Business Coaching

What's the difference between succeeding and not failing?

What is success? Is it just not failing?

It’s more than that, really. Not failing is really just breaking even, because not failing is just about the same as just scraping by.

How does that feel? Probably not the best…but at least you’re still in business.

The difference between succeeding and not failing ultimately comes down to no margin of uncertainty. As a small business owner, you decide which will happen.

When we fail at something, whatever it is, life is teaching us a lesson. What’s the difference between those who are successful in life and those who are not? The successful ones learn from their failures and follow those lessons, while the losers end up doing the exact same thing, or nothing at all, and most importantly, not learning from their mistakes when they failed.

In the business world, it’s exactly the same. Those who succeed will do things using what they’ve learned in all of their past failures. Those who don’t succeed but who just “not fail,” will  The trick is to try something out, and if it doesn’t work, understand why and then do it again with that information in mind to make it work for you.

What does it mean to you readers to succeed and to just not fail? What’s the difference between the two? Business owners: in your business, what carries you over from just “not failing” to success?

Yes...that's a beer in a squirrel. A dead squirrel.

Next time you find roadkill, you’ll be looking at a marketing idea from a Scottish craft brewery.

Scottish craft brewery BrewDog produced a beer with 55 percent alcohol called “The End of History.” But that’s not its highest selling point, according to BrewDog —  this beer comes packaged inside a taxidermic rodent. At £500/$760 per beer, and from Photos of the product, at least it’s not just roadkill wrapped around a cheap beer.

What BrewDog did was take an “out there” idea, and combined it with an in-demand product — a beer with a high alcoholic percentage. Combining two otherwise completely separate businesses and products might not normally work — such as beer and taxidermy — unless it’s very well-thought out and marketed well.

Oh, and in case you were wondering: the first batch of the beer served in dead rodents sold out on its first day on the market.

Can you think of any other small business that has combined a highly unusual product with its own to test and measure how that effects sales? Why do you think this idea was so successful?

The iPhone 4 still has unresolved issues.

In the wake of  Apple’s press conference and all sorts of issues with the new iPhone that are making people unhappy, Apple unveiled details of its bumper/case-giveaway program today while at the same time announcing that there will be further delays on the availability of the white iPhone 4.

“White models of Apple’s new iPhone have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year,” Apple said in a statement. “The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.”

Why the white model is more challenging to produce than the black version was not explained.

But to deal with the antenna issues now, Apple is giving customers who already bought an iPhone 4 a “bumper,” or phone case. The cases ship in 3 to 5 weeks once customers request one.

Here’s how to get one: download an iPhone 4 Case Program app from the App Store and launch the app on your phone using your iTunes Store account or Apple ID. You then select your bumper or case. Apple will check the serial number to verify you have an iPhone 4.

In addition to Apple’s own bumpers, you can choose cases from Incase, Belkin, Griffin and Speck.

For iPhone 4 purchases made before July 23, you must apply no later than August 22; otherwise customers must apply within 30 days of your iPhone 4 purchase. To qualify for the program, customers must purchase an iPhone 4 by September 30, 2010.

For those who’ve already bought a bumper from Apple, they’re eligible for a full refund including taxes and shipping fees. If the bumper was bought by credit card, Apple says it’s already refunded the account, though it may take a full billing cycle for the refund to appear. If you paid cash, check or used a gift card at an Apple Retail Store, you must return to the store with your receipt by Sept 30.

As announced on its earnings call earlier last week, Apple expects the bumper/case giveaway program to cost the company about $175 million.

Anyone think these antenna issues are going to cause iPhone users enough of a hassle to get them to stop being a faithful Apple customer?

Can MySpace make a comeback?

MySpace has been considered dead for a while now among the social Media-savvy. But could MySpace make a comeback?

Five years ago, news Corp. acquired MySpace for $580 million…and then the losses came. Although MySpace Music is listed as the number one music site from comScore, it’s had a steady decrease in popularity since news Corp. has owned the site.

News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said, “We’ve got to admit that during the last two or three years, I think we made some big mistakes. But we’ve got fine new management now; they’ve started to introducing new features. There’ll be a lot of changes coming through the summer. The early indications—and they’re only early indications—are we’re getting more visitors and they’re staying longer. When that gets more substantial, we’ll get more advertising.”

News Corp. has also called MySpace a “work in progress,” as it plays with its number one music platform ranking to try to get back on top of the social Media scene, and plans to roll out a number of enhancements to the site in the next few sites.

What do you think? Can MySpace regain its status in the social media site scene?

Any business owner would agree, it takes a lot of strength to admit to the world that a product or service has been dissatisfying to the customer. It’s a bit of a blow to the owner’s ego, and not only that, but it could be detrimental to the business.

But Domino’s Pizza has shown how admitting its own faults can benefit the business…as long as it’s spun the right way.

Domino’s Pizza recently started a huge campaign where it admitted that many people across America were not fans of their pizza. From showing hidden footage shot in focus groups and feedback from customers, Domino’s Pizza was outing themselves as a sub-par pizza company.

But with this campaign, they’re advertising that they’ve changed their pizza recipe for the better. They admit their old pizza was bad, their new pizza is good, and they’re catching people’s reactions on camera.

