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If you have ever managed people, you know it is rarely “one big thing” that results in someone being sacked. Rather it is the accumulation of “little things” – the cross word here, the missed result there that build up over time. They build and build until finally the person gets enough negative strikes against them that the boss decides to sack them.

So too with business. It is rarely the big things that lose you customers, rather it is the little things, the petty annoyances that build up over time until one day your customer sacks you and moves on. The problem is that customers rarely complain about the little things.

One of my colleagues mentioned in his blog post four little fees of less than $5 each that had been levied when he had his car serviced. It was enough to annoy him and trigger him to change mechanics. The servicing was fine – it was the little things that prompted change.

I have had my own share of little experiences. I have a dentist who 4 months ago changed the girl who issues the orthodontic accounts. So far not one account we have received from her has been correct. Each month she gets the name wrong, forgets to include the name of the dentist or the treatment number. Each month the mistake is different.  The orthodontic work is fine, but the irritation of each month having to hassle to get accounts printed with correct details on them is enough that as soon as the braces come off my daughter we will be changing dentists. Like I say … little things.

I have heard of customers changing businesses because front displays are too wide so prams can’t get past them easily. Other people have left service businesses because calls were not returned within a reasonable time, or because customer toilets were not regularly checked throughout the day.  People hate dirty floors in shops. They complain to their friends when they can’t hear the girl in the drive-through … but they never complain to management.

But it is not just in the physical world. People get irritated by spelling and grammatical errors in documents and websites. Slow loading sites make them click away. If they can’t easily find what they are looking for on a site, they leave. Website studies by neuroscientists suggest this is because it generates stress and increases concentration demands on people. Whatever the reason – people leave.

Humans are funny things. They can deal with big things, but it is the little things that are the straws that break the camel’s back. It is the little things that change behaviour.

What are the small things in your business that are costing you customers? Take stock today and fix just one small thing.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance writer

For years I have been nagging the kids to “turn the lights off, you are wasting power”. “Don’t swing on the fridge door – you are letting the cold air out” “Turn the TV off”  nag nag nag. And my results – nothing short of spectacularly zero. The lights stay on, the TV plays to itself and the fridge constantly has to get re-chilled.

You see, it’s one of those human nature traits – you can tell someone that something is true, but unless they can see something happening with their own eyes they doubt.  So, I tried showing them the electricity bills. But that is a lag indicator – it is a performance measure that shows past results and so therefore has little effect on behaviour.

So yesterday I had the Climate Smart people install a real time energy monitor. It shows in real time how much electricity you are using, how much it costs and how much carbon you are putting into the atmosphere. The kids were enthralled. They wandered around the house turning stuff on and off – trying to find the appliances that used the most, through the least. They opened the fridge door to see what happened. We did the sums to work out how much each thing cost each year to run – and I then equated it to i-pods, i-tunes vouchers and other items of kids currency.

And then … they started wandering around turning things off.  Last night was the first time that the light-bulb went off – literally.

I will work on reinforcing the message, but it goes to show the power of real time performance measures to change behaviour. People see the results they are getting and move to change their behaviour.

One of my colleagues – Steve Major, tells the story of a business he was working with that went from losing $1 mill per year to going to a $2 mill per annum profit just by using real time measures displayed throughout the factory.

People like to watch – how can you work with this understanding? What real time measures can you put into your workplace?

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

As readers of this blog would know I have foil roof insulation (and love it). Just to be on the safe side over the past fortnight I tried to book in electricians to double check that everything was OK. The first 3 sparkies (including my regular tradie) wouldn’t touch the job.  Each had different reasons for not doing inspections which I respect, but they are doing themselves out of work.

One of the tradies recommended me to one of the “big” electrical companies – Fallon, so I tried to book them.  Well the call centre took the booking and on the nominated day I waited and waited … only to have a “no show”. I rang the call centre and rebooked and waited again on the newly nominated day. Another no show.  So I canceled my booking with Fallon and won’t be using them for our regular work in the future.

