Business to Business Quarterly | The Summer Edition

BUSINESS to business Quarterly

$9.50

SUMMER EDITION 2014/15

10STEPS For B2B Marketing Success

BUSINESS MENTORS

START-UP

SOCIAL MEDIA

RISING STAR

What are they and how can they help?

SellShed tackles the giants with their social selling concept

The 5 things you should do and the 5 things you should avoid

FINDATRUCKLOAD marries business need with customer demand and find recognition

Kiwi business meetings

aren’t like meetings in other countries. Relationships matter more than long emails and formal committees. Because of our unique way of doing business you need a training company that teaches your team skills tailored to the Kiwi business psyche.

When you’re looking to significantly boost the performance of your sales and marketing don’t choose a licenced solution from abroad, choose a company that grew up here and understands just how great it is to work differently. Choose THE Marketing Company.

call 0800 427 627 | visit THEmarketingcompany.co.nz |

Make more money in your business.

Contents SUMMER EDITION 2014/15

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18 2. 10 Steps to B2B Marketing Success Get ahead with ten ways to grow.

10. Death of the 4Ps Forget the 4Ps and gain a competitive edge.

18. The Magic Formula Could your business be missing the secret ingredient for success?

4. Praising Employees

13. Social Media Top 5 Social Media entraps many. Find out how to avoid common pitfalls.

21. Rising Star FindaTruckLoad marries business need with customer demand and find recognition.

Effective employee recognition is mostly art, not science.

6. Measure Your Marketing Why marketing is more than just colours and fluff.

9. Start-Up SellShed tackles the giants with their social selling concept.

14. Your Values Your Advantage Stand for something. We tell you why it will build a better business.

17. Family Business Survey The true pressures of family firms as well as their opportunities.

22. Business Mentors Discover more about this asset for growing business

10 Steps to B2B Marketing Success

Graeme Beals

The first thing you need to get right in a business, if it is to be successful, is what it is that you are doing, where it is that you are going and how you are going to fund getting there. So stage one is always to have clear business goals and sound financial planning. For the sake of this article, good financial planning should adequately prepare to incorporate your sales & marketing expense. Don’t just make up numbers out of thin air either. In all aspects, justify your assumptions with clearly worked through models.

Select a target-market based on verifiable facts, not wild assumptions. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Start with a clear target group that you feel certain you can identify, reach and market to with a specific “sales” strategy appropriate to that target group. Research clearly shows that B2B marketers who have a documented strategy are far more likely to consider themselves effective – which one can assume is because they are!

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Next, work out how you are going to generate leads from this group, which should include planning the entire process to be employed to do so. This process should include the use of some sort of CRM to track and trace leads, contacts and progress through the sales funnel and beyond. Most successful B2B marketing emphasises relationships meaning relatively high expenditure on sales and technical support people and lesser amounts on advertising, PR and other forms of marketing. Trade shows, which are not inexpensive, have nonetheless become the number one promotional tool for lead generation of American B2B companies, and this is precisely because they cluster target groups, but give an opportunity for at least a brief one-to-one interaction. Once you get each stage of the process right, within your budget, you’re on the way to making a profit at the end of the day.

In planning, focus on the pain points that will motivate prospects to hear your offer and buy. Most B2B purchases are made with the ultimate aim of improving outputs, attracting or retaining staff, or adding value in some way that allows the customer to move products or services down the line until they finally reach us, the general public, through a B2C outlet.

When preparing your pitches and sales collateral, focus on value rather than the features of your product or service. Plan your pricing to reflect the value that will be derived by the buyer, from using the product or service you offer. Test the ideas you come up with, early in the process to see if they will fly with the market.

Adapt until you find the mix that works for you.

Whilst B2B buyers are not entirely rational, they do generally have a higher level of accountability than B2C buyers, so gaining their trust and giving them security are two of the essential drivers you must allow for in your planning, which usually involves emphasising your brand, your reputation as demonstrated through who your existing customers are, your referrals and testimonials and so forth.

Within all of the planning, there has to be some room also, for flexibility of approach as every customer is different. Getting this balance right is a challenge. For example just think of the great variation there is in social media use by your potential customers. Some will Facebook, some will Tweet, and some will have very little to do with social media at all. Though the effectiveness of marketing through LinkedIn is, according to research, the only social media platform upon which a majority of B2B marketers can agree, it may be unwise to rigidly build a strategy around that site alone as a lead generation platform.

As has been indicated earlier, in B2B marketing, nothing is as important as having an experienced and appropriate sales team with the genuine skills needed to sell your product or service. B2B salespeople are quite different to consumer salespeople, so your hiring too, needs to take into account the fact that a great salesperson in a B2C environment, may not transfer well into your B2B environment. B2B sales generally revolve around effective listening and the ability to cultivate a limited number of relationships as opposed to the more quantity-driven and one-off transactional approach used in consumer sales. Remember, if your sales people are your most valuable resource, what can you add by making them better and better at their job through ongoing, specific training.

Act. This may seem obvious, but the difference between a dream and a goal, is that action is taken towards it. So dream as big as you want, but make sure that action is taken, in an orderly and definitive drive towards the goal if you don’t wish to remain a dreamer.

Hold, and be held to account.

Yes, we can all relax a little, lose focus or get side-tracked or attracted by something new and shiny to chase – fools’ gold!

By holding your sales people to account through a sales management functionary, you act as a brake on any such deviation from course, and in the business having a board, the business too is held to account in the same way. THE Marketing Company Ltd offers the opportunity for businesses to buy in this ‘holding to account’ on a monthly or quarterly basis (depending what is most appropriate) by using our expert sales team as target focusers, coach/mentors and account holders for sales teams.

Lastly, if you want to be the best you can be, then you must set up a process by which you can constantly and incrementally improve your performance as a team. By making Kaizen processes an integral part of your business functioning, there will be easy and regular opportunities to capture and proliferate best practice, to improve average practice, and to minimise waste.

