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Family. A crazy fruit-bowl that is family.

Kylie Fennell

Today I literally jumped out of bed excited about what word I would randomly choose from my jar.

I had to delay the moment though as my son was demanding ‘breakfast…BREAKFAST NOW….puuhlease’.

There was a quick chat with Master Six over breakfast-making about whether I was a ‘banana-face’ or not – apparently that is just the most hilarious/insulting name you can give anyone – and then I chose my word – Family.

I love my family. My immediate family. My extended family. My family that are my friends and colleagues.

Families come in all shapes and sizes, but hardly any of them are of the Hallmark card variety. It’s the families we choose (the friends-variety of family) that usually provide what we crave and expect from family – acceptance, validation, unwavering support and very little dysfunction – at least that’s what I hope your friends are like.

Then there’s your real family. The ones that think it’s okay to call you a ‘banana face’, or revert back to childish teasing and other annoying behaviours not seen in their everyday adult lives.

We’re likely to (consciously or sub-consciously) choose our friends based on shared values and beliefs; we’re all oranges in the same fruit bowl, or we’re all apples, maybe we’re all bananas! The main thing is we get each other because of our similar view of the world.

The families we grow up with are a completely different matter.

While we’ve been raised in the same environments and probably with some values in common and shared experiences, we don’t get each other…well not all of the time.

We’re mean to each other sometimes and not even sure why. We’re hurt by each other sometimes and the other party doesn’t know what they did. We have unrealistic expectations that we should all just get along all of the time because we’re ‘family’.

We don’t get that we’re all different – apples, oranges, bananas all thrown together by nothing other than DNA or environment.

This is a crazy fruit bowl called family.

When we accept and appreciate our differences, instead of craving similarities that don’t exist, we can make one heck of a fruit salad.

And even on the days that the fruit in the bowl is threatening to turn, I  will try to remind myself that when it really counts, we do love each other and will do anything for each other. Being there when it counts is family.

‘Family’ is today’s word out of the jar. Read more about my Out of the Jar project here.

Let’s hug!

Kylie Fennell

Yesterday I went to a client meeting with the committee members of a local community organisation.

I’d never met this group before and went through the introductions, “Hi I’m such and such nice to meet you” friendly handshake, “Hi I’m such and such nice to meet you” friendly handshake, and then…”I do hugs.”
Before I had a chance to even register whether this was strange, welcome, creepy or not, the matured aged man had enveloped me in his arms in a hug.
He was obviously a seasoned hugger because let me tell you there was nothing weird or inappropriate about it. It was an AWESOME hug!
Even better I got one again when I left the meeting. BEST meeting ever.
Now some people may not be into hugs, which is completely fine, but let me tell you hugs feel good!!!!
So here are some inspirational pix to get us all out there hugging it out x

 

via www.mooreaseal.com/

 

via tumblr.com

 

via aboutdepressionfacts.com 
via theyallhateus.com

 

World Domination for Small Businesses and Authors

Kylie Fennell

Enough of thinking like a small BUSINESS, think like BIG BUSINESS. Better still aim for WORLD DOMINATION with these tips.

Know what you want

What is your goal? World domination is great, but specifically why do you want to be wildly successful? What will it bring you and what kind of business will help you achieve your goal? What will make you happy?

 

Have a plan

Set out the steps to achieve your goal and then break them down into bitesize more achievable chunks. Monitor and evaluate your plan as you go, and tweak it as needed. Plans change over time and you may have to as well.

What are they doing over there?

Keep your eyes focused on your chosen industry and environment. Check out competitors and businesses you admire that may not even be in your field. What do they do badly that you want to avoid? What do they do well that you could adapt and use yourself (with your own spin on it).

Don’t give up

Entrepreneur Justin Kan explains why you should never give up in this Forbes article:
“Startups don’t die, they commit suicide. In other words, 90 percent of startups fail because the founders get bored, discouraged, or something else, and they move on to other things, not because of some catastrophe. No matter how dark it is today, things will always be better tomorrow.”

Know your brand and be authentic

Know your story and what makes you unique. Don’t ever try to be someone or something else. Be the most awesome version of yourself and remain authentic. Surround yourself with awesome people that understand and live your brand.

World domination can mean anything

Being wildly successful doesn’t necessarily mean rapid expansion for everyone. Remember your goal and brand and plan only for that. Don’t feel like you have to expand your business in ways that won’t meet your goals. Your world, doesn’t have to be the WHOLE world.

