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Pinterest and Twitter and Facebook, Oh My!

The Social Media mavens tell you that you have to maximize your presence on Twitter… and Facebook… and Pinterest… and Google+… and LinkedIn… and…

I mean, they’re free, right?  Why wouldn’t you?

Of course, these are the same gurus who used to be in traditional advertising and told you to make sure you had your message on TV, Radio, Newsprint and Billboards so that you would reach everyone in multiple ways which would make the messages sink in better (it doesn’t – read page 3)

And guess what?  They are both wrong!

You don’t have to do all the social media.  You don’t really have to do any of them.  Sure, they all work in one way or another.  Sure, they all can help your business.  Sure, they all cost time instead of money.  Sure, you can still go broke investing all your time into them.

Advertising and marketing are and have always been about maximizing your ROI – return on investment.  The difference between the social media and regular advertising (besides that they are used completely differently – but you already knew that) is that one costs time, the other costs money.

But you still need to make sure you are not spending too much capital.  Your time is more valuable than you think.

The advice I give for social media is the same advice I give for regular advertising.  Pick one medium and do it to the absolute best of your ability.  Don’t worry about the other media.  You only have time/money for one, so pick one and do it better than everyone else.

It really is that simple.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  For Toy House I picked Facebook.  I like FB for pictures and videos and conversations.  For Phils Forum I primarily use this blog.  I like the framework.  It gives me enough room to make my point.  Yes, I use Twitter, but only as a means for delivering my blog.

Same Advice, Different Day

Seems like I have been giving the same advice to many different types of businesses lately.  I hope I’m not becoming a one-trick pony.  The advice is solid, though.  In fact, I believe it is the foundation to everything else you do for your business.

It is the foundation to the type of products you sell.
It is the foundation to the type of services you offer.
It is the foundation to the way you design and decorate your store.
It is the foundation to the type of people you hire.
It is the foundation to the training you give your staff.
It is the foundation to the way you serve your customers.
It is the foundation to the way you market and advertise your business.
It is the foundation to every decision you make for your business.

Do you know your Core Values?  Do you have a Character Diamond?  (Hint: they are one and the same.)

Read this eBook first (it’s free).  Then download these worksheets (also free).  You’ll have a Character Diamond to guide you in everything you do. (If you have any problems with this, send me an email.)

Why do I give this info away free?  So that all the rest of the stuff we discuss will make infinitely more sense. I have way more than one trick* in my stable.  This is just the first one you have to figure out to be able to get all the other ones right.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS *It really isn’t a “trick”.  I don’t believe in tricks.  I believe in a solid foundation based on smart principles that never change.  And this foundation is the basis of everything I do both in my toy store and right here on this blog.  That is why it is the first download on my Freebies page.

PPS  I also have to give a lot of credit to Roy H. Williams aka The Wizard of Ads and David Freeman for teaching this stuff to me in the first place.

Tell Me a Story

Quick, tell me a story about a recent transaction in your business that made you laugh…

Didn’t take long to think of something, did it?  The hardest part was probably deciding which story to tell.

We all have a backlog of stories we can share; some touching, some hilarious, some that get your blood pressure up.

Do you have a place to share them?

Stories are powerful because stories evoke emotions.  Emotions move the needle far better than facts and data.  Stories are more memorable, too.

Quick, tell me the phone number from your dorm room your freshman year in college.  Don’t remember?  How about three stories from your freshman year about dating?  Much easier.

If you want your customers to relate to you, tell them stories that evoke the emotions you want them to feel.  Tell them stories that will stick in their minds long after the data is gone.  Tell them stories that they will share with others.

You have plenty of stories to tell.  Start telling them.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  You can tell stories on your blog, on FB, in your advertising, on signs in your store.  For as many stories as you have, you can find a new way to share.

Planning an Event

Saturday is National Train Day.

We sell trains… Electric, wooden, and everything in between.  We are celebrating in style.

Activities for participants? Check.  Along with our usual train displays (and a couple new ones we are bringing out) we are doing face painting, coloring contests, having kids sign our almost life-size train poster, train photo ops, train history, a steam engine experiment, and more.