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Praising Employees Russell Atkinson Effective employee recognition is mostly art, not science. That’s why most formal recognition programs never deliver what they promise: It’s easy for employees to spot an insincere, “We need to put something in place” recognition program.

Saying “Thank you” is a universal concept that drives human behaviour. It has an underlying definition that means, “Please repeat that specific behaviour again.”

Recognition is a driver of human performance, period—accelerating the performance of anyone, be it a worker, child, teenager or adult.

A survey by Adrian Gostick & Chester Elton of more than 200,000 managers and employees over a 10-year period showed that “purposebased” recognition is a proven way to engage your employees, reduce staff turnover, boost productivity, and increase customer satisfaction.

The study also shows that companies that effectively praise and recognize their staff are much more profitable.

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To create the best results, praise and recognition will be most effective when it has the following ingredients; Positive, Immediate, Close, Specific, Shared and Surprising.

1. Make it Positive Remembering a person’s past negative behaviours and speaking about how much better they have become is not recommended (e.g. “You used to a real pain in the neck to work with, but you’ve been a lot nicer to be around lately”). Giving praise and recognition is not the time to bring up past errors.

For your praise to have maximum effect, make sure to just point out their positive behaviours (e.g. “I really appreciate the effort you made to engage with the team at the meeting today. It was nice to see you smiling and taking an interest in people”).

2. Immediate - Do it Now Catch people doing things right, and let them know straight away. The sooner you give the praise and recognition to when the actual performance occurs, the better. Don’t wait until their next performance review.

3. Close

5. Share it Around

Recognition is best presented in the natural environment of the performance being recognized (at home, school, or where they work in the office) among peers.

Recognition and praise is best delivered in the environment where the actual performance occurred, ideally among the person’s peers.

Alternatively, if you are in a virtual team make sure to send the team a notification of your praise being delivered. Let the whole team know when someone is doing a good job.

4. Specific Focus on observed behaviours not the person’s character.

Don’t make statements about the person (e.g. “You are really smart” or “You are a hard worker”). It is much more effective to focus on their observed actions and commend the specific behaviours you want to see reinforced (e.g. “I was impressed with the research you did on this project, and the long hours you put in to get the report done on time”).

Interestingly, research shows that this exact same approach is the best way to praise and coach your children as well.

Recognise the specific behaviours that reinforce your companies core values, or comment on specific results that were achieved – e.g. a task being completed, progress on a strategic project, or a key performance indicator goal being exceeded.

We usually think of recognition as coming from the manager, but interestingly, it is recognition from our peers that often means the most to people.

6. Be Surprising Birthday presents are nice, but unexpected gifts make an even bigger impact. Unexpected recognition is always more powerful, too. Winning “employee of the week” is nice, but receiving a surprise visit from the owner because you won back a lost client is awesome.

Remember: Recognising effort and achievement is self-reinforcing. When you do a better job of recognising your employees, they tend to perform better.

Those who recognise the actions, attitudes, efforts, and attributes of others rise to become our leaders, role models and mentors.

If you want to increase employee engagement, look for opportunities to publicly praise your team members for doing something right at least once every seven days.

Who do you need to praise right now?

Every employee responds differently to recognition. Many appreciate public praise. Others cringe if they’re made the center of attention.

Know your employees and tailor your recognition so it produces the greatest impact for each individual.

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Measure Your Marketing Rachel Goodchild

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More than once I’ve heard the marketing departments of businesses described as “the place they play with crayons.” I’ve certainly heard often enough that marketing is an art, not a science, and is about being creative, without really knowing what you are doing, nor really getting results.

all available channels with your brand message. Small to medium size businesses often need to use very targeted marketing, or, at the very least, capitalise on using web platforms, and being clever with targeting.

This often comes from the “doers” in the organisation who often have very tangible starts and ends to their work projects, and can see a direct line between what they are doing, and their results. Yes, marketing isn’t an exact science when trying new ideas, but with measuring, testing, and refining, the return on investment of campaigns and strategy becomes far easier to measure.

The simplest place to start is by using web analytics. Measure growth of traffic to your site, or any social media platform.

Also measure the time spent on site (which indicates they got there on purpose).

With the idea that whatever we measure grows, it’s important to be measuring the right thing. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) help you measure your marketing.

Four key areas where we can measure our marketing success:

So how can we measure Brand Awareness?

Measure the amount of searches for company key phrases or offerings (Google analytics can give you this information). Create a monthly check across all social media channels to measure your growth of numbers on social media platforms (but do also check the numbers are of your target market).

Also add Google alert, or hashtag searches to pick up discussions of your brand or brand message 1. Has the strategy been effective through channels other than your in raising awareness of your own. brand?

Increasing Levels of Brand 2. Has the strategy increased Engagement engagement and interest in your brand?

A recent study on the reactions of participants interacting with 3. Has it brought in more leads? brands on Facebook in the UK 4. Has it increased the showed that they felt either neutral revenue for the business? or negatively about brands in that space. So obviously just looking It’s one thing knowing at pure numbers of interactions we need to measure is not always the best method of these areas, and another measuring customer engagement. to know what we should be specifically However in it’s simplest form, measuring. numbers still do tell a story, and as many have said before, any Raising Brand measurement is better than none.

Awareness How can we measure Brand Unless you are a large Engagement? corporation, with deep Counting up the numbers of pockets, you’ll struggle to interactions on blog and social have the resources to saturate media posts, and how often

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information is shared across a number of platforms is a simple way to do this.

We can also look at open and click rates on e-newsletters, and how long they spend on the different links.

Looking a little deeper than mentions for brand awareness, you can also measure online mentions and referrals, using search terms across social media platforms, or Google alerts.

Measuring Lead Generation There is nothing more exciting to a sales person than meeting a contact and getting a sale after one meeting.

Of course the marketing team know exactly what is going on – the client was primed due to their amazing work.

Lead generation is essential to measure as it starts to show the prospects move from brand to the world, to brand to the person. At this point we can start to measure the effectiveness of the brand message helping the right sort of clients come into contact with us.

How can we measure Lead Generation growth?

