You don’t need to buy big exclusive brands anymore. You don’t need an Audi or a VW when a Skoda or a Seat will more than do the job. You don’t need to buy Armani jeans when Next is just around the corner. Purchasing a mountain bike, today, causes anyone procrastination issues. There is a plethora of choice and the supposed lesser brands have caught up.

The difference between a Golf and a Skoda used to be huge 20 years ago. Now you couldn’t slide a piece of paper through the difference, except the price of course. Even Alex Ferguson, Manager of Manchester United has commented that the difference between the Premiership and Championship is minimal nowadays.

This means that brands are pushing up against each other. The market place is crowded and that has implications for customer purchasing. VW are going to have look very hard at how they justify the extra £3000 – £5000 for their cars when a Skoda more than does the job, particularly after the purchase. Too many brands and you get crushed and so does your customer. If you were in the exclusive market, I bet things are getting more difficult each year?

If exclusivity is diminishing because someone chased you and closed the gap, you need to concentrate on creating a new visible wedge! It’s why customer experience is so important. Future small business success will be based on choosing one of two competitive advantages; price for identical products and those who create innovative experiences that are distinctly different.

I’m becoming increasingly frustrated with people who say ‘I don’t get the social media thing.’ My reply is always the same ‘none of us do.’ Dumb questions are not my favourite topic but when people comment ‘what’s the point in doing Twitter if you’re never going to make money out of it Ann,’ I have to admit to biting my tongue hard and presume they lost the plot a long time ago.

Not that there is a plot anymore. The thing about Twitter and other social media activity is, that like a baby, it still has most of it’s living to do. You can’t predict it’s future because it will actually be what we social media participants make it. Like the origins of the web, it wasn’t essentially made for business, it was created to enable us to connect, converse and share.

People who can’t quite get the social media wave are those very people who find it hard to shift their mindsets. Principally, those who find it difficult when definitive answers are replaced with a shrug of the shoulders and where the answers certainly don’t lie with them anymore. The power has been restored to the streets.

We’ve been here before. The same discussions were taking place in the mid 90’s about the web. Laughable now, but the smirk was wiped very quickly off the faces of those predictably staid managers who thought it was just another fad. You have been warned!

Social media is allowing people to be free. Free from control, free to choose, free to talk to anyone, free to share information with the bang of a key or the use of the thumb. Social media is creating a resurgence  of business familiar to our ancestors. Real conversations, real communities driven by real people who generally don’t have a subversive motive to control something that actually belongs to everyone participating.

It’s as if people involved in social media have drawn a line in the sand and stepped over it. And a new line means a new way of approaching business.

Some of the most important challenges for all organisations, not just small business will be the conversion to conversation. For scores of years, if not a couple of centuries now, individuals, when at work, have been made to feel uncomfortable to converse, some have even had policies to prevent it happening.

Senior managers and directors have encouraged connections through rules, projects, deadlines, contracts, appraisals, meetings and management practices but they are just a camouflage for control. We can no more control a human being as we can the weather!

Conversations happen amongst equals. If you just asked your production manager why waste has increased by 5% last year, that’s not a conversation. That’s communication. Conversations are not forced, they are natural, (or that’s what was intended) they are open, honest and genuine. Each person contributes equally and it’s certainly not a power base.

There is no control, you can be wrong and all parties involved have a desire to learn and create new ideas together. It’s an exchange not a ‘telling’ show. Communication tends to use position, politics, spin, control and ego as it’s tactics, conversation displays humility and understanding.

Conversation is no longer a distraction from work, its at the heart and centre of it.

Thought some of you may be interested in this event about the 21^st century challenge of selling creative ideas, I’m taking part in on the 4th November. Below is the narrative of Arts Matrix’s event:

“Thought-provoker Ann Holman believes that intellectual property (IP) is dead.  Noel Akers, IP attorney makes his living in the UK and Europe by showing people it’s not – you decide… Expect lively debate and audience participation. This is an ArtsMatrix production in association with the Formation Zone, NJ Akers & Co.”

To book a place obtain your booking form from:

http://www.artsmatrix.org.uk/Portals/0/docs/Artsmatrix%2009%20programme12a1.pdf

04/11/09    University of Plymouth, Devon -4.30pm – 7.00pm

£35 for South West creatives – £60 outside South West

Be great to see you there should be very, very interesting!

