can you match that price?” Having sold charters myself, the logic often goes as follows: “Well...I don’t want to lose the chance at $950 a day. If I say no, this guy books with my competition. I have drivers that need work, I should probably just take the deal and get my bus on the road.”

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If you are like so many other operators, you will probably push back a little trying to get more. However, if they resist even a little, you take the work and put the driver and the bus on the road. Over the last 5 years, I have heard a lot of justifications for doing discounted work. Everything from keeping staff working to having buses on the road “advertising” for future business. While I know that there are some truth to all of these reasons, they are none the less justifications. Here is the reality. Every dollar that you give away in discounts every month is money that could have been directly on your bottom line. There are no additional fixed or variable costs associated with it. Every person in the chain from the charter salesperson to the bus washers

and drivers to dispatchers will have to do exactly the same amount of work regardless of the discount. The bus will still get the same wear and tear, the same fuel will be consumed... literally the exact same things will happen to deliver that trip, just with less upside for the company. Let’s look at a real-world example here. First, let’s take a look at company A. They run at a profit margin of 20%. They take the charter that was originally quoted at $1100 a day for two days at the rate of $950 a day in order to “get the work”. A move that costs them $300. Based on their profit margins, they would have made a company profit of $440 on the trip at the original rate. That means that in the case of this trip, the 10% discount on the front end, resulted in a 75% discount in actual profits on that trip. Yep....75%. Now, I know that there are those who will say, yes, but they still made $140. They put drivers in seats, rolled the bus, and at the end of the day that is a win. That is, of course, a business decision. With all that said, let me ask you this. When was the last time you thought to yourself “I want to do that... but where would I get the money?” Whether it is a marketing opportunity, hiring a new GM, building a new facility, buying a piece of equipment, outfitting the fleet with a new tool... If you are like most operators, not very long ago.

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In single charter terms, giving up a few hundred dollars to â&#x20AC;&#x153;rescueâ&#x20AC;? the charter from a competitor can seem like a plausible decision. When that same strategy becomes a major part of day to day operations, it can gut a company of its ability to do anything but survive. In simple math terms, if you look at this as a linear equation, you can often be fooled into a sense of complacency. Taking from the above example, if you give this discount and figure that you will make 20% as a profit margin then the math says that you would have made $440 and after the discount you would make $380... so you may say what is the big deal. The issue lies in the fact that we make 20% profit not on whatever we end up charging, but rather on our full rates... in this case, when we should have made $440, you ended up making $140. The future of the charter business is filled with as many opportunities as its challenges. Many of the challenges we face come with a price tag. From unfunded mandates for compliance from the government to the need to shift how we employ drivers, what we pay, and what benefits we offer. Challenges seem to be just around every corner. Facing these challenges will be infinitely easier with well-stocked war chests. One of the fastest ways to address this is to work to fix the constant backslide that erodes the profits of so many charter businesses.

The way to do this is to learn how to sell value over price. This is something that I am excited to teach at the upcoming sales summit at the end of March. We will be covering specifically how to address discount requests, how to develop, and leverage, a USP (unique selling proposition), and what you need to do to empower a team to sell from your price sheet and stop needing to provide discounts to get deals done! We will see you there! ÂŚ

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ONCOACH INFOTAINMENT LET CUSTOMERS STREAM THE LATEST BLOCKBUSTERS ON THEIR DEVICES. PUT MORE DOLLARS ON YOUR BOTTOM LINE. Give your passengers what they want! Let them stream the latest Hollywood hits on their devices without using your wireless data. UBT has partnered with SWANK Motion Pictures, Inc. to provide the only onboard streaming service with licensed rights to the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest repository of content. Turn your onboard technology into the profit center it deserves to be with our built-in payment portal, WiFi, and movie-streaming services.

www.unitedbustech.com

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SELLING YOUR PRICES

“

I got a quote from your competitor, can you match their price?” This is the question we answer more than we would like to admit, the question that drives millions in discounted charter prices every year, and the question that is probably the most misunderstood in the charter industry today. The most important piece of the “can you match their price” puzzle is understanding the motivation behind it. In talking to operators around the country there are typically two main responses to this question - in my opinion, both responses are incorrect. First, there are those that are frankly upset. They know that the price that they are being asked to match is from an operator that isn’t up to par. They also know that the shopper is indeed not comparing apples to apples, or in some cases even apples to any type of fruit at all. The question and the response combined drives a feeling of disrespect and the response that this emotion garners is often one that is confrontational.

“No, we can’t match that price, we are a way better company than they are. In fact, I wouldn’t even feel safe putting my family on that bus. Their maintenance is bad and their buses break down all over town, but go ahead and use them. Who knows if they will even show up. But, don’t call me when it all goes wrong and you want someone to bail you out.” Responses like these are common and are frankly as unwarranted as they are useless. Second, and potentially even more damaging than the first, is the discount mentality this question can engrain in sales staff. This thought process usually goes something like this... “If they are asking me to match a price, that means that they are very price sensitive. If I don’t discount this we will lose the charter and worse the opportunity to work with them again.” This inevitably results in a sales person who is either handing out discounts or petitioning management for steep discounts in order to be “competitive.” The problem here is that while the request did indeed happen,

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the underlying reason is often completely missed. Let me explain. The first thing to realize is that this question is rooted in something called value perception. Everything we buy, be it at Walmart or at a Ferrari dealership, is rooted in our own personal value proposition. That is how we see the value of the thing we are purchasing vs. what we are being asked to pay. We weigh a lot of things to make these decisions and it is the reason why we will sometimes look for the cheapest of a certain product. While other times we are willing to pay more. We put all the inputs in this internal calculator and out pops a determination if we are going to buy or not buy. This becomes clear when you look at things like a watch. At one store you can buy a watch that will tell time and be reliable for around $10. Go down the street and you can find a watch that accomplishes that same function for tens of thousands. Why? Why would someone’s value perception tell them that the $10,000 watch is the one to buy? It may be any number of things, but how they feel and how others feel about them, is probably going to be high on that list. This is also why sometimes we are willing to pay more for convenience or

availability or why we pay more for one brand over another. So, back to the question at hand. “Can you match this price?”. What we must do is translate what is actually being asked. In this case what the customer is actually asking is this: “So far we have been talking about what I need and it appears that you can provide that service. Unfortunately for me, there are also others who claim to be able to meet those same requirements but the prices are all over the map. You are not the least expensive but from what I have seen, I may want to work with you. What I don’t yet understand is why I should pay you more for your service than this other provider. I have a sense that I should book with you, but I need you to help me understand why I should be willing to pay more.” I think that if someone called with this question our response would be significantly different. We must recognize that this question presents two very clear realities to our sales teams that they need to understand. First, if price was the only thing they cared about, we would not be having this conversation. They would have booked the lowest price and never looked back.

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They have seen something, that is triggering them to want more input before they make a final decision. Something has them thinking they want to work with your company, but they don’t know how to justify the extra expense. Second, they don’t know what you know. Many charters are booked by what we will call “non- professional consumers”. These folks are booking a charter but they are really executive assistants, football coaches, teachers, church leaders, or any number of other things. Their roll has now presented them with the need to book a coach, but it is foreign to them. They don’t speak the language and they definitely don’t know the ins and outs. They don’t know why company A is better than company B. They don’t understand equipment, type, age, maintenance, drivers, or even what customer service means or why it matters in this industry. Once we understand what we are actually dealing with. What this question means. Then, and only then, can we start to see it for the opportunity that it actually is. This question is an opportunity to educate someone who is actively shopping for your service on why you are worth more to them. It is your opportunity to

help craft their value perception in a way that points clearly to you and your product. It is an opportunity to sell more of your product. Sell what is unique to you. Sell what you know that they probably don’t know. Sell them on why they need YOU, why they need your company, and why you are worth paying more for. Do that well and you will watch that many of these “price-sensitive” buyers are willing to pay more for your service and you will start selling more, to more people, for more money! ¦

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NEW YEAR, NEW PRICES

t seems like business shuts down somewhere before Thanksgiving and starts back up for real somewhere mid-January. This provides us with some much needed time to reflect on our year and what we want to accomplish in the coming 12 months.

interest rates, etc., increasing in price and the need to increase wages to attract and retain employees, it seems that the expense column of our balance sheet is constantly getting biggerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; even in spite of our best efforts to control costs.

If you are anything like the many operators I have talked to over the last six months, one of the biggest questions on your mind is, how do you raise your prices?

Then 2018 added a whole new dynamic to this with another round of unfunded government mandates in the form of ELDs. While we were forced to install, maintain, train and manage this new tool, no one sent out checks to cover the costs. This mandate is another item in a long line of things that we are asked to do on the expense side

Businesses get more costly to run every year. Between business expenses like insurance, new coaches, fuel,

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of our businesses while we battle to even keep our rates the same. As I have traveled, one of the most interesting things that I have seen is the almost universal belief that we simply can’t raise our prices without alienating a major portion of our buying public. As we approach this new year and look for ways to do more, hire more, buy more, we must also consider how we are going to charge more. For some, this may be as simple as printing out the new price list with a 15 percent increase. If this is you, you are one of the lucky ones. If you are not, you are more normal than you might think, and you may have to find creative ways to get more for your services in other ways. I think back to the last major fuel price increase we saw in 2011 and 2012. The industry realized that there was no way that we could absorb an increase like that and so, almost universally, we started to charge a fuel surcharge. Unfortunately, the increases in cost for things such as new coaches, insurance, and the like have happened quietly, slowly, and with little fanfare. This has led us to absorb these expenses into our business model, and as such, we have done little to try to offset these rates to the degree necessary to sustain healthy profits. While I do not believe that we as an industry can simply, as one unit, raise our prices, I do believe that there is

a path for individual operators to find ways to put bottom-line profits back on the bottom line. Here are two strategies that I think are worth looking at in addition to, or in lieu of, a traditional price increase:

Ancillary fees

We operate in an industry where fees are part of the game. Whether you book a flight, rent a car or book a hotel room, the traveling public understands that fees are part of the game. Look for ways to make fuel surcharges, ELD compliance fees, airport fees, overnight parking fees, multi-day lavatory dump fees, driver swap fees, driver per diem fees or any others you can think of part of your plan. Done right, fees are part of a profit strategy. Not everything needs to be “included” in the initial quoted price.

Value-add services

As an industry, we come from a paradigm that whatever we do, it’s included. We need to start looking at our businesses and asking, what is our base level service? What does it include? We then need to look at what we are currently, or could be doing beyond that and charge for it. This may be WiFi, movies, snacks, onboard attendant, water service, first-class seating, luggage service or any number of other things. People will pay for things they want or need. Think about the last time you rented a car for $19 a day for two

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days and paid $86. If you are like most people, you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t complain, report them to the Better Business Bureau or leave a nasty remark on their social media pages. Chances are you simply paid it and assumed it was the cost of what you wanted. From our cell phone bills to golf club dues, fees have become part of what we expect as consumers and now they need to be part of what we do as businesses to drive more profit where it belongs: on our bottom lines. ÂŚ

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CAN THE ANCILLARY FEE STRATEGY WORK FOR US?

s the executive director of the Motorcoach Marketing Council, I travel. Some months it is more than others, but without fail, whenever I look at my calendar, I am always about to go somewhere. As many of you who travel know, the mystique of flying wore off somewhere back when bellbottoms were all the rage, and travel today is more work than it is anything else. I am always surprised when people who hear that I travel a lot respond with, “Oh wow, so glamorous!”

If glamorous means what I think it does (and Uncle Webster seems to agree), that couldn’t be further from the truth. From tiny seats to packed flights and hotel rooms to eating all of your meals out, travel is not for the faint of heart. It’s stressful, crowded, delayed chaos that we pay good money to participate in. The days of, “Hello, sir, welcome aboard! May I take your jacket, and is the chicken entree still okay?” have, over the last decades, become a curt, “Take your seats, we want to leave on time…and I hope none of you brought any peanuts!”

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Interestingly, the airlines are more profitable today than theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever been. How, you may ask? How has an industry been able to engineer profits at the same time theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been cutting services at every turn? I was recently asked to give a presentation on increasing profits in a motorcoach business. There are only four ways, I knew, to impact bottom line profits in your business. You can: lower your costs, charge more for what you are already selling, sell more of what you are already selling or diversify your profit centers.

I hold a fundamental belief that we, as an industry, do not charge what we should for our service. Our prices are not commensurate with the risk and asset investments we are asked to operate under. If you have ever been at one of my presentations, this will not come as any surprise. During those sessions, I often ask the audience members if they believe that they could raise prices across the board 20 to 40 percent and maintain their customer base. In the five years I have been asking that question, I can only remember a few who thought they could.

At first blush it sounds simple, and in some cases, it can be. But as I began to prepare my presentation, one of those strategies stuck out more than the others: charge more for your service.

But letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look at what the airlines have done. In 2008, the airline industry was in trouble. Fuel prices and a lack of customers who still had money to fly were driving their profits into the ground. They knew they needed to do

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something, but with the country in the early stages of a massive recession, it simply wasn’t the time to raise prices. So what was an airline company to do? The answer came in the form of ancillary fees. These fees were basically unheard of prior to 2008. When you bought your ticket, you also got things like a checked bag and even snacks on the plane. You could choose any seat you wanted; in fact, if you booked early enough, you could book aisle, exit row or even bulkhead seats. In the wake of 2008’s shift, all of those things became what are now known as ancillary costs to the consumer. Today we pay for everything—checking our bags, WiFi, movies, early boarding and buying flight mile multipliers.

And how, you may ask, has this little scheme turned out for the airline industry? Good—$82.2 billion good in 2017 alone, to be exact. So that raises the big question here, the one that keeps rolling around in my head. How can we learn from our cousins in the skies? How can we put the ancillary fee strategy to work for us? How can we raise our rates without raising our rates? Maybe, for some, it’s fees. WiFi and movie fees, snacks or beverage fees, onboard attendant fees, value-add travel fees. One could even charge for storing luggage under the bus! While I am not suggesting that we build a model that will nickel and dime our customer base, I am saying that we live in a world where consumers are

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used to an ancillary fee model. (Ever rented a rental car for $23/day for two days, only to end up paying $118?) There are a lot of issues in this industry that could be closer to being resolved with additional bottom line revenue coming in. If you are like most operators who believe that a 30 percent price increase to your customers this

January is tantamount to professional suicide, maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worth giving some thought to this idea of ancillary fees. It may not be right for everyone, but for some, it will drive new revenue streams that will help generate additional profits!

ÂŚ

SAFETY

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WHEN A TECHNOLOGY HELPS YOU LIMIT LIABILITY AND INCREASE PROFITS, YOU WIN.

WITH SAFETY+ YOU WIN BIG.

SAFETY+ TURNS ONBOARD SCREENS INTO LIABILITY-MITIGATING, PROFITMAKING POWERHOUSES! PUSH BUTTON OR GPS-TRIGGERED SAFETY BRIEFINGS When accidents happen, one of the first questions plaintiff attorneys ask is, “Was there a safety briefing? What did it say?” Safety+ makes it easy to know for sure! Triggered by an in-dash button or GPS geo-fence, compliance and peace of mind have never been easier.

TURN SCREENS INTO PROFITS WITH ADS Turn your coach screens into a powerful profit center with onboard advertising. With Safety+ and UBT One, you can upload ads to run before or after safety videos. You can even trigger them with a GPS geo-fence! Point and click your way to a whole new profit center.

STOP ANNOUNCEMENTS OR POINTS OF INTEREST Do you want to give some information about upcoming stops while running a shuttle? Would it be helpful to use GPS to announce highlights and local attractions on a sightseeing tour? What if you could do both in just a few minutes and deploy the entire thing over the air without ever touching the bus? With the Netbox Suite, you can do just that!

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FOUR WAYS TO GATHER DATA, INCREASE BUSINESS Big data is a big deal. Marketers around the globe have turned to data as a powerful ally in finding new customers and cross-selling to existing customers. Big data is an umbrella term that refers to all the data points available to marketers, and it includes everything from what you buy at the grocery store to what you watch on cable TV. Almost everything we do these days has a digital footprint, and those footprints are, in most cases, available to marketers to try to decide if weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re the perfect fit for their product or services.

While big data is a really popular buzz word in the marketing ecosphere, I believe that small data is the single most overlooked marketing tool in the motorcoach industry. Small data, at least for the sake of this article, is the data that exists inside your business. You can track that data and use it to grow your business by consistently focusing on (and answering) 4 important questions.

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1: What do your customers buy from you? This may sound simple, and for the most part it is. Knowing what people buy from you is the first step in understanding how to sell more of it. You don’t just want to know that they bought a line run ticker, a charter, or a school bus move; you want to know what they did with it, what time of day they needed it, and how often they may have that need in the future. Imagine that you own a grocery store and you’re trying to increase profits. The answer to growth wouldn’t necessarily be to add more product or expand the size of the store. At some point, you have to utilize the shelf space you have to increase profit. For example, you might notice that you have half an aisle devoted to pickled pigs feet, but you only sold 10 jars last month. In contrast, though you only sell two types of beef jerky, you moved hundreds of units in the last 30 days. This data helps you replace product

that isn’t moving with product that is, thereby increasing your sales inside the confines of existing space. We have the same opportunity in the motorcoach business. If you have a piece of equipment sitting or empty seats on a line run, that’s your “existing shelf space”, and you have to figure out what product to put in it. In bus terms, the question is this: What type of customer are you most likely to talk to that will fill those empty seats? Perhaps you know that your line run customers are primarily professionals in their 20s and 30s, or you’re selling a lot of work to local businesses who need shuttles due to major road construction projects. Intelligence-based selling allows you to market to the people who are most likely to be your customers, and this is done by selling them a product you already know they’re interested in.

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2: How did a customer hear about you? If you have ever read an article I have written, you know this is something near and dear to my heart. Why? BECAUSE IT MATTERS MORE THAN MOST THINGS A BUSINESS DOES!!! (Sorry, I get carried away sometimes.) Most motorcoach operators I’ve worked with over the past 10 years employ some kind of a shotgun approach to marketing (throw it all against the wall and hope that enough of it sticks to pay the bills). Some do very little, others do a lot, some spend hardly anything on true marketing, and others spend, spend, spend. The one thing these operators have in common is that most of them don’t know what’s actually generating their results. Is it the ad running in the local magazine, the radio spot, the website, Google search, bus rates, or something else they’re doing? They don’t know,which means that they’re afraid to assess and refine the money spent on marketing. (What if they cut something that’s actually generating results?) So, the marketing budget grows year after year until someone comes in with a broad-stroke machete, hacking it apart

while the owners clench their teeth, hold their breath, and hope it doesn’t hurt too bad. Knowing how your customers found you gives you the super power to eliminate all of that nonsense; it gives you the intelligence to spend less and do more. And it makes sense, right? If 9 of the 10 things you’re doing aren’t generating any results, you can stop spending money on them and, instead, invest it where you’ll get a return. This is something I’ve shared with countless operators. If you’ll do this one thing, I promise you’ll spend less and get more results than you’re getting right now. (For the record, I have yet to have anyone prove me wrong on this.) If you’ve ever made advertising decisions based solely on what you think, feel, or believe, try this instead: Ask every single customer that calls you, regardless of whether they book or not, how they heard about you. Be as specific as you can and record the data. You can’t imagine how empowering it is to make decisions based on what you know is actually working!

“Knowing what people buy from you is the first step in understanding how to sell more of it.”

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3: When are you busy? This should be a no brainer...should be. You should have a color-coded calendar on your wall: green for days you want more business, yellow for days that are almost full, and red for any daysthat are sold out. Using a calendar system allows you to (eventually) have a working calendar for the current year and a forecast calendar from last year. As the years stack up, you’ll be able to use those calendars to identify clear patterns, and those patterns can quickly be turned into bottom line dollars. This is simple supply and demand economics. On days where you traditionally have very little demand and an abundance of supply, you want to sharpen the pencil, get competitive with pricing, and market more aggressively

to those who traditionally consume your product during those times (see number 1). On yellow days (or days that are traditionally yellow year after year), you want to limit discounting and consider peak demand surcharges. And red days? They’re your cash money days. Don’t discount or charge peak surcharge rates, and make sure you’re only booking customers who payon time and won’t cancel last minute. The calendar approach, along with the data from number 1, gives you the ability to fill up slow days, make busy days more profitable, and it’s probably the easiest way to increase bottomline revenue. Remember, this doesn’t come from what you think, feel, or remember; it comes from hard data.

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4: Why did someone choose NOT to buy from you?

I went to a farmers’ market last Saturday and bought a delicious watermelon that weighed 25 lbs.I probably walked by a dozen melon stands; to an untrained eye, they all looked exactly the same. Many were handing out samples and calling potential customers into their booths, some claimed they had better melons than any of the other vendors, and still others were offering discounts (one even had a 2-for-1 deal). So how, you may wonder, did I choose where to buy my juicy, delicious, red-seeded watermelon? Simple. I chose the vendor closest to the parking lot. (Because who wants to carry a watermelon that heavy a quarter of a mile to the car?) I imagine that, once the market was over on Saturday night, vendors talked

about ways they could sell more next time (reduce cost, offer a 3-for-1 deal, give away bigger samples, etc.). The expensive vendors may have thought they didn’t sell as many melons because of price, or maybe they wondered if there was a quality issue. But here’s the thing: I bet none of them considered that proximity to the car could be the ultimate buying factor. We do this same thing in the bus business all the time. We see the difference between the charter quotes we send out and the business we actually book, and then make the same assumptions the watermelon vendors were likely making on Saturday night. (“It must have been price. Maybe our equipment is too old. They must not like our drivers. If only we could sell at more of a discount, we would fill up those dispatch sheets.”) But often,

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like the melon vendors, we’re just plain wrong.

when and how you discount, what you charge, and who you market to.

Reaching out to customers to ask for the sale after issuing a charter quote or ticket price for a line run is good business. I don’t think anyone can debate that. But the few companies that do that often stop when it comes to being told they didn’t get the work, and that’s unfortunate. One of the most important pieces of small data available to any company is the follow-up question: “May I ask why you decided to book with our competitors?”

At the end of the day, I can make you this promise: If you’ll focus on these 4 questions to gather and use small data in your business, you’ll sell more charters, to more people, for more money! ¦

The data that comes from that will give you a level of business intelligence that you probably never thought possible. You won’t have to give away melons, provide samples, or offer discounts; instead, you can address the real issue and move your booth closer to the parking lot! These 4 data points are a foundation you can use to radically improve your business. But like any data, gathering it is only the beginning of the battle. You must begin to reshape what you do based on the information that you get. Use the data to inform how you spend marketing dollars,

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FOLLOWING UP ON

QUOTE REQUESTS IS KEY TO CLOSING SALES

he Marketing Council’s mission is to help operators sell more charters, to more people, for more money.

broaden our consumer base and, probably most of all, we need to increase our profit margins.

Sure, it’s catchy and rolls off the tongue, but even more than that? Those words are powerful — and true.

Simply put, the margins we currently garner aren’t proportionate to the liability we are exposed to or the effort it takes to run a charter business.