It’s pretty simple really – all new leads are recorded. This often means the sales team need to write it down, hopefully in a weekly report of new leads, and where they came from.

It’s also a good idea to look at all website enquires, and who on the website they are selecting to contact, if there is more than one option.

Measuring phone calls, emails, referrals and all other initial leads help us define where we are marketing well, and where we need to improve.

Measuring Revenue Simply measuring growth or decline of revenue is not the best way to measure the success of your marketing strategy. External factors such as environmental or economic factors can alter the bottom line.

It’s one of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan of creating revenue goals purely on the previous year’s numbers.

As a business, knowing the average length of your sales cycle, the conversion rates of anyone who comes into direct contact with a sales person from your business, and knowing as much as possible about any previous history with your brand prior to that, all helps shape up a path of measurability for you to use to find out how successful your plan is.

How do we measure Revenue changes?

Of course a straight out comparison to figures prior to marketing is a start.

However, split testing on a range when doing a new campaign e.g. using a telemarketer, an e-newsletter with a call to action, a postal campaign or Facebook posts, can often help us to determine which version produces both the most leads, but also the ones that converted at the highest rate.

You can also measure the value of a customer over their relationship with you; the levels of referring they do, and their average spend per purchase.

In the end, the more aspects you measure across your business, the more material you have to draw conclusions from, refine your processes and create new strategies from which you can use when getting those crayons out to create.

CONNECTING CAMPAIGN TO CONVERSION Tracking the path from prospect to client is important when looking at future campaign strategies. It’s an area that many businesses neglect beyond a simple “how did you hear about us?”

If working in a B2B business, asking what an initial prospect already knows about your company can give you an idea of the breadth of awareness and understanding, plus earmark contact points.

This requires the marketing and sales departments to work closely together on reporting. This often happens intuitively in micro businesses, but is often one of the first areas to see communication breakdown once a company grows.

Remembering all sales come out of marketing is an essential to keep those communication, lines open.

It’s important to track all points of contact where you can, and measure conversion rates (e.g. from every newsletter to 1,500 people, over a year we get seven sales, or from every event we run, we get twelve new clients, each with an average value of $3,500)

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Visit: sellshed.co.nz or download:

Start-Up SellShed

SellShed was formed to challenge the current model of e-commerce and trading. Formed in May of 2014 Vince Edwards and Peter and Brendan Howell are looking to make it easier for people to trade directly in the online space.

It may seem like TradeMe and eBay already have this corner of the market well dominated but each come with their own frustrations.

The larger company’s business models are based on distancing the customer and the seller.

Another difference is that TradeMe and eBay generate their revenue by taking a slice of the sales, and charging listing fees. SellShed is different in that there is a simple and low cost monthly fee for businesses but no cuts taken from the sale and there are no restrictions on trying to contact the

seller or buyer directly – in fact, it’s encouraged. Peter Howell the Marketing Director of SellShed, has this to say: “People can trade new & second-hand goods or look for specific items they want to purchase. Browsers can list items quickly and receive notifications of new items they are looking for within their area, they can use SellShed to trade safely, quickly, locally free of charge.”

The revenue stream comes from advertising and, possibly in the future, a premium service for users.

One of the better features is the ability for users to list their needs in the ‘items wanted’ section, to then be matched with a potential supplier. This feature beats many of their rival online retailers and has been patent protected.

Many Kiwi businesses use TradeMe to list their products, understanding that customers have become lazier in their willingness to hunt around for specs, prices and service quality.

For businesses that find the barrier between them and their customers frustrating on the larger online marketplaces then this new way of selling may be the one they’ve been looking for.

This young Kiwi start-up is still in the soft launch phase, as they waited to have the iPhone and Android apps ready. But with over 9,000 users as far afield as Mongolia already using the site this could be a company well worth considering when evaluating online trading options.

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Death of the 4Ps! Why the 4Ps of marketing are dead.

Tom Emmerson Long held as the foundations of marketing the 4 Ps are increasingly redundant in today’s marketing mix.

Developed in 1940 they highlighted the four key areas to consider in business; your Product, your Price, your Place and your Promotion.

They interlink beautifully, each one sets the tone for the other until the web of positioning is complete.

However, the danger often comes when people (especially start-ups) try and tackle the concept as a process, rather than a starting point.

Determining your price based on cost and profit may leave you in a market position that is untenable in the eyes of the consumer or the distribution channels (place). It may also set you in the heart of enemy territory if you don’t have a strong position (not part of the 4 Ps but an addition into the 7Ps).

This method of analysing the market place is also heavily product led. A concept that rarely sits well

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with most marketing professionals.

The 4 Ps are a product of their time and in recent decades more and more changes to the commercial environment have resulted in this traditionalist model being forced into a mould it doesn’t really fit anymore. Place stopped becoming a linear retail situation such as a shop, and became a travelling salesman. This then evolved into franchise models, resellers and distributors, which then exploded as telecommunications unfurled and the online space became a better model for selling for many businesses, especially start-ups.

Price gave way in consumer considerations to the idea of value.

Some markets do hold a pricesensitive mindset but many more are value-sensitive. Better quality of build, national pride, brand equity and lifestyle have become just as important, sometimes more important, than price.

Promotion long held on as it begun to encapsulate communication and tried to engulf social media, advertising and word of mouth.

But many people still think of promotional activity as being price led: Christmas discounting, BOGOF deals etc. It all got very messy.

Even Product has had to share its podium with services for decades.

For a while the idea of a service being a product worked, generally in the service industry the customer would end up with a tangible result whether it be a cost saving, revenue increase or an improvement in efficiencies. The intangible nature of the service industry is stretching even that concept to its limit. Inapp purchases and the existence of currency services like Bitcoin mean that even when you’re buying an intangible sometimes you will never even see the benefit of the transaction.

The 4Ps had to be expanded to 7 to even factor in people! Surely people remained the untouchable of the original Ps. We’re still selling to people, right? Sort of.

