Sunday, November 28, 2010

Dealing with Critical Clients

In business, it's truly inevitable that you will run into problems that result in critical clients. We've found there are two ways to handle a complaint or critical client as it relates to our agency:

1) Take the complaint or critical remark at face value and honestly inspect what is being complained about. Do not immediately push back with the client in an attempt to make yourself "right". Investigate to see if you made an error or one of your people made a mistake. If you discover that you have, fix it immediately and turn the complaint into an opportunity to expand and get better at what you do. Every critical client or complaint has an opportunity attached to it. If you can use the critical remarks to strengthen your company, then take advantage of it.

2) If the client seems to be the type that complains about everything or is just critical in general - burn them, in other words, resign them and fast. Don't keep critical clients around, they lower company morale which lowers production and therefore creates more problems for the company as a whole. We never keep clients that are critical and hurt the company morale. Only keep clients that are essentially working as a team with your company to solve problems together and are pleasant to deal with. I promise, this one rule will help expand your company tenfold.

No one likes getting complaints or dealing with a critic but if you apply the above two rules, you can turn both situations into an opportunity to expand your company. Give it a go.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Friday, November 26, 2010

Google TV

I went to the Sony store today and saw the new Sony device with Google TV. While asking the rep about Google TV and watching a demonstration he discussed how many of the networks have blocked Google TV which I feel is very shortsighted and narrow.

Google TV in one word is - integration - meaning that TV and the internet is now fully and seamlessly integrated. This will open up huge opportunities to monetize the actual platform.

Here is the gist about how it works, it's basically TV and the Internet all in one so I can search for the CNN news channel on TV as well as open up their website to see what is going on. So as an example, we could be watching a political campaign and while it's on, from Google TV, immediately go online to post comments and fill out polls about it. This would create a real live experience and take the overall time lag out of TV. The discussions could be happening immediately. TV will then become more dynamic and engaging.

Here are just a few ways for networks, companies and ad agencies to monetize this opportunity:

1) Compulsive Shopping - Just imagine watching a TV ad for Ray Bans sunglasses and right on the commercial it stated, "to purchase these, click here" and you did, which then took you to a "buy now" landing page. Then, you could have your credit card details already saved in a secure wallet for these types of purchases so all you had to do was click "buy" and it was done. The Ray Bans would be billed to your card on file and sent to your address which was already saved. This could potentially be a massive consumer product sales angle for every consumer based company in the world.

2) Selective Subscriptions - I don't personally watch TV and haven't subscribed to it for about 10 years however, if I could select and pay for a program that I want to watch like the Olympics or Lost for a fee related specifically to those shows, I would. The fee would be prorated specifically for those shows and number of episodes. I don't personally want all of the other TV channels regardless of price because I feel a lot of it is garbage that I don't want my children watching but I would absolutely pay for just what I want. I'd like to pay for the World Series of baseball when it's on rather than the entire ESPN channel. With Google TV, you can create these sort of options and therefor bring in new viewers that are not currently paying for TV of any kind. You could also make a higher profit based on the pay per selection model.

3) Increased Viewers - Due to the above two items, the networks would pull in new viewers who were not currently watching TV or subscribing to TV or who were more inclined to use the internet rather than TV. I'm sure the Internet is causing TV to lose viewers and will continue to do so with sites like YouTube, Hulu etc, all of the viewers are shifting online. However, with Google TV, these viewers could not only be maintained but this could actually grow the overall viewers who would have otherwise left.

I think it's smart and I think the networks are being silly for trying to resist it or block it. Why resist it? Embrace and adapt and figure out all of the angles to monetize it. This will absolutely become the way of the future.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Dreams and Goals

Being that it's my birthday today, I started to think about dreams and goals as I typically do every year at my birthday. To me, when I view life through a telescope, the purpose, reason etc, it all boils down to dreams and goals. Think about it for a second. What are we doing here on earth. What's the purpose? I don't mean to get mystical here but it's interesting to put it all in perspective once in a while.

Life is simple. You make dreams and set goals to attain those dreams and then execute to make it all happen. When you attain goals and therefore dreams, you make new dreams and set goals to attain. Your dreams and goals can be to have a family that you take care of and grow together or to learn to scuba dive and then go to the Cayman Islands to do so. It doesn't matter what they are, it only matters that you have them. People get lost from time to time or seem directionless and make life too complex in the process.

Life is about your dreams and goals and the pursuit of making them realities. Make a point to dream dreams, set goals and go after them daily, weekly, monthly and yearly and then follow up on your dreams and goals to check your progress. Never stop creating dreams and goals to attain, it's the very essence of life itself.

Dream your dreams, define them and set goals which you must then work to pull off. When you attain goals, set new ones.

