Anyway, if you’re a chronic to-do lister like me, check out PrintableChecklist.org and watch this quick introduction video.

Too bad I didn’t know about this awesome little project when the kiddos were little.  Even more so, too bad I didn’t know about this when I was a kid.  My dad used to drink so much coffee and I always wanted to do something with those little creamers.  Had I only known that I could have made myself an ice cream appetizer while he had his coffee!    

My opinion that was confirmed…..

Forget about suggested retail price on any merchandise.  Use Amazon as your pricing guide.

This hunch was verified in a most unusual way.  In fact, the other title for this article could have been, “Be Careful About Assuming Anything About Your Customers in Establishing Prices.”

Here’s what happened……

A Beachy Amish family came to the shop and was interested in learning about coffee roasting.  The Beachy Amish are an Anabaptist denomination that drive cars, yet still adhere to a “plain” lifestyle.  Anyway, after talking with them for some time, one of the older sons, whom I would estimate was in his early 20’s, yet sporting the classic shaved musache appearance representative of the Amish and conservative Mennonites, asked me how much I sell an AeroPress for.  I told him that I thought it was about $28, but we could look it up on Amazon to be sure, as I just price match everything that way.

He smiled and said, “Yeah, while you were talking to my dad I checked the Amazon price on my Blackberry.”  Anyway, he proceeded to tell me that he loves shopping on Amazon.  Oh, and he bought the AeroPress, but I don’t think he would have if I had tried to gouge him under the assumption that “he’s Amish, therefore he’s not tuned in to price comparison shopping online.”

I’m amazed at the number of brick and mortar retailers who blatantly ignore the ecommerce marketplace.  The ostrich-with-head-in-the-sand mentality doesn’t work anymore, because your customers probably know more about your product and competition than you do!

Do you give up margins? Maybe.  But, wouldn’t you rather sell a product at a lower margin than not sell it at all? The tendency for merchants, restaurants and sellers to raise prices to compensate for a perceived shrinking customer base is suicidal.

You see it all the time in little towns.  Some small town folks will continue to support local merchants and view inflated prices as a sort-of “convenience tax”.  But, I wouldn’t build a business model around it as it’s the exception, not the rule.

Sure, people will pay a premium for quality service, but these are for products dependent on service or superior product knowledge….ie: appliances or electronics, automobiles, fine jewelry, double-paned windows, etc.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking people will pay more for your toaster-oven inventory just because you’re “in-town”.  Your coffee filters, apple peelers, curling irons, etc. don’t lend themself to inflated pricing in the name of convenience.  Worst case scenario is that your business earns a reputation of being “overpriced”.

Brag about price-matching Amazon and know that you might sacrifice margins on these products, knowing that your customers may spend money on other purchases with higher margins. The focus isn’t really to sell your widgets, it’s to get warm bodies in your door.  Then you can sell to them.

Furthermore, here in fly-over country, a marketing/press release/advertising effort telling the world that your prices meet or beat the best online prices could bring in far more traffic than your realize.

To test this out conclusively, I’ll try it myself as I’m close to implementing my own sales and marketing plan for Blacksmith Coffee Roastery.  When there’s something decisive to report, I will.

In the meantime, consider your own pricing situation and adjust accordingly.  Price matching the lowest internet retailers may be the one thing that makes you more money, as illogical as it may seem.

There are three business lessons that can be emulated from this homespun sign which represent why Obama was elected and how you can build a dynamic business.

1.  Tell a story and include your prospective constituents (customers) in it. Obama was very effective at conveying his “Change we can believe in” slogan.  People bought it and identified with wanting change.   If you can convey a message that your customers identify with, you’re well on your way to success.  This is what the adage about rallying your troops means.  Get your early adopters excited and feeling like they’re a part of something special.
2. Elicit active passion.  It takes time and money to make a sign.  Obama was able to generate enough excitement in his supporters to prompt them to take action, even if that meant making their own signs and t-shirts.  When your followers (or Tribes, as Seth Godin calls them) take evangelizing your company into their own hands, big things can happen.  That’s what viral marketing is all about!
3. Let your customers bash your competitors instead of doing it yourself.  If you notice at the bottom of the homemade sign they’ve written the comment “Other sign was stolen”.  Though they don’t say that a Republican stole it, or that a McCain supporter came in the middle of the night to sabotage Obama’s chances in Kansas, the implication of the comment would indicate that they felt that way.  This is far more powerful than if the Obama campaign went on TV and said, “Kansas Republicans are stealing Obama campaign signs.”  Get your followers to speak up about why they like your product, service or company better than your competitors and enjoy the fruits of their vocal opinions!

