An unfortunate discovery yesterday reminded me that it is our job to communicate our expectations to our vendors clearly and unambiguously, and their job to execute crisply. If we are sloppy in our Purchase Orders, we can expect sloppy execution from our vendors. That lesson cost us $1,800.

Treat your vendors like valued partners. At the same time, hold them to a high bar.

1)      Talkers – find people who will talk about you (ex: fans, volunteers, customers, bloggers, influencers). Hint: these aren’t always your best customers.

2)      Topics – give people a reason to talk (ex: special offer, great service, cool product, silliness, neat ad, new feature). Make sure to create something that is portable, repeatable, and emotional.

3)      Tools – help the message spread faster and farther (ex: tell-a-friend form, viral email, blogs, handouts, samples, message boards, online communities).

4)      Taking Part – join the conversation by letting your staff surf and reply to comments, post on blogs, join discussions, answer emails, and offer personal service.

5)      Tracking – measure and understand what people are saying by searching blogs, reading message boards, listening to feedback, and using advanced measurement tools.

WOM marketing really is about wowing your prospects and customers with something totally fresh and unexpected, something so remarkable that they just can’t help but tell others.

One of the most famous viral marketing campaigns ever is the BlendTec ‘Will it Blend’ marketing campaign where they created a series of videos showcasing the company blending a variety of unusual things – rakes, golf balls, phones, iPods, laser pointers, and really anything else you could think of. The campaign highlighted the power and durability of their blenders, while simultaneously entertaining its viewers. Talk about remarkable.  

So, what is unique about your company? How can you create something worth spreading, and what tools will you use to help it spread. Remember, you don’t have to nail it on your first try. Nobody knows what will work. Andy Sernovitz recommends planting 1,000 seeds – he says one of them is bound to bloom. Learn more

 One of our customers, Frank Guerrieri is the President and CEO of Preferred Care at home, a growing senior home care franchise company with 38 locations across the country. Since 1984, the company has built a reputation offering quality service at affordable prices, providing the extra care needed to maintain independence and dignity in the comfort and security of home.

 As Frank’s business grew he found was spending more and more time acting as a print coordinator rather than managing his business. Each franchisee would go through him to order marketing materials like brochures and business cards. It just wasn’t efficient to have Frank stuck in the middle of this administrative nightmare, yet he wanted to make sure he had consistency of trademarks and messaging in Preferred Care At Home’s materials.

 Our web-to print solution, or Private Print Shop, turned out to be the right solution for Frank. Frank manages the development of the content and art for his materials. Then the design templates are placed online on a Preferred Care At Home custom website where franchisees can easily choose, customize and order exactly what they need.  According to Frank, PFL “freed us up to do what we need to do; run our business and build a franchise organization.”

 We have built custom web-to-print solutions for a wide range of business from franchises to manufacturing to chains of clinics.  Their needs may be slightly different but in all cases they share the need to easily accesses, customize, and order printed material on a frequent basis in the most efficient way possible.  Besides Preferred Care At Home, we have profiled five other companies that are reaping the benefits of custom-web-to-print solutions. To read their brief success stories click here.

Years back, I was at a weekend exhibition that a friend had organized in the health and wellness arena. He was so confident about the event that he borrowed more than $30,000 from credit cards and friends to put it on.  He did manage to recruit a decent amount of exhibitors and arrange a packed schedule of speakers and workshops.  What he didn’t get were attendees. About 200 hundred people showed up all weekend, for a type of event that normally draws thousands. What went wrong? He waited way too long to get his print and media advertising out.  I remember seeing his printed brochures show up the day before first day of the show. Ouch!!

He’s not alone. Nearly every day we squeeze in super-rush print jobs to help our customers out in a time pinch. Yes, I know there are a lot of factors involved in putting a printed piece together, from going back and forth with designers to getting all the content and details worked out. But more often than not, that pesky procrastination game is to blame.

Is it just poor time management or something deeper that underlies our procrastinator’s dilemma? Most of the pundits and researchers will point to psychological causes such as anxiety or fear of making mistakes, or the physiological roots of low activation in the brain’s prefrontal cortex.