I heard a saying one time that went like this, "there are only two tragedies in life, someone who has nothing and someone who has everything", this to me, relates to someone who has no dreams and no goals and someone who has attained their dreams and goals and neglected to make new ones. Life is about living and you do that through dreaming dreams, making goals and going after them.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Ads That Work

I have to make a comment on ads in the form of email marketing pieces. I am sure we all get inundated with emails from all sorts of sources and companies and 99% of what comes in get's immediately deleted by us before even opening the email to view it. Personally, I wake up around 6:30AM and go through the emails on my Blackberry and immediately delete any and all email marketing/advertisement promo pieces..... except for one. Ugg Boots.

Ugg has successfully created the most aesthetic and appealing ads I have seen out of anyone. They actually make me want to buy boots for my wife virtually every time. Their strategy? Aesthetics. Create ad pieces that are so slick, with photography that is fantastically high end and shoot each shot in unbelievable settings in Australia that anyone in the world would want to travel to or be at the moment they get the email.... and, well, you have a winner. They sell with aesthetics. No coupons, no gimmicks, just fantastic aesthetics that create desire and interest and ultimately response that I am certain creates sales.

Ultimately when we look at the purpose of any ad, any marketing campaign, any PR strategy, they all are supposed to create sales. That is the purpose. In my opinion, Ugg has nailed it.

When you create your next ad piece, marketing piece or PR strategy, decide on your tactic to get a response and do it well keeping in mind that aesthetics is a central element to sales. Make it look great in order to gravitate interest to your product, service or brand.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Monday, November 22, 2010

Increasing Production By Defining What To Do

It's of course important to be productive day to day but I have found that the step before production or executing is the real secret. The actual planning of what needs to be done prior to doing it. If you can create a very clear list of targets that are doable or executable, you can then simply execute them. It wastes so much production time to just attempt to hustle and "be" productive rather than fully visualizing what needs to be done and why, putting those thoughts on paper in doable steps. When I say doable steps I mean it's written in actionable format. Here is an example:

1) Pick up the phone and call Mr. Peterson to discuss proposal

2) Create the proposal as discussed for ABC corp and send via email to John.

The above two steps are both actions that can easily be done. If you break down your daily and weekly goals and targets and really think them through to know exactly what actions need to be done prior to doing them, from there all you need to do is execute. This simple action will make your life easier and will speed up production so you can actually get more done.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Why Sales Teams Should Sell...

Out of all of the actions your business development team or sales team should be working on, attempting to find new business and/or prospecting is not one of them.... If you want to increase production and sales, that is. Every person is different, including salespeople. They have different methods of going about things and how they manage, work and produce. I haven't seen one salesperson that has a steady method of developing consistent news business. Salespeople need to focus on selling and closing new business, following up and catering to current clients that potentially will purchase again.

The vital daily and weekly tasks of a salesperson should include:

- handling new prospects to sell

- phone calls or meetings

- traveling to meetings

- following up with prospects or clients

- emailing or writing letters to prospects

- creating and sending proposals

- closing deals

Prospecting to develop new prospective clients should be done by either a separate unit within your company that supports sales or an agency. It's unproductive having your sales team spend their time trying to find and develop new prospective clients with methods that may or may not work which results in lost time and lost sales opportunities with the people in their current pipeline. The truth is, salespeople are not very good at it and don't really like it anyway.

If you have either internal efforts and strategies to maintain a very full pipeline or hire an agency to do so, it will improve productivity and cut out wasted efforts for your team. Focus on filling their pipeline with qualified new prospective business and keeping it full so they can spend their time selling and closing new business. It will make your salespeople happy and you'll ultimately be happy as well since this will certainly increase your profits.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Monday, November 15, 2010

Bloomberg Businessweek Turnaround

About 4-5 months ago I decided to subscribe to the new Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.... I know... subscribe to a magazine in this day and age?? ... hear me out for a second and I'll explain...

Businessweek had become about as dry as it get's as far as magazine's go. The content was boring. The design (or lack there of) was awful and all of these points basically led to the magazine's demise. I was reading an article on Reuters talking about the possible merger deal with two competing firms which were bidding on Businessweek. One firm had plans to fire all the staff and take the magazine online only to turn it into a digital publication and the other firm (Bloomberg) had plans to keep the staff and go with the traditional model of a magazine and simply bring life to what had become a boring business mag.

I have always admired Bloomberg. Their content is fantastic and their businesses are always strong so I had a curiosity to see what the outcome of the Businessweek deal would be. Anyway, long story short, Bloomberg ended up winning the bid and acquired Businessweek.