By now I was getting frustrated so put the word out on Twitter & Facebook. One of my colleagues recommended Pulse Electrical – so I gave them a call.

The lady who answered the phone was warm and truly lovely. And she asked the question … while we are out there checking your roof, is there anything else we could do for you? Do you need any new points, switches repaired or anything you are concerned about electrically?”  Her going through the list triggered all of the jobs I had been saving for our regular sparkie, so of course I said “sure”.

Pulse were great – they turned up on time, were polite and easy to work with and did the job well. And as a result they have an additional $450 of electrical work from me in the way of new external points for our Xmas lights and a host in interior fixes. Win win all around. I’ll happily be moving all our electrical work over to Pulse.

The point is they asked the question – and made additional sales. How many times do businesses not ask the question and lose money as a result?

Oh yes, there were no problems with my foil insulation by the Australian Insulation Specialists. The sparkies reckoned it was the neatest and best job they had seen and raved about how well it had been installed (and yes they have seen many jobs by cowboys out there).

So – what opportunities are you not making the most of?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

If you are in Australia you would have to be deaf and blind not to have heard the baying of the wolves about foil ceiling insulation. You would think that the Government had personally snuck into the ceilings of unsuspecting citizens and installed incendiary bombs the way the media has represented it. This is a great example of a great product being killed by something outside the manufacturers control.

But lets start with the facts. The government of the day decided that one way to be conserve energy would be to subsidize the installation of ceiling insulation in houses in Australia. Home owners without insulation could do their research, get some quotes and then have insulation installed, the cost of which would be either fully or partially offset by the government. The scheme would create jobs through the manufacture and installation of insulation, reduce the load on the electricity grid and save consumers money – all at a time of economic crisis. Whatever your politics and whether or not you agree with the approach, this was the basis for the scheme.

At no time were citizens told which insulation they must buy or who should install it – people did their own research and made their own choices. They could choose from fibreglass batts, pumped in products, wool or foil – the choice was entirely theirs.

I was one of those many citizens who thought “You beauty” and decided to take the government up on its offer.  So I hit the net. I checked out Choice – our consumer company to find out what insulation they recommended for our hot and humid Australian climate. Foil insulation came up trumps for Brisbane. I then hit the forums to hear other householders stories – looking for every possible flaw and mistake. Foil came out on top.It was clean (no dust allergens), helped repel moisture in case of a leaky roof (after our history with storms that was important), was stable, didn’t rot and worked extremely well.  As a product it ticked every box.

I then scouted around for companies, looking for reputable installation companies that had been in business for a number of years. I quizzed the shortlisted companies to find out more about what made their company the one to choose, and then chose the best of the companies to install my foil roof insulation.

The company came when they said they would and everything went like clockwork. The insulation went in, I paid the extra money over and above the rebate (foil costs more than other forms of insulation) and the temperature inside the building dropped dramatically. “Ripper” I thought – this was great.

And then the stories started to emerge of people being electrocuted through insulation being installed with metal staples, and the staples hitting live electric wires. People died and the media started baying for blood.

But … between 1989 and 1992 3,627 Aussies died in workplace accidents. That’s over 900 a year or 2.5 people PER DAY in Australia die at work. There are so many workplace deaths that you can find death rates per industry – deaths per 100,000 employees reported as a regular statistic. And yet, these thousands of deaths per year go largely unreported. No one wants to ban products or try and bring down political parties for the 93 deaths per 100,000 forestry workers or 86 per 100 000 fishery employees. These people are almost seen as “disposable”. Nothing can be done.  It is old news.

What happens when one of these people die at work? Well a Coronial inquest may be held. Investigations occur at the workplace. The company may be fined and the grieving wife (90% of all workplace deaths are men) is given some money to ease their suffering … in silence.

Look this is not a political tirade, but just a reflection on the facts. Yes, even one workplace death is one too many – a tragedy that needs to be learnt from. But let’s get some perspective here on the insulation issue.