This video does a great job of demonstrating how it’s the little things in life that make a difference.  Whether it’s in your business, your family, your church, or your friendships, most of us aren’t really looking for – or even expecting something BIG to happen.  We long for the sweet nothings that others do to show us they care about who WE are.

After watching the video, think about what you can do to show others you care about THEM.

Right on the heels of that post is the launch of  a new online auction service that has adopted the Dutch auction method as it’s model.  It’s called 4Sale4Now.com.

Basically, it’s like eBay, except instead of bidding an item up, the price regularly drops until someone bids…..and wins the item!  As I said before, I like Dutch auctions and think this could be a boon to anyone with a unique real or personal property item.  

Check it out.

From the site at BothellCountdown.com:

The idea is simple and starts as soon as you decide a fair price for the house. If you think the current price is too high, wait a week and I’ll lower it by as much as $10,000. Each week, I’ll continue to lower the price until you, or someone else, thinks it’s fair and submit an offer.

Well, after starting on May 28th, at an initial asking price of $500,000, he proceeded to honor his end of the bargain and faithfully lowered the price each week until finally, on August 30th, he received a contract. On October 16, Justin wrote that after some additional negotiations they had closed with a final closing price of $409,500.

Really, as unusual as this appears to be, the concept is ancient. Technically speaking, this is called a Dutch Auction, with the distinguishing characteristic being that the auctioneer sets an initially offer price and keeps dropping the price until…….BOOM!, a bidder snaps it up. Regardless, it’s one more example of how when properly done, auctions really do set the fair market value for real estate.

If all real estate were sold this way, we would avoid another overvalued housing market like the one created by the mortgage industry over the last decade that’s led to our current economic crisis.

If you’re a FSBO looking for a newsworthy way to sell your house, consider emulating the Bothell Countdown. Incidentally, he offered a cooperating commission of 3% to a broker who brought a buyer.

This is another excellent example of outside-the-box thinking that gets real estate sold!

Sure, she could have been like everybody else and just whipped out the Betty Crocker mix and can of frosting to create a mediocre cake. I would have smiled and said it tasted great.  And no one would have ever known the better. But, she didn’t, and I didn’t have to fake liking a boring cake.

She went the extra mile and it was so special that I took a picture of the cake. BTW, my camera has a food setting on it, and I could never figure out why you would take a picture of your food until I saw this cake!

Going the extra mile is what separates the best from the rest of the pack. Especially in difficult economic times, if you go the extra mile for your customers – either by giving them more than they asked for, giving them a bonus item or freebie, or just simply following up to make sure that their buying experience was more than they had hoped for, they will be rewarded.

And so will you!

I just can’t stop drooling over the new Ferrari California! It is simply magnificent!

But for the discerning marketer, there are some interesting lessons to be learned from Ferrari about how to launch a product. I don’t think it really matters whether it’s a $200,000 car or a $50 body shaver.

Here are a few things that caught my eye:

1. Stage your product! If it looks like it’s the star of the show, consumers just might take a second look…or third…or fourth! You create desire, value, passion and interest in a product when it captures the undivided attention of your audience. Notice, Ferrari isn’t trying to distract with some scantily clad supermodel draped all over the car. She would just be in the way! They don’t need to use sex to sell their cars……the cars transcend that juvenile deception.
2. Make your product special enough to merit it’s own domain name. Did you notice when you click on the picture that you go to http://ferraricalifornia.com instead of http://ferrariworld.com? (Ferrari USA’s main web portal.) Notice Ferrari is focused on selling you a California on this site. Sure, they could try to upsell you to a more expensive model, or offer a lesser expensive model in case the California is out of your price range, but they don’t. That’s because they recognize the flaw in this 20th century sales philosophy. If you want to sell a specific item – sell it! Don’t offer alternatives and you won’t wonder why customers buy everything except the product you want to sell them.
3. Demonstrate your product. Ferrari has some awesome videos that allow you to truly capture what it’s like to drive this car. If you want to elicit a buying response from your prospects, they need to picture themselves using your product or service. By demonstrating it for them on your website, you can easily do this with little effort or expense on your part. Another good example of this point, and this article is Phillips launch of their whole bodygrooming system. I never knew how much I didn’t know about male hair removal until I went to http://www.manalogues.philips.com/
4. The price of your product will determine it’s perceived value by consumers. This can be tricky, because you have to provide legitimate value to demand a premium price, but is it really that hard to create value? Maybe so. If your product or service can’t command a premium price because of a lack of value, either make the necessary changes to increase it’s perceived value, or get a new product. On this note, if you try to compete on price, you will usually lose to big merchants like Wal-Mart. Distinguish your quality product with a price that reflects it’s value and you won’t have to compete with Wal-Mart!
5. Get people talking about your product. That old adage that word-of-mouth advertising is the greatest form of advertising available is true. But you can do a lot to encourage WOM. For example, you can give away freebies that will remind people to talk about you. Ferrari has free background images you can download for your computer. You might be better off giving away free pens, custom branded toilet paper or something else. The point is, give people a reason to talk about you and they will. That starts by having something worth talking about!