In order to ensure a healthy future for our industry, we need more charters to grow our businesses, more people to

Though we all employ advertising, sales and marketing strategies in our businesses, our ability to grow and progress

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can ultimately be boiled down to the most fundamental of all principles: supply and demand. If the demand for our product outpaces supply, our prices can be raised to a level commensurate with our effort and exposure. If supply outweighs demand, prices remain low and we continue to squeak by, unable to adequately address the elephants in the room (driver shortage, anyone?). While there are myriad ways one could address supply and demand, there are a few generally accepted business practices at work in almost all other industries that we need to build into our operations. I am going to address something that we all probably “know” on some level, even though we’re not likely doing it — at least not 100 percent of the time. If you are a charter operation, you’ll probably get a quote request today. This means that through your website, social platforms, busrates.com or another channel, someone will find you. Responding to quotes That request suggests that a potential customer has discovered that you exist and offer a service they are

considering, or they know enough about our industry to consider using a piece of your equipment to move their group. In all likelihood, you’ll soon respond to that quote, sending them details about the move, along with a price. You’ll inevitably receive more quote requests during this same window of time, and once you hit send on your response to that initial quote request email, you’ll likely move on to the next in line. By the end of the day (or week), the stack of quote requests you received will likely be close to the same size as the stack of quotes you responded to. If you are like most operators, you will start and end each week working to keep on top of the flow of quotes. Your objective might be to respond to quotes more quickly, and you might even dream of a world where quotes are software-based (hello instantaneous!) so you can work on more pressing matters. But we’re missing a step here. In every sales training program, you’ll learn that one of the fundamental pieces of the puzzle is the close. Maybe this immediately makes you think about some sleazy usedcar salesman (“you’ll get a free undercarriage coating if you buy

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right now”), or perhaps you’re thinking that you don’t need to close. If they really want what you have, they will buy it. When we send quotes in this industry, we make a couple of assumptions. First, we assume that because they contacted us, they know about us and we’re going to be their only choice. The reality? Most shoppers are just that: shoppers. They are looking around, trying to figure out what company they want to use. And second? We assume that they’ll call us back if they want what we have. Many more deals Studies show that when salespeople follow up and ask for

the sale, they close many more business deals than the times they choose not to follow up. That’s right, many more deals. Studies also confirm that people are often willing to pay significantly more when they speak with someone who cared enough to follow up. I am often asked what one thing will help a company to grow the most quickly. Most people are looking for an answer like “post more frequently on Facebook” or “buy an ad in this magazine.” But honestly, the fastest way to meaningful growth is following up, via phone, with 100 percent of the quotes that you send, and within 24 hours of sending them. (Sales and marketing are two different animals. Sales are about

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responding to existing demand for your product or service, while marketing focuses on increasing the demand. It is easy to look at following up as a strictly sales-related activity, but it actually has a marketing component as well.) The next step to harvesting more business is to market to your customer base. This marketing is key to increasing demand. Once we’ve worked with a customer, we often assume they’ll call us when they need transportation again. This belief is simply NOT TRUE, and it’s costing you real dollars every month. Sure, you have a base of loyal customers; they are usually people who book frequently or have booked over several years. These people have been with you through thick and thin, and they tell you when other companies call on them.

They are good customers, but they’re the exception, not the rule. If a soccer parent books a team bus, or a company books a holiday shuttle this year, it’s not a guarantee that they’ll do the same thing next year. They’ll shop around, just like they did this year, unless you give them a reason not to. Marketing is that reason. So, this is how you do it: every time you quote a charter, add that information to a working database. Record who the potential customer was, what they wanted to book a charter for and whether that activity is something they do every year. Then, use the information. Talk to these people on a regular basis and find out what they like. If they’re interested in corporate transportation, for example, send them emails about that. You can also suggest

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other ways they can use a coach, and introduce them to your sales team.

consists of creating those emails or making phone calls.

You can teach them how to be a better consumer, how to know something is a good deal and how they can recognize when they’re trading safety and reliability for dollars. Inform them, inspire them, educate them — and be consistent! Here’s why: the next time that consumer needs a coach, they won’t think about shopping; they’ll think about you.

As an industry, we are so focused on quote delivery as the be-all and end-all of our sales tasks. Because of this, we staff to that level by building organizational structures that allow us to keep our noses above water in the race between quote requests and responding to them.

Better than nothing? I know that implementing these changes is far easier said than done. Believe you me, I have been there. It’s just easier to fall back on sending a bulk email to everyone with pictures of your new coaches. (Doing something is obviously better than nothing, right?) But here’s the thing: in all likelihood, getting that email out becomes a low priority when it snows, or it’s Spring Break or when 1,000 other reasons come up. Bottom line? Pretty soon, six months have gone by and you’re asking yourself this question: Is it even worth talking to them now after six months of zero communication? Chances are good that your organization, right now, may not have anyone who has the capability, time, training or technical prowess to accomplish these follow-up tasks. You may not have a person whose job

This leaves little room for closing or prospecting. But if you have ever sat in, or listened to, a sales training by the likes of Tony Robbins or Zig Ziglar, you will recall the fact that a good sales or marketing person will not cost you money; they will make you money. Initially, hiring a person for that particular job can be hard to stomach as you watch your payroll go up. Done consistently, however, these activities can’t do anything but help you grow, and the key to doing them consistently is having someone whose sole job is to make that happen. The last thing I want to touch on is anniversary based selling. Remember how I asked you to find out whether a customer anticipates doing a particular move on an annual basis when you’re in the middle of the quote process? The answer to that question is a veritable gold mine. If you’re willing to accept that most customers won’t be inherently loyal as

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a result of using your services once, and you know that they are going to be doing the same type of move on an annual basis, you can begin to harvest that business before it ever becomes available to a competitor.

Alternately, when you don’t call, some customers will go to other providers and some will forget to book again. In many cases, however, this step will get them to book directly, eliminating a lot of the price sensitivity that comes from the shopping experience.

More business This technique works like you can’t imagine, and the reason it works is simple: people are willing to work with you to avoid the process of getting quotes. Calling to say “I see that you booked about this time last year with us, and I wanted to see if you were ready to book again,” will lead to more business.

The stuff we’re talking about isn’t simple, and I’d wager that, in most cases, you probably already know that these things would help you grow your business. I’d also wager that, in almost every operation in North America, all three of these things aren’t happening all of the time.

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Consistency is king in the sales and marketing world — and prince, and queen and every other royal title. It is the only thing that matters. I have seen people who took marketing in a tacky, weird, cliché direction, but because they did it routinely, consistently, even religiously, they were wildly successful. In contrast, I’ve seen others invest in beautiful, well-crafted marketing that was used inconsistently at best, and those efforts became little more than a reminder of what could have been when they actually decided to belly up. Supply and demand is what drives our ability to increase prices. If you were sold out every day, you could raise your prices, replace low-profit business with high-profit work, pay drivers more and fill up your driver pool. With increased demand comes the control to hire the right people, pay the right people and keep the right people in your operation. This is hard work. I realize it’s virtually impossible to manufacture more time in a day or add more work to someone’s already-overflowing plate. But I also know that if we invest in people who can help us accomplish these three things, we’ll grow, see measurable changes in our businesses and absolutely sell more charters, to more people, for more money. ¦

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SYNERGY MARKETING

was recently asked to speak at a conference. The request was simple: “Teach them how to land more business without spending as much time and money on marketing.” At first, I laughed. Let’s be honest;

that’s a little like saying: “Teach them how to lose weight while eating more junk donuts and working out less.” I politely agreed to teach on a totally different subject and moved on. But that request has eaten at me

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where happy endings are always just a few plot turns ahead, I want to solve this issue. I want to help operators sell more while doing less, though that sword in the stone is a tough one to pull out. But is it really? Maybe the notion isn’t quite as crazy as it may (at first blush) sound. Let’s discuss. First, the disclaimer: marketing does require some effort, time, and resources. I recently taught a class about guerrilla marketing and one of the key points I shared was that, with any marketing you do, you must choose 2 of the following: cheap, easy, or effective. You can opt for cheap and easy (but it won’t be effective), go for cheap and effective (but it won’t be easy), or focus on easy and effective (but it won’t be cheap).

ever since, and not because it was irritating or funny. In this industry, that is the elephant in the room. Because we are ridiculously busy running our businesses and trying to keep coaches on the road and drivers at the wheels, marketing is the ugly stepsister that keeps getting shoved to the back of the line. Because I’m an eternal optimist, however, and because I’ve raised my kids on the Disney principles of life

The strategy that I am going to talk about today is cheap and effective, but not necessarily easy in the beginning. It will, however, become an autopilot strategy that will pay long-term dividends and fill up your dispatch sheets. It’s called synergy marketing, and it will transform how you sell. In its most basic form, synergy marketing is when you find other companies who are targeting the same audiences you are, and you work together for the mutual benefit of all partners involved. This is inherently different than referral marketing, as referral marketing is built around referral fees and almost always has a “catch”: if someone sends you business, you

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owe them something. With synergy marketing, the fact that you are growing together is the point; no money changes hands. To begin, synergy marketing requires that you answer this question: Who are you trying to sell to? When I ask people this question, I often get “groups” for an answer, though that response isn’t specific enough to be helpful. But if you identify that you want to sell to more wedding groups, for example, the list of synergy potentials becomes much more clear: every wedding venue, reception center, hotel, caterer, wedding planner, dress shop, photographer, and cake decorator becomes a possible synergy partner. From businesses to churches, when you identify exactly who you want to talk to, there will inevitably be a lot of other people also trying to reach that same market. Once you’ve identified some potential partners, it’s time to reach out. This is where the initial investment in time simply can’t be skipped. Now, I am the first to admit, I hate cold calling. Period. Making unsolicited calls can be intimidating, and if you think it’s easy to put off marketing, just wait to see the list of things you can come up with to put off cold calling! But I have developed a magic recipe for success here. It’s simple and, just like “bibidi bobbidie boo”, works almost every time. “Hi, this is Chris. I am the director of sales for a transportation company

and I realized that you and I are both trying to sell to the same customers. I was wondering if we could get together to see if there was a way that we could work together and maybe send more business your way?” I know it’s a bit more wordy than “abra cadabra”, but I promise it’s just as effective. You see, what you said to them was that you want to help them grow their business. Unless they have more business than they know what to do with, or they’re having a really bad day and just got off the phone with the IRS, they will, in all likelihood, be receptive.

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So now that they are listening, what do you do next? You set up a faceto-face meeting. You can do it at your office or theirs, and over lunch, coffee, or no food at all. At the meeting, your mission is simple. You want to figure out if this person/company is doing anything that makes a synergistic relationship a possibility. Synergy marketing works wonders, but it will fail under a couple of conditions. First, it will fail if one of the partners is making referrals but

not receiving any. It will also die if one partner is not delivering the service that the other can in good faith refer. Imagine, if you will, that you set up a relationship with a caterer. Then, you tell a bride you’re working with to check out their services. She ends up booking with that caterer, and everyone is happy right up until the entire bridal party gets food poisoning from the chicken salad. No one wants to take the call from an angry customer about a referral you gave them that went horribly wrong. Bottom line? When you meet with potential partners, it’s important to look beyond surface level excitement to see if the odds are good that they’ll live up to their end of the bargain. Once you have come to an agreement, you need to have a plan in place. You’ve got to know how you’re going to refer people to them, and also what you plan to give to them to make it easier for them to send referrals to you. The first half of this is probably where many companies struggle the most because it’s not something that’s a part of our normal sales or order-taking process. In order for this to work, however, we must start to see ourselves as a resource for our customers. As we do this, opportunities to refer them to people we work with and share our “trusted vendors and partners” will open up.

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“With any marketing you do, you must choose 2 of the following: cheap, easy, or effective. You can opt for cheap and easy (but it won’t be effective), go for cheap and effective (but it won’t be easy), or focus on easy and effective (but it won’t be cheap).”

As for the second half, we simply must continue to deliver on our end of the bargain. We need to be on time, use quality equipment, be responsive, and have drivers who are true professionals. And in the event that something goes wrong, we must act quickly to make it right. If we do these things, we can build a robust stable of partners who are using their marketing efforts and dollars to help us grow our business. This effectively allows us to sell more to more people without breaking the bank or investing a whole bunch of time. (See, told you it was magic.) There isn’t any one silver bullet in the marketing world. A well-executed marketing strategy includes a lot of different tools and activities. Synergy marketing is one of the few that you could actually build an entire sales program around, and it doesn’t require

a great deal of advertising or creativity. It simply requires a little time, a few pieces of collateral that you can leave with your partners to make it easy for them to refer you, and an honest effort on your part to refer your buyers to your partners as well. I know it works because I have done it. I also know that, though it sounds simple on paper, there are a lot of moving parts that require massaging and refining over time. This kind of work takes effort and it isn’t free, but it’s relatively inexpensive, easy, and the dividends are worth it. Selling to end users is good, but being part of a network of companies whose continual referrals help fill your dispatch sheets today, tomorrow, and in the future? That really is magic! ¦

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Driving Businesses Forward

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COCONUT SHRIMP

love shrimp. Not the little ones that come in cheap cocktails, or the week-old ones at the local all-youcan-eat Chinese buffet; I’m talking about the big, fresh, beautiful ones you only see when the background of the picture is the ocean. As luck would have it, our recent move to the Texas coast in the Deep South has put us right smack in the middle of some of the best shrimping in the galaxy. Yesterday, I had shrimp for lunch. That may not sound like much of a story (and definitely not a story for a marketing column), but the tale is found in how I ended up at the restaurant eating it. As I’ve taught in this industry over the last six years, I’ve watched as we’ve embraced using social media because of the benefits that come with it. In the beginning, I would ask questions like: “How many of you in this room have corporate accounts on Facebook for your business?” The subsequent show of hands was always only a smattering of those in attendance. In contrast, when I ask that same question today, all hands go up. While this represents progress, it actually doesn’t directly correlate to the benefits derived from our social media efforts, any more than simply

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owning a hammer does in the building of a house. How the hammer is used is remarkably more important than the act of owning one. Social media is a slippery slope; after putting effort into it, it’s easy to dismiss it as irrelevant or useless. You can invest time, for example, and see little results—particularly if you didn’t put the effort where it counts, or if the metrics you’re looking at aren’t good indicators of what has come from what you did. Back to my lunch. As someone new to the local area, one of the first things I did was join Facebook groups that would give me some reach beyond

my few local neighbors and the crazy cat lady across the street. I wanted to poke my nose into the community, see what was going on, and be able to ask questions and get answers from others outside of my normal social sphere. It worked. I almost immediately felt “plugged in” to conversations about local hot spots and happenings. From the comfort of my couch, I gleaned information as people discussed everything from ways to reduce the amount of trash on the beaches to where the best steak is on a Friday night. One Sunday evening as I was perusing the local goings-on, I stumbled upon an ad. Monday, Monday, Monday…Coconut shrimp and fries, $5.99. Now, while I love shrimp, they are expensive. Even living close to the shrimp fleet, these little crustaceans cost real money. So, finding a “deal” on them looked good to me. Monday rolled around, and though I’d made a note of it, I hadn’t penciled it in my calendar or even really decided to go. But then, something interesting happened. When lunch time came, I got a call to run a quick errand. I wasn’t really thinking about it as I drove over, but as I pulled out to leave the place I had been asked to go, I found myself driving past the restaurant. I remembered the ad, pulled over,

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went in, and enjoyed a $5.99 plate of coconut shrimp and fries. As I sat eating the butterflied, golden-brown, coconut-crusted balls of deliciousness, I thought about what had brought me there. While I noticed a lettered sign out front advertising the aforementioned special, I honestly wouldn’t have given it a second glance if I’d driven past twice. Nevertheless, the restaurant was full of people who were eating coconut shrimp, and so I pulled open Facebook to try to find the post I had seen the day before. I found it. Zero likes, zero shares, zero comments. Part of the slippery slope of social media is the belief that our mission is to garner feedback from our audience; that is to say, we judge the effectiveness of our efforts by simply looking at the “engagement” statistics from a post. While there are times that these stats can be helpful indicators, they can also give a false negative. This little restaurant may have believed that their post did nothing. They could have looked at the engagement stats, thought “no one cared, no one shared,” and decided to simply cut Facebook because…darn it…it just takes so much time. But doing this would obviously have been a mistake. As I sat enjoying my meal, I thought back to my days as a creative director in a remarkably predigital world. In that world, campaigns

were thought out and tracked via traditional means to try to determine the ROI without the instant results of digital statistics. It was a world where we simply could not watch in real time how an ad was performing, or see exactly how an audience was interacting with a post. While this now seems a bit like the Dark Ages, it also brought some comfort as we played what I can only call the “Long Game”. We would create a strategy and work the plan until we could ultimately determine how exactly our efforts were affecting the bottom line. As I sat in that every-seat-taken restaurant watching an endless stream of shrimp pouring from the kitchen, it struck me that the Long Game is just as relevant and important today. How do we play that game on social media in the bus business, and how do we not let analytics stand in the way of our ultimate success? Those are great questions. First, we must have a strategy that we believe in. Social media has changed and there are a few things to keep in mind. The first—and perhaps most important—is that research shows that people are not looking to “connect” with brands. People often bristle when I say that, but think of the last time you saw something going on in the world and wondered to yourself, “I wonder what Pepsi has to say about this?”

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“Part of the slippery slope of social media is the belief that our mission is to garner feedback from our audience; that is to say, we judge the effectiveness of our efforts by simply looking at the “engagement” statistics from a post. While there are times that these stats can be helpful indicators, they can also give a false negative.”

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Remember when the only ads we saw were in the Sunday paper or on billboards? Today’s advertising on social media is a far cry from how things were advertised when most of us were kids; in fact, marketing has crept into almost every aspect of our lives. (I remember, for example, that shortly after my wife gave birth to our 5th child, the nurse came in to deliver a “gift”. Turns out, it was a packet of coupons.)

do this in the transportation business? Probably not shrimp.

Advertising has become something we have learned to filter in our heads. We see it, recognize it, and file it away. Sometimes that information is never thought of again, but other times it will come to mind—perhaps during the lunch hour as you drive by the place you know is selling shrimp, or when you’re put in charge of booking transportation for your family reunion.

Unfortunately, filling your social feeds with pictures of empty buses— even against scenic backgrounds—is tantamount to the restaurant I ate lunch at sharing pictures of clean dishes and silverware, empty booths, and beautiful shots of their business establishment. (None of those images would have resulted in me sitting there eating coconut shrimp.)

As you focus on marketing your charter business, recognize that your job is to provide clear and relevant information to potential consumers. Period. The vast majority of the time, your posts might have the same stats as this restaurant’s ad about the coconut shrimp: NO shares, NO comments, and maybe not even a single like. Nevertheless, your posts will still be useful in growing your business.

Our social strategy in the motorcoach industry must be about the shrimp. It has to get right to the heart of what our customers care about. Whether you’re speaking to the bridal market by sharing information about wedding planning, talking to corporate clients about the liability associated with planning holiday parties where alcohol is served, or sharing a photo of a sports team on your coach with their testimonial about the perks of traveling with you, the information you post needs to be relevant, interesting, and pertinent to your intended audience. That is how you leverage social media.

The second part of this is establishing what’s relevant to a consumer. In my case, it was shrimp. The idea of shrimp for lunch for under $6? Come on… they had me at “hello”. But how do we

Is it with pictures of shiny, beautiful buses? No! Definitely not. Because we spend so much time thinking about, working on, paying for, and using motorcoaches, buses, and other vehicles in our industry, we sometimes start to believe that we’re somehow in the equipment business.

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Here’s the thing: if you were to take a stadium full of people and statistically calculate how many of those folks would be responsible for booking a coach in the next 12 months, the number of people you’d end up with would fit inside one van. This means that an entire stadium of people wouldn’t think about coaches when they have a transportation need. That’s why seeing pictures of shiny new buses would be completely ineffective; they don’t even know they need what you’re selling! We have to remember this and use social advertising as a way to inspire consumers to drop what they’re doing to come try our coconut shrimp. We must look beyond the instant statistics of shares and likes to see how our social strategy is actually helping us sell more charters, to more people, for more money. ¦

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CHANGE

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et’s face it: change sucks. It’s often scary and inconvenient, and in many cases, it means we have to stretch. Just like the rest of you, I’m familiar with the “change is good” adage, but honestly? The guy that wrote that was nuts. Most of us prefer “business as usual” because it’s comfortable, familiar, and easy. Even when it’s not easy, it’s still easy! Before you quit reading, though, let me elaborate. As I talk with operators out in “Bus Land,” many of them have legitimate needs they are trying to address—they need more drivers, more business, a marketing plan, etc. These needs aren’t little or without consequence; rather, they’re the wake-you-up-in-the-middleof-the-night, push-the-food-aroundyour-plate, knot-in-your-stomach, cold-sweat kind that you can’t ignore.

When we discuss their concerns, these operators look to me for answers, hoping I have that one silver bullet that will finally fix the problem. In response, I almost always challenge them to do something different than what they’ve been doing and to do it much more frequently. Regardless of whether we’re talking about improving a website, boosting outbound sales calls, increasing postcard mailers, or hiring another person to accomplish specific tasks, my advice is pretty consistent acrossthe-board. Far too often, however, the suggestion to do something different is met with a great deal of resistance. Even though they want to resolve the issue, they’ll claim that whatever change I’ve recommended is too much

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or too hard, and then go back to work and continue doing the very thing that ultimately created their trouble in the first place.

focused on change for the sake of change?

At the end of the day, the concept of change is simple. If you put your hand in the fire and it gets burned, you immediately pull it out without even thinking about it. You make a change, and the result, in turn, also changes. But if you put your hand in the fire, don’t like the burning sensation, and continue to leave it there hoping that something will change so it doesn’t hurt, people will call you crazy. That only makes sense, right? Well, you’d think so. But when it comes to business problems, we too frequently find ourselves foregoing meaningful change for the status quo.

That may sound like an oversimplification, but here’s some straight up truth: Change is the precursor of new results. Whatever we’re experiencing right now—good or bad—in our businesses and relationships is directly related to our behavior in those areas of our lives. And here’s the second hard truth: we are only subject to our circumstances to the degree that we are unwilling to change what we’re doing in order to get new results.

Why do we do this? Because in terms of business, we know that we can deliver on the status quo. If we did things a certain way yesterday, there’s a good chance we can do it again today and tomorrow. If we switch something up, however, we can’t predict how it will play out. That scenario introduces an unknown variable into the equation, and that unknown often makes us pause. But even if business changes aren’t as instinctual as pulling one’s hand out of the fire, they still need to happen. So, how do we learn to embrace change and the meaningful impact it can have without becoming overly

We change. Bottom line.

