2. Your written systems (if they’re rigid, inflexible, un-personalised and can’t be changed with influence from your team and customers)
3. Your number one customer (if your business is too dependant upon having their custom)
4. The customer you’re dealing with right now (if you don’t have a service plan in place to nurture the relationship into the future)
5. Your best salesperson / employee (if they believe that they’re indispensable, worst still if you believe they are)
6. Your longest standing employee (if they can’t embrace change)
What could be a hidden asset?
1. Your customer complaints (they should scream to you: fix or implement a system here)
2. Your outgoing emails (many could serve as a blog post, an answer to a frequently answered question and a reason never to have to type that same email answering that same question ever again)
3. Your current customer when you only have a few (One delighted customer (if you do it right) can talk about you ten times more than 10 moderately satisfied ones)
4. Your suppliers (if there’s a hidden customer hiding there)
5. That plucky (translation: sometimes annoying) employee who just won’t shut up with all their great ideas (find a way to channel their creativity so that you don’t get frustrated, and so that you can farm any brilliance that may occur)
Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: www.kirstydunphey.com
Earlier this week I went to see a health practitioner, let’s call him Dr. Chris. When I mentioned that I’d previously seen a different health practitioner, let’s call him Dr. Joe, to treat my ailment Dr. Chris then proceeded to tell me that Dr. Joe was every sort of evil under the sun and had probably ruined me for life with his service.
I left with a pretty uneasy feeling about Dr. Chris – I found the talk unprofessional, unnecessary and I left feeling no less confident about Dr. Joe! All Dr. Chris did was make me feel less confident in him.
So when is the right time to bad mouth your competitors?
When you really really want the client?
When you know for a certainty that your competitor is a really dodgy character?
When your client starts to bad mouth them first?
In short, NO NO NO!
Even if you really want the client, bad mouthing your competitor only makes you appear unprofessional. The alternative: Just talk up your own positive points (without saying you do it better than your competitor, that still counts as bad mouthing). Check out this link to see when bad-mouthing goes to a ridiculous level http://www.designersmind.com/creative-showcase/creative-airline-advertisements/. I also saw today Virgin Blue’s rewards program Velocity entered the grey zone in bad mouthing stating something to the effect of: “the new Qantas Frequent Flyer Rewards program proudly brought to you by Velocity” which reminded me a little of these airline adverts.
Even if you are 100% positive that your competitor is a dodgy character, bad mouthing them makes you look like even more of a dodgy character! The alternative: recommend that your client asks to speak to people who’ve dealt with whichever professional they are going to do business with, this way they can get the real truth about your competitor from their previous clients (be prepared though that this also means you recommend they speak to your clients!)
If your client starts to bad mouth your competitor, even then – don’t help them get stuck in! The alternative: tell your client what you would do in any situation where they have had bad previous dealings and see if that’s how they would like to be dealt with in the future.
On the flipside… if you’re this major company – you can make an entire ad campaign with Drew Barrymore’s paramour (sorry – but I love that rhyme) bad mouthing your competitors http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/
But without Apple’s budget and ad-guys – you’re probably going to end up no more slick than this:
My preferred method? Do the opposite and find opportunities to congratulate your competitors. This worked exceptionally well for me in real estate. I’d make sure I knew a positive point about the agents I most regularly competed with so that I could say credibly something like: “Sue’s lovely, she writes really creative advertisements and she keeps the rest of us on our toes in that respect”. Client’s don’t expect it and most respect you for taking the high road.
And back to Dr. Chris and Dr. Joe, the first thing I did when I went home was let the friend who’d referred me to Dr. Chris know what he’d said about Dr. Joe. Being that Dr. Joe’s a personal friend of hers I’m not sure Dr. Chris will be getting too many other referrals from her.
Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of http://www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: http://www.kirstydunphey.com
A lot of things bug me. One of them is seeing a company with a website that doesn’t have email @ that website. For example, their business card will read:
It just drives me insane that someone would go to the trouble of having a domain name, but not also have service@bucketoftrouble.com / james@bucketoftrouble.com etc as their email aliases.
While I’m ranting thought, let me tell you one thing that doesn’t bug me. Companies that make clever usage of their email aliases:
legendaryservice [at] atlassian.com reminded me how much I love interesting email aliases this morning (why am I typing [at] instead of using the @ - because this is a real email addresses – and I don’t want them to get besigued with spam)
What does it cost you to get another email alias set up so that Robyn at your work had the email:
Well, with my internet hosting set up, it wouldn’t cost me anything extra. You might find it costs a couple of extra dollars set up, once off.
But the benefits are: You make Robyn smile, you make Robyn more likely to want to give her email address out (and your company domain conversely) to everyone she knows, you make your customer smile, you show a bit of your personality. All good things if you ask me.
Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of http://www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: http://www.kirstydunphey.com
Friends and I were chatting recently about our favourite places in the world to shop. Paris, Berlin, London, Thailand all got a mention along with one of my favourites Mexico.
I’ve only spent half a day in Mexico (so far!) – but it was one of the most enjoyable shopping experiences of my life.
Why?
Firstly, I love to bargain – and so did the shop owners I met in Mexico.
Secondly, the entertainment value was immense. To prove to me that it was real gemstones, leather or silver I was being sold, every merchant we met in Mexico whipped out a lighter and burnt their product saying that real gems don’t melt and plastic burns but leather doesn’t etc (highly entertaining especially after a few daiquiris).
In having this discussion with friends however I was told what may be an urban myth about shopping in Tijuana, Mexico. The myth being that when you purchase something you’re given a plastic bag that corresponds to your strength as a buyer.
As an example, a yellow bag may mean you’re a complete push over and will pay way over market value but a blue bag may mean you’re a hard negotiator who’ll drive the price down and bargain til you’re blue in the face.
Is it true? I have no idea. But I must admit – I think its genius.
Imagine if we could do this in other areas of life. If your employer were to send you out to the marketplace secretly colour coded say with red meaning you were a world class invaluable employee, how do you think that would impact the next job interview you went on? What secret colour coding would you have if your clients were secretly rating you? Your boss? Your family? Your friends?
Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: www.kirstydunphey.com