And finally, Just Do It! What are you waiting for, go forth and conquer.

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How Not to Throw Your Money Away on Sponsorships

Kylie Fennell

Small businesses are often approached by organisations for sponsorship.

Whether it’s the local footy club, a school or the CWA (Country Women’s Association), there’s no shortage of worthy causes that could use sponsorship and will ask you for money.

It’s really difficult and time consuming for small businesses to decide what they should or shouldn’t sponsor – and then getting the most out of their sponsorship.

Here are some basic guidelines for how not to throw your money away on sponsorships and how to identify partnerships that will actually support your business growth. We will refer to sponsorship as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.

Why bother with CSR or sponsorship?

CSR initiatives through sponsorship, financial and in-kind support can encourage:
• Brand awareness
• Employee engagement
• Lead generation
• Reputation as a good corporate citizen
• Customer loyalty
• Differentiate yourself from your competitors
• Generate innovation and learning and enhance your influence
• Improve your business reputation and standing
• Provide access to investment and funding opportunities
• Generate positive publicity and media opportunities
• Enhanced relationships with customers, suppliers and networks
• Tax benefits.

CSR guiding principles

Generally speaking smalls businesses should sponsor initiatives and events that support the following principles:

• Target market reach – will it reach a significant proportion of your ideal customers, influencers and/or stakeholders?

• Cultural fit – does the organisation have similar values and fit nicely with your culture?

AND/OR

• Community – is it relevant to your target region and community and does it give back to the community?


Assessing a CSR initiative

When considering sponsorship, consider these questions:
• Does it align with your business’s goals and strategic priorities?
• Does it make sense to your business?
• Does it support your values?
• By being a sponsor are you likely to reach more of your ideal customer, key influencers and stakeholders?
• Do you have enough information about the organisation/event/proposal? Timeframes? Cost? Benefits? Risks?
• How will you be acknowledged?
• How does it contribute to your marketing goals?
• How will you measure its success?
• How could you leverage it?
• Who else is sponsoring?
• Who will be managing it and assessing it before, during and after? Will you need additional resources to manage your role in the sponsorship?

You should always seek in return for your involvement:
• Branding opportunities
• Speaking opportunities
• Opportunities to provide and/or personally give out collateral and promotional items
• Social media promotion
Opportunity for your employees to be involved – perhaps volunteer for the event or program
• Access to or an opportunity to provide special offer information to the sponsor recipient’s database.

You may like to nominate a charity of choice for the year and then allocate a budget for remaining community based requests you may receive the remainder of the year.

You can also develop a checklist or guidelines based on the above that can be made available on your website for people seeking sponsorship. Having a set template and publicising the guidelines may reduce the number of inappropriate submissions.

At the end of the day, CSR is important but it should be a win-win for the business as well as the organisation sponsored.

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Disrupt me! 5 things you need to know about disruptive marketing

Kylie Fennell

One business term or trend that’s just not going away any time soon is: Disruptive Marketing.

You’ve probably heard of it but maybe you’re not really sure what it means, or how you can use it in your marketing. Well here are 5 things you need to know to get disruptive.

1. What is disruptive marketing?

Disruptive marketing refers to the communication activities and messages that either challenge the conventional thinking in an existing market or speak to a new one.

It’s the complete opposite of traditional ‘interruption’ style marketing. Interruption or traditional marketing interrupts the daily life of a consumer via TV ads, billboards, commercials and such, while disruption marketing disrupts traditional marketing strategies by being so compelling that the consumer doesn’t feel like they’ve been disrupted by marketing or advertising at all.

In fact they’re grateful that they have been shown or offered something of interest to them.

It could be as simple as ‘non-advertising’ stunts or content that goes viral because it is just plain interesting and engaging eg. the Red Bull Stratos jump from space.

The term disruptive marketing is often used in tandem with a disruptive business model. This is where a company creates a product or service to match the demand of an emerging market, or re-designs an existing product or service to meet a need that’s currently not being fulfilled satisfactorily – thus disrupting and possible displacing existing market leaders.

One of the biggest poster childs for disruptive innovation and marketing is Uber. Uber doesn’t use much traditional advertising to market their model, yet they get plenty of promotion via free editorial in news stories about their ‘disruptive model’ and have used disruptive campaigns such as their cat delivery service where they delivered adoptable kittens for 15 minutes of snuggle time.