I have since subscribed and had the pleasure to get the magazine delivered to my office weekly. Week after week it's jam packed with fantastic content, beautiful images, well done covers that are aesthetic to look at and just an overall fantastic example of what the magazine truly should be. This is a powerful example that all publications should be savvy to. While the whole industry was doom and gloom, Bloomberg disregarded the propaganda about "print" and created a model that can be profitable if executed correctly. While everyone in the industry had crashing stats, closing their doors and taking their publications online or digital..... Bloomberg came in and made a desirable business magazine that was exactly opposite of what all of the analysts were saying about print. As long as the content stays consistent, I have no plans of canceling my subscription and in fact have started to tell others about it (word of mouth campaign) because I am so pleased.

To me, the key takeaway's here are this:

- Don't listen to the analysts or the general population, focus on basic principals that you know work and make your product or service great. Deliver fantastic products or services to your audience that they will buy and promote like crazy to get it in front of them.

- Focus on a valuable quality product or service. People will pay for valuable, quality products or services. The main problem with print was that it started to lack it's value for the price people were paying. If you focus on value compared with price and maintain a higher value in the minds of your buyers than the price you are charging, they will buy. "No brainer" value propositions tend to sell in large volume. Price is completely arbitrary if the value of the product or service is higher to the buyer than the actual price of the item.

- Make it interesting. Businessweek became so bland that even if the content was great, the whole package was fantastically boring. I think people and companies forget that people like to be entertained and they like to look at colorful pictures, images and branding. Make your product or service interesting or sexy (for lack of a better word) in some way to entice interest.

Print still has it's place and done right, like Bloomberg Businessweek, always will.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Saturday, November 13, 2010

The American Express Strategy

If I had to guess, I'd say we have American Express cards for about 90% of our clients rather than Visa or MasterCard. Every time another client gives us their corporate AMEX card I think about how American Express has just completely taken the business market over. It's really not even remotely close to their key competitors (Visa and MC)

This seems to be due to their laser focused strategy and consistency of marketing, advertising and promo to their target public (audience) that they have decided to go after - the business owners and corporations. They aren't dispersed with their strategy, they are completely and utterly committed to every avenue they can possible employ to go after businesses. They have a strong direct response campaign, digital advertisement, their own social media site called OPEN Network, magazine advertisements etc etc.

The takeaway that I have personally extracted from this strategy to completely control the market is this:

1) Decide on and define your target public (audience) clearly so you know who you are going after specifically

2) Create a strategy that is coordinated to get you in front of your target public in every possible way to generate interest and response

3) Have a strong business development team to back up your advertising, marketing and PR strategies in order to aggressively convert interest into sales. I can only imagine that American Express must have this point completely nailed. When someone has an interest in becoming a new business client, chances are, they will close them.

A key point in growth and expansion in any company is to accurately predict the effort and actions it will take to attain the goals. Even once you feel you have nailed what the estimated efforts need to be, it would be wise to double or triple the estimate in order to guarantee your position. In other words, think big and really go after it. But don't get distracted, stay focused. Know your target audience, define your strategy and hammer it until you have controlled it.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

The Best Deal

There is a saying in business that goes like this.... "sometimes the best deal you made was the one you didn't". In other words, it's the deal you turned away or left on the table. It's always tempting to take on every single deal that comes your way in business due to the woo of possible profits related to it, but I would advise to you closely look at every deal to ensure the prospect fits your criteria and will truly be profitable for you.

This may mean that if something doesn't feel right about a deal or the prospect is being difficult upfront or it's outside of your core competency or or or... etc, well you may need to get up and walk away from it for the sake of your company. It most likely will be for the best saving you and your company huge amounts of wasted time and effort not to mention money.

One of the most profitable angles in business is knowing who your target public (audience) is and who is a desirable client to take on and who isn't. If you can peg who isn't you will avoid 90% of all headaches for your company. The ability to spot problem child's early is a vital tool toward a growing and profitable company. Sure, you may end up leaving a few perfectly good deals on the table but you don't need to worry about that. Focus on distilling the deals that don't fully align with your goals, purposes and policies and I assure you that you will be ultimately more profitable and happier.

I have found that the very clients that fall just outside of our core public in one way or the other try to actually sell us on taking them on when all of our instincts and observations are indicating that we shouldn't. One for one, every time we have violated our polices and our instincts we have ended up unhappy about it later so my advice is save yourself the headaches and weed out the possible problem clients early. Don't be reasonable about this. Be ruthless about it. There are absolute hoards of new business out there, why waste your time with the deadwood.

If you currently have problem clients that fall outside of your core public or don't qualify in one way or the other, do yourself a favor and resign them. Move them off the line and focus all of your best talent, time and energy on your key clients to ensure they are happy and being serviced well. Take good care of your qualified clients and work to add more just like them. Do this and you will see the overall morale of your company improve. At our agency, we try to take on clients that fit our target public exactly and have products or services we like. We also try to only work with people we like and if we find a client being difficult or rude to our people, we simply resign the account and move onward and upward. Give it a try.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group