Yes, there were cowboy installers that didn’t train their employees and as a result people died. The same can be said of many of the mining companies, fishing trawlers and other companies that have industrial deaths.

Yes, the scheme surrounding the installation could have been refined. Hindsight is always 100% accurate, and the public servants who designed the scheme did so with the best of intentions. They need to learn the lessons and refine the process for future schemes. But, remember, they are human and humans do make mistakes at times.

Is the Minister responsible. Under the Westminster scheme of politics – to be blunt yes. But then again so is the Minister for Mines for mining deaths, the Minister for Transport for truckie deaths and so on.

Foil ceiling insulation is essentially a good product, and yet now because of the media and political circus around it the product is tainted. There is nothing wrong with the product – just how it was used. And as a result it will be decades before the product can regain public confidence and in that time many foil roof insulation companies will go bust, with hundreds of employees put onto the street.

So what can business learn from the foil ceiling insulation debacle?

1. If you are in business, does your disaster recovery plan take into account what would happen if your product suddenly becomes a political and media football? What would you do if your flagship product was suddenly so on the nose that people would pay you to take it away? These are the sorts of questions that each business owner and manufacturer needs to consider.
2. Businesses need to realize that cutting corners on safety training is a dumb move. You are playing with people’s lives here. All staff need to be trained on basic safety requirements – and that includes casuals and temporary employees. No exceptions.
3. Get a PR company on speed dial. Have you noticed that the only media coverage has been negative – where are the other viewpoints shoring up the product? Obviously no PR companies have been used by the foil companies (unlike the fibreglass batt companies I would suggest).

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

PS: Oh and yes, my roof is being inspected by a sparky tomorrow. Even with all my planning and analysis, safety comes first. I am not expecting any issues – after all there have been no sparking possums or fried snakes in my roof.  But until the inspection, there will be no visits into the roof cavity to check.

How was Valentines Day for you? Holidays and major events can be great days for businesses to make additional money with creative marketing campaigns. One of the most creative Valentines campaigns I saw this year came from a school.

The Year 12 students at Ferny Grove State High raise money each year to go towards their end of year formal and a donation to their school. Like most schools looking at fundraising they had done the chocolate drives, cake drives, pie drives to death. So this year they decided on something very different. This year on the Friday before Valentines Day the Year 12 music students hired themselves out as singing telegrams, where for $3 they would sing a love song (or other song) on behalf of the person who paid them. I gather business was very brisk, with the music students being booked all over campus to sing love songs to lovestruck boys and girls. And being very visible, more and more students booked them as the day progressed so as not be left out of the “in group”.

For those who wanted a more private declaration of interest, the business students purchased bucketfuls of small stem red roses – not the fancy ones, but ones that would probably be classed as seconds. They sold each rose for $1 a rose.  Business boomed, couples bought them, friends bought them for each other, teachers bought them – it was a massive success. Waiting outside the school gate in the afternoon, all you could see were girls carrying their roses home.

Whoever was advising these students deserves a huge standing ovation. They took a captive market, created two promotional products that had great appeal, priced them at two levels to capture different markets, created desire for the products and as a result had a highly successful campaign.

School fundraising ideas don’t have to be stuffy. Some of my previous favourites included the mango drive where you could buy a tray of luscious mangoes,  the “Change for Chappies” campaign where parents are encouraged to send in 5c and other small coins towards the school chaplaincy program and Party Plan Online where you can host an online party that lasts for a fortnight and all the parents can attend and shop from the retailers they prefer with a % of sales going into school funds.

I’d love to hear  of other creative ideas for school fundraising.  What have you experienced?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Does your business back up every electronic file regularly (and by regularly I mean at a bare minimum weekly)?  And for those of you looking all smug – do you have off-site back-ups in case of a disaster in your property?