2. Small business can do it too

You could associate yourself with an important cause (hopefully that reflects the values of your business). Uber introduced its cat delivery service to coincide with Pet Adoption Day.

When you do this, your association with the cause becomes the focus rather than selling – suddenly you become a lot less interruptive and more shareable.

3. Revisit your target market or segments

Remember a key part of disruptive marketing and innovation is reaching an emerging or new market, perhaps a market segment that isn’t having its needs fulfilled.

Revisit your target audience to see if you could refine your messaging or target a new market segment.

4. Refine your products or services

Can you create or refine your products or services to meet an emerging or unfilled need.

Apple’s introduction of the iPhone, and the iPad are great examples of disruptive innovation.

You may not be able to adopt disruption on such a grand scale but let’s say you’re a small food or grocer store. Could you introduce a drive through option to ring ahead and pick up a couple of items such as bread and milk? I can’t keep count of the number times I’ve had my toddler or baby in the car and they were asleep or I just couldn’t bear getting them in and out of the car one more time, just to get a loaf of bread.

5.  Don’t wait to BE disrupted

You need to be the one doing the disrupting, instead of waiting to be disrupted by a competitor.

Keep an eye on your competition and listen to your customers for ideas on how you can connect with them and meet their needs in new ways.

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The 5 Biggest Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses Make

Kylie Fennell
Usually I write about all the things you can do to improve you small business marketing, but today I want to approach it from a different angle.
 
I’ve been doing this marketing gig for longer than I’d care to admit, which gives me great insight into what some small businesses are doing wrong when it comes to marketing.
 
So here it is, the top 5 biggest mistakes small businesses make when it comes to marketing and how to avoid them.
 
1. Unclear about what makes you unique
 
One of the very first things that must be done but is often overlooked is defining your unique selling point. What makes you so different that someone would choose you over the competition.
 
You need to do this right. Get yourself a positioning or brand story and make sure it is reflected throughout all of your branding, taglines and communication.
 
2. Marketing to everyone
 
All too often I’ve asked a client “who’s your target market?” and they’ve replied earnestly “everyone really”. 
 
You physically and financially can not market to everyone and more importantly you shouldn’t even try. 
 
The facts are your products and services are not going to appeal to everyone, and even if you do attract a wide market, ask yourself if they represent the type of customers you want.
 
Are they the right kind of customers? Read this post to figure out how to better identify your target market – which trust me makes the actually marketing process a heck of a lot easier.
3. Getting online and social media wrong
This covers off on quite a few items but the most common mistakes in this category are:
  • Not having a website because you don’t sell online – the facts are people will look for you online, so you need to be found. This can be kept simple though. Read these small business website tips. Your website also needs to be responsive so it can be used easily on tablets and mobiles.
  • Not doing social media – the biggest complaints I get are I don’t know how to do social media or “it’s a waste of time, as I haven’t got any sales out of it”. Don’t let social media overwhelm you – it’s possible to do it yourself quite easily. However have realistic expectations. Social media is about connecting with people. Taking this view is like when meeting someone at a party and when they ask “what do you do?”, you say “I’m only going to tell you if you want to buy from me”. Worse still, you may have spent 30 minutes boring them about your business without asking the other person a single question. Social media is the biggest cocktail party, your business will ever attend.
  • Trying to do too much – you should only be active on the social media platforms relevant to your target audience and the ones you can maintain a presence on regularly. It needs to be sustainable, so don’t try to be on every platform.
4. Ignoring your customers
Unfortunately many business owners think they know what’s best for their customers.
If you respond to them respectfully and in a timely manner, they’ll forgive you when you do get things wrong.
Finally, go that extra mile for them, and it will likely result in more sales.
The cheapest marketing you can do is to nurture your existing customers, as this is more likely to result in repeat business and referrals.
5. Not marketing
 
Many businesses make the mistake of not marketing at all.
They say things like, “but it doesn’t work”. My answer to this is “well you musn’t be doing it right”.
Start with a good strategy and stick to it. Remember to monitor and evaluate your activities. Continue doing what works, but stop doing things that don’t work.
The biggest reason though many small businesses aren’t marketing though is because they say they can’t afford it.
There are plenty of low cost and effective ways you can market your business and it’s possible to do much of it yourself.

The Art of Asking Questions – 5 simple sales tips

Kylie Fennell
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalimages.net

Would you mind if I asked you a question?

Do you want to know how to get more sales?

Can you do me a favour?…great just read a little further.

There is an art to asking questions in marketing that can make a big difference to your sales.