In defense, not all procrastination is counterproductive, like when you put off the small stuff to work on the important stuff – such an innovation, building relationships and planning for the future. That’s one of my defenses, along with my attention-deficit tendencies. The problem is, a successful life and business demand timely execution on the small stuff.

What are you putting off? Can that next print project really wait?

Today, we’re expected to do so much more with less and although technology allows for greater speed and efficiency, there’s nothing like the motivation you get when you have to deliver for your teammates.

Truly interdependent teams take advantage of the strengths, while downplaying the weaknesses, of its members. And, when there is trust among members, asking for help or feedback is never perceived as weakness. Trust allows team members to stay focused on results.

A lot has been said about teamwork. My favorite thought leader on teams and teamwork to date, however, is Patrick Lencioni. His book and subsequent workshop called The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team provide a clear model and attainable set of principles that can work at any level of your organization.

Developing real teams and teamwork is tough and takes a significant ongoing investment of time.  However, the pay off in company results, individual effectiveness, and employee satisfaction is well worth it.

 Doubt and insecurity reduce the effectiveness of your staff at the exact moment you need them to be at their most productive. If not managed well, this can turn into a spiraling vortex of badness that ends up exacerbating the exact thing a RIF was supposed to prevent.

 In my humble opinion, there is no use trying to spin a lay off. It’s a bad thing. It should be treated with the respect it deserves and trying to twist it into something it’s not is, frankly, disingenuous. However, showing your employees exactly what they can do to keep the company moving forward can be powerfully engaging but it requires information.

 The key to managing this change can be summed up in one word: Access. The last thing leaders should do in situations like this is keep the secret sauce to themselves.

 The employees who are still with you will, certainly, feel grateful for still having a job, but, more importantly, will want to know exactly what they need to do to make sure the company meets its short-term and mid-range goals.

 Give your employees a number to strive for – X amount in dollars in revenue everyday, Y amount of widgets produced each week. In whatever way you measure the success of your company, be sure your employees know what they need to do to hit those goals. And then do one more very important thing. Open the books.

 Opening the books is an incredibly powerful engagement technique. Let your people know how things are going – daily. Good or bad. It will instill ownership, buy-in, and leadership among your employees so the effects of a RIF are quickly mitigated and you get the best out of your people when you need them the most.

 If my experience in customer service here at PrintingForLess.com has taught me anything it is that referrals are the life-blood of small to medium businesses.  As much as 40% of our own new customers are a product of a referral.  This is the way to success for small to medium businesses and a step toward climbing out of the economic downturn.

 John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing, has come up with an immense idea that will allow individuals and small business owners around the country to take the matter of economic stimulus into their own hands.

 The idea is Make a Referral Week: A Small Business Stimulus Program.  It is a simple yet brilliant idea focused on driving referrals to small businesses around the country.  This event will take place March 9-13, 2009 and has a goal of 1000 referred leads to 1000 small businesses.  This virtual event will also feature daily education programs provided by a variety of marketing experts.  Individuals are encouraged to make at least one referral during the week and then record the details of the referral on http://www.makeareferralweek.com/.

 You can click on the image below to find out more about referral week and to make your pledge to participate.

 I am excited to participate in this event and thrilled about a week devoted to supporting the back-bone of the American economy, small-businesses.  We can make a difference.

In my research for upcoming sales training a quote jumped out at me, “In today’s economy, it’s getting harder to find new clients, but it’s easier than ever to lose the ones you’ve got.” While not necessarily a revelation, I thought it drove home a really great point … establishing solid business relationships and, more importantly, constantly cultivating them, is the key ongoing success. 

I’m not a sales professional. I’ve never aspired to be one. In fact the quote that always comes to mind for me when thinking about sales is from Say Anything. When asked what he wants to do with his life, John Cusack’s character says (paraphrasing) “I know what I don’t want to do, sir. I don’t want to buy anything, sell anything, or process anything. I don’t want to buy anything sold or processed, sell anything processed or bought or process anything bought or sold.” 