Let’s look at this hypothetically. If we’re suffering from a driver shortage, our current hiring practices, company culture, pay structure, dispatch team, and company policies are absolutely contributing to that problem. Or, as another example, if we’re not getting enough charter business, we’re actually responsible for that gap based on how we have (or haven’t) marketed our services. Even if we’re unable to pinpoint what specific factor is causing the problem, we can still be sure that our input—or lack thereof—is preventing the change we want to see. But here’s the thing: if input affects output, getting different results is as easy as making a change. At the end of the day, it’s not really all that complicated. I know we’re talking business (not physics) here, but this

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discussion is reminding me of Sir Isaac Newton’s third law: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That law is true in the world of science, and it’s true in the world of business as well. I have said, for years, that marketing is something that has a cumulative effect that one simply can’t help but see. When companies consistently focus on marketing over a period of time, they’ll see results. Period. While there is often a lot of time, thought, and energy put into what’s being advertised and how it looks, it’s really the simple act of doing that generates results. Throughout the time I’ve worked in the motorcoach industry, I have watched hundreds of companies get stuck in what Gladys Gillis likes to call “implementation paralysis.” This occurs when a company gets so stuck in the details—what shade of blue

something is, whether the photo they’re considering is the perfect choice, or some other minutia—that the “thing” never sees the light of day. I think this happens to us with change as well. It’s not that we don’t want change, or that we don’t believe it could bring different results. The reality is just this: we tend to shut down when we start to consider the logistics. Because we often associate change with something that’s hard, frustrating, or difficult, it feels easier to opt out, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that a shift is in order. When it comes to marketing, one of the fastest ways to kill change is to assign marketing tasks to someone who is already overwhelmed. Let’s say, for example, that an owner comes back from a trade show with notes from half a dozen education seminars and holds a meeting with his team to share his

“Does it need to be that hard, though? Is it possible to mazke it easier? I think so, and I think the key lies in finding ways to quickly and easily implement changes without creating lots of extra stress for everyone involved.”

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enthusiasm. At the end of the meeting, he assigns various marketing tasks to already-stretched-thin employees. They promptly accept the assignments, but those assignments never get done. In these types of situations, I’ll sometimes get asked to work with staff to help them catch the marketing vision. If I have a chance to talk with them, however, I frequently hear this phrase: “We honestly don’t have the time to do this.” From these experiences, I’ve realized that it’s crucial to make marketing easy. Making it easy may mean using the council’s tools (which turn tasks like

making a postcard into something as simple as uploading 4 photos and a logo), hiring a firm to help, bringing in new staff, or outsourcing the work to someone else. At this point in the article, I’m guessing that you’re coming up with a list of reasons why some (or all!) of those suggestions won’t work. I would also guess that if you’ve been in this industry longer than 2 years, you’ve had the experience of spearheading change by making assignments, giving deadlines, and asking your team for support, only to find that little or nothing came of it in the end.

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“And in order to do something you’ve never done, you have to make a change.”

One of my very favorite principles to teach is this: in order to accomplish something you have never accomplished, you must first do something you have never done. If you want to hire more drivers, land more charters, fill up your line runs, change your office culture, or recruit younger talent, you have to do something you’ve never done. And in order to do something you’ve never done, you have to make a change. Making a shift is hard, but I can promise you a few things. First, change doesn’t need to be scary. Second, when you make a change and you’re consistent, you will see results. And third, if your change has to do with marketing, the Motorcoach Marketing Council is here to help you. Going in a new direction requires thought, input, and action, but change is the only path to achieving your end goals. At the beginning of this new year, I challenge you to find something in your company that you want to be different. Once you’ve identified an area that needs attention, make a change and commit to it for a significant amount of time. Doing those two things will give you the opportunity to watch as the impact of that change generates results. Change will no longer be that big monster lurking in the shadows; instead, it will become the vehicle you use to make your business goals a reality. Let us show you how great change can be. ¦

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BOB SELLS BANANAS

et’s Raise Our Prices

Yep, you heard me…on three…go! OK. Prices raised. See you next month! If only it was that easy! I was recently asked to address a group regarding the shortage of drivers in our industry. As many of you know from my time on the road, I don’t really believe that we have a driver shortage; I believe we have a career crisis. The way I see it, in our efforts to cut costs and keep our prices low (or profit margins high), we’ve created an environment where it is difficult for full-time motorcoach drivers to

call their jobs a career. It seems that we have created more of a “retiree side hustle,” as it were, than a viable career opportunity for the working-class family. If your feathers are ruffled a bit here, please stick with me. I promise this ends in a marketing conversation. You see, I know that dramatically raising your prices isn’t easy, and I also know that saying you are going to pay your drivers $30 an hour plus benefits is even more of a stretch for most companies. (Besides, in order to even give consideration

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to the latter point, you’d have to raise your prices.) So, here we are, stuck in the middle of a conundrum, a driver shortage sandwich which seems like an endless loop of “no can do’s” . I frequently get calls from operators asking me if I can share what other local competitors in the motorcoach industry are paying their drivers. While this course of research is logical, I’m afraid it’s about as useful as asking what size cannon balls the enemy is using in modern warfare. Why? Well, motorcoach companies aren’t really competing with each other for drivers. We’re actually competing with public transportation authorities, school bus operations, trucking companies, UPS, FEDEX, and others who are all looking for CDL-licensed drivers. Truth is, these companies pay more, have better schedules, offer remarkable benefits, and they’re looking to hire the same drivers that we are. So, I want you to put yourself in the shoes of the latest batch of new hires that have joined your team. You brought them in, gave them jobs, and helped train them. You even got their passenger endorsements, and they’re now ready and willing to work. Now

you start to get these types of questions: “When will I work next? How often can I expect to work? How many hours will I get a week? What about benefits? Is there a slow time? When can I expect a raise?” While they’re all important questions, they can, in some cases, be difficult to answer. If you are like many companies I speak with, you’re interested in limiting your full-time employee exposure. This means that even though you may need drivers, you prefer to staff your driver pool with part-timers who keep the conversations about medical, dental, and vision insurance, paid time off, and other benefits at a minimum. This is good for the bottom line and feels like a win. But let’s go back to those new hires with their fresh and shiny CDLs. What are they going to do? Are they going to be able to make rent this month? What about next? How about during the slow season? Is dispatch keeping them as busy as the regulars and passing the work around evenly, or do the new guys get whatever is left over after the “regulars” have their 40 hours? That type of situation puts our new drivers in this quandary: Do I stay here and hope that I get enough work to make ends meet,

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or would it be better for me to take my new CDL and find work that will guarantee my family is taken care of? It’s kind of a nobrainer; in most cases, they will choose the latter. Wouldn’t you? So, motorcoach operators keep bringing in younger millennials, baby-boomers, and everyone in-between. But here’s the thing: even if we train until we’re blue in the face, we’ll still suffer from a “shortage”. And honestly, this cycle will continue until we go from “side hustle” (as Uber puts it) to real career choice. How do we make that jump? On the surface, it’s easy: pay

more and offer good, year-round benefits. But how do we do that? Marketing. Yes, that’s right. We do it with marketing. We do it by stepping out of the commoditized transportation market and increasing demand for our product. This increase in demand will inevitably allow us to raise our prices and fill in the holes left by the customers who refuse to pay more for the quality we provide. The most frequent concern brought up by operators when we talk about raising prices is the

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fear that there’s going to be that one operator in the market who will keep their prices soft by not raising them. What then? Well, if we were selling a barrel of oil or a ton of wheat, I would share that concern. But we’re not. We’re selling a service with a lot of differentiators that warrant varying prices from one company to another. We know that not all companies are created equal, not all fleets are maintained to the same level, not all drivers are trained in the same way, and not all sales staff are punched out of the same rubber mold. Even though we know this about our businesses, we are often too willing to allow low-end operators to control our price sheets. If a customer is sensitive enough that a 10%, 20%, or even

30% increase in price causes them to immediately leave and go with another provider, they were never your customer. (You had wooed them with your prices, but they saw you as a commodity that could be replaced by another provider.) Marketing is important if you want to open new markets, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a crucial component of educating your existing customers about what you do, what you stand for, and what sets you apart. You must be able to clearly communicate what it is that you’re doing to make yourself the best motorcoach provider in the area, and it’s important to tell your customers why you value their business. They need to see how hard you work to keep them safe, comfortable, and served. Without this as a marketing

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“If a customer is sensitive enough that a 10%, 20%, or even 30% increase in price causes them to immediately leave and go with another provider, they were never your customer.”

objective, you are just another provider. And in that case, it’s true: you probably can’t raise your prices, hire more drivers, or protect your profit margins. With it, however, you can do all of those things. Marketing is not just about filling dispatch holes; it’s about creating demand for what you have. Let’s build a new world where the customers we work with are loyal to us, not our prices, and create enough demand that when someone really wants a green banana, we can send them on their way with a smile and say, “Come on back when you want a better banana!” We need more drivers, and we’ll continue to need them until we make driving a viable, full-time career opportunity that provides regular work and enough pay to comfortably support a family of 4. We won’t get to that place until

we can sell more bananas, to more people, for more money. Marketing isn’t easy, and it isn’t something you can do just in a moment of need. It’s a journey, not a destination, and it’s something that deserves your attention and focus. It will never be regulated, mandated, or enforced by a DOT audit, but it determines the outcome of your business just as much as those things. When you are ready to get started or grow your efforts, we are here to help. ¦

ARE YOU READY

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THE KEY TO MARKETING IS THE DRIP, DRIP, DRIP OF REPETITION

rosion is a pretty strange way to start a marketing column, but let’s be honest…it’s probably not as strange as potatoes! I was recently driving from the Pacific Northwest to my new home in South Texas, and my GPS decided to take me on a scenic tour of the Southwest. We went through every small town for what seemed like a year. During one leg of the journey, we drove through the red rock country of southern Utah and into New Mexico. If you haven’t been, it is worth seeing. Spectacular red vistas contrast the blue skies and tans of the desert floor, but

perhaps the most amazing features are the area’s spires, arches, and other amazing rock formations. They are magical and cause one to pause and wonder how, in the middle of that flat, arid landscape, these extraordinary structures came to be. The other thing that seems so remarkable about these stone canyons is their seeming perfection. Every edge appears smooth and rounded. There are no seams or joints; rather, it’s as though each rock melts into the next. These incredible formations were not, however, created by machines or

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earthquakes, fault lines or engineers; they are the work of drops of rain. Roughly 65 million years ago, rains began to fall in what scientists believe was a relatively featureless desert of dry seabed. But with every drop of rain, microscopic amounts of sediment began to be stripped away. As each layer eroded, the rain began to be more and more effective in its ability to shape the face of the landscape. Today, as you stand in Devil’s Garden or below the majesty of Delicate Arch, you can admire the work of billions of individual drops of rain that have carved these masterpieces from plains of solid sandstone. These natural wonders were not created in a single rain storm; we can’t point to a solitary event that made them. There was no single drop of rain one can attribute all that beauty to, and it’s the same thing with marketing in our companies. Our marketing plans must include constant drops of activity that carve our future success from the rocks of our potential markets. Today’s world is an instant gratification landscape. If I want a tomato, I go to the store and buy a tomato. If I want to learn how to play a song on the guitar, I can find a video on YouTube where someone will teach me that particular song, right now, sitting in my underwear on the couch on a Sunday afternoon. If I want more laundry detergent, I click a button and it’ll be on my doorstep tomorrow.

“We put a lot of stock in customer loyalty as an industry, but we forget that part of loyalty is our responsibility.”

In many ways, waiting has largely become a thing of the past. While this has some pluses, it can also cause some problems. If we hire a recentlygraduated liberal arts major to come and wash buses on the weekends, for example, he or she sometimes seems to think they should be the CFO by the end of the month. (Not all waiting is sunshine and roses.) It used to be that if you wanted a tomato, you had to grow one. For most of our recorded history, that was business as usual. But let’s get real right now: if, in today’s world, the only people that ate tomatoes were those

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who could grow them, we’d probably find more of them in the Museum of Natural History than anywhere else. Marketing is really no different than tomatoes or Delicate Arch in Moab, Utah. Both require a significant investment of time and repetition. No one would expect to be able to simply squirt a rock with a hose for a few minutes and end up with Delicate Arch. In the same way, no one would think it plausible to stick a seed in the ground in the morning and plan on a Caprese salad for dinner. But here’s one of the biggest concerns I have: as I work with operators around the country

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on their marketing, many are figuratively spraying rocks looking for arches and planting tomato seeds with an evening harvest in mind. In many of these organizations, marketing is more about an event than a constant drip that brings with it the power, over time, to shape the future of the company. Drip marketing, by its very name, is descriptive. Its core objective is to continually “drip out” information and content that keeps your message on the minds of the buying public via social media, emails, your website, events, and other avenues.

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Ique canenatque conscio, que numae

We provide tools and services designed to help make marketing easier by eliminating a lot of the time constraints that come with doing marketing in a motorcoach operation. While this product has been successful, it has also made the need for more education on the importance of ongoing, consistent, drip-style marketing more apparent. Those tiny drips of marketing water can start to create, over time, the majesty you are looking for. I often use the example of a guy who opens up a new pizza restaurant in your local neighborhood. Imagine that he went to the post office, pulled a list of all of the surrounding homes, and sent everyone a postcard with a picture of a pizza on it and a coupon for free bread sticks. Would it work? Probably, to some

extent. Inevitably, some of the people that got that card in the mail would be hungry right then and wondering to themselves, “What am I going to feed the kids for dinner?” They’d pack up, get pizza, and cash in on the bread sticks. In most households, however, it’d likely get tossed in with the other 350 pieces of junk mail. Bottom line? By and large, people would not be beating down the door, jumping up and down, or running around screaming about the fact that there’s a new pizza place in the ‘hood. Receiving a postcard once would probably not get you to run out and buy a pizza from the new guy, and if he sent you a postcard once, 6 months ago, you probably won’t even remember his name if you sit down to order a pizza today. But if you were to sit with him and talk about his marketing efforts, he’d probably tell you about

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his postcard experience as the last big thing he did. Marketing is about creating additional demand for your product, and as much as we would love to say that a oneand-done strategy could work, the truth is not so simple. Building market share is about staying at the top of our consumers’ minds. We don’t know when they’ll really be craving pizza, but when they do, we want to be the first thing they think about. Of course, in the motorcoach world, we may not ultimately care when our customers want pizza, but we definitely care about when they want to book transportation. We put a lot of stock in customer loyalty as an industry, but we forget that part of loyalty is our responsibility. We look at loyalty like it is the job of our customers to remember us, who we are, what we do, and how to get in touch with us. In actuality, studies show that companies that better communicate with and market to their customers foster more loyal consumers! So how do we increase demand for our product, hire more drivers, and firm up our pricing? We drip market. We recognize that sending out 100 postcards a month is more effective than sending out 1200 once. We recognize that posting to our Facebook page on a daily basis is more effective than once a week. We understand that the more frequently we can be in front of the people we are marketing to,

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the more often they will think of us in the moment they’re going to make a purchasing decision. When we market, we want the net result to be that when people call, they say things like, “I see you guys everywhere.” We want people calling to work with us because we are their transportation provider. We want to put brokers out of business because people are not shopping for a bus… they are shopping for our bus. This can happen, but it will only happen if we embrace the concepts of erosion marketing and learn to drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. And if you need help starting that drip, contact us! We’d love to help.

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e use lots of acronyms when we talk about marketing and sales---phrases like SEO, ROI, CPC, and PPC. And while you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to know what all of them mean, USP is definitely one you want to be familiar with. USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition and it is the backbone of all effective sales and marketing. As I have traveled the country talking to operators, I am continually surprised by the answers I get when I ask any given company what they

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WHAT IS YOUR

USP?

staff, a diverse fleet to accommodate various group sizes, and knowledgable customer service agents. If you are wondering how I knew the things you’d list, perhaps it is time to look a little harder at what actually makes a good USP. believe their USP is. The answers are, well, not all that unique. Before you continue reading, I challenge you to do something. Take out a pen and write down 5 things that you believe are your unique selling propositions. Once you’ve written them down, continue reading. It’s all right...I’ll wait! Now, let’s talk about your list. While I am no magician, I bet that I can guess at least a few of the things you wrote down. If you are like most operators, you probably wrote some combination of the following: newer coaches, regular maintenance, great safety record, excellent drivers, friendly

The first thing that makes a good USP is actually defined quite well in the acronym itself. Unique. Many companies that I work with confuse a USP with a list of the amenities, services, or qualities they wish to spotlight for their customers. While these are all good things, they are not really USPs. A USP is specifically focused on what it is that makes you different from the other choices in your market; it’s THE reason why someone should choose you over your competitors. About a year ago I attended an event honoring the 75th anniversary of an operator. Strewn about the event were things from the “good old days,” and vintage advertising pieces were the

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highlight for me. One of the things I noticed was lots of language focusing on what, at the time, was their USP. Air conditioning and restrooms were the top of the list. During that period of time, those would have been big-selling advantages over their competitors. What we view as a baseline offering today was truly a USP back then. I tell that story for a few reasons. First, it is easy to understand that if we were to highlight those same points as our USP in today’s market, we’d make a laughing stock of ourselves. The market has changed and those items are no longer unique. The second reason I bring it up is to illustrate that a USP will, in all likelihood, not be the same for 10, 20, or 30 years. As market conditions change, what we need to be and do to stand out will change as well. So, let’s jump back to your USP list. If you are like most operators, your list includes some of the above-mentioned selling points. While those are all good things for a motorcoach company to

have, they are about as unique as air conditioning and restrooms in today’s market. Here’s the thing: I know that there is a little voice in your head right about now that is saying, “But our equipment is newer than those other guys’, and our drivers are better trained, and we do have the best reservation staff.” You could go on and on justifying why these are important differentiators. I also know that, while restrooms and air conditioning are things you either have or don’t have, the expertise of your drivers or the quality of your maintenance program is much more subjective. (Just because you prioritize maintenance does not mean all maintenance programs are the same.) It’s important to realize, however, that the second half of the acronym—the Selling Proposition—can’t be overlooked. You see, the point is to have something that a consumer can use to set you apart from your competitors. Imagine, for a moment, that you are planning a

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family reunion. You know you want to use a motorcoach because, let’s face it, 50 ubers just isn’t going to work for anyone, and you start looking around for someone to help. What are you going to do? Well, first you’ll use google to help you narrow down the list. No matter where you are, a quick search will inevitably give you a few options. Then, you’ll take a quick look at the websites. You’ll probably spend less than 4 minutes on each site looking for things that will ultimately disqualify some companies from the mix. Next, you’ll get quotes—either by filling out a quote form on each site or making some phone calls—and try to make a decision on which company you’d like to work with.

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While many sales people in this industry would say that it all comes down to price, the truth is a bit more complex. In this case, if you are like most consumers, the next thing you’ll do is try to determine the reason for the price disparity among the different companies. You will compare the quotes and backtrack to the websites as you look for something to help you make the right choice. Yes, price will be something you’ll consider, but it will not be the only determining factor. Now let’s imagine you are shopping between 3 companies. Company one quotes $800 for the day, company 2 quotes $950, and company 3 comes in at $1100. You head to their sites to check out what they are offering and this is what you come up with.

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All three have late-model coaches that seat 56 passengers. All of the companies claim to provide clean, safe, reliable services, and they say they’ve got good drivers and a great safety rating from the FMCSA. Each one has photos of equipment that appears--to the untrained eye-to be nice, and they all advertise a regular maintenance program. One company did have a slightlynicer person on the phone, however, and one got the quote back much quicker than the other two. How would you choose? In this case, and in countless scenarios like this every day, the answer would most likely be price. But why are they choosing based on price? Is it because of actual budget constraints, or is it just because price was ultimately the only USP that the companies presented? This all leads to one inevitable question: How do we actually create value through a USP? The short answer here is this: Look beyond the proverbial air conditioning and restrooms to identify what it is that actually makes you different from your competitors. Is it your history, family, staff, or drivers? Is it

your level of service? Perhaps it actually is your maintenance program. Once you know what it is, the next part of the USP equation is to turn that thing into a selling proposition—that is to say, into something that the person shopping for their family reunion can look at and say “I choose this company because of that.” This process is more complicated than simply pinpointing what your advantage is; you’ve got to craft the story of what it is, along with illustrating, for the consumer, why they should care about it. Once you have identified your USP, the next step is to make it a part of your selling culture. With every piece of marketing, every conversation, and every opportunity you have to sell, this should be the first and last thing you tell potential consumers. But it’s not just about telling them you’ve got good drivers; it’s about telling them how good— and, more importantly, what that means for them. If this is done well in a conversation or selling opportunity, the consumer will understand what you are offering and feel as though there’s no way they’d ever choose anyone else who doesn’t have it. Pair this with a truly unique offering, and you

will see remarkable things happen in your sales department. Those of us in the motorcoach world speak a different language than the consuming public. We know the difference between a good coach and a great coach, that not all maintenance programs are created equal, and that, while a CDL makes you a “driver,” it does not guarantee that you’re a good driver. But the buying public does not know what we know, and our job is to establish what it is that sets us apart and translate that into language that buyers know and understand (“What’s in it for me?”).

Giving buyers something—anything— aside from price to help them make a decision will help close more deals and firm up pricing as well. Remember that, just like air conditioning and restrooms, what you offer as your USP today will, in all likelihood, change over time. So, keep focused on what makes you the best choice and stay ahead of the curve! Furthermore, if you need a little help, were here. ¦

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WITH JULY GONE IT’S TIME TO MOVE ON YOUR GOALS ago, you can’t remember much about February, and the rest just seems like a blur. Every year July strikes me as a kind of monumental month. While it’s not only the first time that the year is more than halfway over, it also seems to mark the start of what will inevitably be a fast and furious sprint to the end of December. few weeks ago I wrote a check for the first time in a long time. It felt almost foreign because it has been so long since I’ve done that.

In August, vacations abound and it’s hard to focus and everyone is looking for any excuse to get out of the office and do something summerish.

I stared at it and had to think about what I needed to do to fill it out — first, the payee, then the amount and the date.

September is the month the chickens come home to roost and school starts back up again, and then October, November and December seem to happen all at once.

As I filled in the date, I wrote 7 for the month and my heart skipped a beat — 7…July…wow. If you are anything like me, January happened a few weeks

This is why July feels like the beginning of the end of the year for me, and it always gives me the opportunity

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to reflect on the things I needed to accomplish during the year and take inventory of how I’m really doing. For those of you who know me, you probably know that I am not a big fan of goals. I feel like, far too often, goals are simply wishes that we rebrand because it feels funny to sit down in January and write a list of wishes. Unfortunately, we don’t often treat our goals much different from our childhood wishes. All of us can probably remember a time in our youth when we really wanted something and wished for it — in a letter to Santa or in a backyard “wish upon a shooting star.” But then we went back to playing outside, or whatever it was we were doing. We may have hoped, thought about and wished our little hearts out, but that was where it stopped. Goals, much like wishes, often fall into that same category, and I think that’s why they’re often troublesome for businesses. Early in my career, I tripped and fell into a job that was, in retrospect, far beyond my experience. I had nearly 1,000 employees who were accountable to me and I spent much of my days meeting with those who

wanted to grow in their respective positions. I was working in the real estate field and many of them were agents. They would come in and sit down, we would discuss their experiences and what they had accomplished in the last year, and then we’d talk about their goals. Inevitably, these goals were always hefty, and they were often many times what had been produced the previous year. Even so, most people were animated, passionate and full of excitement as they looked toward the future.