Last year I heard many war stories about files going missing in floods, fires, storms, burglary – as well as simple human error and virus attack. People who did back-up regularly and popped their back up drive into the safe, came back to find the safe after the fire had survived, but the back up drive had melted.

The lesson is to either back up to one of the on-line services or buy a couple of external drives and swap them around. You can pick up external systems for less than $150 – is your business worth more than $150?

Now another question – do you back up the most important piece of information in your business? Think twice before answering this one. If you produce an ezine or have some other form of web presence, and your “list” of email names is stored with another company such as AWeber, GetResponse or other third party provider, do you back up your full list weekly to your system?

Sure the third party provider does their own back-ups, but “things happen” from as simple as you forgetting to pay a bill and your account being closed to a major disaster for the third party company. You want a back up of your data on your system just in case. All internet marketers will tell you that “the money is in the list”. You can take away their whole business but as long as they have their list they will be able to keep trading. Their approach is worthwhile adopting.

While we are talking back ups – do you have your own back-up on your system of your website, blog, tweets and/or Facebook data? More core data that you need to add into your back-up cycle “In case”.

What about your cell phone data? Is that backed up regularly?

The trick with all of this is to:

(1) nominate responsibility for someone to back everything up regularly

(2) create a schedule to follow (for example – every Friday afternoon) and a list of things to back up

(3) follow up that it is being done

(4) check the quality of your back-ups periodically (there is no point having a back-up that doesn’t restore when you need it).

(5) duplicate – make sure you have more than one back-up at any given time.

I am sure there are some IT businesses who may want to chime in with their tips, or companies with war stories of not having had the back up when they needed it – love to hear them! Me … I’m off to run my weekly back-ups

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

There is an interesting debate going on about how to get people to comply with rules, policies and even just things that are good for their health.  Over Christmas I read the book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. It is a great book which looks at the psychology behind decision making – and why we decide the things that we do.

The basic approach in the book is if we know how people think, we can then change the conditions to make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves and society, in effect we nudge people to do what is right. The book covers off the issue of whether or not this is “big brother” or even whether this is ethical, (but in my thinking it is still a very uneasy relationship and one that merits further debate).

Some practical examples may help clarify some of the ideas.

• Organ donors are in short supply. If you want to increase the rate of organ donors, then make it mandatory that all organs will be donated unless people tick the box on their drivers license NOT to donate their organs instead of the approach at present of ticking if you do want to donate your organs.
• If you want to boost your savings, create a savings plan where you start by saving a very small amount and then automatically increase it by a small amount every few months (say 2%).
• If you want to reduce the number of cars whose batteries go flat by leaving the lights on, then have auto darkness sensing headlights that turn off when the engine is turned off ( I have this in my new car and love it).

These are not Micky Mouse ideas. They work on the concept of people being in unless they take specific action to get out, or out unless they take specific action to get in. And they get brilliant results!

Bigger examples being discussed are the review of the tax system in Australia & the US, where potentially everyone gets the same sized refund unless they fill in a form (which will do away with many hundreds of thousands of tax returns each year). In Australia we have mandatory voting, in the US it’s optional – guess who has the better voting turn out?

Of course, this type of thinking has been in use for years with the direct mail and internet marketing community. You receive a magazine each month and your account is debited until you stop the debit. You try a membership site for a low fee (or free) and at the end of the period your account is debited for $x each month until you stop. You are in unless you take action to get out.

In the past spammers (and many businesses) used this approach to get email addresses. Sign up for this competition and tick the box if you DON’T want your details to be shared with 4 million other businesses.  The ACCC has taken a dim view of this approach and now requires all people to be out unless they specifically opt in.

The thing is this approach works brilliantly for both good and less virtuous applications.  When you start to look around you, you will see an increase in number of “Nudge” approaches being adopted by government and business.

The question is – do you agree? How do you guard yourself against less than positive nudges? It would certainly pay to buy or borrow a copy of Nudge, read the Nudge blog and start to become conscious of the nudges in your life.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Recently I have been having a great discussion with a colleague about the difference between selling your knowledge (doing the work for other people) and selling “how to” apply your knowledge.

