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ATLANTA - Okay. Here is something brand new for 2008: The Marketing Headhunter Minute, a 60 second podcast series about careers in marketing. The sound quality is not the greatest, but I figured what with 74 million blogs out there, your eyes might need a rest. Let me know what you think. Click here to listen.
HOUSTON, TX - This holiday season, I thought I'd give my readers a gift: Marketing guru David Frey has graciously agreed to let me publish his fantastic primer on the most important marketing concept ever: The Unique Selling Proposition. All marketers should understand this concept. This is the second installment (of three), and I encourage you to visit David's website, MarketingBestPractices.com
PART TWO: Be Specific!
How many small businesses do you hear saying, 'The Best Selection in Town' or 'Service with a Smile.' I have to tell you that these phrases are worn-out, tired renditions of a 'me too' business. Be specific with your USP. When Domino's stated that your pizza would be, (1) fresh, (2) hot, and (3) delivered within 30 minutes, it was specific and measurable. Likewise, 'Buy it today and install it tonight,' that's specific and measurable.
How to Identify and Develop Your USP
You shouldn't rush or hurry the decision of your USP. You will spend thousands of dollars on advertising and promoting your USP. Once you've made your impression and then decide to change it you begin to confuse your prospect and it will cost you even more money to re-implement a different USP.
If your USP is a promise or guaranteed you must make sure that you can fulfill your USP promise. Domino's had a very bold USP. To get a pizza to anyone's house in their marketplace within 30 minutes was sometimes a difficult feat to consistently accomplish. But the rewards were fantastic.
How do you pick a USP?
You need to first identify which needs are going unfulfilled within either your industry or your local market. These are called 'performance gaps.' Many businesses that base their USP on industry performance gaps are successful. Here are some examples in different small business industries:
Example # 1 - Auto Repair Industry
Example # 2 - Dental Industry
Example # 3 - Real Estate Industry
You can see how a performance gap can lead to a powerful USP. You can also have local performance gaps that will give you a great USP as well. For instance, if you are an electronics outlet and you have more inventory than anyone else in town your USP could be, 'We Have 10 Times the Selection than Any Store In Town. Go Visit the Rest, Then Come Shop at the Best.'
COMING SOON: Part III of this article.
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For a special holiday message from Harry, the Recruiting Animal, Maureen Sharib (the Queen Bee of Telephone Sourcing), and the WorkFarce ...
These are some of my favorite people, yet I have never met them in person. What is this world coming to?
PITTSBURGH, PA - This week I was contacted by a company with a .Jobs TLD. "TLD" stands for Top Level Domain, and you see them every day in the form of a .com, .net, .org, or dot-whatever.
Two years ago, the dot-jobs TLD was launched with great fanfare, partially as a way for corporate recruiting departments to maintain EZ-to-find career sites for their candidates -- but mostly as a way for these sites to jump to the front of the organic SERP's.
Sort of like a Special Access Pass at Disney World.
Essentially, dot-jobs was an SEO play marketed in the name of improving the jobseeker's search experience. The pitch was that jobseekers who Google for "Merck jobs" (for example) would prefer to see the positions offered by Merck first -- and then see the "less relevant" job board and recruiter listings farther down the search result. Dot-jobs conferred instant legitimacy.
For dot-jobs customers, the arduous SEO tasks of updating keyword rich content and back linking were, presumably, to be secondary concerns. A standalone career site hosted on a dot-jobs domain was a trump card: dot-jobs beats dot-com, beats dot-net, beats dot-biz, and so on. PPC costs would tumble, the argument went, as career sites floated to their "rightful place" at the top of the organic results. Sweet victory!
It was a good idea. But in practice, dot-jobs doesn't seem to be working out that way. Here is the career site of the company who contacted me. And here is the search I did for them on Google. Where's the dot-jobs result? M.I.A.
Now curious, I ran some other Google searches for dot-jobs career sites:
Note: These aren't just random companies. They're companies being touted on the dot-jobs homepage as flagship customers. Only Publix enjoys a top ranking with its dot-jobs domain. Everybody else is trailing the job boards that dot-jobs was supposed to preempt. Merck even has a testimonial on the dot-jobs homepage, yet Merck's dot-jobs page is fifth in the organic rankings (at least for my Google datacenter). Ouch.
