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Category: Influence

A Reason to Belong

For those of you who have read the new book Pendulum about the shifting outlook of society, you will remember that we are ten years into a “We” cycle. We still have another 30 years to go.

For those who haven’t read the book (and I believe it may be the single most important book you can read for business), the general concept is that there is a 80 year swing in society between two prevailing outlooks – Me and We – each taking about 40 years of that swing.

A “We” cycle has “community” and “collaboration” as two of the main themes. People want to belong and be a part of something.

One way to use this understanding is to help people feel like they belong to your store. You probably already have a FB page and have a bunch of “likes”. But how do you transfer that into a “community”? How do you turn those casual likers into loyal insiders?

Make them feel special.

Two ways you can do this…

  1. Insider information
  2. Shared unique experiences

Insider Information

People love little secrets. Men, especially, love secrets because men speak vertically – did what I say make you think higher of me or lower of me? Knowing little tidbits of information that most people don’t know gives men a chance to say something that will make you think higher of them (at least that’s how we perceive it, ladies, bear with us on this).

Ladies also like secrets. Unlike men, ladies speak more horizontally – did what I say draw me in closer or push me away? Ladies want to be in the inner circle. They feel special when they know the secret handshake. Little tidbits of information make them feel like they belong and also give them something to share with others and draw others into their inner circle.

Sharing personal stories, fun facts, and insider information with your fan base builds a level of loyalty among those who are in the know. Just keep it positive and interesting (i.e. did you know that the same man – Tom Murdough Jr – invented both Little Tikes and Step2? Yes, he went into business a second time just to compete with the first business he created!) Two examples of entities that have created a loyal band of followers… Lady Gaga & her Little Monsters and Jimmy Buffet & his Parrotheads. When your fans give themselves a name, you’ve done your job well.

Shared Unique Experiences

We have a special kindred spirit when we share a unique experience with other people. Those strangers become less strange. There is a nod of understanding between the people who have had those moments, a nod of “I-know-you-know-exactly-what-I’m-thinking”.

When you do something completely and uniquely different than any other retailer out there, you’ll get your customers giving those nods to other customers.  They will feel like they belong to something special. The best thing is that they will want to bring their friends into this inner circle.

The key is that the experience has to be unique and special and unadvertised. For example, when I was in the world of rock climbing, there was a gal in Colorado who was the best at resoling rock climbing shoes. Many climbers I knew sent their shoes to her. And she sent them back, resoled. The unique experience, simple as it may sound, was that in the box she included a Jolly Rancher candy. If you saw a guy with newly resoled shoes, all you had to do was ask, “What flavor?” If he had sent his shoes to Jules, he knew exactly what you meant and responded right away.

In a “We” cycle people want to belong to something special. Give them something special with your business and they’ll be naming themselves soon enough.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Once you get your fans to become so loyal they name themselves, you can stop spending money on regular advertising. They’ll do all the advertising for you.

Get in the Paper or On the Air

Rarely does a month go by that I don’t have my store mentioned in the local newspaper, on local radio, or local TV. Heck, rarely does a week go by, especially during the holidays, that I don’t get some complimentary coverage for something we are doing.

I don’t think it is because I am more newsworthy than anyone else. I think it is because I do a few things most retailers don’t.

Here are my top three secrets for getting into your local media.

  1. Make friends with the reporters
  2. Help them out for free
  3. Show them why/how what you’re doing is newsworthy to everyone else

Make Friends

You can find local reporters at business meetings, at city council meetings, or simply by reading the bylines of your local paper. Those of you who still have print papers will find that those reporters list their email with every story.

Make it a point to attend those meetings and sit next to the reporters. Ask them questions. Find out their take and their opinion on the topics at hand. Listen. Strike up conversations every single time you see them, whether at a meeting or not. Call them by their first name. Comment positively on things they have written.

When you become their friend, they will learn to trust you as an easy source for information when they are on a tight deadline.

Help Them Out

Read all of what they write. Send them an email with your thoughts. If you agree with them, tell them so. If you don’t agree with them, give them facts and sources for information why you might politely disagree. In fact, help them out. Send them information related to articles they have already written – information that has nothing to do with your business. Send them links to articles you have read and liked. Give them content totally unrelated to your store but in the same vein as what they typically report.