Seventy years ago it was easier to define your customer base, same even with thirty or twenty years ago. People tended to socialise in set circles, and those that didn’t conform to the main pockets were niche in a business’s ability to market to them. Fantastic acronyms were coined (and still are but mostly by governments) to describe pockets of people. NEETS (Not in Employment, Education or Training), YUPPIES (Young Urban Professional) a DINKY (Double Income No Kids) or my personal favourite, a MAMIL (Middle-Aged Man In Lycra – a spawn of the road-cycling craze that hit the UK after the Olympics).

bringing to market.

The 4 Cs were developed in the 1990s and comprised of a slight tweak to the existing mix to make them much more applicable to the modern world. The way they did this was to stop looking at the market from a business point of view and started to look from a consumer’s point of view.

What’s the difference between a customer and a consumer?

Customer – the person that buys the product/service

environment from buying a hybrid car over a diesel. Whereas price did limit the focus on what is being charged cost encompasses the greater commercial landscape – to also include value.

Communication has helped brands think beyond the USP and the discounting. Consumer engagement, brand alliances, sponsorship and Corporate Social Responsibility go beyond the typical promotional activity and even startups often have these things in mind.

It’s not just the big players that like to give back to the community!

Consumer – the person that uses the product/service

Place always sounded very bricks and mortar, Convenience pushes the business to think about alternative It’s not always the case that the ways they can shift their products. two are the same. In lease cars for A small clothing label can offer businesses the purchasing division their product online at almost no will buy the car but the sales reps cost but also work with a local will use the car. The customer will skate-park to retail their products generally focus on price, the consumer on their behalf. Online training has on value.

These segments were used by opened up international markets marketers to define the people a where a classroom used to have product could be promoted to. By Cost replaces Price, Communication to suffice. Many universities now understanding their lifestyle choices replaces Promotion, Consumer generate as much revenue from and income situations the places you replaces Product and Convenience online studies as they do from the reached them and the price you set replaces Place. physical students sitting in lecture was easier to define.

They may seem like insignificant halls. Place is a concept now. What These segments are growing and changes but the four Cs do one is important to a business’s survival shrinking at such a rate that few important thing. They change is striving to get their product in the can be relied upon for more than a the mindset from a product-led hands of the consumer in whichever few weeks, which makes targeting approach, to a consumer-led one. way best suits the end buyer. a demographic a detailed and Making your offering convenient to Cost nicely epitomises the new way evolving process. Terms such as buy makes it easy to buy, and we all of thinking. The price you’re going ‘GenerationY’ are so expansive that know that customers like to take the to set is the price the customer will no business can hope to effectively path of least resistance. pay, what cost does is it factors in understand them. This isn’t to the consumer’s viewpoint of what That leads nicely onto the productsay that demographic profiling they may be sacrificing by not led P finally giving way. isn’t important, it gets everyone owning your product, as well as the understanding the customer with Product shifts to Consumer. figure they will need to shell out to only one acronym or phrase. All Being consumer-led means you’re acquire your offering.

I’m saying is that it isn’t as easy as developing a product or service that it was before.

Cost includes things like social the consumer actually wants and status perceptions of product needs, not producing something So what is there? ownership, as well as tangible costs and hoping to force it onto people As consumer patterns have changed, like servicing a product or the through heavy sales activity. If and the internet has placed more competitive loss of not up-skilling you create something the people purchasing power in the hands of their workforce. There is a cost want then it will tumble out of the people there has emerged a more to not owning the latest Apple your doors. The consumer is the robust method for analysing the product in certain demographics, only piece that actually matters. If product/service that a business is just as much as there is a cost to you understand the struggles and Business to Business Quarterly

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frustrations, as well as joys and essentials of your consumer then you will only ever create something that they want. How much easier is it to sell something the customer wants to buy?

I’m a firm advocate of going out there and understanding your customer. In Japanese there’s a phrase called ‘genba’ which means ‘the real place’ or ‘where the thing is done’. We believed in it at Honda as only by going there and seeing the problem can you also see the solution.

Talk to your customers about anything and everything, not just about what you’ve just sold them.

If you listen long enough and hard enough you may just find your next big business break.

5 ways you can ditch the 4Ps and grab some Cs. 1 – Look at your current places of distribution.

How do you get your product or service to your customers? If you have to sell through resellers could you charge more for direct selling?

Could you improve the POS so customers can get added value after purchase?

These are all important questions because you need to bring the customers closer to you. Only then can you learn about their needs and add so much value that they wouldn’t even think about using a competitor. Resellers generally don’t mind their suppliers selling direct, so long as you charge more. Most of them only think about price (remember trying to negotiate their cut?) so many won’t consider that customers might want the peace of mind that buying from the people that make the product brings. Plus your margins are improved.

Adding value is also key. The longer you can extend the contact you have with the customer the closer you are to talking to them about their next

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service or purchase. Disappearing for eleven out of twelve months is no good.

2 – Don’t look at your price in relation to cost, look at your price in relation to value.

If you genuinely offer a better product than your competitors but are still charging less or the same as them because you feel like you’re less established then stop!

Customers perceive value based on price, if you charge the same as your competitor they will assume you offer the same thing, in which case they’ll go with the name they know. Unless you’re significantly cheaper a price war is one you’ll never win (go too far and your product must cut corners, don’t go far enough and they’ll go with what they know). You should always aim to bring something better to the market. Once you have your price it should reflect the value it offers the customer.

3 – Promote but never discount.

With the exception of end-of-line runouts or discounts on refurbished products I cannot ever condone discounting as a promotional strategy. Once customers see your product at a lower price they will never be able to justify paying more.

There’s also nothing more annoying than being at an experience where you’ve paid full price but the person sat next to you has a Grab One and they’re getting the same experience.

Almost every business I’ve spoken to that has used Grab One or similar has said that they regret it. If you offer a good product or service that meets the customer needs then you should never have to discount. This approach can only be achieved by offering an experience that a customer wants to pay more for. Wouldn’t you rather put your profits into a better experience than giving away those profits through discounting?

4 – Think beyond the sale.

