I bought some Girl Scout cookies last week and I decided I should eat some today. I set out two cookies, one for me and one for my almost three-year-old daughter, to eat after lunch.

Today’s cookies were Caramel deLites. Caramel, coconut and chocolate; the three delicious Cs that make up the best Girl Scout cookie. A Caramel deLites is a round cookie with a hole in the middle and when my daughter saw hers she said, “Doughnut.”

I do not even know where she learned what a doughnut is, but there she was calling that cookie a doughnut. I corrected her and told her it was a cookie. She was very quick to correct me and let me know it was a doughnut. After a few back and forth cookie/doughnut battles, I let her have the last word with, “Doughnut.”

Perception is the key. To her three-year-old mind that cookie was a doughnut and why should I spend the time to convince her otherwise? As she gains experience she will come to understand not everything that is round with a hole in the middle is a doughnut. Today it is.

It is the same with your potential customers. What is their perception of what you do? Is there a common misperception that is better left uncorrected when first meeting a potential client?

Is there a negative stereotype of your industry that you need to work to dispel or embrace? If you own an auto repair shop many people will assume you are going to rip them off. I personally do not understand how every time a light flashes on the dashboard it costs $1,000 for the repair. A little education into the high overhead and need for continual training might make me a little less annoyed when I hand over my credit card.

The next time you are at a networking event or expo, take a poll. Ask people who are not your current customers: What do they think you do? What are their general thoughts about your industry? What could you offer that they would find valuable?

Their answers will probably surprise you and you will get some great feedback to use in your marketing.

​Until next time...

Have a great day,
Susanne

If you feel you are spinning your marketing wheels, join me for a Marketing strategy session. 

You know I am always reminding you to back up and track all data you can. Here is a recent real-life example that showed me I was not doing quite as much as I could have been.

One of my clients inadvertently violated MailChimp’s (email marketing provider) terms of service and was sent an email stating they had suspended the account and my client needed to find a new provider. There was no “shame on you; do not try this again” just a “Hit the road, Jack.” email.

I subscribe to all of my email client’s lists so I can make sure the emails are delivered properly and I have a copy of the finished product for their file. I had already programmed ahead the next eight or so emails so I did not have a final copy of those emails. I had backed up the subscriber list the week before, however emails had gone out since then and there were a few unsubscribes.

Fortunately, even though MailChimp kicked my client to the curb, MailChimp did leave the account open and accessible. (I just could not send out any emails.) I was able to export the updated list and copy the preprogrammed emails to enter into the new email provider.

We live and learn and I combed through several terms of service pages while shopping for a new email provider. My client has a new provider which I do not like as well as MailChimp (or Constant Contact), but a few weeks from now I will have used it enough to be pretty comfortable working with its positives and negatives.

Although it took several hours to get back on track, it was a much less painful and time-consuming experience than it would have been if I had not been backing up as I had.

Spend some time checking to see if you have adequate backup systems in place. Create a schedule for when you need to backup different types of data. I have days scheduled on my calendar for exporting email lists, copying my computer files to a backup hard drive and other such tasks.

A few years ago I had my computer crash and my backup hard drive fail… at the same time. I even sent the backup drive to some super techs (you know… the ones that cost a bundle) to try to retrieve the data… to no avail. I lost several years worth of files and photos. In my case a single backup was not enough.

There are many online services you can use for general backup of your computer in case of fire or other disaster that would destroy your computer and backup hard drive at the same time. Check around for one that meets your needs.

Until next time...

Have a great day,
Susanne

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