A lot of business owners or employees may say “I’m not good at sales” or “I don’t like being pushy”, even “I don’t want to sound too salesy”.

These statements resonate with me, as I have never liked the traditional ‘sales pitches’ but I’m here to tell you, it’s possible to improve your sales by just asking the right questions in the right way.

You will see from how I opened this blog post some examples of what I mean.

1. Ask if you can ask

When you come into contact with a prospect, it’s usually in the form of a general enquiry eg. How much is….? What’s included in….?. You helpfully answer their questions and they say “thanks very much and I’ll think about it” before walking out, hanging up the phone or ending the email conversation.

But what if at that point you asked them “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”.

Nine times out of 10 the prospect will say, “no I don’t mind”. They’ve given you permission to continue the dialogue. They may in fact be just doing it out of politeness but by doing this they’re actually providing an opportunity to hear answers to the questions they haven’t asked.

So you then can start with something like:

“Could you tell me why you rang/email/came into our store today, what was the problem you needed solving?”. Then “tell me more about that”.

Dig, dig to find out more about their exact problem and needs and use it as an opener to provide a LOT MORE helpful information that can take you closer to a sale.

2. Ask for a favour

This is similar to ‘asking if you can ask’ but more specifically you’re asking “Can you do me a favour?”.

Once again nine times out of 10 the prospect is most likely to be a little perplexed but is inclined to say ‘Yes’ as most of us by nature want to be helpful.

You may not even wait for a response, you may go straight from “Can you do me a favour?” to “Could you tell me why you rang/email/came into our store today, what was the problem you needed solving?”. Then “tell me more about that”.

3. Make the assumption

Asking for permission when you want to ask more questions or you want a favour makes sense, but don’t ask for permission when it comes to your call to action. Assume that they want to proceed.

So let’s say for example your call to action is book an appointment – don’t ask “Would you like to book an appointment”, instead ask “What days suit you best to come in for an appointment”.

Here are some examples of making an assumption when it comes to a call to action.

What’s the best address to send some more information to?
When would be a good time for you to book in…?
What day would suit you for….?

4. Ask a question that elicits a ‘Yes’

Try not to ask questions that elicit a no response. Yes is a much more positive word and while the difference in the question can be subtle it can make a great difference.

Eg. A gym might say “Are you ready for summer?” with the expected answer being ‘no’. This could be changed to “Do you want to be ready for summer?”; or “Do you have enough customers?” vs “Do you want more customers?”. You should also use loads of positive language.

5. But why?

Stuck for a question to ask when speaking to a prospect? then start with “why?”.

I remember seeing an interview a few years back with a celebrated Australian journalist and he said the only question he ever needed over the years was ‘Why?’. As a former journalist this really resonated with me.

Like an annoying 5-year-old – trust me I know this – “but why” is the most powerful question.

Ask a prospect, “why is that?”, “why did you…”, “why today?” or even “why not?”.

“Why” is the most powerful open ended question in existence.

So do you want to know more about how to improve your sales – go to www.kyliefennell.com. You can also check out my Sensational Sales Techniques blog post.

Delivering on your brand – when little things become BIG things

Kylie Fennell

Never underestimate the effect the little things can have on your business and your brand.

As a marketer I talk a lot about living up to your brand promise.

I strongly believe that no amount of advertising, promotion or social media content will help you get or keep customers if other parts of your business are letting your brand promise down.

So what do I mean by brand promise?

Brand promise often starts with the words you use to describe your business and its unique selling proposition or point of difference.

This brand promise is often reflected in a tagline or slogan. To give you an example, I know a real estate agent whose tagline (and by default his brand promise) is something like ‘excellence in customer service’.

While it’s not the most unique or powerful tagline, it’s not a disaster…except for the fact that my personal experience dealing with that agent led me to believe he had terrible customer service.

The short version is that we had put a signed contract in to buy a property listed with him and waited to hear back with the vendor’s response – we never heard back.

On contacting him he advised us he actually accepted a contract from another buyer (for a similar amount we were offering) and hadn’t bothered coming back to us for further negotiation. Ethically it’s very questionable, but more to the point, he did not live up to his brand promise.

Brand promise goes further than the tagline. The reality is that everything you and your ‘business’ does and represents contributes to how your brand is perceived and whether people want to buy from you.

To illustrate my point let’s use a fictional widget store and assume you’re in the market to buy a particular widget. So you type into google the widget name and your city and you find a stockist, but its 50km away.