Customers are used to being sold to and then forgotten. The way you add value is by doing things that benefit the customer without it directly leading to a sale. This isn’t some super sneaky tactic to getting a sale later on this is simply helping the customer to want to do business with you.

It could be as simple as including a free bag of chocolates with a purchase over a certain amount, a loyalty day where valued customers get a free service on their vehicle or a private viewing of a new product.

All of these things grow loyalty and make these customers harder to steal away.

Be warned though, you cannot rest on your laurels with this approach.

Once upon a time only the most luxurious of hotels put a chocolate on your pillow, now they all do it. You have to stay ahead of the competition whilst not destroying your profit margins. Identify your most valuable types of customers and treat them slightly better.

Normal customers will want the same treatment so will try harder and your valued customers will love you for it.

5 – Be a customer!

Go to where they buy your product or services. Is it easy? Frustrating?

Are there unnecessary barriers? Are your competitors adding extra value that you aren’t?

Your business environment is a battleground and most businesses only fight on the front of price.

That front is where the biggest losses are sustained, you cannot grow your business or win more customers if you have no profit to reinvest!

Be as customer-centric as you can and you have to be doing something seriously wrong in order to lose out.

Social Media Top Five Rachel Goodchild

The Top Five Social Media Don’ts 1. Don’t allow someone else to steal your social media real estate (your brand name).

2. If you can’t tell me your brand values and USP, don’t jump on social media until you’ve sorted it.

3. Don’t start using social media if it’s not going to get updated and nurtured regularly.

4. Don’t wait until there is a problem to write a social media policy for your people.

5. Don’t ever design a “viral” campaign unless you have a mammoth list of active sharers.

The Top Five Social Media Dos 1. Go where your customers are- if they are online, then you need to find a way to connect with them.

2. Do stand proudly by who you are, and what you do, and keep to brand, while also displaying your own personality. People connect to people, not a brand.

3. If your brand is a visual one, use visual media. Use visual platforms such as pinterest, flickr, YouTube.

4. Start with a plan you can continue. Social media is more about consistency than sporadic dumping.

5. If you aren’t going to use social media yourself, at least allow your customers to by adding social sharing buttons on your websites (preferably next to products and sharable information).

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Your Values, Your Advantage Ambrose Blowfield

Can your business values be your ultimate competitive advantage?

Businesses for 50 years, if not longer, have prided themselves to varying degrees on establishing clear business values as part of the governing principles for the behaviour of the organisation and of it’s employees.

You would struggle to find a multinational company that doesn’t at their reception area have big bold values both listed and explained, as well as throughout their company prospectus and even in their marketing material. This is particularly evident in the field of recruitment, which we’ll come back to later.

In fact, if you were to study business at university or MBA level you will find many of those old global companies will have had business values that heralded back to their founding fathers or mothers. If, however, you looked over the last twenty to thirty years you’ll notice the uptake of business values has been marginalised. What I mean by that is that while many businesses

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may have listed values they’re probably not as prominent within the business organisation.

One question to be asked is the hundred-year-old plus companies are they still in business because of their business values, or is it simply coincidence?

Did the values lead to the ultimate competitive advantage or did they simply exploit a competitive advantage and then develop values?

So if large global firms pride themselves on their values, investing thousands of dollars to instil those values into their employees why is it that small to medium-sized businesses the world over don’t follow the same principles to the same degree?

What I’ve experienced in the three different continents I’ve worked in is a common trait. The common issue isn’t so much that those businesses lack core values or business values.

In fact if you were to ask the senior managers or owners they would proudly show a frame list of core values printed and framed next to their front reception, possibly in

the boardroom and certainly in the managing director’s office.

I’ve found it’s often in the application of those values that weaknesses start to appear. First and foremost it stems from the use of those values. They’re often poorly explained or poorly expanded. What I mean by that is very often the directors and founders of a business, particularly a small to medium-sized enterprise, will often put together a list of core values that are invariably aligned to their own personal values, which is a good thing, and all they end up doing is listing them, printing them, framing them before hanging them on the wall.

When it comes to expanding them, (ie; defining the meaning behind why they selected those values or what those values actually stand for when it comes to governing the behaviours of the directors, managers or team members) they are often under-done and underexpanded. It’s quite rare to see somebody’s defined values. The words are often there but the foundation of substance to each is lacking.

or for every monthly meeting, to spend a bit of time reflecting on the core values, or promoting ways they have been met in everyday business.

This leads to a very obvious consequence. The workers within the organisation, even some of the management staff end up not living by the values simply because they haven’t seen them explained clearly enough.

Listening in on the countless team meetings that happen every year it would be very rare to hear the values not only defined but for examples of adherence, or the championing of those values, to be highlighted or rewarded.

In primary school many of us studied mathematics by rote, as we did learning our lines, as we did learning our vocabulary or words.

We learned these things through repetition. Through this method multiplication and the order of the alphabet were quickly and deeply ingrained. When it comes to core values, and making sure your whole team live by them repetition is critical. Repetition in the form of displaying your core values in a slightly dusty frame at reception just doesn’t do the trick.

One of the ways to increase repetition is for every staff meeting,

There are some that believe that energy flows where attention goes.

If that is the case, and there’s no attention put on the core values, then there is no way that energy in the form of efforts will flow that way. Another weakness of many businesses is that if the core values actually are explained and are listed on a big chart or a poster for people to read sadly it’s often the very people responsible for enforcing those values who are often demonstrating behaviour counter to the principles they are responsible for championing. Therein lies one of the common undermining factors.

Those of you fortunate enough to be a parent, or even an aunt or uncle, you’ll know you rarely can persuade a child to behave in a particular way if you are yourself contradicting that behaviour. Some people may view their employees or team members in much the same way as they do children. The problem is that the very parents who setup the business, or the senior management tasked with running the company, forget this and wonder why people are following their behaviour, rather than the sign behind reception.

It is absolutely essential for every cog in the machine to move to the core values of the business.

So let me explain to you a little bit about our story.