What gives? Is a dot-jobs domain worth the $120/year investment? That's more than twelve times what dot-com domains sell for. Somebody enlighten me.
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HOUSTON, TX - This holiday season, I thought I'd give my readers a gift: Marketing guru David Frey has graciously agreed to let me publish his fantastic primer on the most important marketing concept ever: The Unique Selling Proposition. All marketers should understand this concept. No exceptions! I will run David's piece in three installments, and I encourage you to visit David's website, MarketingBestPractices.com
PART I: Differentiate or Die
What do all three of these slogans have in common? They are powerful statements of uniqueness that helped to propel their respective companies to success.
Your Unique Selling Proposition
Each of these slogans is their respective company's unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is something that differentiates you from all your competitors both local and industry-wide. It's what makes you so unique that people will choose to do business with you over any of your competitors. Your USP states your distinct advantage.
One of the deadliest mistakes small businesses make is not being unique. Now more than ever you must differentiate your small business.
Explosion of Consumer Choice
Today there is an explosion of choices for consumers. During slow times the same amount of small businesses will be vying for a diminishing amount of prospects. When this happens the competitive landscape gets tougher and choices for consumers gets more difficult. If you want to survive during the slow economy you must differentiate yourself in the eyes of your prospect. Your USP is what states to the world why you are different.
Factoid: The origin of USP comes from a man named Rosser Reeves, considered the 'high priest of hard sell.' An advertising agency chairman back in the 60's, Reeves wrote a book titled, 'Reality in Advertising' which was translated into 28 languages. It was Reeves who introduced and defined the concept called Unique Selling Proposition. In fact, one of Mr. Reeves most successful USP's was "Melts in your mouth -- not in your hands."
Why is Your USP so Important
To be successful in business you don't have to be the best, you just have to be unique. Identifying, developing, and incorporating your USP into everything you do is challenging. But the reward is worth every effort. It will differentiate you, distinguish you, and give you an advantage over everyone in your marketplace.
'Me too' businesses rarely survive. They usually end up in price wars because they don't have anything unique about them to establish value in the minds of their prospects. They are left with only one weapon with which to compete, price. And unless you have a significant cost advantage over your other small business competitors, you will lose.
Make Your USP Crystal Clear
The more clearly you announce your USP, the more often they'll choose you over your competition. You must use your USP to dominate your local market. When a consumer thinks of buying a product in your industry, your name must be the first one that pops into their mind.
Your USP must create a real and perceived advantage in your prospect's mind. For example, Dominos made a very bold guarantee that if they didn't deliver your pizza within 30 minutes of ordering, it would be free of charge. Dominos put their USP into action.
COMING SOON: Part II of this article.
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BOSTON, MA - Last week I closed a search for a Boston-based ecommerce company. As usual, the client was wonderful, and the candidate is a very talented individual who had accomplished a great deal in his most recent job. He had been there for five years.
But here's the rub: While my candidate has a long track record of success, his last six months on the job were somewhat tension-filled, largely because he was assigned to a new boss who does not understand the internet. My father used to tell me that "people tend to fear what they don't understand and kill what they fear."
Such was the case here.
My candidate's Luddite boss clung to some antiquated ideas about marketing and was determined to minimize the internet's influence on the company's marketing initiatives. Right. Long story short, I helped my candidate find a more future-oriented employer, and on Monday he will resign. [Notice that the job change was not about the money. It was about a better opportunity.]
How to resign your job:
Imagine that within the last year, you and your spouse have been having serious, irreconcilable problems. Over the years you have both changed, and a while back you met someone with whom you are infinitely more compatible. You have decided that as painful as it seems, it's time to make a change.
In a love relationship, you'd simply sit down with your spouse and say "Honey, it's over." If you're a merciful person, you're a strong dumper: You'd state your case in a way that's gentle yet firm, and hard on the issues and soft on the people. You'd keep blame out of it.
Resigning a job is similar, but it differs in two ways:
1.) You need your old employer to act as a reference. You want to leave the people in your professional life with a good taste in their mouths about you. What a crazy world it would be if your new spouse asked to speak with your old spouse about you before accepting your marriage proposal!
