MV newsletter - January 2006

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We have probably all stood in shops while an irate customer declares that s/he is paying the salary of that particular shop assistant, so why are they not getting the appropriate service?

A much more pertinent question would be as to who determines the remuneration and benefits package of that particular shop assistant, who promotes them, who deals with them on a daily basis and can make their life very much easier or a living hell?

The answer would, of course, not be that specific customer. It would be their management.

The truth is that the individual people you deal with the most often count the most. It is a basic law of communications. If you focus on your customers, you will tend to neglect the needs of your management. If you focus on your management, you will tend to neglect the needs of your customers.

What happens if your customers want one thing, and your management the other? Whose side are you on? You can attempt to skirt around the issue, but ultimately you will tend to come down more on one side than the other, and the side you will come down on, if you are ambitious, is that of your management.

In a small company, there is probably an urgent need to survive, so this may be less of an issue. In a large company, the chances are that the organisation can coast for many years without paying too much attention to the customer. So the smart people focus on the source of their career progression, their management.

Your big boss flies in from abroad. S/he wants to visit some customers. Which customers do you subject them to, your most awkward, demanding customers, or some tamer ones who can be guaranteed not to rave and swear at, or even hit, your boss? Yes, exactly.

So, unless your (larger) organisation makes a very specific effort to focus on the customer, backed by remuneration packages, career progression and every word and deed, the customer will always be in second place, at best, probably third.

Heavy drinkers

If you happen to be marketing vodka at the moment, this may be your luckiest or unluckiest moment, depending on your source of supply.

Russia is dry!

There are two possible causes. The official reason is that Putin has shut down vodka production in all factories that cannot measure alcohol levels electronically.

However, there is also a report today that they are feeding vodka to elephants of the Moscow State Circus on its tour of Mongolia. You do not get heavier drinkers than that.

Riots are anticipated on the streets of Russia. These may include drunken elephants, all set for a mass demonstration.

eB2Bay?

If you go on down to eBay, and type “marketing plans”, a strange thing happens. You get lots of offers of marketing planning tools and books at dirt cheap prices.

This is obviously time-sensitive information but, at the time of writing, you can buy a .pdf explanation on how to build a marketing plan for $0.01, 301 direct mail tips for $2.99, and our own Brand Marketing Plan Review guides (published to you last month) for $4.99 and $9.99.

If you want to cut out the traditional route, and simply get rich quick, go to the category “Everything else/Information Products/How-to Guides”, and you will find a lot of girly icons advertising hot get-rich-quick tips. It appears that get-rich-quick is to business what sex is to the general public, so there is a certain logic for combining the two, we suppose. The bare bottom tells you how you can make $100,000 in a day if you hand over $27.99 to her. The teasingly covered chest is selling her eBay business tips for $20.00. The naked twins advise you on how to make $20,000 a month with 10 minutes work a week, and $9.95 to them.

Or, if you prefer this sort of insight with clothes on, drop in at Early To Rise.

Enough of that, we want to buy a new building to house all these lovelies and park our cars. No problems, just go to the category “Construction/Modular, Pre-Fab Buildings”, and there you are. Get a whole steel gambrel barn, with living and office quarters, for $10,500. No, we have not a clue what a gambrel barn is either.

And, if you are interested in advertising your own business to thousands of people, most eBay sites have a “Business & Industrial” section. It will cost you cents.

Get motivated!

If you need to do a job, the right tools are invaluable. As any DIYer will tell you, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to do something with the wrong tools, or with no tools at all. The thing normally falls apart a short time later.

We view our tools that way. If you are trying to understand your value proposition, or your competitors’ strategies, or the consistency of your messaging, our tools will get you there quickly and effectively.

However, while we are happy to let rip enthusiastically about our brand marketing tools, in the end of the day, they are just tools, like hammers, chisels, screwdrivers etc..

Having a screwdriver is necessary to dealing effectively with a screw but, let us face it, it has never in itself motivated anyone to use it, simply by sitting in your toolbox and waving at you, believe us.

What we need is a little motivation to fix the problems that need fixing.

During our trawl of eBay we came across and bought HOW TO MARKET YOUR WAY TO A MILLION-DOLLAR PROFESSIONAL SERVICE PRACTICE and POWER COPYWRITING FOR THE INTERNET (e-books and MP3 recordings), both by Bob Serling, for $9.95, rather than the usual $97. They are easily worth it. We are not sure so far that they are going to tell us much more than we already know, but we stopped dead on page two. Why? Because we got motivated to do something that we had been putting off for a year which we all knew to be critical, but we simply could not be bothered to do.

The job is done now, so we can move on to page 3.

If you would like to find these tools yourself on eBay, type “marketing your services£ into the search engine there.

Make a whale sick

While the vodka industry may be in trouble in Russia, there is great news for the perfume industry from Western Australia.

A whale has been sick.

And when it was sick, it produced ambergris, a rare and key ingredient of perfumes.

This particular piece of whale vomit weighs nearly 15kg, and will be worth around $US 1m.

Pass us that whale. We want to tell it one of our jokes.

Sometimes beachcombing is better done on the beach than even on eBay.

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or by e-mail at enquiries@mudvalley.co.uk.

© 2006, Mud Valley ™ brand marketing community.

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