Understanding your core values and what they actually mean is an area that our company has helped many businesses develop and implement over the years, but that can only come from a firm belief in the strength of core values in our own way of doing business.

In the very early days once my wife Jo and I founded our company we

were lucky enough to work with two of New Zealand’s leading business experts. In the second meeting with them they asked us to take our values, which were listed up on the wall, take them down and put them in front of them. They then asked us to individually explain what we meant by the five core values we so proudly displayed.

We could both explain what the original intention was from each of the values we were challenged, one-by-one, on each of the specific points we had listed. The pair were clever in the way they challenged us as they requested we explain some of the behaviours we were demonstrating in our business that supported these values. This ranged not only to working with clients but also our suppliers and team members. In doing so they helped us to realise that while those core values were still important to us we weren’t fundamentally living by them day in day out.

The point they were trying to make wasn’t simply that we were failing in aspects of our behaviour. Nor was it that we were demonstrating some of those values some of the time. What they had us realise was that by having those core values, and by truly living by them, we could enhance the strength of our business. We needed to be completely authentic with all of our decisions, and the alignment they had with our core values.

A common core value I find myself debating or explaining to businesses that I work with at a governance level is the value around honesty. Now, if you’re going to follow honesty to the letter having honesty means that when your staff members ask for a pay rise and you don’t want to give them that you’d have to explain in all truthfulness exactly why that’s the case. Or if a client said to you ‘is that your best price’, and it wasn’t (in fact it was a negotiating tactic) then a core Business to Business Quarterly

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value of honesty would mean you’d actually need to reveal your best price.

Having honesty as a core business value is extremely challenging for most businesses. That’s mostly due to the very nature of business meaning that full transparency on trade secrets would make it commercially challenging to follow.

Should you choose not to have honesty as a core value in no way does that automatically make you dishonest. It simply means it isn’t one of your founding principles.

By the end of the meeting with these two business experts we found ourselves disputing five of our five founding principles. This is despite the fact that we prided ourselves on being able to work with other businesses on defining their strategy.

We felt we had become the dentist with poor teeth.

We went away and we pondered on the behaviours that really mattered to us. By the time we sat down with the business experts one month later we had formed our three core values; family, giving and passion.

After further discussion with both of the experts we then expanded on what each of those would mean.

We cannot, and will not ever hire a facilitator that is not passionate about helping businesses to grow. Our business will always strive to operate as a family and we will always give or tithe some of our profits and time to those less fortunate than ourselves.

This recently embodied itself in the transactional giving concept launched by the company in the form of the Follow Your Dreams scholarship programme.

I can speak for myself and on behalf of many businesses I’ve been fortunate enough to work with in this area. The result of living

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by three core values that actually matter to us, that we can truly live by hand on heart, has been quite miraculous.

No longer do we have our core values displayed in the reception area as a whim. Instead we have them at the start of every conference or major meeting we have as a team.

We discuss them when making decisions internally as well as finding ways to support these values in our behaviour.

The miraculous part is in how this approach has affected our business growth. We have only retained staff members who are aligned to all three of our core values. Every staff member that has had a clash with one of our core values has either self-selected out or has been encouraged to do so. The same is applied to attracting new team members. People who are referred to us, or approach us of their own accord invariably do so, for some miraculous reason, on the basis that they align to one or all of our core values.

In a recent recruitment bid, for the position of an expert facilitator for Christchurch, before we had even met the potential facilitators we started the GoToMeeting job interview by discussing our core values and what the candidate’s interpretation of them was. We also asked how their past experienced aligned to those values.

This strong adherence to our core values has not only attracted great people to work with us, but also has brought like-minded clients.

Those clients then strongly refer our business to similarly-focused companies. Furthermore it’s had an impact on the sorts of suppliers we use (when variety of New Zealandbased solutions allows), and on the sort of alliances, joint ventures and business acquisition decisions we’ve made.

It goes without saying that if those core values have determined who our staff are, who many of our suppliers are and even who many of our clients are then it’s a direct link that our business would not be what it is and where it is today, without those core values.

Therefore yes, core business values certainly can be your ultimate competitive advantage.

My challenge to all business owners, managers or senior managers out there is simple. Take your framed core business values off the shelf.

Attend a staff meeting with either all of your team or in small teams.

Discuss what those core values actually mean to them and what behaviour they need to demonstrate in order to be fully aligned to those core values. Involve your clients and see if there is an alignment between your values and theirs.

Finally, be prepared to challenge yourself. Throw away your existing core values if they’re not values anymore and simply aspirations.

Develop new ones, and involve your staff in the process.

As many of the great global companies would know your core values are not just a set of words on the wall, they’re the very foundations upon which you build a strong, robust, successful and longterm business.

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THE MAGIC FORMULA Are you using the magic formula of testimonials?

Mike Clark

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Could one of the oldest marketing techniques be the dash of magic your business needs? Testimonials have been gathered and shared for years and yet are often overlooked in the marketing arsenal, due, in our experience, purely to a lack of knowledge on how to use them correctly. As the marketing space gets noisier capturing your customer’s attention becomes inevitably harder. One only has to look to how frequently the world’s greatest marketing engine changes it’s algorithms to get an idea of how even Google realises the need to stay current to ever changing demands of fickle customers.

“These guys get stuff done” and so on. The problem with testimonials like these is that we simply do not believe them. During training sessions many people admit that they read testimonials like that and think people have just made it up themselves.

helped the client get the results they desired.

“The first thing that impressed me about TMC was their ‘Double you Investment’ guarantee and their explanation that they could afford to offer it because they focused on action points when training, not just theory. Their willingness to So how does one get a testimonial give me the names of other clients that is not only believable but gives they had trained in my industry potential clients the confidence for me to call as a reference check they need to contact you? The secret was very reassuring. The day of lies in a 3 part structure that allows training was professional, high people to relate and connect closely energy and extremely relevant. to what they are reading.