Well, that's the way it works in the real world, folks. And you can expect the reference checking questions to be a regular kiss and tell. Therefore, it's absolutely essential that you maintain the highest level of professionalism before, during, and after your resignation -- because you will ALWAYS be expected to use your current employer as a reference.
2.) Your departure can create the appearance of trouble in your current company. While this is less of an issue for line level employees, I have worked with several senior executives whose departure from a company was construed within the professional community as a sign that something was seriously wrong with their employer. Customers, bankers, and vendors might well ask "How on earth could they let him go? What's wrong with them??" Such chatter is bad for everyone, including you.
If you are leaving your company, here's a list of things to do -- and NOT to do:
DO tell your boss first that you are leaving -- and do it face to face.
DO plan what you are going to say ahead of time.
DO volunteer to train your replacement. If you're a responsible, owner-mined executive, then you will already have some idea of who your replacement should be. Ideally, you would have groomed this person to take over for you -- regardless of whether your company decides to bring in an outsider to replace you. A train wreck after your departure might make you feel vindicated that your company should have loved you more while you were there -- but it won't do anything for your reputation.
DO be the first person to tell your coworkers, unless your employer insists on doing that for you. They have the right of way.
DO finish up all of your pending assignments. It's very important to stay productive during your final weeks on the job, because a strong finish will keep your references strong when you need them again.
DON'T take a counter offer. Statistically speaking, most people who take a counter offer are gone within twelve months. Much more on this later.
DON'T resign in the middle of a major crisis. It creates the impression that when the going gets tough, you're a wimp. Nobody wants to hire a wimp.
DON'T air your grievances to anyone other than the relevant company leaders. And even then, do it privately and off line (no email trails!). There's a great scene in Saving Private Ryan where Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) is speaking with one of his troops, who's complaining to his squad about the mission they're on ...
Obviously, Capt. Miller's the kind of guy I would advise my clients to hire. My search fee would be lost in the rounding of the value that guy would create! And you know that if he hadn't gotten killed at the end of the movie, his references would have been stellar.
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BOSTON, MA - Great article about retail loss prevention by Adrian Beck and Colin Peacock in the November Harvard Business Review. Since many of my candidates and clients are involved in online retailing (and this Friday is the mother of all shopping days), I thought I'd share some of the high points of the article.
Evidently, American retailers could save as much as $27 billion if they had tighter loss prevention policies and procedures. As it stands now, inventory loss in the U.S. hovers between 1.5 and 2.0% of sales. Tangled supply chains and vast merchandise assortments contribute to the problem.
Ben Franklin was WRONG.
When it comes to retail loss prevention, a penny saved is not a penny earned. It's fifty cents earned! Although this HBR article does not mention this, let me do the math for you:
$27 billion is the bottom line, after tax outflow to these retailers. That means that if these retailers did not incur this blood loss, they would be $27 billion more profitable. To NET $27 billion in an industry that has an average net profit after tax of 2%, these retailers would have to sell $27B / 2% -- or $1.350 trillion.
That's trillion, with a "T".
To recover a single penny of net profit requires fifty cents in sales (.01 / 2% = .50). This calculation applies to any business. Simply take a penny and divide it by your company's net margin percentage.
For some perspective on this, Shop.org says that the entire value of the online retailing channel this year will be ~$175 billion. By contrast, the "sales value" of the shrinkage channel is 7.75x the size of the online channel. Betcha didn't know that. I didn't realize it myself until I busted a move on my HP 17B a minute ago. If I'm wrong, somebody please chime in.
Nine keys to preventing shrink:
The article's authors studied the best practices of five companies: Target, Limited Brands, Best Buy, Gap, and CVS. Here are their methods of limiting shrinkage:
What surprised me about the article -- which I guess is why I bring it up -- is that most of these methods are cultural and procedural, not technological. Shrink management ain't about better technology. It's about vigilance. Clearly, that starts with hiring and managing A-players at all levels.
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Cue the Twilight Zone music. Now, look deep, deeeeep into the future: Last week I posted about my recent Google dream. And last night I had another internet marketing dream -- this time about web browsers. I gotta lay off the Welsh wabbit!
So here's the dream: The major browsers (Firefox, Microsoft, et al.) introduced a new feature wherein any web surfer automatically has his URL completed with a paid result as he types the URL into his browser.