Each generation has it’s opportunity to improve things for the better. Each generation has it’s challenges when it comes to terrorism and war. Each generation has to face the inevitable changes that affect business lives. Each generation has to understand that change isn’t necessarily for the worse.

There is no denying that the web and technology has provided us with shifting sands and there are some things that have died; destructive competition. Broadcasting and shouting. Sales pitches, safe, mundane relationships with customers and employees. Being in control and managing people. The traditional way of making a profit. Copyright and patronising conversations. Silence. Corporate speak and organisational structures. Them and us. Marketing in the traditional sense. The memo and email. Egotistical management and scarcity. Information on a need to know basis.

I could go on. Unlike leg warmers, pogo sticks and lego, they are not going to make a come back, no matter how retro they may look in the future!

Traditional marketing pushes messages to people who aren’t listening. Anything you create; brochures, direct marketing, telemarketing, exhibitions have all been designed for people who don’t want to hear it. They are not interested anymore in our egotistical approach to selling how good we are and how we are different from our many, many competitors. There is no demand for messages, they want conversation and an intelligent one at that.

Customers want to look you in the eye, even online. They don’t want the truth disguised in corporate speak, nor, repackaged as public relations spin. They can smell BS a mile off.

Customer expectations have changed radically, yet most businesses marketing campaigns have become inert. Those that commission marketing consultancies who create campaigns around traditional approaches deserve everything they get…indifference. No wonder marketing is failing. No marketing strategy should be developed without a long, hard look at how to build credibility and reputation. Have a high level conversation with your customers rather than broadcasting the usual crap about your product. Customers are listening to conversation, but not to the bombardment of traditional marketing techniques we keep spewing out.

Want an authentic, sincere, credible way to market yourself in the future. Tell your customers a story, a true one, just ask these questions of yourself:

1. What actually do I do?

2. What have I done?

3. Which of my customers can truly affirm this?

4. What am I doing that’s leading/cutting edge?

5. Who’s my caddie? Who is helping me stay ahead?

6. What will I be doing in a years time that’s different to now?

Most small business owners can’t answer these questions, let alone communicate them to customers and employees alike. Never before has reputation and integrity been more important in business. Leveraging your knowledge is the only competitive advantage you have. Customers and employees are more interested in you delivering measurable value adding activity than how much profit or turnover has increased.

There is lot of it and, of course, us Brits love it….Irony. Travelling down the M5 yesterday I saw a Viridor (waste management company) truck driving southbound strewing its contents across the road! It got me thinking about other cases, all real cases. The business consultancy/advisory service that doesn’t have a training budget for its staff. The cafe that states it has the best customer service in town but you can’t even get a smile out of them? McDonalds selling salad and fruit, or, a new climate change computer here in Devon turning the Met Office into one of the most polluting buildings in the UK.

All a little disturbing, if it wasn’t so funny, particularly as those companies committing it just don’t see it! Apart from doing your brand harm, it hardly endears the customer to the credibility you worked so hard for! Irony should be left to the comedians.

All publicity is not good publicity. We have the enviable task of understanding how the media works and how we can use it to reinforce our reputation and influence even as a small business. Carefully considering what is newsworthy is an art in itself and how often do we get it wrong? LOTS!

Just take a look in your local business magazine and see all the ‘publicity’ shots in there from various networking meetings of business people smiling away with the illusion that this is ‘good for business.’ In danger of ‘fame chasing’ this kind of public relations really does nothing to promote your business or you, in fact, its possibly damaging it.

All public relations communications needs to stop nothing short of exceptional. Your news needs to be overwhelmingly interesting, intriguing and exciting. Always ask the question before any release; Is this show stopping? Will it elevate our credibility to the next level. If the answer to both questions is no, then don’t do it.

I’m afraid, the potential customer is bored silly of companies celebrating anniversaries and seeing the same people at networking events straining for the camera shot! A brand new product/service launch that changes things, winning a high profile award, gaining that client you have been wanting to do business with for years, or offering a revolutionary perspective on business is what contemporary public relations is about. Promote your company’s knowledge not your ego.

If you thought social media was a fad…watch this…..love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8