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You could see in their eyes that they truly wanted more and that they could imagine — even taste — what life was going to be like once they achieved their objectives.

had happened? Nine out of 10 of the people that I met with had done — wait for it — nothing. They went home and woke up the next day and did exactly what they had always done.

Once they had laid out their goals, I would ask one simple question: “How are you going to accomplish that?”

They did what they were comfortable doing, they accomplished what they had always accomplished, and the reasons were almost always the same. “I was busy,” “It was hard” and “I just didn’t get around to it” were, in some form or another, always at the top of the list.

This question changed the tone of the meeting. Many answered: “I don’t know, that’s why I am here.” Some had ideas and visions of how to start down their desired path, but no one ever — not once — had a plan for how they were going to actually reach their goals. For the remainder of the meeting we would discuss how to go from where they were to where they wanted to be. I would lay out a plan that would help them grow, and my mission was to create actionable steps, things they could take from that meeting and start doing that very day. I wanted them to have a clear path that would lead them to fulfilling the vision they were so passionate about. At the end of our time together, I’d always set up a 90-day followup meeting. They’d leave feeling enthusiastic and empowered, ready to take on the world. Not only could they see the goal, they had a roadmap of how to get there. Ninety days later we would reconvene, and can you guess what

At first I was a bit shocked by it. In one particular case that has stuck with me, I remember sitting across the table from a gentleman who was a really wonderful man. During the follow-up meeting, he talked about how much he wanted to accomplish his goals and how much it would mean to his family. He mentioned his desire to send his kids to nice schools and said his family had outgrown their house. He went on and on about how much he wanted what we had discussed. When I asked him about the plan we’d put in place, he said he’d done it for a week, but it was hard and he got busy. Ultimately he went back to doing what he had always done. But I was struck by one observation: right after making his long list of reasons why he hadn’t done anything different, he went right back into how much he wanted to be successful.

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Why fall short? I thought about that meeting for a long time. It haunted my thoughts, and I wondered why someone who wanted something so much could fall so short when it came to execution. Then, a few years later in July, as I sat looking at my “goals” for the year, I realized I was that guy. I, too, had set lofty goals for myself. I, too, had gone to work to accomplish them and then got sidetracked, distracted and off course when it came to implementing meaningful change. I, too, had bought into a system that was much more like writing letters to Santa than actually moving both my personal and business objectives forward. You see, our goals, without an

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implemented plan, are not goals; they are wishes. If I want to lose weight, the act of writing it down and putting it somewhere safe and pulling it out seven months later doesn’t actually do anything to help me. I have to make different decisions. I have to take action. I have to DO something. The first day I go to the gym it probably won’t fit into my schedule. Let’s face it, if it did, it probably wouldn’t have been on my “goals” list. The day after I go, there will inevitably be pain, and I’ll likely have tons of reasons coursing through my head justifying not going back again, ever. But if my plan is more than a wish, I have to go back, I have to eat salad and I have to walk more and eat less ice cream. It’s just the nature of the beast.

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That same beast rears its ugly head in our businesses. If I want to grow my business, if I want to sell more charters, if I want to start a line run, if I want to — fill in the blank — I must DO something. Having traveled to all but three states in the union meeting with many of North America’s motorcoach operators, I have seen these same troublesome patterns repeat themselves in this industry. In many of my presentations, I ask those present if they’d like to grow their businesses over the next 12 months. Almost without exception, everyone in the room raises their hand. This isn’t surprising; they are attending a marketing meeting, after all. Something different After the presentations, people are always enthusiastic about getting to work and they leave feeling empowered to do something different than what they’ve done in the past.

The next time I see them, often a full year later, guess how many have actually DONE something different? Fewer than you would think. I like to say that in order to convert a wish into a goal, you only need one ingredient: execution. In my real estate days, the people that had made real changes in 90 days were those who had put their plans into action, and they saw major changes in their businesses as a result. They were walking the path and seeing their goals getting closer and closer. Most of these people had not executed the entire plan we had discussed, but they’d executed something consistently. They had stretched themselves and DONE something — not once or a few times over a few weeks, but they’d actually made it a part of their day-today business.

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In the motorcoach industry, time is probably the most scarce and valuable commodity. While our goals are important and growth is what we wish for, these goals seem to always fall prey to the operational constraints of the day. Busy days turn into busy months, and the next thing you know, it’s July and you’re writing 7 on the top of a check. The challenge I have for you is to go back through your list of goals for the year. Look at each of them and determine which ones you’re comfortable leaving as wishes. Then, find the things on your list that are more than wishes to you, the ones that would transform your company, give you more time or help you reach your financial goals. Once you identify those, I challenge you to decide that half a year is long enough to have waited. Pick

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something, anything, and decide that yesterday was the last day you will ever not be moving that goal forward. Moving goals from the “wish” category to the “doing it now” category is a powerful thing. Not only do you feel great about it, you also start seeing results. Remember that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and this is as true in the marketing world as it is in the physical world. Do something constantly and watch as the reaction happens. Refine what you do until the reaction is exactly what you want and need to reach those most important goals. And, if you need help, we’re here. ¦

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IGNORING NEGATIVE ONLINE REVIEWS IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA

think we can all remember moments in our professional careers when we wished we could have crawled under a rock and made everything go away. One of the worst crawlunder-the-biggest-rock-Icould-find days Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever had was as the director of sales for a motorcoach company in Portland, Ore. It started like any other day but it soon spiraled out of control, and no matter how much I tried to fix things they just kept getting worse: drivers not showing up for their dispatches, mechanical issues, crazy traffic that made us late on every front, and even a passenger-on-board fender bender. Basically, if it could go wrong, it did.

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My phone and email were blowing up with customers who had passed upset and were downright angry. I listened to people absolutely scream at me over things that neither I, nor my company, had any control over, including a semi-truck rollover that had shut down traffic in both directions on the freeway. I remember it was an unseasonably hot day, we had air conditioners failing and people were “hot” in more ways than one. As much as I wanted to slip under the closest rock and simply put my fingers in my ears until it all blew over, the truth was I had to deal with it, even though it was uncomfortable. That was 14 years ago, and

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while trying to work my way through a pile of angry emails and voicemails was a pain in the neck, the long-term damage to the company was different than it would have been if that same incident happened today. I spent weeks talking with and apologizing to customers as I tried to “fix” what I could. After a few months, those moments were all but forgotten and we, and most of the customers, had moved on. Venomous and permanent Today’s world is vastly different. All of those angry emails and voicemails are now heat-ofthe-moment reviews posted to Facebook or TripAdvisor, mean tweets fired off directly following a confrontational exchange,

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or Google reviews that are as venomous as they are permanent. Today, instead of making nice with angry customers and working things out over a cup of coffee, we are subject to dealing with a very public and personal airing of those moments we work to never have happen in the first place. These “reviews” are actually not so much reviews as they are Gordon Ramsay-style rants given a public forum, and they’re often calculated to shame a company rather than provide meaningful feedback for fellow consumers. But as much as these reviews can be a moment of sincere frustration for both the company and the customer, there are a few things to remember before you choose how to – or not to — respond. The first thing to remember is that these reviews, as well as your response (or lack thereof), are permanent additions to the Web and will be used by future shoppers to determine if they want to work with you. In a recent survey, 89 percent of consumers viewed online sources of product and service reviews as trustworthy, and another 80

percent have changed their minds about a purchase based solely on the negative reviews they’ve read. The second thing to remember is that you’re going to receive negative reviews. They are just part of being in business in an online world. But, here’s the thing: how you respond can be the difference between future success and failure. The third thing to keep in mind is that, while many negative reviews are embellished by emotion and frustration, they are, at their root, founded in an experience the reviewer has had with your company. Get the facts As an owner, it can be tempting to look at these reviews and simply dismiss them as “crazy” or “impossible” because your staff would never do that. I can only imagine that the management of United Airlines thought that exact thing just moments before watching a YouTube video of a bloodied passenger being dragged from one of their flights. Reviews, regardless of their content, require action from

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a company standpoint. Every review, good or bad, gives you a few options. However, before you take any of these actions, it’s important to look into the issue and, if need be, communicate with the reviewer to get clear on what actually happened. There is nothing worse than taking a position, finding out you’re wrong, and having to backtrack publicly. The first option you have when dealing with a review is to engage. Engagement is not a simple “Hey, you’re nuts, that is not what happened at all” type of exchange with a customer. It is a real effort to communicate with the reviewer, often trying to push the conversation offline so you can

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speak with him or her directly without the shroud of anonymity that the Web provides. This will frequently allow you to resolve the issue and then summarize the resolution as a response to the negative comments. It is important to see this opportunity not as a moment in time, but as a record that will live on for all future consumers. This perspective can inform your response, especially when moments come where you simply want to respond in kind to an overly inaccurate or vicious review. The next option is to make a company statement as a response to the review, something like this: “We are sorry that you did not have a positive experience, and we hope we have

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a future opportunity to show you that is not how we expect our service to go.” It is important in these types of responses to avoid pointing fingers, even if they deserve to be pointed. Even if the reviewer is crazy and mostly wrong, keep in mind that pointing fingers will not win you any points with future shoppers. Third, you can choose to pursue removing the review. This is only an option if you have reason to believe that the review is fraudulent and has been placed as an untrue attack on your company by someone with some reason to come after you. While these types of situations do occur, they’re likely a onein-1,000 scenario. Companies that compile reviews such as Facebook, Google, TripAdvisor, and Yelp don’t remove reviews because you don’t like them or because they reflect poorly on your company. Removal is slow and not guaranteed, but should be sought after if the review is an attack by a competitor, not really about your company, or was posted by someone who has never used or experienced your product or service. Noticeably absent from this list of things you should do is

choosing to ignore a review. This is not an accident, as ignoring a negative review on the Internet is equivalent to saying “Yeah, well, we don’t really care.” While you and I know this is not the case, it can’t be overstated how much more damaging a review is when you ignore it than when you professionally respond on some level. Even though reviews can be tricky, both positive and negative reviews are important for companies, and here’s why: People don’t trust companies that only have five-star reviews or one-sided comments. Consumers are savvy; they know things don’t always go as planned, but they’re interested in seeing how you respond when that happens. That kind of transparency acts as a window into the heart of the company because nothing clarifies who we are as companies quite like those days when everything goes wrong. Consumers see the marketing text from the website and glossy brochures filled with smiling, happy people, but what they really want to know is if companies are actually responsive and helpful when everything “hits the fan.”

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Do they listen to their customers and care about the experience they’ve had? Do they work to make things right? Do they ignore the fact that they messed up or, even worse, make customers feel as though they were somehow in the wrong? Every review, positive or negative, is an opportunity to tell a story, a story about your company and who you really are. Companies that embrace these moments and craft the story they want told will win the online battle.

Those that ignore them — choosing instead to crawl under their proverbial rock and wait for the storm to blow over — will find themselves dealing with permanent stains that are remarkably difficult to get out.¦

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AN OUNCE OF PROACTIVE MARKETING

IS WORTH A TON OF BUSINESS

he difference between doing anything proactively and doing it reactively is obvious. From vehicle maintenance to our own personal health, there are a myriad of reasons why one may spend time on proactive prevention instead of dealing with the results of procrastination. Perhaps Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

maintenance and being proactive in the longevity of your fleet.) If we started discussing personal health you would, in all likelihood, roll your eyes— because you already know that eating well, exercise, and getting adequate sleep are essential aspects of good health. Another example of preventive medicine, a proactive step, is trying to control the outcome of your future health.

If we were going to talk about vehicle maintenance, you would probably roll your eyes and move on to the next article. (Obviously you know and appreciate the need for preventative

Good news, though: we are not going to be talking about any of those things. We are here to talk marketing. Proactive marketing.

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If an ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure, then in this case, an ounce of proactive marketing is worth a full dispatch sheet. Proactive marketing is probably one of the single most overlooked aspects in the motorcoach industry today. While we are, as a group, remarkably good at taking phone calls and doing on-demand sales and quotes, most of us drop the proverbial ball when it comes to looking beyond the “right now” and finding ways to boost our sales numbers. One of the quickest ways to make this happen is to look back and make sure that we book as much of the repeat business as we possibly can. Consumers are a fickle bunch. Just ask United Airlines after one little video gets posted to YouTube. Sometimes, as in that case, consumers take information and make buying decisions based on it (like “I would prefer to choose an airline that probably won’t drag me off a flight

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on which I am already seated, so I will book with another airline”). Other times, they are less sophisticated and make buying decisions based on things that, from the outside looking in, make no logical sense to the people trying to sell them a service. Take, for example, the “Google” factor. While Google knows nothing about motorcoach travel, safety ratings, customer service, maintenance, vehicle fleet age, or any other thing about the likelihood of you being a good operator, they still determine which companies get MOST of the traffic for people searching for our service in any given market. How? Over 75% of the total clicks go to the top 3 search results. While this makes little sense, we are all guilty of this in our day-to-day lives as we look to Google when we’re searching online for recommendations of providers, services, or products.

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Some years ago my family was driving through Idaho on our way for a summer visit to my grandparents. We stopped at a truck stop and I saw a truck driver up on the back of his semi truck tying down his tarps over a full load of potatoes. I remember watching him; he was carefully checking each tie down and making sure that not even one potato could jump out the top of the truck. I watched as he pulled away. As he was exiting the parking lot, his tire hit a curb and the truck jolted a bit as it fell back down to the road. When this happened, a little door opened on the back of the truck and potatoes started pouring out. As he drove away, he left a line of bouncing potatoes behind him. I am sure, to this day, that all the while as he drove down the road losing potatoes, he felt assured that his tarp was secure and nothing was being lost.

“I think the “biggest hole in the truck” of our industry is the assumption that if someone used us once, they will automatically use us again.”

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Like this truck driver, we in this industry spend a lot of time believing that our tarp is secure. We believe that customers who have used us in the past are, to their dying breath, loyal to us, and that if they have a transportation need, we will be their first call. But like our truck-driving potato hauler, that confidence can often be misplaced and simply equate to a false sense of security as we line some back country road with our truckload of potatoes. So, you may ask, how do we patch the holes and make sure that all of our potatoes get to the factory and come out as delicious tater tots? Great question. It is important that we do two things as the provider of services to the buying public. First, it is critical that we do what we say we are going to do. That is a given. If you say you are a luxury transportation provider, be one. If you promise world-class service, provide it. No amount of marketing or sales can overcome a bad experience from your buying public. Second, assume that no one will ever remember you, and work hard to get them to buy from you again. I think the “biggest hole in the truck” of our industry is the assumption that if someone used us once, they will automatically use us again. The truth is a bit more humorous than it is sinister, but consumers don’t remember that kind of thing. Chances are, they found

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you in a web search or somebody over coffee said to call you. They called and booked their family reunion and you did a one-day move for them 2 years ago. When they have another need today, they’ll go right back to the beginning and start with a Google search for “bus rentals” or “charter buses” in your local market. Most companies that I talk to do very little to stay in front of their buying public. An occasional email or a few social media posts are about the extent of most companies’ plan to get in front of those that have purchased from them in the past. The truth is that it is 6 times more expensive to get a new customer than it is to retain an old customer. This is, in large part, because you already know where the person who bought from you is, you know how to get in touch with them, and they have already experienced your product or service. So, what do you need to do to close that little door and keep those potatoes in the truck? It’s actually pretty simple. I recommend 2 things. First, build a viable outreach program to your buying public. Use email and direct mail to keep your brand at the top of their minds on at least a quarterly basis (monthly would be better, but don’t let more than a quarter go by without getting in front of them). Second—and perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle for booking more charters in the short

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term—is to look where you have been, in order to go forward more effectively. Print out your bookings for the next 3 months, as well as your bookings over the last 3 years. I know this is a big list for some, but with an hour or so of time it can be a gold mine! Next, sit down and look at the list. Highlight any bookings that could (or should) be recurring activities (things such as family reunions, parking lot shuttles, employee outings, corporate retreats, or large events are all good candidates). Once you have the list, start your outreach campaign. Phone calls, personal emails, and even handwritten notes mailed the old fashioned way will go a long way to stopping the inevitable “search” this year when people are looking for your services. These simple efforts will put these potentially-lost bookings back on your dispatch sheets where they belong. We need to assume less when it comes to consumers. We can’t believe that they remember and will book with us again, and we certainly can’t simply hope that the phone will ring. We must look for ways to shut that proverbial potato-spilling door and plug the holes that are costing us valuable bookings. Our ability to reach out and touch the people who could, should, or would book with us again will go a long way to keeping our bookings up and our customers loyal. Selling more charters, to more people, for more money, starts with little decisions to be better at marketing what we have to those who

need what we are selling. This ounce of prevention will help drive profits up and create a customer base where the people are loyal and less sensitive to price. These are the folks that end up booking with us again and again.¦

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HERE ARE SOME ITEMS TO ADD TO YOUR

MARKETING TOOLBOX

arketing is a big umbrella. Everything from websites to T-shirts falls under it, and sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start. In order to set companies up for success, it’s important that they have the following things in place, regardless of the medium they are using. A logo and artwork I would say that most of the companies I work with have a logo of some sort. While some have invested in a company to design it, most have had it around for some time and can’t really remember who built it or when. Your logo is an important foundation

of your brand and is used in almost all advertising to ensure that you are recognized by customers and potential customers. While most of you can check the box when it comes to having a logo, I’d be willing to bet that a lot of you don’t have it in all of the formats that you need. (It never fails that just about the time you get all of your logos in a folder, someone will request something you don’t have.) So, before you do anything else, it’s important that you have all of your logo files in three formats: full color, grayscale and black and white. When it comes to logos, colors, or lack thereof, matter. And if you’re wondering

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what types of files you should have to cover all of your bases, here are the essentials: JPEG files — These are traditional photo images of your logo. JPEGs are probably the most common “image” file and something that many companies will request when working with your company’s marketing. These images should be saved in multiple sizes because JPEGs do not scale well. This means that if you have a small logo file and you try to blow it up to put it on a banner, it will become pixelated and unreadable. I like having three sizes of each color in JPEG format: one that’s very large (a minimum of 24 inches at its widest point), as well as a medium and small version. (As a reference point, I like the smallest one to be only three or four inches at its widest point.) EPS files — Although these aren’t used as often, they’re very helpful when you

are doing Web advertising and graphic design work. The primary difference between these files and JPEGs is that they are saved without a background, allowing you to place them over the top of other images without that frustrating white box around your logo. Like JPEGS, EPS files do not scale well, so you’ll want to have them in the same colors and sizes as the JPEG files. Creation files — Because every designer is different, these files may be called vector files, AI files or PSD files. They’ll probably be the most frustrating files you have to work with because it’s likely you will not be able to open them. Chances are good you’ll be able to see the file, but when you click the open button, the “what program would you like to open this file with” dialog box will pop up. Even though you may not be able to open them, the files have significant value to you as a company because they’re traditionally scalable to any size without degradation. One pro tip: Ask the designers who help you make this to be sure to embed or outline the font before they send you the art. This will ensure that you do not run into a designer down the road trying to match a font and only being able to “get close.”

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You’ll want these files when you’re doing high-end design work, as well as any other work that requires large sizes such as bus wraps, billboards and signage. Coach images This is another box that most companies may think can easily be checked, but I am always surprised with just how incomplete company photo libraries really are. To have a well-rounded image library, you want to have some pictures in each of the following categories: ◆ Straight on side of the coach. While it sounds simple, this photo is a “go to” for a lot of marketing venues. Get one of every type of vehicle you have. ◆ Frankly, the interior of a modern motorcoach is more comfortable than many airplanes I fly on these days. We have an opportunity to educate the buying public by capturing, by class of vehicle, what is available. Get detail shots of the video system, air vents, overhead luggage space, seat belts, restroom and anything else that highlights the selling points of your various vehicles. ◆ Photographing your coaches in picturesque locations is a powerful marketing tool, and you definitely want some of these in your toolbox. It’s also a good idea to take pictures of special features that make your coaches convenient for passengers. From luggage bays to wheelchair lifts, capture detail shots and put them in the toolbox. ◆ Smiling, happy people. Once you check the box on the first three, start thinking about this one. Building a library of smiling, happy people on, or near, your coaches is a remarkable marketing tool. These photos say more for your business than any testimonial, caption or text

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ever can. A well-executed driver photo program is a powerful way to make this happen. ◆Company images These are probably the most overlooked images, and they’re super important because they allow a customer or potential customer to engage with and begin to feel comfortable with a company. ◆ Key Staff Members. Having photos of your staff in your toolbox is important. Using them on your website and other avenues will give you a powerful advantage over companies who don’t use them. While headshots are the traditional photos used, we have seen some that we really like that are more informal but still tastefully done. ◆ Driver photos. Despite the fact that drivers are the face of most bus companies for their customers, there is always a noticeable lack of these same faces in our marketing efforts. Taking photos of friendly, professionally dressed drivers doing what they do best is good for the customer aspect of your business and it’s a great tool for recruiting additional drivers as well. ◆ Facility Photos. Do you have a facility that you are proud of? If yes, get some photos, start using them in your promotional efforts and keep them in your toolbox. ◆Video Video is one of the most important

marketing methods in today’s world. From social media posts to television spots, video is driving more buying decisions than ever before. Building video is often seen as being intimidating and expensive. And while it’s true that it can be both of those things, it doesn’t necessarily have to be. From cellphones to GoPro cameras, there are lots of inexpensive ways to capture video clips that can be put together to make promotional videos of almost any sort. Don’t let “getting started” get in the way of getting it done. Start by building clips you can use, even if they’re short. Once again, drivers can be a great resource here to help you get video of your coaches, staff, facility and even your passengers. Here’s the thing: a well-executed and well-stocked marketing toolbox will make marketing simple, quick and easy. Whether you are using the suite of GoMotorcoach tools, our new Do It For You program or employing some other method to sell more charters, to more people, for more money, we’re positive this toolbox will save you time and effort — two things that are in high demand for all of us. ¦

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ONE PERSONS MOTORCOACH IS ANOTHER PARTY BUS

hat do you call something that drives in a bus lane, carries passengers and offers groups the safest, most comfortable means of group transportation on the road today? Unfortunately, the answer to that question may not be as simple as you might think. A few months ago, my family was having dinner with a family whose kids play with ours. The mother is an event planner and has worked with some very large companies such as Microsoft. We were discussing what we have been up to and came upon the Motorcoach Marketing Council. I enthusiastically started telling her about the GoMotorcoach program and our marketing efforts throughout North America.

her thing and found myself wrapping up my thought and looking for a way to move on. I was also thinking how strange it was. I mean, if anyone would appreciate this and be at least somehow connected to our plight, I thought it would be an event coordinator.

I noticed that as I did, her eyes kind of glossed over and she seemed kind of checked out.

As I wrapped up, I searched for something else to say, but there was a brief moment of awkward silence. And then, from across the table, I saw her eyes light up.