While sales has a mixed-bag reputation full of used cars, vacuums, and pressure, the fact of the matter is that the exchange of goods and services for money is what keeps our economy running and sales professionals are a big part of that engine. 

A sales professional, though often measured, in part, by closings knows that the key to success is long-term, repeat business. 21^st Century sales professionals know that the way to get that business is through establishing and maintaining business relationships. Developing a partnering relationship with your clients where the focus becomes each other’s mutual success takes your customer off the market and ensures that you’re selling your products and services at your price.

In 1996 he and his wife left Atlanta, a high paying job, security and a safe career path for Montana, blue ribbon trout streams, mountains and a large measure of uncertainty. The momentum behind this big move was a long trip to Montana after grad school two years earlier, backpacking and travelling, and of course fly fishing, thoroughly enjoying all things Montana has to offer.
This exposure to the Big Sky state and the quality of life he witnessed helped him make up his mind. “It was a huge imbalance with life”, Doug recalls, referring to what Atlanta and his current career path did NOT give him. The couple made up their minds. It was time to jump…

In 1996, after grad school and several years in the corporate grind, Doug found himself in Bozeman, Montana, more or less “chronically underemployed” and looking for his niche and direction. One observation he had at the time was the successful people in town were all small business owners-beverage distributors, a high quality shoe and boot maker, some real estate. They were the familiar fixtures in the community, worked hard, and had carved their own place in the area and were flourishing. This was all Doug needed to realize his own direction-his instinct from his early twenties kicked in-being your own boss is the answer. The soon to be entrepreneur had to step up.

Fast forward to today after a decade in business, Doug Fletcher and North Star Consulting Group is recognized as a leader in the field of global, web-based market and organizational research. This includes projects for employee and client satisfaction surveys as well as comprehensive employee performance evaluations.

I sat down with Doug over a burger and beers to pick his brain, and see what an entrepreneurial Montana transplant has to say about success, the prospect of failure, stick-to-itiveness and fly fishing.

Q: What brought you to Montana?

Doug Fletcher:

“Believe it or not, fly fishing. While I had ‘the Life’ in Atlanta, a house, good job, the right choice it appeared on the surface, but it was not what I truly wanted. After grad school during the summer, my wife and I packed up and headed west to travel, explore and fish in Montana, before my job started in Atlanta. And that was it. When I got back I realized that there was a huge imbalance with my life, and I couldn’t do the things I really wanted to do there [Atlanta]. Fly fishing was part of it, sure, but it was just one thing that represented the quality of life I wanted. When we finally decided it was time to quit, pack it up and move, we were bound and determined to make it work-we had to. And, by the way, I did manage to fit in 100 days of fishing that year!”

Q: How did North Star Consulting come about?

DF: “At an early age, maybe in my twenties, I decided that I wanted to pursue an entrepreneurial life-corporate life was not my bag. So, after realizing that the successful people in the area were their own bosses, I collaborated with two friends, kicked in a little money, made some contacts, and the company was born in 1998-with $7500 between the three of us.”

Q: What does North Star Consulting do?

DF: “North Star evolved into a company that helps other companies and corporations do employee surveys, customer surveys, and recently with our release of Rave Review, performance evaluations for professional HR infrastructures. Our clients are small to medium sized businesses, and we are internet based, using proprietary software. With regard to clients, we do not advertise. We built our business in the early days through networking on a national basis and once we got a critical mass of clients, we have grown via repeat business, organic growth with existing customers and word of mouth.”

Q: What in your view are some of the pros and cons of living and working in Montana?

DF: “To a certain degree, starting from scratch in more traditional jobs in Montana can be an uphill battle-prohibitive transportation costs, small, widely dispersed population, difficulty in moving a lot of goods-all make for a complex go of it. Being web-based with a low cost structure has given us the freedom to be national and worldwide. Additionally, Montana has a wealth of talented people, with a very good knowledge base. The ‘white collar’ population is strong here.”

Q: Who is your competition? How do you differentiate?