This is a clever way to take a negative and make it a positive, but it’s risky — after admitting their old pizza was bad in national ads, there’s no taking it back. And if Domino’s new pizza wasn’t an improvement, it was a failed ad campaign.

In business coaching, coaches often have to work with clients through difficult situations — like customers not liking a company’s main product — and help turn them into positive situations, or situations that create profit, as in Domino’s case.

The plus of a risky campaign like this? It’s hard to make fun of the company and actually offend them because, well, they’re insulting themselves. Take the above clip from the Colbert Report. Domino’s has to agree that every word Colbert said is true, which sums up the message of the entire campaign: their old pizza was bad, but they’ve learned from their mistake…and the new pizza is heaps better.

Brad Sugars, Founder and Chairman of the ActionCOACH business coaching firm, is currently on a 52-city tour across North America, giving his 28 reasons why his “Business is Booming.” He’s caught on film talking about the No. 26 reason and strategy, Building a Database, above.What business wouldn’t like to have a bigger database? It’s essential to business to have an ever-expanding database, because that can lead to more referrals and more customers

To see Brad Sugars’ other 27 reasons live on-stage in your city, register here, and use the code LV003 for a free ticket!

Zombie brands are easier to market to consumers because they're already known.

If the names Memorex or TDK ring a bell, they should. They were big brands back in the ’80s and ’90s — Memorex produced CDs, portable electronics and home entertainment; TDK created electronic products like EMC components, sensors and power supplies  – and these brands died, so to speak. But now, these “zombie” brands are making a comeback.

And with the recent recession, there are more recent zombie brands that are making comebacks — Sharper Image, Circuit City and Brim, for instance. With new marketing teams in place, and for some, like Brim, new branding companies entirely (Kraft abandoned Brim, but River West Brands bought them), let the revival begin.

Why are zombie brands attractive? People already know the company and its reputation — including their taglines. This slashes marketing costs in half because the consumer awareness is already there.

Built-in success? Only time will tell, but the fact that some of these brands went bankrupt or out of business, but still stand a chance is a great lesson. In business coaching, there can be benefits to be found out of something seemingly negative. These zombie brands could find success again.

Tracking progress with online marketing is easier with these tools.

After finding online marketing opportunities, like we said yesterday, you’ll need to track your “wins.” This can be a confusing and daunting thing to do, too…unless you know the tools that can track your leads for you.

Google Analytics helps yet again! It tracks referrals from the company’s social Media profiles. And twinfluence and Twitalyzer are Twitter-specific tools that measure how influential and
far-reaching the company’s Twitter presence is.

Klout tracks the impact of your posted content and links, including which audiences are exposed to the content and how they interact with it.

Translate the information about results and figure out the positive financial impact on your
business. Key performance indicators can come in various forms, like new revenue generated, a good amount of time and money saved, or a good financial return on investment.

Armed with this information, hopefully it will become clear how much social Media marketing is helping your business…or how much more you need to work at it in order to make a positive financial impact on your business! If you want to find out what needs work in your business quickly, take our Business Health Check.

As with traditional marketing, it’s all about opportunities. When you find opportunities to sell your products and services, you don’t shy away, do you? You take advantage! The same with online marketing – find opportunities to get the word out about what you’re promoting. However, with online marketing, it can be trickier. Where do you find these opportunities? And with social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, sure, you might have 500+ followers/friends, but do they really care about what you’re promoting?

If you’re lost in terms of online marketing, you need to be able to first find opportunities which you can expand upon in terms of marketing. Don’t know how to start? The following tools will at least give you a good idea of what’s being said about your company or industry online, and where users spend their time:

• Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) emails you whenever a chosen
keyword (e.g., company or product name, CEO name, campaign tagline,
industry term, etc.) is mentioned in any form of online content.
• Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com/) scans the blogosphere
for any keyword or phrase you type in.
• Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com/) scans all Twitter posts for your
selected keyword or phrase.
• SiteVolume (http://www.sitevolume.com/) reports how often keywords or
phrases appear on Twitter, Digg, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr.
• SocialMention (http://www.socialmention.com/) enables you to search
keywords and phrases by specific channel category (blogs, images, news,
video, etc.), or as a whole, and to receive email alerts when a new mention
is posted.
• Socialcast (http://www.socialcast.com/) offers real-time analytics on microblogging
and other social activities and identifies individual users’ level of
activity. Unlike most tools, it also can quantify the value of “lurkers” who
aren’t visibly posting comments, but by how often they frequent a site.

Take note of what’s being said about your company or whatever keywords you search, whether it’s positive, negative or neutral; what people
are passing along to friends; and if there are any particular needs or customer
segments that aren’t served. These are all opportunities for marketing…

As if you didn’t know that already. Heck, it’s been changing. But just so you know, it will continue to change.

According to an article in the Marketing Watchdog Journal, with social Media marketing picking up the pace, marketing and PR will converge, measuring and ROI will increase in importance, and CEOs are paying more attention to what’s being said about their brand to ensure their marketing efforts and customer service efforts are both promoting the company.

Read the full article here, and see what changes you might need to make at your own company’s marketing department.