Most importantly, expect nothing in return.

If you think of the reporter as a friend, you are just trying to help your friend do a better job. Do this enough and they will help you in return when the time is right.

Show Why/How it is Newsworthy

The editor gets the final say as to what stories get run. The number one thing an editor wants to know is, why is this important to my readers? If the answer to that is because it will make you money, they will tell you to buy an ad. If it is only important to you and your business and your customers, it isn’t newsworthy. You have to find the angle that makes it newsworthy to everyone.

When you finally get around to sending your press releases to all your friends in the media, you need to find that angle or your friends won’t get it past the editor.

I had a chance to interview a local newspaper editor a few years ago about this topic. She gave a classic example. Having the president of Rotary International coming to your next Rotary Club meeting is only important to you. Having five hundred people drive from up to four hours away and stay in local hotels and eat at local restaurants to hear him speak is newsworthy to everyone.

Find the slant in your story that is newsworthy to everyone including people who would never be a customer of yours. That is the story to tell. (If you don’t have one, tweak your event until you do have a newsworthy angle.)

Yes, all of this takes time. That time, however, pays off quite well. You are in this for the long run, aren’t you?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS It might seem like I am only talking about newspapers (print & online). The same applies to bloggers – flattery and complimenting information gets you far. The same applies to TV and radio – find out who the program directors and news directors are. They are your ticket in. The same works with networking – get to know the movers and shakers without expecting anything in return. Take the time. It is well worth your investment.

Every 80 Years

“The reason history must repeat itself is because we pay so little attention to it the first time.” -Blackie Sherrod

Go back in time to the early 1940’s.  What was happening?  Easy question… World War II.

Go back another 80 years to the 1860’s.  What was happening?  Another easy question… The Civil War.

Go back another 80 years to the 1780’s.  What was happening?  If you said The Revolutionary War, you get an A for history.

See a pattern?

It goes back for centuries through the Western World.  1700’s? Great Northern War. 1620’s? The Thirty Year War and so on…

Every eighty years, like clockwork.  In fact, there is a well documented pattern of a shift between two general mentalities of the population of the Western World, a shift between the two extremes of “Me” and “We” that has been swinging like a pendulum for the last 3000 years.  It takes eighty years to complete a cycle from one extreme to the other and back again.

We’re currently heading toward the peak extreme of another “We” generation, one that has caused wars and conflicts for centuries.  Knowing these two extremes, how we get there as a population and what to expect as we approach another peak is possibly the most important information you can have.

I want you to have this info.  

I have been studying this pendulum swing since the first time I heard about it from Roy H. Williams at Wizard Academy in 2005 and the evidence blew me away.  I’ve seen it in the toy industry, in the baby industry, in retail as a whole.  I’ve seen it in politics, in advertising, in the movies and music.  I’ve seen it in our schools, in our homes and even online.  Now Roy has teamed up with Michael Drew to present you with two ways to understand this pendulum shift and how it affects the world around you better than ever before.

The first is their book which launched today – Pendulum (link to Amazon order page but don’t go there until you read the next paragraph).

The second is the creation of the Pendulum in Action website.  Follow that link and it will take you to a special offer where you can get the book for only the cost of shipping ($7) and also get access to five modules/presentations on the Pendulum Swing and how to understand it from the perspective of your business.

Talk about ROI?  Those will be the best seven dollars you spend.     Ever.      Go click that second link now.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  If it isn’t the best $7 you spent on your business, tell me why.  I’ll send you something else also worth more than $7 to make up for it.  Yeah, I believe it that much I’m willing to stand behind someone else’s work with my own money.

PPS Yes, the pattern says in the 2020’s we could most certainly be at war.  I’m not trying to sound apocalyptic or anything, but the pattern has existed for millennium   Knowing it and knowing what to do about it are the first steps to preventing the worst from happening.

Fake It Til You Make It

When you smile, the simple act of your muscles pulling the lips upward sends a signal to your brain.  Your brain begins releasing Endorphins that lower your stress.  It also sends a signal to your brain to release Serotonin, which boosts your immune system, gives you energy, and makes you feel good.

Even when the smile isn’t genuine.

