The Affari Blog

We run across so many people that are trying to be all things to all people.  I love this article written by Maria Ross, because it gives great advice on determining your target audience.  There’s also a link to watch an interview with marketing guru Seth Godin…and yes, it is remarkable!

By Maria Ross 

Oct 18, 2010 -

Small business owners are ambitious. You want to capture as many sales as you can — and want to build a brand that will get you there. You drool with envy at big businesses like Apple or Nike who can rally their “tribes” with ease when they introduce new offerings. 

Wouldn’t it be great, sigh, if you I could just launch and the masses come running, Twitter lights up like a house on fire, and the launch video I created with my Flip camera and my dog goes viral?

This is what I love about creating brand strategies for small businesses. They are hungry and they are “biased towards action,” as an old manager of mine used to say. That’s exciting.

What becomes less exciting is being the headmistress forcing them to walk before they can run. That kind of brand loyalty can’t be “created” overnight. It’s not about slick ads or cool logos. It’s not about how many hits you have on YouTube or the catchiness of your tagline. Brand runs deeper. It’s the core and the essence of who you are, what value you provide and to whom you provide it. Good branding starts with crafting a strong brand strategy first that addresses three dimensions:

• Visually: What do you look like?
• Verbally: What do you sound like?
• Experientially: What does doing business with you actually feel like?
  

Building your loyal tribe means communicating a clear and consistent message across every single customer touchpoint. It means walking your talk and proving yourself over time.

Seth Godin has talked in the past about building tribes. In a 2009 video, he explains that in order to create this zealous following, you need to be specific versus general. That translates to, “You can’t be all things to all people.” I advise small business clients to create a persona of their ideal customer — not average, but ideal — so they have an actual living, breathing person in mind to which to direct all their brand communications. If they target a few types of customers, then it is okay to create two or three personas, but a small business with a small marketing budget can’t afford to market effectively to 20 different audience types. They are better off directing their precious time and resources to really “going deep” and connecting effectively with two or three.

Some small business owners, scared that this means turning down money, refuse to target an “ideal” customer. “But what if someone outside of that ideal wants to buy from me? And someone from this random demographic bought from me once, so we should do a whole marketing campaign for them.”

Hold on. Creating a brand that targets an ideal customer does not mean you create a checklist and turn non-ideal customers away like a nightclub bouncer. If someone wants to buy from you who you didn’t intend to attract, then you can still sell to them. It’s not about who you will sell to; it’s about where you will proactively focus your marketing time and effort.

It’s like Nordstrom and Walmart. At the very basic level, both companies are retail shops that “sell things to consumers.” But Nordstrom goes after a higher-end customer with a quality and customer service brand promise. Walmart goes after a customer for whom low-prices and convenience matter most. Does this mean Walmart is “rude” to their customers? No. It just means they know who they are and who they are targeting, and they don’t try to attract everyone in the retail market spectrum. It doesn’t mean someone who shops at Nordstrom won’t pop into Walmart every now and then for something when the need arises. It just means Walmart is not necessarily spending time and money making a brand promise that speaks to people who care more about high-end customer service and less about price.

Think about your authentic brand: Are you set up to deliver what you promise? And for whom does that promise matter the most? Then use your imagination and market knowledge to build an ideal customer persona so you know who you are talking to:

• Give them a name, an age, an occupation. What are their demographics? What is their household income, where do they live?
   
• Walk through their day. Where do they work? Do they commute to work? If so, by what means?
   
• What is their family life like? Do they have one?
   
• What do they do in their spare time or for fun? Do they like team sports, or solitary activities? Are they foodies or do they mostly just grab fast food?
   
• What magazines do they read? Where do they get their news and information? Or do they just care about entertainment? If so, what do they watch on TV or what films do they like? Are they active Internet users or strictly offline?
   
• What groups or associations do they belong to? Could these be places you could join to network with your ideal customers or groups you can partner with to do events or presentations and reach these folks?
  

Once you create this one- or two-page profile, you can start to see what their life is like — and what problem your products or services might be able to solve. You can then speak about benefits in words they care about. You can also find creative ways to market to them that you may never have thought about. More importantly, this can help you avoid bad investments on marketing activities that seem amazing on the surface but that will never attract this target customer.

Again, this is not a checklist. If others get caught in this net and are attracted to your brand, then great. Something about your message must resonate with their lifestyle or needs and, therefore, they can be great tribe members. What you want, though, is a brand that connects with a target person, not just a generic, average composite of someone who doesn’t exist in real life.

Once you start focusing on an ideal customer, you will be speaking their language and they will care more about what have to say and sell. Quality is what makes a tribe successful for your business and brand — not just quantity.

Maria Ross is the founder and chief strategist of Red Slice, a branding and marketing consultancy based in Seattle. She has advised start-ups, solopreneurs, non-profits and even large enterprises such as Microsoft, Discovery Networks and Monster.com on how to craft their brand story to engage, inform and delight customers. Maria is the author of Branding Basics for Small Business: How to Create an Irresistible Brand on Any Budget (2010, Norlights Press). 