I figured motorcoaches just werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh, you mean party buses! We love

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those things! They are so fun, and the new ones are so luxurious,” she said. For the next few minutes, she gave what would have been one of the world’s best testimonials from someone who knows our product and has booked our services in the past. She talked about comfort, how they are a great product and service, and how she couldn’t do her job without them. But, over and over again, she called them party buses. Buses, coaches, party buses, motorcoaches — even inside our industry we are inconsistent. Read any publication, even our internal trade publications, and you will undoubtedly find references to at least some of these. On the surface, this seems pretty innocent, but the ramifications with the buying public are real.

Take, for example, what my friend called our equipment (party buses). In our industry, this phrase conjures images of limo-style mini coaches that have been converted to include bars, couches and, well, “firehouse-style poles” in the back. It also brings up legal issues, regulations, and real industry issues facing this style of transportation. So, imagine my friend calling your office and saying, “I need to rent a party bus for an event I am working on.” What would come next from your staff? If you are like many operators, the answer would probably be some version of, “We don’t have those. Call someone else.” And while your booking people would probably feel justified in their response (and perhaps you as an owner have even consulted them to do so), you would have turned away a customer

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who was actually shopping for exactly what we have — motorcoaches. Now, this level of product confusion is not the only issue. This industry-wide discrepancy of what our equipment is called is also very damaging to marketing efforts. My friend, for example, does not charter buses, coaches or motorcoaches. As far as she is concerned, she is a consumer of party buses. So if we sent her an email or postcard advertising motorcoaches, she would, at first glance, dismiss it completely. In the branding world, there is an old adage, which goes something like this: “You canchoose your brand or you can let your customers choose. Either way, you will be branded.” As someone who has worked as a brand developer for over a decade, I can attest that this is true. I can also tell stories of how this has turned against companies that weren’t proactive about establishing their brand, and it ended up costing them a lot of grief and a lot of money to undo the brand their customers gave them instead. So, what do you call something that drives in a bus lane, carries passengers and offers groups the safest, most comfortable means of group transportation on the road today? Let me make a case for “motorcoach” by highlighting some of the issues we now face as an industry with the other names. Bus — This is probably the most common knee-jerk name for our equipment. I catch myself saying it sometimes. I think it is probably

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because it is such an easy way to get someone on our page with what we are and what we do. The mental picture associated with “bus” is always one of groups utilizing a mode of transportation. The problem is that along with this mental image of lots of people, there is almost always a level of”comfort and accommodation.” School bus, public bus: They carry groups, yes, but there are a lot of other things that come with that, most of which are not the image of a modern motorcoach. Perhaps the bigger issue is the fact that in this environment we, as the premier providers of safe, comfortable, first-class group transportation, are held up right alongside actual bus operators (local public transportation services, school bus transportation services and the like). Google today is a qualifier for people. I type in a word and what comes up on my screen is the information “I need to know.” When we use “bus” and come up fifth on a list behind a bunch of actual bus operators, we are being put in a basket that suggests we compete with them. This means that, down the road a few steps, we will be stuck answering the question of whether we can price match the guy down the street who operates a fleet of aging school buses. Coach — This almost seems like shorthand for our equipment at this point. It’s like the shorter, more familiar way to discuss it. While that works great at the staff meeting,

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it can be troublesome to buyers. For example, go to Google and type in your city name and then “coaches.” What comes up? Chances are, you will get a Wikipedia page for some sports coach or a manufactured home company. This means that, while we talk about this to our customers and use it as a way to describe our equipment, if the customer then translates that into actionable searching, they will get stuck and frustrated quickly. Party bus– You may be surprised to learn that there are more searches for the term “party bus” in any given market than almost all other searches for our product combined. First, yes, I understand that a certain percentage of these are indeed looking for the aforementioned style of coaches. However, this doesn’t apply to all of them. I have discussed with operators from coast to coast the idea of embracing this traffic until they know that the buyers are really looking for something they don’t offer, but I am almost always met with serious resistance. They want to avoid being associated with party buses. It is also true that there are regulations currently in place (or coming quickly down the on-ramp) for what we in the industry know as”party bus” operators. In most cases, these are regulations that we support and condone.

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So, while we don’t want to completely throw in with this brand, we do want to stand on the side and convert those buyers who are not necessarily looking for tinted windows and puffy couches into buyers of our product — motorcoaches. Motorcoach– This word conjures up very little for those outside our industry and that is an opportunity we can’t miss. We need to educate our salespeople to use this word more. We need to convert the language on our sites and literature to reflect that motorcoach is our brand. We need to tie it to the comfort, luxury, safety and experience that we, as an industry, offer our passengers. We need to take control of our brand and begin to create a rallying cry that will be heard north to south and east to west. Customers need tobe convinced of the fact that they really need to GoMotorcoach, and that going motorcoach means something more than just transportation for groups. We need to go from tissue to Kleenex here and create something that will drive our industry forward. The GoMotorcoach products, social tags and trainings will help you get there. Take a look at how you can use them to lay claim to your part of the Motorcoach movement. For more information about the Motorcoach

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CLOUD-BASED MANAGEMENT SYSTEM. CONTROL PRICING OF PACKAGES FROM BACK END. FULL REPORTING ECOSYSTEM. SALES AND MARKETING MAGAZINE

WHAT’S UBT ONE ALL ABOUT? UBT One puts the power of the NetBox Suite to work and gives operators total control over everything from how much money they make to what safety video is played by their drivers and when.

QUICK SETTINGS

PROFIT-SHARING BREAKDOWNS

Want to select a SSID or choose which safety messages play on the bus? Point and click to make simple changes! Less training, less hassle, more earning!

We make money only when you make money. This is how we’d want it if we were you, and our whole platform was designed with that objective in mind.

A SIMPLE INTERFACE

DETAILED PURCHASE HISTORY

“So easy my mom can do it!” Our interface is both simple and intuitive.

This feature offers a clear breakdown of every code purchase, making it easy to see whether each one was for an individual or group. Operators love this! Watch as the money pours in...over and over and over again!

REPORTS More data than you will want, available real-time and at the click of a button, for that one moment when you really need it!

CODE MANAGEMENT Groups pay you for codes to access Wi-Fi on their trips. In only 5 clicks, you generate a code and send it to them. If you want real revenue control, this is it!

OVER-THE-AIR UPDATES Sit back and run a bus company while we handle the technology. From overthe-air updates to onboard content control, reports, functions, and a continuous flow of new features, we are doing our part to make sure the profit center is an asset for you!

www.unitedbustech.com

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THE TRUTH IS, THERE IS ONLY ONE QUESTION THAT MATTERS

hen I was 27, in what seems like a lifetime ago, through a series of strange events I found myself with a rather remarkable job for someone with my credentials. I was hired as the creative director for all of Southern California for one of the largest real estate companies in the country. I will never forget the meeting I had with the owners as they turned over the proverbial keys. They handed me stacks of file folders filled with advertising contracts, phone books, magazines and everything else they had that included our advertising. Attached to the top of the stack was one sheet of paper. As I glanced over it, I could see it was a summary of all the advertising spending. The number at the bottom was $1,275,400. I still remember the feeling of excitement I felt at having that kind of responsibility. I remember thinking I needed to keep it together so the people in the meeting would not know how I was feeling. As quickly as it started, the meeting adjourned. I was instructed that we would reconvene in three months to go over

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progress and to â&#x20AC;&#x153;let them know if I had any questions.â&#x20AC;? For the next three months I worked harder than I had ever worked up to that point. I negotiated contracts and cut and adjusted our spending. I cut entire segments of the budget that included the things I did not think were working and reallocated those dollars to things I thought would perform better. We totally rebranded the advertisements and created a new and fresh look. It rolled out across the whole advertising platform and brought the brand continuity I knew we needed. Those three months flew by. Before I knew it, the followup meeting was scheduled. I worked furiously to build a presentation I was sure would knock their socks off. I had large printed pieces of the ads we were running mounted on foam core board and placed around the conference room. I had binders for everyone with all of the advertising contract adjustments and the creatives that went with each. I had feedback from the advertisers praising the new direction as well as feedback from some of our top real estate agents who we had done some testing with.

As the meeting started, I watched and waited as the owners came in and took their seats. I waited for them to notice the ads around the room and to leaf through the three-ring binders (with their names on them, I may add). To my dismay, they looked around the room with nearly no reaction. My heart sank. Then they opened the binders and started to leaf through. In just a few seconds they closed the binders and turned the time over to me. By this time, I was sweating and my stomach felt like it was making a hostile takeover of the rest of my insides. I presented my PowerPoint, discussed the rest of the handouts and talked my way through the binder. The owners and the CFO sat there quietly with absolutely no reactions on their faces. I finished my presentation and sat down. Is it working? When I was 27, in what seems like a lifetime ago, through a series of strange events I found myself with a rather remarkable job for someone with my credentials. I was hired as the creative director for all of Southern California for one of the largest real estate companies in the country. I will never forget the meeting I had with the owners as they turned over the proverbial keys.

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They handed me stacks of file folders filled with advertising contracts, phone books, magazines and everything else they had that included our advertising. Attached to the top of the stack was one sheet of paper. As I glanced over it, I could see it was a summary of all the advertising spending. The number at the bottom was $1,275,400. I still remember the feeling of excitement I felt at having that kind of responsibility. I remember thinking I needed to keep it together so the people in the meeting would not know how I was feeling. As quickly as it started, the meeting adjourned.

I was instructed that we would reconvene in three months to go over progress and to â&#x20AC;&#x153;let them know if I had any questions.â&#x20AC;? For the next three months I worked harder than I had ever worked up to that point. I negotiated contracts and cut and adjusted our spending. I cut entire segments of the budget that included the things I did not think were working and re-allocated those dollars to things I thought would perform better. We totally rebranded the advertisements and created a new and fresh look. It rolled out

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across the whole advertising platform and brought the brand continuity I knew we needed. Time flies Those three months flew by. Before I knew it, the follow-up meeting was scheduled. I worked furiously to build a presentation I was sure would knock their socks off. I had large printed pieces of the ads we were running mounted on foam core board and placed around the conference room. I had binders for everyone with all of the advertising contract adjustments and the creatives that went with each. I had feedback from the advertisers praising the new direction as well as feedback from some of our top real estate agents who we had done some testing with. As the meeting started, I watched and waited as the owners came in and took their seats. I waited for them to notice the ads around the room and to leaf through the three-ring binders (with their names on them, I may add). To my dismay, they looked around the room with nearly no reaction. My heart sank. Then they opened the binders and started to leaf through. In just a few seconds they closed the binders and turned the time over to me. By this time, I was sweating and my stomach felt like it was making a hostile takeover of the rest

of my insides. I presented my PowerPoint, discussed the rest of the handouts and talked my way through the binder. The owners and the CFO sat there quietly with absolutely no reactions on their faces. I finished my presentation and sat down. Is it working? What was said next has reshaped my entire career. “That’s all great,” the owner said. “But is it working? What should we expect as a return on this investment?” A silence followed that would cut any young executive to the quick. The truth was I didn’t know. I thought it was working. I hoped it was working. I could show all the information that the advertisers had given me about the demographics they reached. I could repeat almost verbatim what the advertising reps had sold me during the expensive lunches they took me to. But, in all reality, I had no idea if it was working and even less of an idea what the return would be. I left that meeting more humble than when I went in. I immediately refocused my efforts to establish a definitive answer to the question: “Is it working?”

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Since that day, I have never spent a dollar, my own or someone else’s, without that same question ringing in my ears. The truth is, in today’s world, the answer is much easier to find than it was back then. Digital advertising gives us a huge advantage in that regard. Google Analytics, pay-per-click and other forms of instant feedback allow us to see the real results of our efforts and to quickly see what activity it is generating. But these tools are not enough. In fact, they are not even the tip of the proverbial iceberg. You see, these tools tell you when someone came to your site. They tell you if you generated interest. This is a good first step, but incomplete when you are trying to establish if you are generating a return on your investment. The truth is, in the motorcoach

industry many operators do more offline than they do online. Post cards, phone book ads, business cards and attending wedding shows all cost money and all require answers to the same question. Today, there are ways to establish the answers. Here are four of my favorites: 1. Google Analytics. If you don’t use it, start today. This data is absolutely invaluable in finding out what is driving people to your website. Think back to a time before cellphones. It is almost incomprehensible to think about the world before them. How did we even function? You should feel the same way about your Google Analytics account. If you don’t, you’re doing it wrong. 2. Unique URLs. This is used in conjunction with Google Analytics. Put a unique URL on every piece of marketing or advertising that you do. This will

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allow you to track the number of people who come to your site from that URL. It will give you a great idea of how many took that action and were interested in what you are doing. 3. Unique phone numbers. There are a number of companies out there that provide the ability to create and deploy tractable phone numbers. Just like with URLs, you then have the ability to see exactly how many people called from your phone book ad or from the number on the back of your coaches. This allows you to determine what activity is generated by your advertising dollars. 4. Good old asking. You will notice that all of the above are great tools for

measuring activity, but activity enough to answer the all-impo on-investment question.

“Is it working?” doesn’t only to activity, but should be seen investment in additional busine any investment, you hope to g more in return than you put in the motorcoach business, ther no other way to go about this your sales staff to ask the que every booking and find a way for an answer.

Most businesses generate 9 of their revenue from less than of their advertising budget. Wh doesn’t mean I recommend cu

y itself is not ortant return

y speak n as a real ess. Like generate initially. In re is simply than to train estion with of tracking it

90 percent n 30 percent hile this utting your

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advertising budget by 70 percent, it does mean that by simply reallocating your existing spending towards things that really deliver results, you could transform your business. You work hard for your money. Every dollar you invest in advertising should be working hard for you. You shouldn’t have to take the word of those you spend your money with. You should not rely on what you feel or hope. You should know. In reality, you don’t have to guess. Put these tools to use and start to track just how hard your dollars are working. Then make them work even harder.¦

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hat if I told you there was a type of marketing that costs next to nothing, that nearly all your potential customers use, that has been proven to deliver real results, that by using it you could know without a shadow of a doubt if it is working, and that studies have shown can deliver more than $40 for every dollar you spend on it? So, I am assuming I have your attention. All of that is true, and all of it is about email. In my interactions with motorcoach operators, I am always surprised at the lack of enthusiasm or

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HERE IS SOME ADVICE ABOUT EMAIL MARKETING:

DO IT NOW

even understanding when it comes to email marketing. First let’s dispel some of the myths associated with email marketing. If you use Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo or any other mail client or online system to send emails, you are not using an “email marketing system.” I know some of you may hate to hear that, but email-marketing systems are vastly different from these email clients. Email marketing systems deliver a completely different set of tools, features and benefits that we will get into a bit later.

The second myth is that because of advances in social media, search engine marketing, pay per click and other digital avenues, email marketing has gone the way of the dinosaur. This is simply not true. Email continues to be a valuable asset to all businesses, but especially to those with little time or money to dedicate to their marketing efforts. Email marketing has come a long way in the four-and-a-half decades since the first email was delivered. While most technologies that hit 40 have long since seen the scrap heap, email has continued to develop into a modern marketer’s dream. In fact, as recently as 2014, more than half of marketers surveyed by the Direct Marketing Association planned to increase spending on their email channel, citing their impressive return on investment as the driving factor. Why all the hype? There are several features that make email marketing one of my personal

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favorites. Unlike Gmail or Outlook, when you use an email marketing service you get insights into your efforts that make every marketing professional drool. They include open rate (the number of people that opened your email), clickthrough rate (the number of people who clicked on the links on your email), and incredible details about what they did and how they did it. Have you ever put the time and effort into creating a brochure only to wonder if your clients really care? Have you ever built a new ad for the phonebook but wondered if your call to action was actually causing action? With email the information is there and available in near real time. You cannot only tell who opened your email, you can also see what they clicked on and how much time they spent on it. With some systems you can even use this data to take more action.

Imagine if you could send a follow-up email about your business services only to the people who clicked on that link in your last email that highlighted four of your top services. What if your sales people could call on people who you knew had clicked on specific links in your emails? The power this could bring a charter company is staggering. Many coach companies that we work with have never fully gathered their email marketing lists. Often this can feel like a major roadblock when it comes to fully implementing an email marking system. But I will tell you what I tell anyone who brings this up â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in the words of my mother-in-law, get over it! Compile a list Getting started is simple; just start adding people to the list today. When people call or email with a quote request, get their email addresses and put them in your system. So often

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people want to go back and gather 25 years of email addresses when the best place to start is today. There are plenty of easy ways to have your team put them in your system, from simple Web forms to exporting client lists from Quickbooks. The value of your email marketing will be tied to the quality of your list. Many 10-year-old email addresses are no longer any good and simply clutter up what could be a powerful list. There is no time like the present to draw a line in the sand and say that everyone you do business with, or quote, from now on will be added to your list. All marketing takes time. This is true and, unfortunately, the reason so many marketing tasks get put off until tomorrow. As we have worked with hundreds of companies around North America, we have seen that the scarcest commodity in the motorcoach industry is time. Email is probably the fastest way to market. From start to finish an email, in most modern email marketing systems, can take as little as 10 minutes. With professional templates and content ideas, these tools are designed to be used quickly by busy professionals. Bang for the buck. As I mentioned above, email is considered one of the highest-returning marketing avenues of any available to

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most businesses. The Digital Marketing Association estimates that for every dollar companies invest in email marketing, the return is $44.25. Now, before you run out and start buying email lists, that statistic must be filtered to reflect the fact that most email marketing is delivered to people who already know you or who have been qualified as potential buyers. These tools are best used to re-engage previous customers, up-sell consistent users and cross-sell your database. Here are four tips to help you get your email marketing off the ground successfully: Be responsive. Mobile users are becoming a huge percentage of total viewers of email. In the third quarter of 2014, more than half of all emails were opened on either mobile or tablet devices. Choosing a responsive template for your emails will dramatically impact the engagement you get from these users. Segment your segments. The power of your database will be directly tied to your ability to segment it. This means that as you add new names you should also be adding them to separate segments. In some email systems this is called segments, while others call them tags, folders or even boxes. In any case, the time to do it is when they are added. You could include

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the type of business they are doing (corporate, church, ski, wine, etc.), who their point of contact was, what type of coach they were interested in, and if they were budget conscience, safety oriented or simply price shopping. While on the surface this work may seem a bit strange, the long-term ramifications are amazing. Imagine if you could send an email to every wedding planner, venue and local restaurant you have worked with telling them about your new piece of equipment. Imagine being able to send an email to everyone who did food and wine trips with you about a new vineyard you are partnering with. The possibilities are endless and exciting. Test, test, then test again. One of the biggest questions when it comes to marketing is “does it work?” With email you can finally put that question to rest. When you’re planning your email and you come up with a catchy subject line but are afraid it might be to “sales-y,” email marketing offers something called split testing that allows you to send multiple iterations to your database and test the

engagement. No more wondering, just test it and see what works. Personalize. One of the great features about email is the ability to personalize it. Simple tools built into the systems allow you to put in little pieces of text that are replaced with data from the customer’s record. This can be a first name, for example. Experian showed in a recent report that this personal touch could boost open rates and click-throughs as much as 40 percent. A subject line that says “look at our new coach” will not have nearly the engagement of one that says “Mike, we bought a coach we thought you would love.” If you’re not using email as a cornerstone of your marketing effort, start now. If you or your team members are not adding names and emails to your marketing list daily, start now. You will find that this effort will pay dividends far into the future and will help you keep those coaches rolling. ¦

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YOUR FUTURE CUSTOMERS ARE ALREADY RIDING ON YOUR BUSES

ast month we talked about the opportunities that exist outside of our current customer bases. We touched on the fact that even though we will move more than 20 million people this year, only a small percentage of those people are actually responsible for booking the coach. This month we would be remiss if we did not discuss the opportunity those non-bookers represent to the future of this industry. In marketing, there are three categories of customers worth addressing in your efforts to fill up

those pesky dispatch holes. The first — and the lowest-hanging fruit — is past customers. These are people who know about your product, know what you offer, and who have, in the past, actually paid you for your services. Keeping these customers happy and rebooking them is good, but it is better to expose them to what is possible. If you have a wedding planner who books with you, he or she may not know you also do local sightseeing trips. Your corporate transportation coordinator may not know you also do wine trips or you could handle the company’s upcoming team-building events.

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It is also important to consider that one of the fastest ways to get new business is to have your sales team follow up with happy customers and ask for referrals. These warm handoffs can go a long way in helping you land new customers. The second group includes the more than 500 million people in North America who will not set foot on a motorcoach this year but who will almost all do something a coach would make better. Although this represents a massive opportunity to grow, we understand they also represent the most challenging sector to market to because they simply donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what we have to offer. Blue Juice and Mentholatum Many have misconceptions about modern motorcoach travel. They picture in their heads old, tired coaches that smell of Blue Juice and Mentholatum and are filled with octogenarians. Few understand the modern luxuries and amenities that make what we offer so much better than any other form of group transportation. The opportunities here are as big as the market and as diverse as the populations we serve. However, it will take work to show people who we are and what we have to offer. The tools created by the Motorcoach Marketing Council will help open these doors and

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show more and more people just how great we are. The other demographic that we, as an industry, need to realize as an untapped market includes people who ride in our coaches but who are not responsible for the booking. I am constantly surprised by the lack of enthusiasm many charter operators show for this avenue of marketing. These are people who have been on a coach; they have seen the amenities and they understand how efficient and effective we are at group transportation. In most cases, they will arrive comfortably and safely at their destination, they will be happy with the service and they will leave feeling like they had a good experience. As charter companies, we work hard to ensure this is the case. We invest in driver training and equipment we can be proud of. We work hard to ensure our maintenance program keeps our coaches on the road safely. We pay our wash crews to keep the coaches looking (and smelling) good. Then we load 50 passengers onboard and work to get them from point A to point B safely and comfortably. Yet in most cases, only one out of those 50 charter passengers is actually our “customer.” Busload of customers That means that the other 49 are potential customers who have already been exposed to our company, our

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equipment and our level of service. These are people who may have never been on a coach before, or perhaps they use coaches regularly but have never thought to book one. They could be business passengers whose company uses coaches but who have never thought to look into chartering a coach for their son’s sports teams. They could be people attending a wedding who never thought this could be the perfect solution for their growing church’s transportation needs. We, as an industry, know if you have a group that needs to go from point A to point B, there is no better way than on a motorcoach. We know we are the greenest, most efficient and most comfortable, convenient and costeffective way to move groups. We cannot, however, assume that just because someone attending their cousin’s bat mitzvah rode a coach from their hotel to the venue, they also will know about the benefits of motorcoach travel. Yet, this is a very real opportunity for us to plant those seeds in that person’s mind. Now, I know what you are probably thinking. People paid to charter the coach. We can’t be selling to their guests. Well, you are partially right and completely wrong. Yes, someone chartered your coach and you shouldn’t send a salesperson onboard to make sure every one of

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those passengers ends up on your email list. But that is not the kind of selling you should be doing anyway. Planting seeds You are already selling your service by the very nature of how you do business. How your drivers dress, how the passengers are treated and how your coach looks and smells already are selling what you do. The next step is simply to plant some seeds about what else motorcoaches are great at doing. This can be done in unobtrusive, nonthreatening ways that will deliver the message and wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cross the line with your paying customers. There are lots of ways to do this. Some are easy and fast, some are more difficult, but all will deliver real results.