If you take a look around the self help section of most book stores, you will notice that “How to” books have been taking over shelf space at a great rate of knots. People love to learn how to do things and are willing to give a lot of things a go provided they have the right information and support. But is this trend good or bad for business?

Most businesses take the “this will take away my business” approach, so horde their knowledge as effectively as squirrels store nuts for the winter. They only share information if money crosses their palms and jealously guard their hard won knowledge.

Yet other businesses take the total opposite approach. In the internet marketing world “moving the free line” is gaining massive momentum. What people used to pay for is now given away as free, with other paid items being offered to the free list later. These “back end sales” come as a result of the business having demonstrated their expertise and giving people a taste of what it would be like working with them. And people take up the paid offers in droves as a result of their experience.

But where did this approach come from? Well, free tastes have been part of history, but one of my favourite stories relates to a simple US shirtmaker in the mid 1800’s. He worked out that there were more customers out there who may be interested in learning how to make one of his shirts than would be interested in buying his shirts. So in 1863 he designed the first paper pattern in a variety of sizes, coupled with instructions on how to make his shirts. This was the first time that paper patterns had been made commercially available.

The idea was a massive success and before long he designed patterns for ladies clothes, mens trousers and childrens clothes. In fact the idea took off with such success that it became a million dollar international business.  The guys name was Ebenezer Butterick and home sewers everywhere still buy Butterick patterns today. (Thanks R. Brasch “A Bee in your bonnet?” for this story).

The point here is most businesses have something that they can teach people to do at home and this information can generate revenue either from purchase of the information product or from “back end” sales. Taking an abundance approach in terms of sharing your information can be good for your business.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance copywriter

With all the furor over iSnack 2.0 and iPad (proof we need more women in IT), it helps to go back into history to soothe frazzled business execs nerves that not all naming stuff ups are bad for business.

Think of the ubiquitous Pizza Hut. This business was started by two humble uni students in 1958 who saw how popular pizzas were at toga parties, so conned their mum into funding a pizza shop. They rented a property on a busy street corner, bought second hand equipment and hired the cheapest signwriter they could find to put the word Pizza in big letters on a sign. The signwriter must have been having one too many that day, because they painted the word “Pizza” on an angle and lopsided. The guys couldn’t afford to get a new sign done, so they worked out they could put three letters under the word Pizza. After much searching through the dictionary, they found the word “Hut” and the distinctive Pizza Hut company came into being. (We gratefully acknowledge R Brasch in his book “A bee in your bonnet?” for this story).

The Pizza Hut guys didn’t have expensive competitions, or run massive focus groups to come up with their name. They just had a problem and had to solve it, and you could argue they did it more effectively than a mountain of marketing people at Kraft and Apple.

The two boys also had a lot of the right ideas in terms of naming their business for a web 2.0 world. You see  it pays to name your company with words that include the term that most people are looking for on the net (and buy the .com to match). This means your keywords naturally appear in searches sort of like instant SEO without too much hassle, and your business is easy to find. You could get all creative with a unique name, but where there is a simple solution that gives you brilliant SEO benefits, you may want to try that first.

So, if you get stuck for a business name, certainly get some data on what people are looking for on the net, and then bung on a simple word ala Pizza Hut. You could be on a real winner!

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance copwriter

On our holidays last week we visited two iconic tourist attractions on the Sunshine Coast – The Big Pineapple and the Buderim Ginger Factory. Both have been around for about as long as each other. Both promote a particular food product (pineapples and ginger). Both have very similar offerings – a tourist shop, guided tour to learn how the food product is grown and processed, train rides, mechanical rides and restaurants. Yet the experiences could not be more extreme.