Isn’t that cool?  You really can fake it til you make it.  Fake a smile and in short time you will feel better.

You can do the same thing with other body language poses.

Power posing is another way to fake it til you make it.  According to a Harvard study, when you strike a power pose, a pose where your body is open, not crossed, and in a larger than life position (think Wonder Woman with her hands on her hips), you increase your levels of testosterone while also decreasing your levels of cortisol.

What are the applications of this for independent retailers?

First, remind your staff to smile no matter how they feel.  Just that act alone will make them feel better soon.  Plus, that smile is infectious.  If they smile, the customers will smile and soon everyone will be feeling better.

Second, teach your staff how to Power Pose every morning before the day begins.  Have them hold that pose for a couple minutes before they hit the sales floor.  Their energy will be better, they will have more confidence, and they will seem more likable and approachable.

Yeah, body language actually does make a difference, both inside and out.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  That picture is from the Monroe Chamber of Commerce Business Summit.  I had everyone Power Pose at the beginning of the talk.  Got the energy of the crowd up before I launched a new motivational talk – Better Your Business by Being Your Business Better which includes elements of Understanding Your Brand with more examples of how it works in real life. If you would like your organization fired up and working towards a common goal, contact me.  The presentation takes an hour (there is a 30-minute Reader’s Digest version if you’re strapped for time) and will do far more than just raise your testosterone or lower your cortisol.

It’s Good for Morale, Too!

Do you have a way for your customers to tell you what they think?  Most of them won’t say it to your face.  Only a small handful will pick up the phone and call.  A few will post it on Facebook.  But wouldn’t it be better to capture their joy and excitement of visiting your store at the moment it happens?

Not only does a Guest Book like this allow your customers to sing your praises at the moment they are feeling overjoyed by their visit, it gives you some incredible feedback.  There are clues hidden in the messages they write.  (If no one praises you at all, that’s a really big clue that they aren’t having the kind of fun they should be having.)

One of the benefits most people miss is that when a customer takes the time to write something down, it helps her brain store that thought more permanently.  Therefore, she will think more highly of you just from the simple act of writing it down, and she will be more likely to sing your praises to others because the memory is so much stronger.

Plus, your staff gets a big boost when they read the flowery praises you are most likely to get.  It reinforces all you have been teaching them about the power of WOW Customer Service.  It gets them fired up to continue raising the bar.

My staff will sometimes call me out of the office just to read what another customer wrote.

Set up a Guest Book in your store.  See how it increase both your word-of-mouth referrals and the morale of your staff.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  And those aren’t even the best things said about us in our book!

What Do They Know?

Your customers know a lot.  You know that.  They often know as much about your products as you do, and usually way more than the part-time neighborhood kid you hired to answer phones and wrap gifts.

Where did they get that info?

From that most informative and reliable source… say it all together…

…their friend!

What? You thought I was going to say Internet?  Okay, yes, the Internet is where that information is held. But the information she tends to trust the most is reviews from other users.  Her new best friends.  People who claim to have used your products and are now experts on those products (even though they never read the instructions, even though they may have used the product in ways it was not designed, even though they may have a slant against or for certain brands, even though they have nothing to compare this product to, even though you have no idea if they are a shill for the brand.)

So let me ask you… Are you reading those reviews, too?  Are you looking at what other people are saying about the products you sell?  Are you finding out what the end-users believe is the downside of your product?

You should.

Your staff should, too.

Then when she brings it up, you’ll be prepared.  Or even better, you can talk about the downsides right up front.  Not only will it reassure her that you know what you’re talking about, it will reassure her that you understand both the pros and cons of the product and won’t sell her anything unless she knows, too.

It is a great way to create trust with your customers.  Plus, when she sees that you read the same reviews she read, she feels more of a personal connection to you.  You’re her type of person.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  Trust is the most precious commodity you can build for your store.  Own that trait and you’ll own more than your share of the market.  Talking willingly and openly about the downside of a product, is just one way to create trust.  To learn more about how to build trust, read my friend Tom’s book, Currencies That Build Credibility.