When I recently came across the article below, it reminded me of a great lesson that a business guru had taught me many moons ago.

I first heard of the idea of business used in terms of a personal relationship almost ten years ago when one of my best friends and I were thinking of crossing the line from “just friends” to business partners.  We really tried to start off on the right foot including what would be considered in terms of personal relationships “pre-marriage counseling”.  We met with a tried and true successful business coach - before everybody and their brother were business coaches.  The guy we met with had a proven track record of building multi-million dollar empires, and we were sure with his guidance we would, too.

One of the first thing he said was there had to be chemistry between us, which their was.  We had been great friends for years.  We sooned learned though that being friends is a totally different animal than being in business together.

From the experience I can tell you, no matter what your relationship is with someone get a detailed partnership agreement.  Think of this as a combination of your “vows” and a “prenuptial agreement” .  It outlines the expectations, but also what happens if for someone reason one or more of the parties want to get out of the relationship.

And just like in marriage — well, at least in most cases — you don’t go into the relationship thinking that it’s ever going to end, especially if you are friends or family.  The rate of businesses failing is right up there with divorce.  So, what you was once a very friendly situation can turn ugly quickly!  Make sure that you have an exit strategy.  It could even be that someone becomes incapacitated, you need to know how the company progresses from there.  It’s not fair to the remaining partner(s) to leave them in the lurch.

Of course, there’s also the “honeymoon” phase where everyone is riding high on passion and high-fives, but can you maintain this in the “for worse” and “for poorer” moments that plague almost every organization to some degree at some time.  If you are doing what you love, in most cases, yes.  Just like a real marriage though, it really depends on how much effort you are willing to put forward to make your relationship work.

So, now that you have the internal side of business as dating and beyond, let’s look at the externals of “Business as Dating” from the American Express Business Forum.

Sep 14, 2010 -

Running a business is like being on the dating scene… forever. Instead of looking for love, you’re working for money and partnerships. Once you’re past the stage of just looking for the next buck, you want to develop long-lasting and rewarding relationships. So if you want to learn about business, put down The Tipping Point and Delivering Happiness and pick up books like The Game and The Tao of Dating.

I scanned a variety of dating and relationship books — from the pick-up artist types to the score-a-husband variety, and a few things in between — and found business lessons. Here are my top five:

1. Be authentic. If you sound like your spouting a line, it doesn’t matter how good that line is. A lot of sales and marketing books advise you to do things that sound great in theory but come off as insincere or gimmicky to your clients (many of whom might have read that same book). The Tao of Dating is about “embracing your inner goddess” and being your “authentic self.” While you probably don’t think of your business as a goddess, the message is the same: Know what your business offers and what it doesn’t, then communicate that vision. If you’re faking it, it’s not going to last and your clients aren’t going to respect you.

2. Understand your potential partner.  Figure out what your “limiting assumptions” about clients are and replace them with facts. Are you going around thinking that you’ll never land that account with Big Impressive Company ‘X’ because you didn’t go to the right school or you don’t have a high-profile campaign in your portfolio? Do you assume that stuffy-looking executive only likes old-fashioned techniques and would never go for your digital service plan? Sometimes common knowledge is just common and isn’t in fact knowledge. Test your assumptions and get to know what your clients really want.

3. Confidence is sexy. If you’re not sure you’ll be able to satisfy your client, they’ll see that and figure there’s no reason to hire you. Books like The Game and other pickup-artist style dating books essentially teach insecure people to appear confident. Take it one step further and actually be confident. Fake confidence might be able to score a few dates, but in business you’re looking for a long-term relationship. You have something good to offer — act like it. Remind yourself of the reasons a client should choose your company over another. People are often so afraid of appearing arrogant that they act unsure of themselves and their company. Arrogance is having an exaggerated sense of your own worth. Confidence is being certain about the truth.

4. Keep that spark alive. Once you’ve landed that long-term client, don’t forget to wow them after the honeymoon is over. Ditching you is much easier and quicker than getting a divorce (it could be as simple as not calling you back… ever). Don’t forget about what you did to win their business, and keep doing it. Check in regularly to make sure they’re still happy. Do whatever the business equivalent of fancy lingerie and spontaneous weekend trips is.

5. Don’t force it. Your mom was right when she said there are plenty of fish in the sea. Some partnerships just aren’t going to work. You can make yourself miserable trying to please people who are never going to be pleased. You can make a client miserable by wasting their time trying to give them something you’re not capable of giving them. Work on your relationship, and compromise when you can. But remember: Sometimes He’s Just Not That Into You. Some clients are toxic. And sometimes you’re both perfectly wonderful and just need to work with someone more compatible.

Small business is about forming (and maintaining) relationships. Don’t forget that these are people you’re connecting with, not dollar signs. How do you woo (and keep) your business partners?