For example, suppose you want to visit my site, MarketingHeadhunter.com. As you start to type "m-a-r-k-e-t-n-g-h-e-a-d-..." your browser anticipates the end of the string and automatically completes it with a paid result, such as "marketingheadhunters.net". Careless surfers who hit Enter would be sent to that site. In my dream, the only way my prospect could get to my site was to type in my entire URL, "marketingheadhunter.com" ... and then hit Enter.
Firefox's answer to Google Adwords
For the sake of result relevancy, marketinghead... might be completed with
This service might be the browsers' version of Adwords -- allowing my competitors to usurp my prospect's type-in string so long as the completion was relevant. Subdomains could work too, such as marketingheadhunters.mri.com. Even the savviest domainers like Frank Schilling and Rick Schwartz don't have the resources to tie up every single iteration of a given generic domain. It's just not practical.
Talk about disruption! Anyone intending to enter my domain name would have the browser auto-complete with the domain of any one of my competitors -- thereby siphoning off my type-in traffic. Google already offers similar "suggestion" functionality for its popular toolbar.
Do you think this could happen? The way I see it, the only way this wouldn't be bad for my business is if all web users entered URLs the way I do: With the name of the dot-com site in the browser bar, followed by the keystroke "Cntrl-Enter." Scary.
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In my opinion, this post is suitable for framing. At least that's what I'll be doing with it.
PS - Yes, it's Seth again. No, I don't know how one guy manages to get all the good ideas. Whatever. At least he shares them.
For whatever reason, I have awesome dreams.
True story: I dreamed about the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake two days before it actually happened. Now, I'm not telling you this because I want you to believe that I have special powers. You know better. Plus, any self-respecting cynic could have predicted that earthquake.
All I'm saying is that I have really cool dreams, that's all.
Anyway, last night I had a dream that I was on my elliptical trainer in my basement, watching the news on TV. And the TV anchor was a computer generated avatar that looked like a real person. In fact, I couldn't tell he was fake just by looking at him. But I knew he was fake because that sort of thing was common at the time of my dream -- whenever that was.
So I'm watching the news, and the anchor is using my name, as in "Good evening, Harry. Here's what's going on in your world today ...". And he starts telling me about my daughters and what they are browsing on the web: "[my oldest daughter] spent 45 mins on Amazon.com, reading the latest listener reviews of the new Wilco CD, Sky Blue Sky. She later blogged about it, and her post was Twittered by her friends Kylie and Maris."
The avatar continued ... "... but I'd keep an eye on [my other daughter], who continues to exchange emails with Ryan, the boy from her homeroom class whose grades have fallen sharply since his father started that new job requiring him to travel to South America ..." Etc. Etc.
And there was a predictive element to all of this too, with the anchor saying things like "Harry, please call Jim Duffy, your mortgage broker, for advice on refinancing your home if interest rates increase beyond X%. The southeastern mortgage market is a little sloppy now, but it could reach a five year high by next spring when your arm adjusts. Jim's number is 404-555-1514. I have sent him an email to pull your file. Ask him about the market on 15-year Jumbos. You can afford it -- and the increased interest deduction would offset higher taxes on your growing business."
Have your avatar call my avatar ...
"In personal health news -- your prescription for Lipitor is almost out. Harry, please ask your doctor about switching to the larger tabs, which when broken in half will allow you to reduce your monthly premiums by $X. Push YES on your TV's remote control if you would like us to send him an email about this."
The Ultimate Multichannel Experience
The punch line of the dream is that Google had bought into the cable networks and was mining all of my family's banking, insurance, shopping, medical, career testing, academic, web surfing, phone calling, TV watching, and emailing habits -- and packaging them in a special customized, personalized, subscription-based newscast and life coaching program for me to watch on demand. (I guess it's not evil if you're paying for it. Like cigarettes, maybe. Or worse.)
None of this is a surprise to you. In fact, I have blogged about similar items here, here, and here.
It's a blessing and a curse to be a kid today. My son's public school has an extranet that allows parents to log on and check his grades in real time. Seriously. He can't go to the bathroom there without us knowing about it. Yet he's doing very well in school because we don't allow him to slide too far down the slope of mediocrity. The school's administrators have partnered with the kids' parents, I guess, because "it takes a village ..."
Oh well. In sales management and in parenting: "People don't do what you expect. They do what you inspect."
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