DF: “We really have two levels of competition. There is the lower end, quick-hit inexpensive DIY sites and the very large, corporate agencies. Both serve a good purpose; the low-end services are great for college students, non-profits, highly bootstrapped start-ups. Then there are the larger ones that we occasionally compete with. But our advantage over them is twofold: one, when you call us, more than likely you are speaking with me or one other person-the level of service is highly personalized and dedicated. Secondly, we are fast. Many times I can be on a call with a client, have a proposal by the afternoon, and be rolling on a project the next day if need be. That is difficult to do with a much larger company, and that is not the business plan or value of lower end sites.”

Q: What are you doing, or will be doing, to weather the current economic climate?

DF: “We are maintaining a low cost structure, we have low overhead, and we are small enough to be nimble-we can change as we need to, so as to ride out anything that comes at us.”

Q: What are some of your personal goals you have set for yourself and your company?
DF: “My short term goals, say in the next 12 months, are growth related. We are not worried about survival of the company; it is in a good place. But, we won’t be able to probably grow it like we did the previous 5 years at a rate of 10-15%. I want to keep it level. From a long term view, the key is diversification. Too much of the company in ‘one big egg and two small eggs’ can be risky; I want to get more of the company in more places.
My personal goal is to train the next generation of senior management. This is two-part: one, to groom good new managers who our clients will see as competent, and really just an extension of me, and the company, and to get someone in place to eventually transition into my role.”

Q: What is your advice to new entrepreneurs looking to strike out on their own?

DF: “My advice to anyone looking to go out on their own and be their own boss is pretty straightforward. First, take a long, hard look your personal strengths and weaknesses. And don’t just trust your own opinion-talk to others, people you respect, who can give it to you straight. Second, be very honest and conservative with your financial resources-we started North Star with $7500, and in the last 10 years, we have done roughly $5 million in revenue, with 2 full time employees and 2 part time. If you drain all your resources to get it going, or go way beyond your means There is no such thing as an overnight success-you hear about the story of Google and the like, but that is not the norm. It takes consistency and that day-to-day presence in the market. Additionally, whether you call it luck, good timing or opportunity, every start-up will get that chance, that time at bat where you will get a shot. The trick is to make it work, recognize the opportunity, and start climbing up.

I think about what it took to get North Star off the ground and start being successful, and really it was like ‘burning the ship’. The Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez would literally burn his ships upon entering uncharted territory, thereby making it essentially impossible to just turn back and head to safe ground. They had one direction to go-forward. That is how I viewed it. There was no safety net, no deep pockets-I felt I had to succeed, and I would.”

Doug Fletcher, 42, is the co-founder and CEO of North Star Consulting Group. He is an avid (you guessed it) fly fisher, bowhunter, traveler, runner and trains and competes in triathlons whenever he can. He has completed an Ironman, the Bridger Ridge Run (more than once), and completed a (nearly) cross-country solo bike trip, from southeastern United States to Montana. He and his wife, Brigitte, have two children and make their home in Bozeman, Montana.

I, like many moms, receive a varied collection of parenting magazines each month. Each of these magazines has the usual articles mingled lightly among the boundless print ads. As I am sure is the case with many magazine readers, I have become somewhat immune to these ads, and, with few exceptions, my brain passes over them without a thought. But in a recent magazine one marketing insert made a lasting impact on me.

It was for a simple product, tissue. The full four page insert was similar to other magazine inserts at first (although the paper quality was outstanding). But when I opened it up, the ad showed a picture of a full size tissue box with a hole in the top and a sample of the tissue popping out. The sample, also printed, invited me to feel the softness of the product. I was able to pull out the piece and make use of the product immediately. I got to sample their product without even asking. Now, almost a week later, I remember the name of the product. I know what the packaging looks like. I know that the tissue is soft and has a touch of lotion. I know that this is a product I would buy when I need tissue.

This was an effective print ad. A real, tangible, memorable marketing piece that did exactly what print media does best. It drew me in with multiple senses, sight, touch, smell, and made the piece more real and more important to me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, email and web marketing are tremendously effective and creating a marketing piece with the kind of impact described above is a challenge. I am not a marketing expert by any means and I may have a greater appreciation for an ad like this because I know what it takes to create it. But I am reminded that with a creative approach the power of print goes unmatched as a marketing tool.