I’ve often thought that if people would look outside their own industry for inspiration they could distinguish themselves as leaders – as innovators within their industry, without having to actually create new methods from scratch.

What the Car Business Could Learn from Real Estate Professionals

For example, if auto retailers would look at what real estate marketing pros are doing, and then adapt some of their successful ideas for themselves, they could be ahead of the curve, instead of just copying what other successful auto dealers are already doing. (Did you ever notice how one car dealer will launch a series of annoying commercials only to see other dealers airing similarly annoying commercials a month or two later?)

If car dealers would treat their sales staff as sales professionals – as agents of the dealership – and give them the freedom to market their cars the way a real estate agent can freely market client’s properties, while giving them the tools to do it, they would see serious results.

An example here would be if individual salesmen would use a listing syndication service like Postlets, vFlyer or ClassifiedFlyerAds, and then post individual vehicles on the prime online marketplaces in their area, they would be more effective at finding serious prospects than just waiting on the lot for the next “up” to appear. As a bonus, they would be compiling a prospect list that they would own instead of simply managing leads belonging to the dealership.

The dealer would benefit from a having a legion of sales agents pushing their brand name out in a way that would increase exposure without requiring any out-of-pocket investment from ownership. It’s a win-win approach that can work, but requires thinking about the role of salesmen differently.

Ask any sales manager and they will tell you that most salesmen are relatively lazy and will not take the initiative necessary to successfully implement an approach like this. Ask any salesman and he will tell you that most sales managers micromanage don’t want salesmen to have any freedom to sell “their way” and that ownership is too greedy to let them own their leads. These are big hurdles for an industry that is still doing business in the 20th century.

What a Real Estate Agent can Learn from the Car Business

However, from the perspective of a real estate professional, there is much value in observing how the car business traditionally works – not so much from a marketing standpoint, but rather from a sales standpoint. If real estate pros actually learned how to sell, their effectiveness would increase significantly, and many of the headaches they often find themselves encountering later on in a deal wouldn’t crop up as often. What I mean by this is that real estate people are usually not sales people.

They may be people persons, customer service pros, agents or advocates for their clients……but they usually aren’t sales people.

The thing that distinguishes a great salesperson is the way they “qualify” their prospects and then archive that information for when the time comes to “close” the deal. I’m not talking about closing the real estate transaction, I’m talking about a sales “close” where you get the customer to commit to purchasing.

Unfortunately, many real estate agents waste gas, paper and time chasing properties for clients who aren’t really buyers. Had they been qualified properly the agent could have saved themselves a lot of grief, or been able to work on more productive business. In a listing presentation failing to qualify a seller means you have failed to determine how serious they are about selling. If you’re seller isn’t serious about selling, they won’t – despite your efforts.

I don’t agree with the philosophy many Realtors have that the secret to success is having as many active listings as possible. If you have the courage to be selective about what you list, and even turn down a potential listing, you will ultimately do far better, because you will come to be known as someone who actually gets their listings sold. Especially in times like these!

Furthermore, you can refer the listings you don’t want to other agents and still benefit if they do sell. But you won’t have the headaches to deal with along the way! Most agents will disagree with this approach, but there it is! The old Pareto principle is at work once again since only 20% of the agents a doing 80% of the business.

The key to this method of listing properties is contingent upon developing good sales skills, and potentially emulating some of the good techniques from the car business. Sadly, most agents who are struggling are waiting for their broker to tell them what to do, or provide them with the latest and greatest technology tools to find buyers or listings, while most car salesmen are standing out in front of their car dealership wondering if they’re going to hit their “quota” for the month and wishing that management would “advertise better”, “get better inventory”, “increase commissions”, or some other lame excuse.

The bottom line:

History proves time and time again that nobody ever achieves great success by following others. Sure we can learn from others successes and failures, but our own success is contingent upon our own innovation. Therefore, be an innovator, not an emulator!