The robust discussion around the Part 1 – The problem: Describe the need to know USP’s and not using problem, issue, challenge or situation price as a ‘crutch’ has seen a change So how do we stay relevant? How your client faced in as much detail in approach attitude and team do we stay current? How can we as possible, e.g. culture that has us well on track capture our clients, and potential to exceeding our sales targets. If “We have a very limited training clients attention? The magic answer, you want sales results I strongly budget and simply could not thankfully, is easier than many recommend investing in your sales afford to send our team on another people imagine and does not involve team by putting them through a training day that did nothing more pulling a rabbit out of the hat!

TMC sales training course!” than temporarily motivate them As we get bombarded by advertising for a few days. I needed a training Testimonials like the above work our human coping mechanism course that would deliver long term because they give points where develops to block and filter most results and needed a company that people can relate - People read messages until such times as we could give me the confidence up it and go “Oh that is how I am want something and then we front before I spent my money” feeling” or “Yes that is my worry” inevitably do one of two things – or “That is what I need”. They Part 2 – The ideal solution and “Google it” or ask a friend. Wordwork because they are real and desired outcome: Paint a picture of of-mouth remains many peoples believable and verifiable. what the client ideally wanted and number one source of leads and needed: yet our experience points to a poor stimulation of this excellent source “I needed to see an increase in of highly qualified leads. This fact sales and was really hoping that has not escaped Google who give the company we chose would be preferred rankings to companies able to upskill my sales team so that are “talked about” through that they stopped selling on price forums, reviews, feedback and star and increased their conversion rate. ratings.

I had worked out that if I could get GP up by 5% and convert an So where to start? additional 15% of our leads we had The best place to start is in the potential to exceed our target for understanding what makes a good the year” testimonial. We have all seen Part 3 – Show how you got them websites with sentences under from A to B (from challenge to their testimonial page that say “this ideal solution). Show how you and company has excellent service”, “Bob your team created the bridge that and team are great and helpful”,

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Collecting testimonials like this is easily done if you give your clients the frame work to work around. In my experience the very best way to collect amazing testimonials is to actually call your clients and ask them 3 questions, taking note of their answers, then typing up the notes and sending it to them to confirm they are happy to put their name to it – which of course they are because they said it! The 3 questions are: “What were your main problems, issues, concerns or challenges that you faced before you chose to work with us?”

“What changes and results were you aiming to achieve by pursuing a solution?”

“What are the key successes, outcomes and accomplishments you have achieved since working with us?”

To make the most from this incredibly effective form of marketing follow my top three tips.

TOP TIP #ONE Ensure you actually do always ask for testimonials as appropriate. The best way to ensure this happens is to make it part of the sales process: e.g. 1 week after the invoice has been paid call the client to see how happy they are and, assuming they are happy, if the job meets agreed and set criteria (it is a project over $10000) always ask for a few minutes to discuss the 3 questions described above towards creating a testimonial, type up the response and then send it to then to approve.

TOP TIP #TWO As you collect testimonials share them widely both internally and externally. Internally share them with the team as a way of encouraging them, motivating them and showing what your customers value about you as a team and a company. Externally share them across your marketing media from your web to brochures, catalogues, company profiles, etc

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TOP TIP #THREE One of the most powerful ways to use testimonials is at the start of the sales process - Set the expectation at beginning of the process that you ask for testimonials e.g. “One of our POD is that we as a company are so confident we will add value we make it a point to ask all our customers for a testimonial once they have finished a transaction with us.” You can then share from the collection you have and of course you are then ‘honourbound’ to ask for a testimonial which makes it easy to follow through on.

Testimonials are not really magic but when used well the results from them can certainly make them seem pretty magical. Use them liberally and mix them generously with case studies and referral marketing for outcomes that will delight any business owner!

Rising Star FindaTruckLoad

Founded in 2009 FINDATRUCKLOAD is an innovative business services concept that has caught the attention of the Deloitte Fast 50 judges.

The reason for featuring in the Central North Island category is primarily due to their high business growth, around 271%, but high growth cannot be found unless your business is in-step with customer needs.

Their business idea is based around finding practical solutions for companies needing to freight loads across the country, as well as offering opportunities for empty or partially filled trucks to take on extra loads.

The idea is relatively simple. A haulage company can post a route they’re running and the status of the load involved. Sharing this information allows another company to utilise a partially filled or empty load by adding a load they need freighted.

Haulage firms can post a truck and route and companies looking for transportation can find a load or truck. There’s even the functionality to enquire about livestock transport and receive a free quote from one of FINDATRUCKLOAD’S 80 registered livestock carriers.

FINDATRUCKLOAD founders Andrew Bishop & Walter Ormsby

Ranking 30th in the Deloitte Fast 50 this year we hope to see this innovative company climb the rankings in 2015.

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Business Mentors:

Who & what are they?

Russell Atkinson

While there is plenty of opportunity for paid professional development, some small businesses don’t have the ability to participate. Yet they could really benefit from someone simply ‘taking them by the hand’ and guiding them for a while in their business journey. This is where mentoring comes into play.

What is mentoring?

Mentoring is a process where the informal exchange of knowledge, skills and emotional support is seen by the recipient as relevant and meaningful to their work, career, or professional development.

Mentoring involves informal communication, usually face-toface and over a long period of time, between a person who is thought to have greater knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is thought to have less, the mentee.

Mentoring techniques A 1995 study of mentoring techniques most commonly used in business found that the five most commonly used techniques among mentors were: 1. Accompanying: making a commitment in a caring way, which involves taking part in the learning process side-by-side with the learner.

2. Sowing: mentors are often confronted with the difficulty of preparing the learner before they are ready to change. Sowing is necessary when you know that what you say may not be understood or even acceptable to learners at first but will make sense and have value to the mentee when the situation requires it.

3. Catalyzing: when change reaches a critical level of pressure, learning can escalate. Here the In business, it is a professional mentor chooses to plunge the relationship in which an experienced learner right into change, person (the mentor) supports provoking a different way and encourages people to develop of thinking, a change in specific skills and knowledge identity or a re-ordering of that will maximise their business values. potential, develop their skills, and improve their performance. The 4. Showing: this is making mentor acts as a guide to find something understandable, the right direction and develop or using your own example to solutions. demonstrate a skill or activity. You show what you are talking about, you show by your own behavior.