Incentives to attend? Check.  We have free train whistles to give away (thanks to one of our favorite vendors), prizes for two different prize drawings, prizes for the coloring contest and a whole bunch of delicious train-shaped cookies (I know, I tried a sample today.)

Marketing the event? Check.  We have made multiple Facebook announcements, sent out emails, put up signs all around the store, sent out press releases to all the media outlets, talked about it live on TV and radio, made posters to advertise it at two other events going on in town before our event, and created fliers to hand out when out and about in public.

Motivating the staff? Check.  The staff was involved in the planning process from day one.  It wasn’t mandated by me, it was conceived and planned by them, so there is 100% buy-in from the staff.  They are fired up and ready to rock.

Anyone see a checklist forming here?  Failure to plan is planning to fail, or as my grandfather always says, “Plan for Success”.

Events are a great way to draw traffic and delight customers.  But events require planning.  Make yourself a checklist and get planning some fun events for your store.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  Events also cost money.  We have committed about $800 to this event above and beyond our usual expenses (for product giveaways, cookies, fliers, posters, etc).  I consider that money to be marketing and advertising money.  I am not concerned whether I make that money back on Saturday because my goal for this event – the first thing I put at the top of my checklist – is to draw a crowd and make a lot of people happy.  If I do that, the money was well spent.  Always write down your goal, then plan your activities around that goal.  

PPS  The event has been a huge success!

I Can’t Find My Desk

Oh, I know my desk is there, buried under papers needing filing, orders that have been placed, reports that were read, catalogs that have come in.  I just don’t like spend my time putting that stuff away.

My wife and my employees agree that I need a secretary.  I am working towards that goal.  In the meantime, I let the piles grow and grow until I go on a cleaning binge and clear off my desk, my table and the floor of my office.

Don’t get me wrong.  I do a lot of organizing, mostly of thoughts and data.  It takes a mountain of data to keep a store like mine operating smoothly.  But the mundane task of filing away those reports, putting away all the catalogs, and hiding all the need-to-keep-it-just-in-case paperwork is such a low priority to me that I put it aside until the mountain threatens my safety.

Some of you are nodding in agreement.  Some of you are appalled.  I might even lose a follower who believes a stacker like me is a slacker, too.  I am okay with that.

The lesson here is that we all are different.  We all have different priorities.  We all choose where to put our energies based on our Core Values.

That is why I believe so strongly that one of the best things you can do for your business is identify your Core Values.  Once you consciously know your Core Values, you get to be them more openly… in every aspect of your business.

You might alienate a customer or two.  But you will also attract a whole bunch of new customers who resonate loudly with your values – once you share them more openly.

If you would like to uncover your Core Values, I have a couple methods of doing it.  First read my FREE eBook Understanding Your Brand.  Then download the FREE Worksheets that go with it.  (Then email me if you get stuck.)

It won’t help you find your desk, but it will help you find everything else you might need to run your business in a way that works for you.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  My Core Values are Having Fun, Helping Others, Education, and Nostalgia.  Now you know why I write this blog and give away all this info for free:-)

Buy the Book, I’ll Speak for FREE

(I know you know someone who could use this.  Please share it with that person.)

My book, Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art comes packed 60 books to the carton.  What would you do if you had 60 of these books?  Do you know some businesses who could use help hiring and training a better staff?

60 books at $19.99 equals $1199.40.  I want to make you an offer.  Round it off to $1,200 even and I will throw in 4 FREE hours of me.

Yes, that’s right.  Buy one carton of books for $1200 and I will show up at your door anywhere in the continental USA and give you 4 hours of my business knowledge to use as you see fit.

If you are a Radio Station…
You will get 60 books to give to your clients that will help them hire and train a better workforce, thus ensuring they will be in business (and buying radio ads from you) for a long time.  If you think about it, that’s a far more memorable gift than the mug, candy or flowers you have been giving them.

Plus, you will get me teaching your sales staff how to sell your product more effectively, how to create killer campaigns for your clients, and how to craft powerful messages that drive serious traffic to their door.  Plus you can use me to help mentor your favorite clients, teaching them how to powerfully brand their business, and how to uncover their core message that will resonate strongest with your listening audience.

If you are a Chamber of Commerce, DDA, or Shop Local organization…
You will get 60 books to strengthen the quality of employees in your district, making your core businesses rock solid and recession-proof thus increasing your influence and the size of your district.

Plus, you get to choose from a vast array of training programs that will rock their worlds and make your businesses the envy of all the surrounding communities.  You can even ask me to show you how to plan Staff Meetings that people WANT to attend.

If you are a Trade Organization or Buying Group…
You get 60 books to help your members make hiring decisions and develop training programs that will turn them into the shining stars of your industry.  When they see how great your stores are doing, you will have other stores begging to join your proactive organization.

Plus, you get four hours of some of the best retail ideas on everything from Inventory Management to Customer Service to Pricing Strategies that put money in your members’ pockets (so that they can pay their dues on time.)

If you are an individual store…
You get 60 books to give away to all your business friends and family for Christmas.  You can even sell them in your store to get your money back if you want.

More importantly, you get four hours to pick my brain.  Use me to help train your staff on the kind of customer service that gets talked about.  Use me to help craft your marketing campaign into a traffic-driving force.  Use me to look over your financials and help you find lost profits and put them back in your pocket.  Use me to teach you how to make staff trainings fun again.

If you are a Nationally Syndicated Talk Show Host… (Stewart? Colbert? Kimmel? Dave? NPR?)
You get 60 business books that are soon to be the talk of the nation.  Heck, I’ll bring extra books so that you can hide one under every chair in the audience.

Plus, you will get a guest who is as comfortable behind a microphone as you are.  You get a savvy businessman who knows retail, has opinions, and is not afraid to share them.  Not only did I host my own radio show for three years, I have plenty of camera time sitting in the guest chair.  Plus, you will get top-notch ratings from the Jackson, Michigan market.

You buy 60 books and I’ll pay my own way to get there plus one night in a hotel*.  And you get to choose what business training you want for your purchase.

I have four full cartons of books ready and waiting to ship to the first four people/groups who contact me.  Send an email to phil@philsforum.com to set up your four hours of kick-ass, kick-starting presentations and trainings.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  If you want more than 60 books or more than 4 hours, I am more than willing to negotiate.  I will be happy to work with your schedule as much as possible.  Just remember that I have my own store to run, so we might both have to be flexible to schedule something.

*PPS This deal is good for USA travel only (unless you want to pay for the flight, too).

What Do You Sell?

I don’t think I know any toy store owners who didn’t like the movie Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium starring Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman.  It immediately made my top 5 list of all-time favorite movies.

For me, the beauty was in the name of his store which described what he sold with ultimate clarity.  Mr. Magorium did not sell toys.  He sold Wonder.  Pure and simple, unadultered Wonder.

I’m pretty sure that after a couple hundred years in business, Mr. Magorium knew a thing or two about branding, too.

I am not in the business of selling toys.  I sell Nostalgia, Education, Assistance and Smiles.
I am not in the business of selling baby products.  I sell Nostalgia, Education, Assistance and Smiles.

And when I recognize that, it makes it easier for me to choose what products to fill the store.  Does the product fulfill my goal of selling Nostalgia, Education, Assistance and Smiles?  If so, on the shelf it will go.

The easiest way to keep from being boxed into a corner is to change your thinking from what products you sell to what ideals you sell.  Products are fickle and have limited shelf life.  But ideals and values are lasting and unchanging.  More importantly, ideals and values attract customers who share those ideals and values, customers who will become loyal followers and evangelists for your business because you speak to their heart.

That is the true essence of branding and the true brilliance behind Mr. Magorium’s WONDER Emporium.

He sells Wonder.  What do you sell?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  For more about branding and core values, download my FREE eBook Understanding Your Brand and the accompanying Worksheets.  It may be the most worthwhile exercise you do for your business.

Trying Something New

I tried something new and I learned two things.

First, you should try something new more often.  It becomes less scary the more you do it and is rarely as hard as it seems.
Second, you can cut a sixty-minute presentation down to twenty minutes and still get the crowd fired up.

Let me explain…

The phone rang at 11:10am .  “Hi Phil, I got your name from Mindy at the Chamber.  I need a speaker for our luncheon at noon and she thought you might be flexible enough to make it.  Can you help me out?”


Sure.  What would you like me to talk about and how long do you want me to talk?


“Anything you would like.  You get twenty minutes. Lunch starts at noon.”

Give me twenty-four hours and that is a speaker’s dream.  Give me twenty four minutes and my obvious option was to drag out an old tried-but-true performance, dust it off and call it good.

Or I could try something new.

This group has heard me speak about the Toy House and about the importance of shopping local.  They didn’t need to be sold on me.  They needed to be sold on themselves.  Service organizations like this one have much more competition for membership than ever before.

What if I could give them a tool that would not only help them individually and with their own businesses, but could also help them as an organization?  What if I could do that in twenty minutes or less?

Why not?

All I was getting was a free lunch.  All they were expecting was a last-second speaker to fill 20 minutes of time, hopefully well.

I had just read Tim Miles’ post about the 6 Basic Questions to Build a Speech and knew I could only make one point.  I have always dreamed about being a TED presenter – they only get 20 minutes – so I figured this would be good training.

I printed a few handouts from my one to two hour Understanding Your Brand Workshop and headed out.

Surprisingly, when you take out all the extra stuff, you can get a single point across quite well in a short period of time.  Was it as effective as the full length workshop?  No.  In the full length workshop we all get to the finish line together.  Yesterday many of the participants did not finish.  But they all got a map that leads them to the finish.  For some people that is all they need.  And for this group, that was enough.

In some ways it was far more than they expected – short notice or not.

Yeah, trying new things can be fun.  Even in retail.  Do me a favor.  Try something new this coming week.  Even if it is something simple.  You’ll see two things immediately.

First, it won’t be as hard as you originally thought.
Second, your staff will be fired up with a new enthusiasm.

Gee, those two outcomes alone are worth it, don’t ya think?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  That something new could be a new service, a new product category, a new way to merchandise, a new social media, a new way of designing your ads, a new blog for your store, a new method of organizing your expense accounts, a new way to track gift cards, a new event for the store, a new sign, a new splash of paint on the wall, a new place for employees to take a break, a new blog to follow, a new form for charitable donations, a new uniform, a new phone message…  What else can you think of?

We’re Here to Make You Smile

Every month at our staff meetings we have time carved out for “Smile Stories” – moments when you made the customer smile in a memorable way.  The staff keep notes throughout the month of their favorite stories just so they have something to share.  Some even take notes of the smile stories someone else on the staff created to make sure those do not get missed.

Most say it is one of their favorite parts of working here.

Can you guess how often Creating a Smile is on the top of my staff’s mind?

Always.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  Want some tips for how you can get your customers to smile more?  Download the free eBook Customer Service: From Weak to Wow.

How Many Points Should You Make?

(Full disclosure: I have no idea where this story originated. I think it came from Roy H. Williams or one of his Wizard Partners because it sounds like something they would say. If anyone knows where this story started, please let me know.)

The ad committee met to discuss the new copy for their next missive. After much heated debate, they finally came to an agreement on the twelve points that needed to be made.

They called in the copy writer and asked him to sit down at the end of the conference room table.

As they began explaining in detail and nuance each of the twelve points, the copy writer pulled a board out of his bag with a dozen nails sticking straight up. He laid the board on the end of the table. With puzzled looks and just a slight pause the ad committee chairman continued his description of the points.

The copy writer then took a frying pan out of his bag and slammed it down on the bed of nails. This shocked the room into silence. The copy writer then showed the small indentations on the bottom of the frying pan to the stunned committee.

Without saying a word, the copy writer pulled another board out of his bag. This board contained a large solitary spike. The copy writer took the same frying pan and slammed it down on the spike. The pan was impaled by the spike, sliding all the way down until it was stuck firmly to the board.

The copy writer looked up and said, “Now… how many points did you want me to make?”



-Phil Wrzesinski
http://www.philsforum.com/

PS Yes, that’s my pan and my boards. I tried it out on the Jackson Retail Success Academy students back in January and I’m pretty sure that point stuck. If you would like to make the point in your ads stick better. Check out my free ebooks, How Ads Work Part 1 and Part 2.