You click on their website and confirm they sell that widget – you need this widget desperately so you ring the number listed to check if it’s in stock before driving to the store.

The number goes to a recording where you are prompted to press 1 for X and 2 for Y or hold to be transferred to a helpful team member. You are kept on hold for 10 minutes, listening to bad piped music before being transferred to an outsourced call centre overseas.

The person you speak to is very friendly, though a little hard to understand. They tell you they can’t access the inventory for the store so will transfer you to the store manager. You’re on hold again for another 10 minutes before you’re accidentally cut off.

You give up on the phone call and figure you’ll drive out to the store anyway. It’s 8am on a Wednesday and you have to bundle up the kids in the car (master 2 and miss 4) but you really need that widget. You try to double check the opening hours online but the hours aren’t listed.

You drive to the store and discover there’s no parking nearby. You and the kids have to walk a few blocks before getting to the store and finding out that they don’t open until 10am on a Wednesday (it’s just gone 9am).

You really need that widget so you and the kids sit down outside the grimy looking front door. It’s the height of summer and everyone is hot.

Finally a pimply 16 year old turns up at 10.05am barely gives you a nod and unlocks the store.

You go inside the store only to be told that the air conditioner is on the blink. You enquire about the widget but the retail assistant shrugs and says he’ll have to check the computer and it will take at least 10 minutes for the system to boot.

You go and look for the widget yourself but the aisles aren’t labelled and you feel like you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. You finally find where they should be on the shelf but notice that there’s none left.

The retail assistant finally gets onto the system and tells you that the widgets are on order and were supposed to be in yesterday but haven’t arrived yet. He’s unable to give you an estimated delivery date.

When pushed he tells you that they are actually at the distribution centre, which happens to be in your home suburb. You ask whether you can pay for the widget now and pick it up from the distribution centre. He says “no that’s against policy and it has to be delivered to the store first”.

You ask whether you can pay an additional charge for it to be delivered instead to your house, and you guessed it, he says “No that’s against store policy”. You ask him to check with the store manager and he says you have to send an email via the Contact Us form on the website.

You walk out of the store in disgust; screaming, hot, tired and hungry kids in tow and no closer to getting your widget.

So how are you feeling about this organisation and brand? I suspect you wouldn’t be a fan.

Now you might think that my story is far fetched…it’s not…I personally have experienced nearly all of this on one day at a multinational store. That being said, it only takes one or two of these missteps to damage your brand.

Whether it’s your website, hotline, parking, cleaning, customer service, point of sale system, air conditioning, punctionality – every single one of them presents an opportunity to enhance or damage your brand – every one of them is a moment of truth for your business.

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Teachers are awesome (well at least the awesome ones)

Kylie Fennell

There was a time when I wanted to be a teacher. I’ve ‘kind of’ done it a few times. I taught English in Japan, I have worked as a Business Trainer in tertiary education but I have to be honest I know it’s not the same as being a teacher.

I have to say it, teachers are awesome. Well the awesome ones are!

You don’t know an awesome teacher until you meet one, but trust me you’ll know.

My son had a brilliant kindy teacher and his prep school teacher is spectacular – patience of a saint and while she is lots of fun, she also has boundaries in place. I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher for my son.

Sure we all remember the not so good teachers – the ones that threw chalkdusters at your head, put us on ‘scab’ duty (that is, pick up garbage in the playground in your lunch break), but you’ll NEVER FORGET the awesome ones.

I remember my kindy teacher Mrs Widseth very fondly – she taught me in my first year of school. To be honest I can’t remember much other than she was really good to me and for me.

Mrs McBeath was my drama teacher as well as our Year Teacher all the way through high school. Love your work Mrs McBeath!

The one that I credit the most though for my love of history and English was Mr Gibson. There were times we tested that man’s patience beyond what any normal human being should have endured…but he bore it with a smile and his passion for what he taught was infectious.

He was the person who introduced me to Jane Austen. At the time I bumbled and struggled my way through Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion and while I certainly didn’t fall in love with it straight away (I was 15 so cut me a break here), his perseverance kept me coming back to it in later years.

So whether you’re an English teacher, Prep Teacher or even a Math Teacher, thank you for being awesome!

PS There were heaps of other teachers who were just as awesome to me and I haven’t forget you either…Mr Taylor, Mr McPherson, Miss Rudd, Mr Hickey, Mrs MacPherson, Mrs Preston…the list goes on I promise. Thank you!

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