One of the simplest ways to accomplish this is to implement a â&#x20AC;&#x153;campaign of the monthâ&#x20AC;? that includes distributing materials on your coaches focusing on the services you offer and the advantages of coach travel. Materials for more than 20 such campaigns are available through the GoMotorcoach program. This can be as simple as attaching a card rack and brochure holder to one of the front rows of the coach. Some operators have incorporated these messages into their safety briefing videos. These short commercial messages simply talk about all the things a coach can do, with no hard selling needed. Other operators have their drivers hand out the GoMotorcoach pass-

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along cards that highlight a specific service or attribute, while still others have built custom pieces that include safety messages on one side and marketing messages on the other. These are handed out to everyone boarding the bus. Marketing to these passengers does not have to be expensive or intrusive, nor does it require a sales pitch. It simply requires an effort to get them to think, for just a moment, about all of the other places in their life where a motorcoach might fit and to deliver a quick explanation about how to book with you. This is an opportunity to show them how affordable we are. Break down the cost of your minimum into a perseat cost, and say things like “Prices

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starting at $8 per person” to get people thinking about all the ways they could use your coach. No matter where you live or market, if you sell charters, far more people get on your coaches every day than those who have booked with you. This is an opportunity to engage with and recruit new customers from a group that has already seen exactly what you have to offer. As you prepare to grow your business and to launch your marketing campaigns targeting those hundreds of millions of people who need what you have to offer, don’t forget about those that are already well within your reach — your current passengers. ¦

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GETTING MUCH BETTER FLEET PHOTOGRAPHY (FOR LESS $$$) motorcoach business. The first is: “It is so expensive.” The truth is that if you called and hired a photographer to come out and take photos of your coaches every day or week, you would be right.

ver the past few months, one of the most common questions I’sve received is this: “How are we supposed to get good photos of our coaches?” Let’s face it. Every day your coaches hit the road to do interesting things, filled with interesting people and yet, when it comes time to drop a few key shots into the Motorcoach Marketing Council’s online toolbox to make that pretty new brochure, you’re left choosing from a stack of images that are old and tired. Here are a few of the things I hear when it comes to photography in the

Photographers, myself included, do cost real money and, while they definitely have their time and place, it certainly is not taking photographs of day-to-day operations. While photography is not necessarily free, it does not have to be expensive. The second thing I hear is: “No one in our office is really a good photographer.” Now, if we were talking about shooting a wedding or taking pictures that will appear on the cover of a magazine that may be true. However, what we are talking about here is good photographs of your coaches and smiley-happy people on those coaches. The old adage of even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally definitely applies here. With the

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increased quality of point-and-shoot cameras, as long as you keep pointing and shooting . . . you are bound to find a few good shots in the stack. Here is a plan to help you get more images of your coaches doing the things you want your potential customers to know you are an expert in. Driver photo program. The basics of this plan are fairly simple. First, buy no less than four cheap point-and-shoot cameras from your local big box store or online outlet. A quick search on amazon.com for “point-and-shoot camera” produces a No. 1 result of a decent-quality Sony camera for $68. A few of those shouldn’t break the bank. Although they are not “professional-grade” cameras, you won’t have to swallow hard when one gets broken or lost. Next, and this is the fun part, you setup your driver/staff program. Although we call this the driver program, the same idea applies to step-on guides, on-site managers or the like. Basically anyone who is already working on a coach or on-site could have a few extra minutes in the day to shoot photos. This program also is designed to reward those taking pictures for you.

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We will cover the ways some people are doing that later, but first we want to talk about how to start. Break the compensation into two or three categories. Social media photos, photos used on your website, and photos you use in print. If you are going to only do two, use social media as one and the others as the second. The point here is to create a flow of photos. In social media, photos are a great way to share a message without saying much. For example, if you have photos of your coaches doing weddings, you don’t have to harp on the fact that you do them. The same goes with any market you are trying to reach. As you plan your compensation, remember the point is to have a lot of useful photos, so make sure you don’t create a monster that will suck you dry. Creating a monthly budget is a great way to start. There are a number of ways to deal with the reward part as well. The first is cold hard cash. Simply put a bounty on the different groups of photos. For example, pay $5 for social media photos you use and $25 for the others you use or that end up in print. Another way I have seen it done well is to offer a point system towards a company store where the employees build points and can spend them on some sort of reward. These companies

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usually buy things they think their staff may like. They shop for items at deep discounts and create a way for them to buy it when they have earned enough points. The last way we have seen it done is where each photo gets them some number of entries into a drawing. At the end of each month, a ticket is drawn for a prize (think tablet or cash). This option has its benefits as the winner gets something really good, but the downside can be that someone who took a lot of pictures and did not win has the tendency to disengage. The next step, once you’ve decided which way you’re going to go as far as compensation is concerned, is to assign someone on your staff to manage the logistics. Here are the things you need to need to consider: First, the cameras need to be checked out by a driver/staffer who wants to use them and they need to understand they are responsible for it while it is checked out. This can be tricky if the return yard time is well after closing or the starting time is before opening. Some companies will actually assign cameras with dispatch paperwork to drivers that are traveling to destinations they would like photographed. Others have it on a “take-it-if-it-isavailable basis.” The coordinator also needs to assure that the photos are gone through quickly after a trip and that the appropriate compensation is given or at least recorded. In the case of cash, many people find that actually handing out the cash at driver meetings can be a good motivator to get more people involved. One of the questions that will inevitably come up is what if people want to use their own cameras.

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Our recommendation is that you publish minimum quality standards such as 1280×720 for social media images at 72 DPI (dots per inch), and 1800×1200 at 300 DPI for print quality. This print quality is a 5 inches by 7 inches equivalent. It can be troublesome to scale up, but will work for most ads and brochures. If they are going to send you images from their own cameras, you will want to set up some sort of a way for them to give them to you that is not just email. These are large files and can bog down a company’s email server in a hurry. You can use services like dropbox.com, flickr.com, yogile.com and others to create shared folders that your drivers can upload to. Try to avoid people coming in and handing you a phone and saying “There are some shots on here.” You may need

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to send an email, or print a form, with instructions. Another question you will inevitably run into is the right to use photos with your customers on your coaches. There are a number of ways to handle this. First, and probably the easiest is to make a global change to your contract that states that you reserve the right to capture images of their group on your coach and use them in your marketing efforts. There are other methods, such as having people in the photos sign releases. However, this adds a step that few drivers are willing to take. The golden rule here is that if anyone ever asks to have you remove a photo, or not to use it, simply respect that. If you are making a large investment

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(like a billboard or something) with a photo and you wonder if the person could take issue with it, ask them. It will save you time and money.

you do, but as motorcoach operators you can’t expect your customers and potential customers to take your word for it.

Now, like any marketing, once you have this program up and running, don’t forget to use the photos you are buying. I recommend that if you are buying social media images, make the prerequisite that you post them before you pay for them. If the photographer has an account on the network that you post it on, tag them in the photo or mention them. This will help people get engaged with the content and will drive more viral results.

A good image IS worth a thousand words and a great one even more. I hope this helps you get more photos and you will use those photos to take your business to new heights. ¦

This program will get you lots of images. Most will be no good, some will be all right, and a few will be wonderful. This is a great way to involve your staff in the collection of these images and a fantastic tool to engage them all in the overall goal of paying attention for opportunities to promote the company. There are lots of great videos to teach even the most hesitant camera operators how to use a camera, how to compose a shot and how to deal with lighting. If you find your image quality is so low you can’t use them, maybe spend some time in a drivers meeting watching a few. Photos can be the difference between landing more charter work and buses sitting in the yard. You know you are great at everything

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IS IT TIME TO ADOPT SOCIAL MEDIA IN YOUR COMPANY?

s social media really something your company should be doing?

Or, do you think your customers arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t actually on social media? And, if you are using social media, how do you know if what your company is doing is working? Over the past few years, these are the most common questions I have heard when I talked with owners about the need for social media in their businesses. So, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s address each of them here. Is social media really something your company should be doing? Yes. Social media is now the most popular activity on the internet. In North America, more than 70 percent of internet users have a social media account.

The popularity of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ are reshaping not only how we advertise our companies but how we relate to the world. What started out as a way to share what you ate for breakfast is now one of the most powerful tools on the web. In fact, if all Facebook users lived in one country, it would be the third largest in the world. With the proliferation of mobile devices, what used to be something

that you did when you sat down at your computer is now being done standing in line at the DMV, or waiting for your lunch to be brought to the table. Things have shifted to the point that in today’s mobile-driven world there are more people who own a mobile device than own a toothbrush. A fad it isn’t Social media has moved way beyond a fad and has turned into something that even the most technically reluctant companies need to be doing. With statistics like more than 90 percent of shoppers’ buying decisions being influenced by social media, there is no doubt that what may have been an option even five years ago, is now a necessity. Maybe you’re convinced your customers aren’t actually on social media. This is probably the most common misconception for those who are not familiar with social media. Facebook alone has more than 1.35 billion users worldwide, and more than 41 percent

of North Americans spend an average of 40 minutes daily on their Facebook account. Seven out of 10 internet users are on Facebook. Perhaps most surprising is the age of these users. In 2014, Facebook added 12.4 million users who are over the age of 55. That represented a staggering 80 percent growth rate. Twitter has more than 232 million active users of which more than 53 percent recommend products or services in their tweets. Seniors, too I get it, though, that’s just Twitter right? A bunch of college students talking about some designer brand of coffee? Not anymore. Most people are totally shocked when they learn that the fastest growing demographic on Twitter is grandparents. I could go on with other powerful statistics like the fact that LinkedIn is

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growing at a rate of two users every second. Or, that 22 percent of adult internet users visit Google+ at least once a month. Or, maybe that more than 100 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. Social media is here to stay; it is NOT a fad and most certainly it is not just for young people. Eric Qualman, an online marketing pioneer, said the return on investment of social media for todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s businesses

is that they will still be businesses in five years. Three little rules Like any marketing avenue, adopting social media requires attention to do well. In a recent class taught by Eric Elliot of BusRates.com and myself, we discussed some of the things companies can do to leverage the social marketplace.

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First, establish a “time budget” that you, or your staff, will spend dedicated to participation in social media. Then spend it. Second, decide in which networks you want to participate. You don’t have to do them all; choose those you feel you can regularly do and then forget the rest for a while.

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so much to the buying public. The fact that Bill made driver of the month, or that you just purchased a new midsize bus is great, but does your buying audience really care? Probably not. Look for things you can share that help establish you as an expert, that show that when it comes to group transportation there’s no one that knows more than your company.

Third, be consistent. Although you can get away with not participating in some of the social networks, you can’t get away with inconsistency. Don’t get caught Customers and potential customers use these tools to start to build a case why they should or should not purchase your services. If it’s June and your last post says Happy Thanksgiving, it does not go unnoticed. Make posts, tweets, status updates, and add photos regularly. If you can’t do it regularly, then wait to start your accounts until you can. The realization that consistency is important inevitably leads to the question: what should I post and how often? The key to social media is to give people things they want, not what you want. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is posting things that are interesting to the company, but not

A social library Content development can be one of the most difficult parts of this equation. It takes time and is the foundation of the Motorcoach Marketing Council’s new social library. This library gives companies the ability to simply copy and paste posts, photos and tweets out of the library into their own social media networks. All of the content has been developed to help educate, inform and entertain your audience and establish you as a social resource. This library can be found at www. motorcoachmarketing.org, and is available to the entire industry after registering for a free account. Launched at UMA Motorcoach Expo with two campaigns, including weddings and wine trips, the library will be growing in the next few months to include more than 20 campaigns. Now, no matter where you are, or

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how technical you are, there is no reason you can’t be posting at least once a day with the help of these libraries.

days and are, instead, making buying decisions, researching brands, and talking about their experiences with the companies they use.

Measure success Once you have chosen the networks you are planning on using, committed to spending time on a daily or weekly basis, and posting good content consistently, the next question you will have is how will you know if this social stuff is actually working?

But remember, social media is not a soapbox to stand on and sell your services; it is a conversation that you are having with the buying public and like any conversation there will be times when people respond.

The first and perhaps most important answer is that your sales staff will ask everyone who gets a quote how they heard about you, and some number will say they found you on Facebook, or that someone recommended you on Twitter. (If this sort of basic research is not happening at your company, make sure it starts.) You also can use your Google analytics to see how many people came to your website directly from your social pages. You can offer specials or discounts that only exist on those platforms so if someone uses them you know they came from those efforts. Social media can be a powerful tool in a motorcoach operator’s toolbox, but it requires attention, planning and effort, like any marketing. The payoff can be big, however. People are using social media as more than just a way to see what their old high school girlfriend is doing these

Listen as much as you talk. Be consistent polite and professional, even to those who don’t deserve it. Remember that, unlike a phone call, your interactions on social media live on forever for future customers to see and to use to determine if they will choose you or your competitor. The social revolution has reached the motorcoach industry. It’s time we all get on board. ¦

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WHEN DOES THE MARKETING OF YOUR COMPANY STOP?

s a professional marketer, I spend the majority of my time working with companies to help manage their public image. When we work together, we focus on crafting a persona for their company. We talk about their culture, what they want to be, and what they want their customers to see them as. Once we establish that, we build the tools to help them accomplish it from websites to business cards, employee uniforms to wall art. In what seems like a short time, we build a new and exciting experience they can share with their customers and potential customers. For the past two years, this is what we have been doing with the Motorcoach Marketing Council, not for their organization, but for the entire motorcoach industry. We have been reframing motorcoach travel to help show the world what we truly have to offer. Safe, green,

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affordable, efficient, group transportation solutions that fit the needs of whatever it is your company wants to promote. We have helped build a message that the industry can be proud of and that will help shape the future of the industry. But, with every branding campaign, there is a hidden side that can sabotage even the best attempts to rebrand any product or service. With my travel to various industry events last year, I had the opportunity to see many places in our beautiful nation. At one event, I was excited that my travel was going to include a long transfer from the airport to the venue. Anticipating coach ride After a long flight, I knew it would be a fun opportunity

to compare and contrast the two methods of travel. Since I stopped driving a motorcoach professionally, the opportunities to ride on a coach for any duration have been few and far between. My flight went as expected. I arrived hungry and confused as to why anyone would go through the trouble of passing out a package with four peanuts in it, and stiff from being crammed into a seat that was obviously designed for someone with a dramatically different stature than mine. The directions I had received from my assistant were clear, and I was able to make it to the coach pickup point without any issues. Although the departures were hourly, my timing was impeccable as I was there only a few minutes before a coach pulled to the curb. It was a nice coach, and I

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was excited immediately to see the Wi-Fi onboard sticker by the door. I thought of all the work I could accomplish via emails and calls during the ride. I was truly excited. Then, it all went sideways. The door opened and the driver stepped off the coach. His first words to the waiting passengers were “Step back give me some room.” His gruff tone was an indication of what was to come. He seemed older than he probably was. He slowly made his way back to the luggage bays and opened them. Then he barked at the confused crowd to “make a line over here,” pointing

at a spot of discarded gum on the sidewalk. Obediently, we all neatly formed a line. “Where are you going?” he asked the first passenger in line. The man answered, the driver grabbed his luggage and moved it towards the middle bay. He grimaced and groaned as he picked up the bag and slid it into the bay. The noises he made caused the entire line to shoot concerned glances at one another. He returned to the line and called out to the next person, “Where are you going?” Again he was answered, and he slid the bags into a different bay. I was next. “Where are you going?” I answered that I was

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there to attend a motorcoach conference and that . . . Cutting me off in mid-sentence, he growled again, “Where are you going?” only louder this time. I was taken aback, I looked at him confused. He then rattled off four destinations and asked me which one I was going to. None of them sounded familiar. I told him I was not sure, but the conference coordinator had given me this transportation information. He then said, “I don’t know where you are going,” and pushed my bag out of line and stepped around me to query the next passenger. I panicked, frantically trying to figure out which of the four stops I was supposed to say. I checked my phone, my hotel reservation, nothing seemed to help. No ride for you By this time the line was gone, and he was beginning to close the doors to the luggage bays. He had every intention of leaving me on the curb for the next bus. I then blurted out “I will go to the last stop,” hoping the hours on the coach would give me time to figure out where I really wanted to go. He responded, “Are you sure because these bags are going to that location, and you won’t

be able to get them if you want to get off earlier.” I looked at him dumbfounded. I told him that what I really wanted was to go to my hotel and told him where it was. He then said, “Oh, OK that is the third drop-off, why didn’t you just say that?” and proceeded to shove my bag into the middle bay. I got on the coach and shuffled to the back, hoping to put that experience behind me. Onboard, the driver made his obligatory announcements. At first they were standard but then he said something I could not believe. “Please do not make any phone calls unless they are emergencies. It is rude to me and your fellow passengers.” I watched as the other passengers, who were already on the phone end their conversations, and slide their phones into their bags. The coach pulled away. For the next few hours, we all rode in near silence. The ride was great. The seat was infinitely more comfortable than the one on the airplane. Unfortunately, there was an air of confusion and discomfort on the coach. People were casting glances at one another about this strange experience. Stop by stop, people got on and people got off. Every

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time, we were reminded of our responsibility to not use our phones unless it was a dire emergency, and that if we were going to use a computer or tablet we should do so with respect to our fellow passengers. It felt remarkably like being scolded by an overbearing middle school bus driver. Finally, my stop arrived, and I proceed to get off the bus. As I came down the stairs, the driver stood at the bottom. His face was as stoic and cold as it had been all afternoon. He was holding a sign that said â&#x20AC;&#x153;tips cheerfully accepted.â&#x20AC;? So, what is the moral of this story and why is it in a marketing column? Marketing goes far beyond brochures and websites. It goes further than the uniforms the drivers wear or even the age of the coach. Marketing is about crafting a perception about your business or in the case of the motorcoach council, the entire motorcoach industry. But how that promise is delivered is as much, or more, marketing as anything we can do. That day, on that coach, I was excited to see that the very demographics that we,

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as marketing people for bus operators, want to talk about were present and accounted for. They chose to GoMotorcoach.

in creating this reality. They need to understand how they fit into the big picture of moving this message forward.

Kids, college students, retirees, professionals — all together on a coach. Yes, that coach took cars off the road. Yes, that coach safely delivered us from point A to point B and yes, that coach was comfortable.

Every day millions of people step aboard motorcoaches all over North America. Each of these interactions are opportunities to establish your company and this industry as an exciting option. I challenge each of you to look at your business and see what message you are delivering, day-in and day-out.

It had power outlets and Wi-Fi onboard. But, in that coach were 35 people who had an experience they would not want to repeat. They will not think of chartering a coach when they are planning their wedding or family reunion. They won’t want to gather a group of their friends and do a pub-crawl or book a coach for a three-day wine tour. Marketing is about crafting an experience and then delivering on that promise. The future of the motorcoach industry is in our hands. If we want to grow, if we want to flourish, if we want more and more people to choose motorcoach travel over other forms of transportation, then we, as an industry, need to drive that into reality. Every driver, every sales person, every bus washer needs to understand the role they play

I challenge managers and owners to engage your entire staff in the vision of a future where more people are using motorcoaches every day and to help those employees better understand where they fit in that vision. The fact is, marketing never stops. It is time for all of us to realize we are not in the transportation business, we are in the experience business. When we do, when we make that paradigm shift, we will see that our consumers will respond like we never thought possible. ¦

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SOCIAL MEDIA:

EIGHT TIPS/SUGGESTIONS FOR DOING IT RIGHT

s a marketing consultant, one of the most common questions I find myself being asked is: “How should I be using social media more effectively for my company?” It’s a good question. Social media is a great tool for businesses; unfortunately, most companies do not have a social media expert on staff. The advent of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, and a slew of other social media platforms has given rise to a whole new avenue for marketing that did not exist10 years ago.

Because it has happened so quickly, it has been hard to keep up with what should be done and how to do it. Here are the top eight things you need to know to be an effective social media marketer. 1. Don’t waste your time. I like to describe social media (especially Facebook) as a deep dark hole into which to throw time. That is not to say you should not be doing it, quite the opposite, you should. But social media can be like sticky fly paper. Often times when you open it up, you find yourself stuck there for hours looking at pictures, making cute

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comments, and catching up on what those people you went to high school with, but haven’t talked to since, are doing. Set limits, buy an egg timer if you need to, but don’t get sucked into the vacuum of the social universe. 2. Be consistent. The absolutely worst thing you can do in any marketing campaign is to be inconsistent. In social media it is even more so. In the phone book, few would ever catch on that you haven’t updated your ad in 13 years, but in social media, when someone lands on your Facebook page and finds that your last post was Happy Easter, and it’s November . . . immediately they will dismiss you as not relevant, and someone who could have become a follower will move on to greener pastures. Now, I know that in the motorcoach industry this can be one of the biggest challenges to overcome. Busy days turn into busy weeks, into months, into “wow, we really need to update that Easter post to a Christmas post.” But it’s important enough to adopt a few small changes. Try building a posting schedule. Figure out what you want to talk about, how often, and then set a schedule. Set alarms and reminders and then take a few minutes to make the post when the alarm goes off.

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You may want to delegate this responsibility to someone in the office who has more time than you do. 3. Pretend you’re at a cocktail party. No, that doesn’t mean starting with an extra dirty martini, it means you need to think about what you post as if you were at a cocktail party. Social media is a conversation, not a loudspeaker. Try picturing yourself at the party right now. You walk in and here are scores of people standing around engaged in conversations. Some are in one-onone conversations, some are in small groups, and then there are a few of the “popular” people who have gathered individuals around them. In this situation, it would be almost unthinkable to walk in, jump up on a table, cup your hands to your mouth, and yell at the top of your lungs: “We just purchased a new charter bus. If any of you have transportation needs, we would like the opportunity to be your provider. Call us today at (555) 555-5555.” Of course you wouldn’t do that (or at least I hope you wouldn’t), but this is the single biggest mistake I see made consistently in social media. For old school marketers (those who began before there was an internet), marketing was about making statements. You made a statement,

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your competition made a statement, and the best statement won. Unfortunately, many of these marketers have tried to translate this strategy to their social media efforts. The problem with this is that you are making statements in an environment where the public is expecting conversation. Social content needs to be about adding value. Imagine that same cocktail party again. Each group is talking about something different. As you work the room, you may find a group of wedding planners talking about their businesses. If you join this group, you may be able to provide some relevant thought that they would stop, listen to, and engage with.

You could tell them about a hotspot venue for weddings that is being impacted by a parking lot that is under construction, or you could tell them about the liabilities that caterers and wedding planners may have with putting people on the road following an event were alcohol was served. These are things they would care about. It would be unthinkable to just walk into the conversation and blurt out . . . “we do wedding transportation, can we do your next wedding?” Remember, even though it may not feel like it sometimes, social media is in fact a conversation and should be treated as such with every post. 4. Be professional. There is a trap in social media that I like to call the “Kitten Photo Conundrum.”

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Most companies look at their social media statistics like this: “I did a post. It reached 14 people. That is bad. I just liked a photo of a kitten that has 200,000 likes. That is good, soooooo . . . I should share more kitten photos.” Off they go, sharing more kitten photos, videos of people falling down, and humorous jokes and pictures in the effort to have more and more people like them. This is the modern day equivalent of getting a bad haircut. Don’t sell yourself short. Remember you are a business and, as such, you should be building a social following that respects that and looks to you to provide relevant information about things in which you are involved. This is a better, long-term strategy. 5. Don’t let content stand in your way. As I have helped people build social strategies from the beginning of these social platforms, I have always been surprised at the number of people who sit down, create great social strategies, have ideas about the kind of content they are going to share with their audience and then do nothing. Not a post.

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However, not starting because you can’t get around to it would be like not playing a sport until you could be the best in the world at it. The internet is filled with good, relevant and informative information that your customer base would love to see. Show it to them. They will respond. 6. Listen and engage. Just like No. 3, it’s important you don’t simply broadcast information, even if it is good information. You can’t walk into those same cocktail party conversations, say something interesting, turn around and walk away. As you become more and more of a social resource and authority, you will have more and more people engaging with your content. This means comments and even questions. When someone makes a comment, it is good practice to then engage further. When someone asks a question, it is mandatory to respond. Even if it is a driver, staffer or a totally loyal customer, RESPOND. These are opportunities to show you are having a conversation, not just yelling from the tops of tables. 7. Don’t forget to sell.

When I have followed up with them, invariably, the act of creating content got in the way of moving forward. Yes, unique, high-quality, relevant content is the peak of social media engagement.

Social media is great but like all marketing efforts it should be done with one goal in mind: to sell more charters, to more people, for more money.

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So, how do you do that without jumping up on the aforementioned tables? Simple. First, as a business, everyone knows you are there to sell a service or product. You are not Wikipedia, and everyone will respect the occasional plug for your business. A ratio of five informational posts to one sales post is a good way to start so you don’t overwhelm and lose the interest of your audience. Next, craft your sales messages around content. If you are making a post about “10 things that make planning a family reunion easier,” add a line about how you would love to help them plan the transportation for their next family reunion. Don’t be so subtle they don’t notice

the plug, but don’t bash them over the head with it either. 8. Stop thinking social media is not for you. I hear operators all of the time say “social media is not for us, our customers don’t use it.” So, allow me to stand up on the table for a moment and yell: STOP IT. IT’S JUST NOT TRUE. OK, now that that’s out of the way, let me give you some stats: 73 percent of all internet users are on social media. Of people ages 30-49, 72 percent are active on social media; 50-60 year olds, 60 percent are active, and those over 65, 43 percent. Facebook alone has 1.15 billion users worldwide and of those, more than 23 percent log in at least five times a day.

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Your customers and future customers are using social media, and right now it is influencing their purchasing decisions. Social media is a powerful tool and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not going away. We, as the motorcoach industry, need to be involved in creating real conversations about who and what we are. We need to show the public what we have to offer, and social media is a great way to do just that.

If you are not using social media, start. If you are, now is a great time to evaluate your strategy and look for ways to be more engaging. Together, we can all help more people Go Motorcoach.ÂŚ

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TROLLING FOR CUSTOMERS IS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE FISHING

love fishing. Not just the catching part, which is great, but the chase is what gets me excited. Fishing pits the fisherman against the fish. It’s one on one, nowhere to hide, no one to blame for your failures. Often there is no one with whom to share your successes. Mostly it’s just you and the fish. For as long as I can remember, I have had this passion for fishing. I’ve fished streams, lakes and

oceans all over the United States and Canada. Now I fish primarily in the salt water off the Northwest Coast of Washington state, an awe inspiring part of the world. No matter where you fish, finding the fish is always the first step in the journey. From spotting them in little streams, to fishing with high-tech electronics in the ocean, this is a big part of the chase.

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Knowing right where the fish are, how big they are, what depth they are at, should make catching them easy, right? Well, yes, it should but it doesn’t. Knowing where they are is only a small portion of the battle. As any non-fisherman who has ever set foot inside a fishing tackle store knows, the options of what to fish with are insanely diverse. Big, small, shiny, colorful, plastic, metal, wood the list of differences are as long as they are confusing and expensive. Thousands of options that often look very similar with only subtle variations like a spot of red paint on this one and no spot on the next. So, does it matter? Does that little red dot mean anything to the

fish or is it simply another way to get me to part with $14? The answer is that it does matter. I can remember time and time again swapping baits until my fingers bled from tying knots. Then I would finally stumble upon the perfect combination. Frustration was exchanged for the thrill of the pole-bending, linestripping fight. So, why the rambling on about fishing? What in the world does it have to do with motorcoach marketing? Good question. I thought you’d never ask. I love marketing for the very same reason I love fishing. The chase.

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You see, marketing is more like fishing than you might think. We all know where the fish are. We know that wedding planners, school districts, churches and many others will need coaches. We even have a great little device that will show us exactly where they are (think computer). And, like fishing, we can spend untold amounts of time trying to woo them only to be frustrated with a complete lack of results.

simply crank out a brochure that shows we do any number of 100 things, hand it to potential clients, and voila business.

Also, just like fishing, it all comes down to the bait.

We must tailor our bait to our prey. We must remember that a wedding planner doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care if we also can handle ski charters or school district-contract work.

My grandfather taught me how to fish. He was a one-bait fisherman. It did not matter what he was fishing for, what time of year it was, what the water was doing, he always fished exactly the same. He grew up fishing in a different era, when the fish were more plentiful and there were significantly fewer fisherman. Today, fishing is different, you have to be more creative, you have to match what your prey are eating, and you have to present in a way that fish not only want to bite, but their instincts force them to. Marketing is the same way. Gone are the days when we can

Granted, just like those who still fish like my grandfather did, you will catch the occasional fish, but not enough to fill the proverbial freezer. Today we, as marketers, must think like a fisherman.

What she will want to know is that we are the very best at handling her wedding business, that we will treat her clients like our own, and that when she works with us she will have a resource that will make her job just that much easier. Presenting like this, we are no longer a commodity, we are no longer competing with other providers, we are alone in the market of providing her a service she wants in a way that no one else can. We have presented her with a bait that she wants and needs to be a better wedding planner herself.

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This is the art of marketing. This is how we go from knowing where the fish are to booking business and this is the foundation of why the Motorcoach Marketing Council created the GoMotorcoachmarketing tool suite. You may not love the chase of marketing as much as I do, but the good news is with these tools you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to. They are easy, fast and wickedly effective. No need to stand staring into to marketing

universe wondering what will work, what bait to use, tempted by that shiny doodad or fly-bynight idea. These tools have been created by the industry for the industry and are here to make sure you sell more charters to more people. Fast, simple and effective. ÂŚ

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USING MOUTHWATERING PHOTOGRAPHY TO HELP WOO BUYERS

ast week, while roaming the concourse of a nearly deserted airport terminal somewhere in the Midwest, trying to find something to eat, I spotted something new. Across the way from where I was standing, I peered into a restaurant laden with big beautiful images on huge video screens, filling the entire width of the restaurant. Nowhere in sight were printed signs listing the menu offerings and prices. In fact, gone were the signs all together. Like a moth drawn to a bug light, I could not help myself and soon was standing in line trying to choose what to order. To be honest, I had not realized where I was. I hadn’t seen anything

— other than these mouthwatering pictures. I was hungry and I knew this was my ticket to not having to overpay for a box of stale food on the airplane. It was not until I got to the front of the line, with my gaze still fixed on the hypnotic menu screens, and heard the voice of the girl at the counter that I realized where I was. “Hello, welcome to McDonald’s. What can I get for you today?” I was taken aback. I was confused. I looked at her, half expecting her to say she was joking. I mean, I’ve eaten at McDonald’s — dare I say, even a

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lot. But it had been a while and I was committed at this point, so I promptly gave my order and stepped aside. As I waited, I watched the hordes of people who were ordering — all were standing transfixed by the huge, beautiful, food-laden screens, displaying giant photos of spectacular food. My number was finally called and I gathered my bag and found a seat across the concourse to eat.

indeed the same burger I had stopped eating a long time ago and hardly resembled the culinary masterpieces pictured on the video displays. Nevertheless, I ate it and moved on to my gate to board another long flight. So, what is the takeaway from this little story? Is it to not eat at McDonald’s? No, not necessarily. Is it that we should sell our products or services with photos that frankly misrepresent our products? Absolutely not.

With great anticipation I opened the bag and peered in. So far, things looked familiar. There was a red box of fries, a napkin and something the shape of a burger wrapped in paper. I took the little burger out and unwrapped it. I could not help but laugh. It was

It is that the world is changing and that as an industry it is time for us to start embracing that change. Photos are becoming more and more a part of the buying public’s means of making decisions. From the mouthwatering screens at McDonald’s to

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cars, trips, clothes and everything in between, more and more people are using photos when making purchasing decisions. There are a number of reasons for this, one of which is that the internet is changing. More and more people have access to good internet. Mobile 4G internet is allowing websites to deliver more and larger images and videos as part of this new and richer online experience. This means websites are becoming more visual and are, in some cases, replacing the majority of their text with images. As motorcoach operators, we have two main objectives when it comes to marketing. Our first objective is to convert nonmotorcoach users into buyers. It is well established that most people have incorrect notions about motorcoach travel, one of the most common being that motorcoaches are like the old Greyhound buses they took to Aunt Sallyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house when they were children during the 60s.

are seen as a commodity in the eyes of local buyers. We, the industry, know this is not the case, but saying it is not enough. Using photos to combat this misconception can go a long way to getting the phone to ring more consistently. It IS true that a picture is worth a thousand words. Having worked in marketing in this industry for the past 10 years, I have always been amazed at the lack of inspiring photography that most companies have on their websites. Too many times I see companies that have coaches that look like the sandwiches on the video displays at McDonaldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, but whose photography looks more like the meager burger I pulled from the bag that day at the airport. Photography does not need to be expensive, nor does it require an investment in complicated equipment.

Big, beautiful photos of people having fun, sitting in a modern coach, go right to the heart of the issue and are hard to dispute.

The Motorcoach Marketing Council features an article on its blog that gives even the camera newbie what they will need to fill their site with powerful images of their coaches. (Find the article at: http://motorcoachmarketing. org/taking-better-photos.)

The other challenge we face is setting ourselves apart in our own market.

Take a look . . . and keep those wheels turning. ÂŚ

Too often, motorcoach companies

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WHY SELLING TO

“MILLENNIALS” WILL NEVER WORK

have attended a lot of classes and read a lot of articles on the art of selling to millennials and I think that the information presented in those classes is, for the most part, wrong. Let me explain. A few weeks ago I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant waiting for my wonton soup. The placemat in front of me was the same red Chinese zodiac placemat that probably graces tables across America. With little to do but read that or stare at the fish tank, I started to read it. My kids, who were with me, also decided to brush up on the finer points of their assigned symbols and make fun of each other’s assigned animals. “I’m a dog. No! I don’t want to be a dog because Mom is a sheep and dogs and sheep aren’t compatible,” said one of my kids to the other. “Dad’s a horse,” my wife announced to the table.

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My soup came and we all moved on to egg rolls and moo shu pork, but the idea of it stayed with me. It is absolutely ridiculous to believe that everyone born in a certain year is “attractive”. It is insane to think that hiring someone who is upright, honest, easygoing, and has a lot of leadership potential is as simple as finding someone born in a specific year. “What does that mean?” my daughter asked. “It means that he’s optimistic, with strong action and executive power. Attractive to the opposite sex, warmhearted, upright and easygoing. Hence, they usually have a lot of friends flocking around them. Independence and endurance make them more powerful, and they do not easily give up when in difficulty. Positive attitude leads to a brighter direction,” she read.

I can imagine the ad now: “Looking to hire a director of sales. Must be optimistic, a great leader, and able to make good decisions. Important that you have the independence to manage yourself and the endurance to stay the course. Positive attitude a must. Please only apply if you were born in 1966, 1978, or 1990.”

“It’s based on your birth year,” she responded.

As funny as this is, and as ridiculous as it may sound, it is even more ridiculous to believe that we can somehow create an even broader generalization by putting people born in a certain period in a box and devising a marketing strategy that will work, even a little, for every single person that falls into that category.

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “I think the guy who came up with that may have attended a different high school than I did.”

Just so we’re all on the same page, let’s breakdown the various generations: Baby Boomers refer to people born between 1946 and 1964,

“Wait, what?” I said. “How do they figure that?”

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“To begin with, a couple of assumptions made about these groups of people are true. The trick here, however, is that the assumptions are not based on who they are but, rather, the social, economic, and technological worlds they were born into.”

Gen Xers between 1965 and 1979, Xennials between 1975 and 1985, Millennials between 1980 and 1994, and iGens between 1995 and 2012. I think most of the information I’ve received in classes on marketing to millennials is wrong, I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater here. I have gotten some nuggets of wisdom on the subject from classes and reading articles.

To begin with, a couple of assumptions made about these groups of people are true. The trick here, however, is that the assumptions are not based on who they are but, rather, the social, economic, and technological worlds they were born into. For example, the world of someone that lived their 20s and 30s during the 1960s is radically different than the world of someone currently in their

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20s and 30s. Technology, cultural norms and the speed at which things happen have all changed dramatically. Something that is “normal” now used to be a huge luxury—if it were even possible at all. As an example, let’s talk about a television set. Only 9% of American homes had a TV in 1950; today, that number is around 99%. These “normals” shape what people expect and what they believe.

these individuals came of age and became consumers.

People who came out of the womb with an iPhone in their hand while tweeting about the experience have a completely different set of expectations than others who were in their late 40s when they got their first pager.

While it may be too general to say that all individuals born between 1980 and 1994 are impatient, unfocused, difficult to work with, and irresponsible, we can say with some certainty that these folks will likely expect products to work and be fast and that the overall process will be easy.

These changes in expectations are not based on the fact that they’re separate sets of people, and it isn’t as though the titles assigned to them have magically given them different beliefs or attributes. Rather, these expectations are based on the conditions in which

The second truth that I don’t want to throw out is that these distinct groups do require marketing strategies geared specifically to them. Because millennials expect something different than their baby boomer predecessors, we must change how we sell to them and how we deliver our product.

What does that mean to us? It means we can understand why companies like Amazon and Uber have been so successful with millennials. There’s something super seductive and

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convenient about having your favorite breakfast cereal delivered to your house in a matter of hours in many cities, or clicking a button and having someone pick you up and take you back to your dorm room so you don’t miss your liberal arts interpretive dance final. Beyond those two truths, however, most of the direction we get on selling to millennials becomes oversimplified feel-good nonsense. While younger generations are driving innovation and change, older generations aren’t pounding their fists and looking for the “good old days” when they’d call a cab and someone would show up and overcharge them for a ride to the airport. No! They’re actually jumping on board and taking advantage of the new and better ways. Want proof of that statement? 35% of Uber’s users are over the age of 35. And here’s another thing: Not everyone I graduated from high school with was attractive or, for that matter, easygoing. Not everyone born in 1960 is gentle and calm, and I know that not everyone born in 1969 is the “epitome of fidelity and punctuality”. Just as I know this, I also know that not everyone labeled a millennial will respond to the same marketing message or strategy that appeals to one of their peers. Contrary to popular belief, not all of them get their news from their

Facebook feed, are without children, only eat food delivered by Uber eats, attend every concert in the area, and wear skinny jeans. I have met farm-kid millennials that work hard, drive Dodge trucks, have never been in an uber, and want to talk to people facetoface in order to help them buy their next hunting rifle. I have talked to a millennial who wakes up every morning at 4:30 to make it to work on time to her first of three jobs. I have seen many with strong leadership abilities and great work ethics. I have seen fathers and mothers with a handful of kids who fall squarely in the millennial bucket. We simply can’t generalize our way to a successful marketing strategy. So what do we do? We must realize that it is not demographics that purchase from us; it is individuals and consumer groups. We can’t say things like “This is a trip for baby boomers” and hope to be successful. We need to build itineraries and services that speak to individual interest groups— services that will appeal to history buffs, for example, or gamblers, concert goers, family reunion planners, and the like. I think we can all agree that it would be foolish to take something like a wedding service in a charter operation and say “We are only going to sell this to people between

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the ages of 28-32”. (An individual getting married might be 25, 50, or 75!) It would be much more effective to market a service that showcases expertise in the wedding transportation business.

Ease. If it can’t be done with a few clicks, it isn’t worth doing. This means we have to look at our booking process for both charter and line run products and streamline it.

In that same vein, we can’t sell to millennial by using pictures of young people wearing skinny jeans and sipping vanilla chia lattes while forming a drum circle on a beach. Instead, we must focus on the things that matter. Millennial (and, more often now, their older counterparts) are beginning to expect certain things:

The world is digital. Don’t ask people to fax something. Though you may want a fax machine for those who are clinging to a bygone era, don’t make it part of your dayto-day business practice. Smart phones rule the world.This is the attitude of the day: “If it can’t be done on a phone, I just won’t do

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it.” Look at your entire booking and payment process. If there are steps that don’t work on a phone or are hard to do on a phone, fix them. God-given rights. While this statement might remind you of the bill of rights, younger generations put WiFi and power outlets under this umbrella. If you are charging for these or don’t offer them,you might want to reconsider. These are not things that are somehow tied to a secret credo taught in schools between the years of 1980 and 1994; they are shifts made by a generation of people raised with technologies and cultural conditions different from previous generations. Thus, what they see as “normal” is “progressive and modern” to those that came before them. And millennials aren’t the only ones who like the new standard, by the way. Watch, for example, the next time you’re on a plane and the WiFi goes out. Baby boomers will be hitting the flight attendant call button as often as millennials because they can’t stream the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory. As you look at how you can put more butts in seats on your line runs, fill up those charter dispatch sheets, or even hire more charter drivers, remember that trying to generalize an entire generation of people is no less ridiculous than saying that everyone in my high school

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graduating class was super sexy CEO material. We can’t generalize the consumption habits of a wide swath of humanity; rather,we’ve got to look deeper at what we offer and determine the people who would be most interested in consuming that product or service. Once we identify those people, we’ve got to find them and work to craft a message that will speak specifically to them. This is advertising and marketing, and it’s the bread and butter of selling more charters, to more people, for more money. When you are ready to craft that perfect message, we are here to help!¦

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THE BALANCE OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND

ur goal is to help operators sell more charters, to more people, for more money. Sure, it’s catchy and rolls off the tongue, but even more than that? Those words are powerful—and true. In order to ensure a healthy future for our industry, we need more charters to grow our businesses, more people to broaden our consumer base, and, probably most of all, we need to increase our profit margins. Simply put, the margins we currently garner aren’t proportionate to the liability we are exposed to, or the effort it takes to run a charter business.

Though we all employ advertising, sales, and marketing strategies in our businesses, our ability to grow and progress can ultimately be boiled down to the most fundamental of all principles: supply and demand. If the demand for our product outpaces supply, our prices can be raised to a level commensurate with our effort and exposure. If supply outweighs demand, prices remain low and we continue to squeak by,unable to adequately address the elephants in the room (driver shortage, anyone?).

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While there are a myriad ways one could address supply and demand, there are a few generally accepted business practices at work in almost all other industries that we need to build into our operations. I am going to address something that we all probably “know” on some level, even though we’re not likely doing it—at least not 100% of the time. If you are a charter operation, you’ll probably get a quote request today. This means that through your website, social platforms, busrates.com, or another channel, someone will find you. That request suggests that a potential customer has discovered that you exist and offer a service they are considering, or they know enough about our industry to consider using a piece of your equipment to move their group. In all likelihood, you’ll soon respond to

that quote, sending them details about the move, along with a price. You’ll inevitably receive more quote requests during this same window of time, and once you hit send on your response to that initial quote request email, you’ll likely move on to the next in line. By the end of the day (or week),the stack of quote requests you received will likely be close to the same size as the stack of quotes you responded to. If you are like most operators, you will start and end each week working to keep on top of the flow of quotes. Your objective might be to respond to quotesmore quickly, and you might even dream of a world where quotes are software-based (hello instantaneous!) so you can work on more pressing matters.

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But we’re missing a step here. In every sales training, you’ll learn that one of the fundamental pieces of the puzzle is the close. Maybe this immediately makes you think about some sleazy used-car salesman (“you’ll get a free undercarriage coating if you buy right now”), or perhaps you’re thinking that you don’t need to close; if they really want what you have, they will buy it. When we send quotes in this industry, we make a couple of assumptions. First, we assume that because they contacted us, they know about us and we’re going to be their only choice. The reality? Most shoppers are just that: shoppers. They are looking around, trying to figure out who they want to use. And second? We assume that

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they’ll call us back if they want what we have. Studies show that when sales people follow up and ask for the sale, they close many more business deals than the times they choose not to follow up. That’s right, many more deals. Studies also confirm that people are often willing to pay significantly more when they speak with someone who cared enough to follow up. I am often asked what one thing will help a company to grow the most quickly. Most people are looking for an answer like “post more frequently on Facebook,” or “buy an ad in this magazine.”But honestly? The fastest way to meaningful growth is following up, via phone, with 100% of the quotes

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“Supply and demand are what drives our ability to increase prices. If you were sold out every day, you could raise your prices, replace lowprofit business with high-profit work, pay drivers more, and fill up your driver pool. With increased demand comes the control to hire the right people, pay the right people, and keep the right people in your operation.”

that you send, and within 24 hours of sending them. (Sales and marketing are two different animals. Sales are about responding to existing demand for your product or service, while marketing focuses on increasing the demand. It is easy to look at following up as a strictly salesrelated activity, but it actually has a marketing component as well.) The next step to harvesting more business is to market to your customer base. This marketing is key to increasing demand. Once we’ve worked with a customer, we often assume they’ll call us when they need transportation again. This belief is simply NOT TRUE, and it’s costing you

real dollars every month. Sure, you have a base of loyal customers; they are usually people who book frequently or have booked over several years. These people have been with you through thick and thin, and they tell you when other companies call on them. They are good customers, but they’re the exception, not the rule. If a soccer parent books a team bus, or a company books a holiday shuttle this year, it’s not a guarantee that they’ll do the same thing next year. They’ll shop around, just like they did this year unless you give them a reason not to. Marketing is that reason. So, this is how you do it: every

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inspire them, educate them, and be consistent! Here’s why: the next time that consumer needs a coach, they won’t think about shopping; they’ll think about you.

time you quote a charter, add that information to a working database. Record who the potential customer was, what they wanted to book a charter for, and whether that activity is something they do every year. Then, use the information. Talk to these people on a regular basis and find out what they like. If they’re interested in corporate transportation, for example, send them emails about that. You can also suggest other ways they can use a coach, and introduce them to your sales team. You can teach them how to be a better consumer, how to know something is a good deal, and how they can recognize when they’re trading safety and reliability for dollars. Inform them,

I know that implementing these changes is far easier said than done. Believe you me, I have been there. It’s just easier to fall back on sending a bulk email to everyone with pictures of your new coaches. (Doing something is obviously better than nothing, right?) But here’s the thing: in all likelihood, getting that email out becomes a low priority when it snows, or it’s Spring Break, or when 1000 other reasons come up. Bottom line? Pretty soon, 6 months have gone by and you’re asking yourself this question: “Is it even worth talking to them now after 6 months of zero communication?” Chances are good that your organization, right now, may not have anyone who has the capability, time, training, or technical prowess to accomplish these follow-up tasks. You may not have a person whose job consists of creating those emails or making phone calls. As an industry, we are so focused on quote delivery as the be-all and end-all of our sales tasks. Because of this, we staff to

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that level by building organizational structures that allow us to keep our noses above water in the race between quote requests and responding to them. This leaves little room for closing or prospecting. But if you have ever sat in, or listened to, a sales training by the likes of Tony Robbins or Zig Ziglar, you will recall the fact that a good sales or marketing person will not cost you money; they will make you money. Initially, hiring a person for that particular job can be hard to stomach as you watch your payroll go up. Done consistently, however, these activities can’t do anything but help you grow, and the key to doing them consistently is having someone whose sole job is to make that happen. The last thing I want to touch on is anniversary-based selling. Remember how I asked you to find out whether a customer anticipates doing a particular move on an annual basis when you’re in the middle of the quote process? The answer to that question is a veritable gold mine. If you’re willing to accept that most customers won’t be inherently loyal as a result of using your services once, and you know that they are going to be doing the same type of move on an annual basis, you can begin to harvest that business before it ever becomes available to a competitor. This technique works like you can’t imagine, and the reason it works is simple: people are willing to work with

you to avoid the process of getting quotes. Calling to say”I see that you booked about this time last year with us, and I wanted to see if you were ready to book again?” will lead to more business. Alternately, when you don’t call, some customers will go to other providers, and some will forget to book again. In many cases, however, this step will get them to book directly, eliminating a lot of the price sensitivity that comes from the shopping experience. The stuff we’re talking about isn’t simple, and I’d wager that, in most cases, you probably already know that these things would help you grow your

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business. I’d also wager that in almost every operation in North America, all three of these things aren’t happening all of the time. Consistency is king in the sales and marketing world—and prince, and queen, and every other royal title. It is the only thing that matters. I have seen people who took marketing in a tacky, weird, cliché direction, but because they did it routinely, consistently, even religiously, they were wildly successful. Contrastingly, I’ve seen others invest in beautiful, well-crafted marketing that was used inconsistently at best, and those efforts became little more than a reminder of what could have been when they actually decided to belly up. Supply and demand are what drives our ability to increase prices. If you

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were sold out every day, you could raise your prices, replace low-profit business with high-profit work, pay drivers more, and fill up your driver pool. With increased demand comes the control to hire the right people, pay the right people, and keep the right people in your operation. This is hard work. I realize it’s virtually impossible to manufacture more time in a day or add more work to someone’s already-overflowing plate. But I also know that if we invest in people that can help us accomplish these three things, we’ll grow, see measurable changes in our businesses, and absolutely sell more charters, to more people, for more money. ¦

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THE JULY FACTOR

few weeks ago I wrote a check for the first time in a long time. It felt almost foreign because it has been so long since I’ve done that. I stared at it and had to think about what I needed to do to fill it out. First the payee, then the amount, and then the date. As I filled in the date, I wrote 7 for the month and my heart skipped a beat. 7…July…wow. If you are anything like me, January happened a few weeks ago, you can’t remember much about February, and the rest just seems like a blur. Every year July strikes me as a kind of monumental month. While it’s not only the first time that the year is more than halfway over, it also seems to mark the start of what will inevitably be a fast and furious sprint to the end of December. August will come and vacations will abound when it’s hard to focus and everyone is looking for any excuse to get out of the office and do something “summer-ish”. September is the month the chickens come home to roost when school starts back up again, and then October, November, and December seem to happen all at once. This is why July feels like the beginning of the end of the year for me, and it always gives me

the opportunity to reflect on the things I needed to accomplish in the year and take inventory of how I’m really doing. For those of you who know me, you probably know that I am not a big fan of goals. I feel like, far too often, goals are simply wishes that we rebrand because it feels funny to sit down in January and write a list of wishes. Unfortunately, we don’t often treat our goals much different from our childhood wishes. All of us can probably remember a time in our youth when we really wanted something and wished for it—in a letter to Santa, or just a backyard “wish upon a shooting star”. But then we went back to playing outside, or whatever it was that we were doing. We may have hoped, thought about, and wished our little hearts out, but that was where it stopped. Goals—much like wishes—often fall into that same category, and I think that’s why they’re often troublesome for businesses. Early in my career, I tripped and fell into a job that was, in retrospect, far beyond my experience. I had nearly 1000 employees that were accountable to me and I spent much of my days meeting with those who wanted to

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grow in their respective positions. I was working in the real estate field and many of them were realtors. They would come in and sit down, we would discuss their experiences and what they had accomplished in the last year, and then we’d talk about their goals. Inevitably, these goals were always hefty, and they were often many times what had been produced the previous year. That notwithstanding, most people were animated, passionate, and full of excitement as they looked toward the future. You could see in their eyes that they truly wanted more and that they could imagine—even taste—what life was going to be like once they achieved their objectives. Once they had laid out their goals, I would ask one simple question: “How are you going to accomplish that?” This question changed the tone of the meeting. Many answered: “I don’t know, that’s why I am here.” Some had ideas and vision of how to start down their desired path, but no one ever— not once—had a plan of how they were going to actually reach their goals. For the remainder of the meeting, we would discuss how to go from where

they were to where they wanted to be. I would lay out a plan that would help them grow, and my mission was to create actionable steps, things they could take from that meeting and start doing that very day. I wanted them to have a clear path that would lead them to fulfilling the vision they were so passionate about. At the end of our time together, I’d always set up a 90-day followup meeting. They’d leave feeling enthusiastic and empowered, ready to take on the world. Not only could they see the goal, they had a roadmap of how to get there. 90 days later we would reconvene, and can you guess what had happened? 9 out of 10 of the people that I met with had done…wait for it…

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nothing. They went home and woke up the next day and did exactly what they had always done. They did what they were comfortable doing, they accomplished what they had always accomplished, and the reasons were almost always the same. “I was busy,” “It was hard,” and “I just didn’t get around to it”—in some form or another—were always at the top of the list. At first, I was a bit shocked by it. In one particular case that has stuck with me, I remember sitting across the table from a gentleman who was a really wonderful man. During the follow-up meeting, he talked about how much he wanted to accomplish his goals and how much it would mean to his family. He mentioned his desire to send his kids to nice schools and said that his family had outgrown their house. He went on and on about how much he wanted what we had discussed. When I asked him about the plan we’d put in place, he said he’d done it for a week, but it was hard, and he got busy, and ultimately? He went back to doing what he had always done. But I was struck by one observation: right after making his long list of reasons why he hadn’t done anything different, he went right back into how much he wanted to be successful. I thought about that meeting for a long time. It haunted my thoughts and I wondered why someone who wanted something so much could fall so short when it came to execution. Then, a few years later in July, as I sat

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looking at my “goals” for the year, I realized I was that guy. I, too, had set lofty goals for myself. I, too, had gone to work to accomplish them and then got sidetracked, distracted, and off course when it came to implementing meaningful change. I, too, had bought into a system that was much more like writing letters to Santa than actually moving both my personal and business objectives forward. You see, our goals, without an implemented plan, are not goals; they are wishes. If I want to lose weight, the act of writing it down and putting it somewhere safe and pulling it out 7 months later doesn’t actually do anything to help me. I have to make different decisions, I have to take action, I have to DO something. The first day that I go to the gym, it probably won’t fit into my schedule. Let’s face it: if it did, it probably wouldn’t have been on my “goals” list. The day after I go, there will inevitably be pain, and I’ll likely have tons of reasons coursing through my head justifying not going back again…ever. But if my plan is more than a wish, I have to go back, I have to eat salad, and I have to walk more and eat less ice cream. It’s just the nature of the beast. That same beast rears its ugly head in our businesses. If I want to grow my business, if I want to sell more charters, if I want to start a line run, if I want to…

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fill in the blank, I must DO something. Having traveled to all but 3 states in the union meeting with many of North America’s motorcoach operators, I have seen these same troublesome patterns repeat themselves in this industry. In many of my presentations, I ask those present if they’d like to grow their businesses over the next 12 months. Almost without exception, everyone in the room raises their hand. This isn’t surprising; they are attending a marketing meeting, after all. After the presentations, people are always enthusiastic about getting to work and they leave feeling empowered to do something different than what they’ve done in the past. The next time I see them, often a full year later, guess how many have actually DONE something different? Fewer than you would think. I like to say that in order to convert a wish into a goal, you only need

one ingredient: execution. In my real estate days, the people that had made real changes in 90 days were those who had put their plans into action, and they saw major changes in their businesses as a result. They were walking the path and seeing their goals getting closer and closer. Most of these people had not executed the entire plan we had discussed, but they’d executed something consistently. They had stretched themselves and DONE something—not once, or a few times over a few weeks, but they’d actually made it a part of their day-to-day business. In the motorcoach industry, time is probably the most scarce and valuable commodity. While our goals are important and growth is what we wish for, these “goals” seem to always fall prey to the operational constraints of the day. Busy days turn into busy

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months, and the next thing you know, it’s July and you’re writing 7 on the top of a check. The challenge I have for you is to go back through your list of goals for the year. Look at each of them and determine which ones you’re comfortable leaving as wishes. Then, find the things on your list that are more than wishes to you—the ones that would transform your company, give you more time, or help you reach your financial goals. Once you identify those, I challenge you to decide that half a year is long enough to have waited. Pick something, anything, and decide that yesterday was the last day you will ever not be moving that goal forward. Moving goals from the “wish” category to the “doing it now” category is a powerful thing. Not only do you

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feel great about it, you also start seeing results. Remember that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and this is as true in the marketing world as it is in the physical world. Do something constantly and watch as the reaction happens. Refine what you do until the reaction is exactly what you want and need to reach those most important goals. And, if you need help, we’re here! ¦

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TIME CAN BE THE ULTIMATE

KILLER OF MARKETING

or those of you who may not know, we recently wrapped up the first-ever motorcoach marketing industry survey. The survey accounted for nearly 3,500 pieces of equipment and shined a light on a number of the hurdles our industry faces when it comes to marketing. While the vast majority of respondents indicated that they would like to be doing more marketing, the survey also revealed several issues that keep them from doing everything they’d like to do. The top three answers? Time, budget and staff availability. SHOCKING! Well, probably not if you have been in this industry long enough to run your first charter. Nevertheless, this information is important and helpful. As a council, we have long believed that these are the central issues that plague this industry, and we continue to try to provide the tools, training and resources to address them. But we’re not

kidding ourselves; we know there’s not a magic bullet that can manufacture more time, money or employees. That being said, there are ways to lessen the impact of these limitations on your ability to more consistently move your marketing objectives forward. More than 55 percent of those who completed the survey said time was one of their biggest obstacles when it came to marketing. Simply put, it’s hard to find time to think about, plan, build and implement marketing strategies. As the director of sales for a motorcoach operation, this reality was emblazoned on my mind forever. I distinctly remember the haunting feeling of the neverending list in my mind of stuff to do: marketing, sales calls, customer visits and meetings to attend. That list notwithstanding, this was the actual reality: buses breaking down, drivers getting sick, weather, customer

complaints and all the other operational realities that come with this business. So, what happened to me was what I know happens to many of you on a daily basis. The sales, marketing and growth objectives simply got pushed to the back of the pile. They became overwhelming as the weeks and months stacked up, and I actually began to believe those objectives didn’t really need to come to fruition. (“It’s working now and I’m not doing it, so it can’t be that important.”) You and I both know this simply isn’t the case. Marketing is about growing demand for your product. More demand means more opportunity to raise prices, and that’s something I know we all need to do. As a council, we’ve designed all of our tools with your time in mind. While many of the tools address budget and staff concerns as well, their primary focus has always been to help you plan, create and implement marketing without having to spend as much time doing it. I want to highlight the tools we offer and briefly discuss the ways each one can be a timesaver for your business. Social Library: For those of you who may not know, the social media library we’ve created is free to use (no account required) and it’s available on our website. Social media is a powerful marketing tool, but the creation of content can sometimes be a daunting task. (It’s a

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Wednesday in May, and you just moved a group of weary business travelers from the airport to the hotel. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face it, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not much news in that story.) Often the business of motorcoach travel, whether line run or charter, can be less than exciting from a contentdevelopment standpoint. This, then, is the quandary of our industry: do we post nothing, post more pictures of empty buses or come up with (and implement) a great strategy for developing a content engine that involves the drivers, staff and customers? We all want to choose option C, but we usually find ourselves somewhere between A and B. The library was designed to augment your existing

content when you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the time or material to do something on your own. Our social media library is available 24/7, and all you have to do is copy, paste and post. Because trying to post five to seven times a week can be daunting, many companies use it to fill in the gaps. Other companies generate their own material by putting a spin on ideas they get from viewing the library. However you decide to use it, this is a tool that everyone can take advantage of. Training Videos and Motorcoach Marketing Magazine: What if I told you about a free video that would give your new sales or marketing person

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everything he or she needs to know to effectively market and sell to any one of 25 vertical charter markets? (I can even sweeten the deal by saying that it takes less than 30 minutes to watch.) Additionally, what if I told you there was a publication that takes all the marketing information out there and condenses it to give you the stuff you really need to know? We know that training is a major hurdle in this industry and it is often the responsibility of the owners and managers to pull it off. They’re typically so busy with the day-to-day operational concerns, however, that training doesn’t happen (or people don’t even get hired in the first place). If there is one tool in our toolbox that is underutilized, it’s our library of training videos. These campaignspecific videos were created for this industry. (They’re not motivational

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content built for the trucking industry that we’ve recycled for the crumbs.) Each one gives you, in a matter of minutes, the information we’ve learned from looking at charter operations that are successfully selling work into these markets. Companies are using these videos to train new staff by holding “lunch and learns” for their entire sales departments or by assigning them to sales staff and holding them accountable for implementation over the coming months. Motorcoach Marketing is our free quarterly digital magazine that’s all about effectively marketing your business. Because the ecosphere of marketing is huge and often overwhelming, the mission of this magazine is to put the essential stuff you need to know in one place. Our goal is to make it easier than ever to keep your finger on the pulse of what is now and what is to come.

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We’ve noticed that companies that use these tools have a level of focus on marketing and sales that isn’t replicated by companies that aren’t using them. They provide, even to seasoned veterans in this industry, a pile of ideas and strategies that effectively help motorcoach operators market their businesses. The Design Center: One of the foundations of the GoMotorcoach tool library is an online design center that allows you to customize thousands of pieces of marketing with your company logo, contact information and photos. These motorcoach-specific tools were created to support companies in rolling out powerful campaigns with just a few minutes invested in actually creating the art. Gone are the days of trying to figure out how to use a design program, finding clip art or trying to convey your vision to someone who simply doesn’t understand our industry or your objectives. This powerhouse of materials includes both digital and printed tools. While there is a small cost ($199) to access the library, it gives users the ability to make anything from bus wrap elements to postcards, brochures and stickers. While some companies use these design tools to develop all of their marketing materials, many more use it to augment the things they already do. For example, many customers utilize

it to inexpensively and quickly create things such as tablecloths and pop-up banners when they are attending trade shows. Others with a strong brand and employees that design their marketing content use these tools to test the waters in markets they haven’t focused on in the past. (This helps them determine if they want to invest in making their own materials in the future.) Still others simply take the verbiage, ideas and images and build a campaign unique to them. Do It For You: This is the ultimate timesaver. Rolled out in 2017, this program was specifically designed to address the time concerns we see in the industry. This is how it works: select what you need and allow us to custom build materials just for you. You can even have them implemented on your behalf on a limited scale. If it sounds easy, that’s because it is! For example, let’s say that you want digital flyers for each campaign that can be attached to quotes or sent with your monthly emails. Now, with one click of a button, a couple photos of your coaches and a logo, our team will create them for you. If you wake up tomorrow and say, “We need more wedding business,” you can order a program designed to put

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that in motion with the same click of a button. This program allows us to build materials, help buy the list of players you need to know in your market or make and mail the first postcard to that market. Whether you want a single marketing item or a constant flow of new materials, this program was designed to take time out of the equation. We have seen companies use this as a tool to keep marketing moving during busy seasons. Others choose to use this instead of pulling staff off of their existing duties in order to make sure their marketing objectives are accomplished. Still others are tired of talking about getting to marketing “someday,” and they use this program to finally get the ball rolling. However you decide to use it, we know it will help you move forward as never before. Time is a major hurdle when it comes to marketing in this industry. Though we know marketing is important, it tends to be pushed aside due to operational constraints. Because our council was built by the industry and for the industry, we know (all too well) that good intentions, by themselves, don’t deliver results. We strive to provide solutions and give you the tools you need to help you sell more charters, to more people, for more money. ¦

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THE IMPORTANCE OF

RESPONDING

think we can all remember moments in our professional careers when we wished we could have crawled under a rock and made everything go away. One of the worst “crawl under the biggest rock I could find” days I’ve ever had was as the director of sales for a motorcoach company in Portland, Oregon. It started like any other day, but it soon spiraled out of control, and no matter how much I tried to fix things, they just kept getting worse: drivers not showing up for their dispatches, mechanical issues, crazy traffic that

made us late on every front, and even a passenger-on-board fender bender. Basically, if it could go wrong, it did. My phone and email were blowing up with customers who had passed upset and were downright angry. I listened to people absolutely scream at me over things that neither I, nor my company, had any control over—including a semi rollover that had shut down traffic in both directions on the freeway. I remember it was an unseasonably hot day, we had air conditioners failing, and

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people were “hot” in more ways than one. As much as I wanted to slip under the closest rock and simply put my fingers in my ears until it all blew over, the truth was I had to deal with it—even though it was uncomfortable. That was 14 years ago, and while trying to work my way through a pile of angry emails and voicemails was a pain in the neck, the long-term damage to the company was different than it would have been if that same incident happened today. I spent weeks talking with and apologizing to customers as I tried to “fix” what I could. After a few months, those moments were all but forgotten and we, and most of the customers, had moved on. Today’s world is vastly different. All of those angry emails and voicemails are now heat-of-the-moment reviews posted to Facebook or TripAdvisor, mean tweets fired off directly following a confrontational exchange, or Google reviews that are as venomous as they are permanent. Today, instead of making nice with angry customers and working things out over a cup of coffee, we are subject to dealing with a very public and personal airing of those moments we work to never have happen in the first place. These “reviews” are actually not so much reviews as they are Gordon-

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Ramsay-style rants given a public forum, and they’re often calculated to shame a company rather than provide meaningful feedback for fellow consumers. But as much as these reviews can be a moment of sincere frustration for both the company and the customer, there are a few things to remember before you choose how—or not—to respond. The first thing to remember is that these reviews, as well as your response (or lack thereof), are permanent additions to the web and will be used by future shoppers to determine if they want to work with you. In a recent survey, 89% of consumers viewed online sources of product and service reviews as trustworthy, and another 80% have changed their minds about a purchase based solely on the negative reviews they’ve read. The second thing to remember is that you’re going to receive negative reviews—it’s just part of being in business in an online world. But, here’s the thing: how you respond can be the difference between future success and failure. The third thing to keep in mind is that, while many negative reviews are embellished by emotion and frustration, they are, at their root, founded in an experience the reviewer has had with your company. As an owner, it can be tempting

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“Every review, positive or negative, is an opportunity to tell a story—a story about your company and who you really are.”

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to look at these reviews and simply dismiss them as “crazy” or “impossible” because your staff would never do that. I can only imagine that the management of United Airlines thought that exact thing just moments before watching a YouTube video of a bloodied passenger being dragged from one of their flights. Reviews, regardless of their content, require action from a company standpoint. Every review, good or bad, gives you a few options. However, before you take any of these actions, it’s important to look into the issue and, if need be, communicate with the reviewer to get clear on what actually happened. There is nothing worse than taking a position, finding out that you’re wrong, and having to backtrack publicly. The first option you have when dealing with a review is to engage. Engagement is not a simple “Hey, you’re nuts, that is not what happened at all…” type of exchange with

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a customer. It is a real effort to communicate with the reviewer, often trying to push the conversation offline so you can speak with them directly without the shroud of anonymity that the web provides. This will frequently allow you to resolve the issue and then summarize the resolution as a response to the negative comments. It is important to see this opportunity not as a moment in time, but as a record that will live on for all future consumers. This perspective can inform your response— especially when moments come where you simply want to respond in kind to an overly inaccurate or vicious review. The next option is to make a company statement as a response to the review—something that looks like this: “We are sorry that you did not have a positive experience, and we hope we have a future opportunity to show you that is not how we expect our service to go.” It is important in these types of responses to avoid pointing fingers, even if they deserve to be pointed. Even if the reviewer is crazy

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and mostly wrong, keep in mind that pointing fingers will not win you any points with future shoppers. Third, you can choose to pursue removing the review. This is only an option if you have reason to believe that the review is fraudulent and has been placed as an untrue attack on your company by someone with some reason to come after you. While these types of situations do occur, they’re likely a 1 in 1000 scenario. Companies who compile reviews such as Facebook, Google, TripAdvisor, and Yelp don’t remove reviews because you don’t like them or because they reflect poorly on your company. Removal is slow and not guaranteed, but should be sought after if the review is an attack by a competitor, not really about your company, or was left by someone who has never used or experienced your product or service. Noticeably absent from this list of things you should do is choosing to ignore a review. This is not on accident, as ignoring a negative review on the internet is equivalent to saying “Yeah, well, we don’t really care.” While you and I know this is not the case, it can’t be overstated how much more damaging a review is when you ignore it than when you professionally respond on some level. Even though reviews can be tricky, both positive and negative reviews are important for companies, and here’s why. People don’t trust companies who

only have 5-star reviews or one-sided comments. Consumers are savvy; they know things don’t always go as planned, but they’re interested in seeing how you respond when that happens. That kind of transparency acts as a window into the heart of the company, because nothing clarifies who we are as companies quite like those days when everything goes wrong. Consumers see the marketing text from the website and glossy brochures filled with smiling, happy people, but what they really want to know is if companies are actually responsive and helpful when everything “hits the fan.” Do they listen to their customers and care about the experience they’ve had? Do they work to make things right? Do they ignore the fact that they messed up or, worse, make the customer feel as though they were somehow in the wrong? Every review, positive or negative, is an opportunity to tell a story—a story about your company and who you really are. Companies who embrace these moments and craft the story they want told will win the online battle. Those who ignore them—choosing instead to crawl under their proverbial rock and wait for the storm to blow over—will find themselves dealing with permanent stains that are remarkably difficult to get out! ¦

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