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5. Harvesting: here the mentor focuses on “picking the ripe fruit”: it is usually used to create awareness of what was learned by experience and to draw conclusions. The key questions here are: “What have you learned?”, “How useful is it?”

What is Business Mentors New Zealand?

BMNZ is a national not for profit organisation that has become recognised as a leader in the field of business mentoring in New Zealand.

From its beginnings in 1991, Business Mentors New Zealand has steadily grown and developed to become the leading business mentoring service provider to the SME (small to medium-sized enterprise) sector in New Zealand.

Funding to support delivery of the service comes primarily from the Private Sector of New Zealand business – businesses that understand the challenges business owners in our SME sector face and how the viability of these businesses links directly to the health and wellbeing of our local communities and national economy. They also understand the value of mentoring and the outstanding contribution being made to our communities by BMNZ volunteer mentors every day.

Additional financial support for service delivery is received from the Ministry of Economic Development through New Zealand Trade & Enterprise.

How long have you been a business mentor?

I have only recently become a business mentor after selling my business. I realised I would like to give something back to the community where my skills and expertise would allow. I enjoy seeing other people succeed, as do most mentors, and I am keen to help as many people grow themselves and their businesses as I can.

What will a business mentor do and not do?

A business mentor will: Act as a guide and motivator Provide an independent, confidential, non-judgemental ear Pass on their knowledge and expertise Bring a fresh perspective someone to bounce ideas off Work with you to grow your business Help you see ‘the bigger picture’ Assisting with identifying strengths and weaknesses Supporting you in your decision making Giving you a push, some confidence or sharpening your focus A business mentor will not: Act as a consultant Be an unpaid employee What if my business mentor and I don’t see eye-to-eye?

The relationship must ‘click’ for it to work the best. BMNZ will take their time to try and ensure a match between the mentor and the mentee but if the relationship doesn’t click then either party is free to end the relationship and go back to

BMNZ and ask for someone else.

However, a relationship that doesn’t ‘click’ is very different from simply not agreeing with the other persons point of view. A good mentor will ask a lot of questions and be a good listener as they try to understand the mentees business and where the mentee is trying to go with their business. On the flip side, the mentee will also understand that their business and themselves, will need to change to make progress.

From experience we know that the business owner must grow as a person before they can grow their business.

How much is it to join and how long does that cover me for?

The Business Mentoring Programme costs $150 for a one off registration and administration fee.

After registration the mentoring is free for up two years, volunteered by your experienced Business Mentor.

The registration fee helps to cover the administration costs of the programme and make sure we get a good mentor-client match.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit the Business Mentors website: businessmentors.org.nz Here you will find everything you need to know about the mentoring programme & where you can sign up.

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Contributers Russell Atkinson Russell’s vast business knowledge has spanned many different fields. Russell worked for Dow AgroSciences for 19 years in New Zealand and Australia developing roles and skills in sales and as a marketing specialist, which involved the development of marketing plans and product development.

Graeme Beals Ex-school teacher and principal, Graeme left education to create Curriculum Concepts, a million dollar international teachers’ resources company. He went on to develop educational products for Kodak and NZIER in the US, launched his own finance company (still growing today), as well as creatingpublishme.co.nz, NZ’s pre-eminent assistedself- publishing site.

Ambrose Blowfield Ambrose is Australasia’s leading trainer and speaker in marketing, sales and business networking. Ambrose has both academic and experience based knowledge from working at several leading international companies in six countries across three continents, including global consumer goods giant, Proctor & Gamble.

Mike Clark Having worked for Treger Group, Pridex Kitchens and Vision Manawatu Mike has extensive knowledge in sales and marketing and business improvement. This experience has led Mike to become one of the most sought-after facilitators and speakers for THE Marketing Company. Mike has helped hundreds of business grow through his specialist, world-class expertise.

Tom Emmerson Over the years Tom has delivered customer event experiences, as well as responsibilities in brand communications and press release writing for Aston Martin Lagonda, to add to product placement and customer engagement roles. Tom recently worked for Honda Motor Europe in Pan-European through-the-line marketing.

There he was responsible for a mutli-million dollar budget and international objectives.

Rachel Goodchild Rachel’s career includes work in sales for SMEs, managing high-end retail, PR, marketing and social media. Rachel has trained extensively across New Zealand as a Professional Development Facilitator for the education sector. She is the author of 27 print books and thousands of magazine articles both for B2B and mass-market publications across all topics such as sales, marketing, business growth, team building and relationship management.

“ENGAGE YOUR LIFE WITH ENTHUSIASM; GRASP YOUR LIFE AGGRESSIVELY AND SQUEEZE FROM IT EVERY DROP OF EXCITEMENT SATISFACTION AND JOY.” - Felix Baumgartner

Felix Baumgartner’s record breaking jump to earth from the stratosphere. Records set: altitude record for a manned balloon flight, parachute jump from the highest altitude and greatest free fall velocity.

A CO-PILOT TO HELP YOUR BUSINESS TAKE OFF Building and sustaining a business can sometimes feel like jumping off a cliff and building a plane on the way down.

Being part of the global Baker Tilly network, as well as one of New Zealand’s most trusted independent accountancy firms for over 65 years, makes Staples Rodway uniquely qualified to be your support crew.

Our full suite of business services, together with our commitment to providing practical, easily understood advice, means we are ideally suited to working with you to help guide your business to realise its full potential.

Visit www.staplesrodway.co.nz or phone our Taranaki team on 06 757 3155 and find out the many ways we can help take your business to new heights.

109-113 Powderham Street, New Plymouth PHONE 64 6 757 3155 newp@staplestaranaki.co.nz

www.staplesrodway.co.nz

78 Miranda Street, Stratford PHONE 64 6 765 6949 stfd@staplestaranaki.co.nz