Easier to Shoot Low

It is so much easier to lower expectations than it is to raise them.  So much easier to complain that Obamacare will cost too much, the Republicans will cut too much, the stock market will be too volatile, the economy isn’t growing fast enough, our local government is holding us back, the Internet is hurting us, the vendors don’t care about us, etc…

But what message does that send your customers?  Does it fire them up to want to shop with you when you complain all the time?  No.  It makes them hunker down in fear.
And what message does it send your staff? Does it motivate them to work harder and be more cheerful? No. It makes them polish off their resumes and start looking for someone who isn’t acting like they are about to go out of business.
Now, I’m not saying you need to go all Pollyanna on everyone.  You just need to raise your expectations.
What can you control?
Your attitude.
Your selection.
Your advertising.
Your merchandising.
Your level of customer service.
The experience your customers have in your store.
Raise the bar of expectation in all those areas.  Shoot high.  Really high.  Get excited about your ability to take all of those elements to the next level.  Get your staff excited about it, too.  Make it a game to see who can create a better endcap display.  Make it a contest to see who can come up with the next great event idea.  Make it a badge of honor to see who can create the most smiles in your store.
You might not hit your mark every time.  But just missing a really high mark is far better than easily hitting a really low mark.
Plus, when you aim high all those fears at the top disappear below you.  
-Phil Wrzesinski
PS  What prompted this post was an article where Citigroup was downgrading certain high-end retailers’ stock grades because of the volatility in the stock market.  Ummm… hasn’t the stock market always been volatile?  It is easier for an analyst to shoot low, because no one is mad if she’s wrong. You aren’t an analyst, though.  So shoot high.

Same Song, Different Dance?

Let me tell you a cautionary tale, one you probably already know…

Your company has some burdens, costs of doing business where you live.  Could be property taxes, licenses, etc.  Mandated costs that you have a legal obligation to pay.  You price your product to make sure you cover those costs, but even then you don’t have full control over your prices.  There are still limits to the price for which you can realistically sell your product.

Then some business from out-of-state, one who has lower costs because of his geographical advantages and lack of obligations, comes in and wants to sell what you sell, but at a lower price.  Of course, he is only doing it to gain market share and hopefully put you out of business, nothing different than you would do.

Then only difference is that he has no skin in the game.  He pays nothing to your state.  He employs nobody in your area.  He doesn’t even have to follow all the same rules you have to follow.

As he takes away your market share, you don’t just lose profits.  You lose the ability to cover those fixed costs, those legal obligations.  You have to either find ways to charge more to your existing customers, or go out of business.  It is a lose-lose proposition.

And when you can no longer pay your obligation to the state, the local economy loses and more people are out of work, thus scrambling to find the lowest cost anything, regardless of the consequences.  It is a vicious downward spiral.  To top it all off, at the end of the day, there is no control over what this out-of-stater might do after you are gone.

Seem unfair?

Some of you might think I’m talking about the Main Street Fairness Act, sales tax, and Amazon.  Funny thing is that there is a parallel problem going on that also fits this story all too well.

Electricity.

The State of Michigan has regulations and burdens on the two utilities – Consumers Energy and DTE – including making them invest heavily in renewable energy – a worthy but expensive venture.  The state also requires them to have the ability to offer power to every potential customer in the state.  And the state controls the prices they can charge to their customers.  Currently the state allows a 10% cap on out-of-state electricity to be sold in MI.  Some people want to raise that cap to potentially near 40% – but without releasing our two utilities from their expensive burdens.  Sure, a few people would save money on electricity for a short period of time, but the ramifications to the economy would be felt far beyond the savings.

You would think that with all the discussion on the Main Street Fairness Act and what allowing Amazon to work without the same burdens as other businesses is doing to local economies everywhere, people would get the ramifications.  Instead we have to fight the same old fight one industry at a time.

The song remains the same.  Maybe we need to change the dance?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.Philsforum.com

PS  This is a departure from my usual types of posts.  I don’t like to get political, just want to point out that the same conversation we are having here in retail is happening in all kinds of industries.  Before anyone bashes me about free market, etc., I get the concepts of free market economies and competition and how at the end of the day the customer should be in control.  The two issues here are first, that the market isn’t free.  Different companies face different – legally mandated – burdens.  And second, the customer doesn’t understand the economic impacts beyond his or her own pocketbook.  Someone somewhere has to pay for lower prices.

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).

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?