The Big Pineapple is a massive fibreglass pineapple that you can walk through. It is heritage listed as it is such a part of the Qld psyche. In its heyday you had to queue for ages to fork over large sums of money to taste one of their famous pineapple boats (parfaits). There were train rides through the pineapple plantation, rides in cute macadamia nutmobiles through the macadamia nut grove, boat ride through the future of food, and an animal nursery. While most of these attractions are still there is an air of dank decay around the place.

When we got into the car, I asked my teenager to describe what she saw:

• One of the attractions had obviously been affected by a storm a long while back – all the canvas was in shreds and the attraction closed (this was the first thing you saw when you drove into the carpark).
• The outdoor toilets were sealed off (and by the look of the cobwebs had been so for a long time), with portaloos the only options. The indoor toilets only had one soap dispenser – the rest had been ripped from the walls. The floor and wall tiles were cracked and only about 1/3 of the toilets were not blocked off.
• The carpark was full of potholes and untended gardens.
• The entrance was blocked – and although it was free to enter, you had to give your details to the overworked lady at the front who would try to sell tours to you. Most people gave up and just pushed the gates open themselves and went around her.
• Tours were relatively expensive and didn’t explain what you would get for the money.
• The tourist shop was full of cheap trinkets – the same as you would see at any Dollar store. There was very little unique or different. After much searching we finally spotted a few lonely pineapples (with fruit fly buzzing around them).
• The restaurant functioned (sort of). It was massive, it echoed and guests were few and far between. Parfaits were still on sale at very high prices.
• The staff wore dirty uniforms, were frazzled and didn’t know what they were doing. They were obviously not enjoying their jobs.

I asked my teen to put into a few words her experience. “Sad. The place looks uncared for, unloved and the staff obviously have taken that feeling to heart in how they treat their customers”. Her prediction “closed within 6-12 months maximum”

It was no surprise to hear later on that it was in receivership. They took what worked many years ago and then didn’t keep pace with the changes.

The Buderim Ginger Factory was a totally different experience. Again in the words of my teen.

• The carpark was neat, clean and well signposted.
• The gardens were amazing – full of flowering ginger plants.
• The opening was wide and welcoming.
• The tour desk was clearly visible – with no hard sell. Tours were clearly explained.
• Staff were warm, welcoming and efficient (and with neat uniforms).
• The guided tour was informative and ended with a tasting of products and with ideas on how to use and combine the foods into recipes.
• The Cookery School was amazing. Michelin rated chef teaching people how to cook (with ginger of course).
• Lots to keep smaller kids interested with kids tours and Gingerbread people.
• Lots of food options – from home made ice-cream store, to sweets & meals.
• Immaculate toilets.
• Store had a massive range of ginger (and honey) related products as well as the best cooking equipment range outside of Brisbane.

I personally was fascinated by how the Ginger Factory had seen the trend for the fascination for cooking and had positioned themselves to capitalise on this through their cooking school, product ranges and teaching people how to use their products in their cooking. They held regular events with guest speakers and chefs to draw people back time and again. They also had gardening experts showing the beauty of the ginger plants (and selling many ginger plants in the process).

This place was buzzing – with locals and tourists rubbing shoulders into what has become a real hub for the community. Her prediction “Will expand. I can see it going on TV on gardening and cooking shows”.

The difference? The Ginger Factory was all about the future – teaching people to buy and use their products way into the future. Yes, there was a great experience in the “now”, but the seeds were planted for future purchases.

The Big Pineapple was all about the past – We used to be good. We are an icon. People “should” come. Experiences were also only focussed on the present moment. There was no recurring income. No way people could take a bit of the pineapple with them.

So, why did I ask my teen to describe what she had seen? Just to show it is really easy for anyone to pick up which businesses are working and which ones are in trouble. The things she looked for were the same things that all customers look for:

• staff who care and know what they are on about,
• clean and well maintained facilities,
• sense of community,
• help to know how to get the most out of your product or service and
• a unique experience.

Many businesses could do with a teenager to look through their business and tell them what they see.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter