The Transparency of Real Leaders

Every Business Owner I’ve worked with closely has spilled some beans to me about his or her business challenges, sometimes personal challenges. Beyond the important conversations concerning their markets, we often get into the confidential internal issues at the company that deal with employees, contractors, and vendors. We share personal stories.

While I’m certainly no coach or counselor, I appreciate it whenever clients trust me enough to open up and tell me what’s really on their minds. I’m happy to listen in confidence and respond in kind. Perhaps surprisingly, these deeper conversations can be crucial to strong brand development and better marketing executions.

Every business has some nuanced or even bold advantage that helps it differentiate value from its competition. Those unique attributes need to be understood by the market or the brand loses equity to those competitors that communicate better.

Do you know what clearly differentiates your product and service quality from your competition? Have you driven those points home to your marketing director or agency partners, and do they know how to execute in your particular market?

Availability, openness and transparency with your marketing advisors clear a pathway to full understanding of your value proposition and how to craft your messages to attract new business. A trusted confidant who gets to know the company’s leadership personally, and thereby fully understands the firm’s culture, can do a better job as your marketing partner. They’ll know how to differentiate your singular distinction to attract the kind of customers you can best serve.

And, if you’re really serious about achieving positive results from your marketing campaigns, there is one crucial thing for you to do.

The Secret of Marketing Success

Risk being a pain in the butt. Does a laissez-faire attitude cut it when overseeing the most critical functions of sustaining and growing your business? A true leader leads the single most important function in the company: marketing!  Why? Because marketing makes up your products & services, prices, distribution and promotion efforts. And promotion includes advertising, public relations and personal selling. Quite a lot to marketing, isn’t there!

As owner and CEO, you must get involved and stay involved in your campaigns. It’s your responsibility to keep marketing and sales at the top of your business priority list. How do you do this? In short, by communicating more. Here’s what that looks like:

• Clearly articulate your cultural values and your firm’s USP – unique selling proposition.
• Lead or attend marketing meetings on a regular schedule.
• Attend every meeting that includes campaign pitches.
• Do not delegate your leadership. Provide your knowledge and ideas directly!
• Provide key insights and feedback from your industry.
• Freely give of your specialized expertise.
• Provide resources for photography, video and other crucial assets as needed.
• Hold yourself and your team accountable for following through.

Over the years, I’ve repeatedly observed successful sales and marketing campaigns yield sustained business growth. I’ve also seen great ideas and creative energy come to nothing because of lackluster leadership and effort. The common factor in most successful campaigns has been the CEO’s time, leadership, commitment, and support.

Every Team Needs a Head Coach

A team needs its head coach on the field with them if they expect to win.

Your team will only perform to the level they perceive you expect, and guess what? They’re human. You need to remind them of your expectations and provide guidance regularly or inertia will set in and cause efforts to go stale.

Your sustained enthusiasm for building your brand and growing your business is the energy that’s needed to fuel your campaigns. And when your team feels your energy and support behind them, they’ll be moved to perform. Let them show you and the market their best stuff!

The post Are You a Marketing Leader? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Having “followers” in business is a good thing. And what are followers, exactly? Think of having fans interested in what you do, what you think and what you have to say. They would say positive things about and recommend your brand in a heartbeat. And they literally choose to “follow” you on social media because they value your insights.

Celebrity or Influencer?

Celebrity status is by degrees. There are local, national and worldwide celebrities. We can all be celebrities of sorts when we’re doing the kinds of things people celebrate as praiseworthy or valuable. If you’ve been in the same profession for 5 years or more and have a successful track record, the people who know this about you will value your thoughts and opinions about your industry. If you write about it publicly, you’ll attract a following of curious and likeminded people, and you’ll begin to influence their thinking. This is known as your “tribe” in business vernacular. To these folks, you’re known as an influencer which is akin to being a celebrity among that select group.

Can you attract people to an event or influence them to share your message? We all have a circle of influence which can wax and wane depending on our commitment to proactively offer value in every business situation. The more you engage people with value, the wider your influence grows in the market. That influence can fade quickly the moment you ease up and back off from proactive market engagement. I’ve seen this happen in my own business life repeatedly over the years which is why I keep writing blogs, columns and newsletters as well as attending events in my market, even creating them.

Innovation Gets Attention!

Last year I started a new local event series called “Networking in Motion” which keeps my brand and others’ in front of people like you. Having recruited a couple of influencers in my network – people who have their own tribe, we easily attract a dozen or more people to fun and “kinetic” business networking events. We build relationships and expand referral partnerships which you know are super valuable! So far, 3 successful events with another one coming up in early December! Stay tuned for details.

Would You Follow Yourself?

Whether you’re a buyer, seller, connector or just an observer, the amount you engage other businesspeople in meaningful conversations is usually in direct proportion to your current business success.

If people respect what you say, they are likely to follow you in the market, in your industry, at events, and it extends online. The key is to publish content and make sure it passes the value test! Do people get value and are they entertained when reading or listening, watching?

Proactive Market Engagement

Consider the ways in which you engage with people for the purpose of growing your business.

• How many networking events per month do you attend?
• Are you considered a “regular” in the groups you belong to?
• Do you sponsor or host events that bring businesspeople together?
• Do you lead workshops, seminars and educational events?
• Do you have an email list you regularly send newsletters and updates to your followers?
• Do you join boards and committees so you can contribute to and influence the groups you belong to?
• Do you invest time to build individual relationships with key players and influencers in your market?
• Well, do ya, punk? (See Dirty Harry)

Answer “yes” to as many of these questions as possible and you will develop followers who will help you succeed by advocating for your business success.

Real Followers do more than like and click!

Mere clicks on your links and likes or comments on your social pages indicate that some people are noticing your messages. It’s better to have engagement than not but how far does the engagement go? For some in your audience, it’s no more than a like, click or comment hoping they will get noticed on your profile.

Your real followers will take more actions on your behalf. They’ll make direct business referrals, share your posts to their networks, hire you for services and show up to your events, and they will invite their friends!

If you want real followers in the market, get out there and lead. Reread the section under Proactive Market Engagement and make plans to answer “yes” to the questions. If I can do it, so can you!

The post Who Follows You and Why? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

You have the choice to trust your God-given light and remain true to it or let cultural and societal winds blow your business practices around in their chaotic and whimsical directions.

Jeffrey Immelt or Elon Musk?

Think about the completely different leadership styles of Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO who stepped down from the floundering behemoth General Electric, and Elon Musk, the ever-optimistic dreamer who never runs out of blue-sky opportunities. Mr. Immelt ran GE according to conventional power models, i.e., cozy up to establishment power. While he has his share of shortcomings, Mr. Musk has his vision and sticks to it no matter what and hasn’t looked back. His firms are literally skyrocketing regardless of his many critics and conventional wisdom!

What does your brand stand for? Is your brand strategy foundational and integral or is it temporary and easily manipulated? Will your brand promise and core message be firm and familiar or soft and unrecognizable after the next wave of political, cultural and economic disruption?

Run your own business!

I’m seeing recently thriving businesses die unnecessarily of fear and dependency. I’ve witnessed great local brands let politically charged narratives kill them because the owners focused their attention on daily media reports instead of their customers. I’ve seen other businesses in the same industry and market thriving and growing at the same time as they say, “we’re not going anywhere. Watch this!”

Is your brand on solid ground? Do you need to pour some concrete and drive in some pilings so it has a foundation you can stand on no matter what comes along next?

What do you stand for anyway?

The post Refresh Your Brand Promise Commitment Now appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Client – Pucuda Leading Edge

Whatever your business sector, the current pandemic slowdown is affecting you profoundly. It might be good for your company or it might be devastating but one thing is certain; you are feeling massive change underfoot and you know you must adapt.

I’m seeing some small businesses focus their energy on “cutting loss” and applying for government assistance or SBA disaster loans while some are converting their factories to make much-needed PPE for the public. Others are nurturing their key relationships and rebuilding their internal business infrastructures.

Rebuild Your Marketing Infrastructure

My clients are amazing. Most of them are stepping up their communication efforts right now, some of them big time! They have the foresight to position their businesses to be of indispensable service in their own communities immediately, and also to lead their industries during the inevitable recovery.

Image – catholicmedicalcenter.org

For example, a safety netting manufacturer in CT converted part of their factory floor to a mask production facility to make masks available for the public. Another client, a construction firm, was the first to answer the call from NH hospitals to his industry for N95 masks, donating his company’s entire stock of 200 masks to the medical team at Catholic Medical Center. This same client is working tirelessly right now on branding, marketing, PR, helping to write trade policy, and nurturing relationships with vendors, contractors, clients and business partners.

I have several other inspiring client stories but this post could get too lengthy. It’s likely that I’ll write about them in the near future.

What’s Happening Here at Home

Personally, I’ve never been busier in my life! But even though the current work is urgent and a bit stressful, I’m still using this passing crisis to reposition my business as the premium design and digital communication firm in our market with the resources and capability to scale! We’re currently in the process of building out my website’s service offerings and improving both the user experience (UX) and SEO. I even upgraded my website maintenance plan so my developer will make changes and improvements for me on-demand. This carpenter is building his house!

Most agree. Few actually do.

Client – SkiClinics.com

Remember that the best time to blow your horn is when the hall is quiet or your competition is distracted. Hmm… Here’s a thought:  People ordered to stay home or work from home are on their computers a lot. Guess where digital marketing reaches them?

Well, a past client got this message from one of my recent LinkedIn posts and decided it was time to promote his new online offerings in a big way, leading to an exciting new online marketing campaign. Check out the introductory newsletter. We’re helping to sell books and training sessions online. This new project has my juices flowing for a return to the good life we know is on the comeback!

The post That Marketing Thing – It’s now or never! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Bright Silver Linings in a Charcoal Sky

Overnight, it seems, all of us must adapt to sudden changes in social and business policies brought on by our friend the coronavirus. How will your company adapt to keep interacting personally with customers? For some, it seems like a bust and for others, it may only require a few adjustments. In the end, we’ll be fine and look back at this experience having gained new wisdom.

Businesses need to reach out to customers and recommend ways of working through the recently imposed social distance rules. For us, it’s to offer remote assistance and write clear messages that included proper tone, style and approach for each individual company, their market and industry. For those clients still accepting onsite meetings, we’re happy to do so according to their social distance and sanitation rules as well as our own.

Seize the Science!

For every action, there is an equal and corresponding reaction. Okay, there’s your science.

Have I lost some business? Yes. What I find amazing is how busy I’ve been in the last few days, working double shifts getting websites updated, e-blast messages out, articles written and social posts managed. A couple of new business projects came in last week and this week. My family and I are in good health and spirits. Praise God!

One of my very wise, and if I may, sage clients hit me between the eyes this week as we were discussing his calm and reassuring response. My first approach to this crisis, he said, “was terrible.” He’s right. I led with trepidation instead of a rational perspective and vision for the future.

We’re Solving This Now

Ignore political and news media-driven negativity completely.

It’s false!

Our country is uniting and mobilizing very well to save people’s lives medically while holding together the foundations of the economy that must support it all! Each day good news emerges out of this crisis. If staying home can refocus some of us toward our spiritual center and to more fervently seek God’s will, how awesome is that?

I’m seeing many examples of individuals offering unconditional support to neighbors and local small businesses. My own client dropped everything to rush a few hundred precious N95 masks to a regional hospital in desperate need of them, and his competition followed suit.

Need Help?

This is a big, generous country and every one of us is a resource for each other. We’ll be fine!

If you need help composing appropriate and relevant messages for your business during these times, free free to email back or contact me personally at 603-345-7223. Our telephones still work fine and we’re always glad to jump on a video chat.

The post Open for Business with Cleaner Vision appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

When I was a young, aggressive salesman, I worked my tail off to get new business and produced enough to be valued. I cold called like crazy, set appointments and made presentations day after day. It was a constant struggle, though, to sustain business growth as it ebbed and flowed in spite of continuous and mighty selling efforts.

Meet Richard

There was one senior guy on the team named Richard who had all the giant accounts and he just sat there on the phone discussing business and taking big, fat orders. Either that or he would meet with his clients at the plant and entertain them as they kept an eye on their work. I suspect they also enjoyed Richard’s company and getting out of their own office for vendor meetings with a trusted, high-quality supplier.

His cup runneth over!

The real kicker about Richard was this. In spite of his already abundant sales success, most of the new business inquiries calling in would ask for Richard, and it drove me nuts! He never cold called and he never had to bang the phone for appointments like the rest of us. The biggest and most profitable business just flowed to Richard.

I liked Richard and we became fast friends but I also envied his ability to take in lucrative business without seeming to compete for it. What did he have that the rest of us didn’t?

Over the course of time and even a few career moves, it finally became clear why Richard excelled. He understood quality and he never cut corners. While I was trying to figure out ways to lower costs or match competitive price quotes just to win an order, Richard was increasing the prices his clients would pay while at the same time adding value to the total package.

No Surprises!

The primary value that Richard added was quality-assurance. Richard’s clients knew that if they worked with him, they would get the best quality products available. No shortcuts, no surprises; just predictable high quality at a fair, negotiated price.

Meanwhile, the corners I cut in quality specs to compete on price were making some customers question the value they could expect from me in the future. It took me far too long to realize that not everyone wants more for less. I assumed price meant everything and I was trying to appease prospects I assumed were cheapskates.

Give back… to your competition!

True, there are plenty of cheapskates out there but in reality, there are lots of good people in the business world who understand what things cost. “You get what you pay for.” Those were Richard’s people! They knew that Richard understood the vital nature of high quality in manufacturing. When other people like them heard of Richard’s business approach and they needed our products, they called Richard, who else? And when Richard sensed cheapness or price challenges from a new business prospect, he would cheerfully (and wisely) refer them to competing manufacturers whom he knew would cut profits just to keep their machines running.

Be the person you would call!

The lesson here is that if you’re looking for more qualified sales leads, maybe you need to focus less on sales promotions and more on delivering premium quality to all your customers every single time you do business. Quality reputations can only be earned. If you’ve earned yours, go ahead and promote it!

Promote the one thing that separates your quality from the rest. Promote it everywhere you can.  If a prospect happens to see your company promotion and call you after also getting a referral, the sale is yours! And that was Richard’s secret to easygoing sales success. He promoted quality assurance and all his customers backed him up.

Make best-in-class quality your goal. Communicate what that really costs and clearly demonstrate its value. Then deliver the best quality consistently to build your reputation. Your marketing and sales efforts will work better as the quality seekers in your market find from you the really good stuff they’re looking for.

So first ask, is your stuff really that good?

The post Quality Sales Promotion appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Loyal employee engagement shores up company strength more than perhaps any other factor. That’s why it’s constantly on every responsible executive’s mind. Your team must execute your business operations with a purpose or your product and service quality will quickly slide downhill. Following the slide, morale sinks and you’ve got deeper problems.

We all need people to show up each day with an eager willingness to collaborate, do their part and be mutually rewarded by our companies’ success.

You can read a lot about employee engagement in comprehensive HR literature as well as top strategic business books. There’s another kind of human engagement that’s almost as vital to your business as that of your key employees. How are your relationships with suppliers and contractors? How’s your supplier engagement going?

“You didn’t build that!” (LOL)

If your company is like most, you probably don’t manufacture every product component or implement every service you deliver to your clients. At a minimum, you probably rely on parts suppliers or subcontractors, whatever your company does. What if suddenly, a couple of them decided they didn’t really care about your business, maybe ran into some issues and ceased to serve your “account.” What if that’s all you and your team were thought of by critical suppliers, an “account?”

The people who run the businesses you partner with need to be solidly grounded and totally dedicated to their clients’ needs. Simply stated, their people need to care about your people. And your independent contractors need to follow your directions as if you’re the boss. You need strong, trusted relationships with your “vendors.” I try to refer to each of my suppliers as a “business partner” or else simply by their name, and my clients get to know me on a personal level as we work together.

We’re (independently) in this together!

Who can say their business runs smoothly every single day? We all know the answer! Whenever my company has run into production or communication problems, every one of my reliable “business partners” has jumped in with both feet through the thick of the issue until it was solved. I’m extremely grateful for my contractor relationships. If you happen to be one of the men and women contributing your talents to our premium marketing services, thank you!

When you are experiencing challenges together with your solution partners, and you sense real dedication and mutual trust among yourselves, that’s engagement!

Call it vendor engagement, supplier engagement or business partner engagement, it’s priceless, just like earning and keeping the quality work of your best employees. Always remember to nurture your relationships for better engagement – both inside and outside your company.

The post Your Other Team appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Don’t follow the leaders down!

This is how I’m seeing things play out in business news as the year 2018 ends. I hope I’m wrong, but this stuff is predictable and I’ve closely studied economic cycles for more than 30 years. Negative chatter is contagious and creates “headwinds” against continued good economic times. But you can set your sails to tack against headwind and make a lot of forward progress.

I’m sorry to say this, but there are no executives of large American corporations who strike me as inspiring moral and ethical leaders. I cannot think of a single one. But there are numerous small business, independent enterprise and nonprofit leaders to whom I aspire and whose example I would like to follow, some I know personally. They are people bent on serving instead of controlling. These are people who stick with principles no matter what, and I’m talking about moral, ethical and economic principles. They enjoy enduring success.

The small business community needs to coalesce around the idea that the prevailing thoughts and decisions made by the leaders of large corporations and government (silent partners) often go against a stronger economy and the good of our country and society.

Do they still teach real economics?

If you subsidize something, you will enlarge it or encourage more of it. If you tax something, you will diminish it. This is a macroeconomics principle – an immutable law of economics.

If you serve your customer with value, you improve his position and therefore build more demand for your products. If you create more work or complexity for your customer and charge him for it in the process, you will damage him and lose his business. He will tell others about the bad experience as well. This is simple microeconomics which follows the macroeconomics principle.

Be solution oriented!

Why not put these immutable economic laws to work for our own businesses and multiply our numbers by example?

Any strong network of small business and enterprise leaders can work together in the markets and within their own companies to more effectively beat back negative economic forces, including politics and negative chatter aligned against them.

Put your best networking, service, sales and marketing game on, starting now!

Growth in 2019, 2020 and beyond is not only possible but probable if business leaders will get in the trenches with their people and demonstrate how much they care about the future. Leaders in great small businesses always do some heavy lifting with their teams to shore up conditions in the company and better serve customers. The also stay committed to their brand identities and work to build their reputations.

Business Growth Tactics for the New Year

In 2019, a strong leader will:

• Work closely with their salespeople and give them real leads instead of simply demanding more calls.
• Spend considerable time on production floors and job sites performing needed tasks and adding production value as well as developing employee relationships.
• Spend a lot of time with customers, learning what they really need, carefully considering how they or someone in their network can meet those needs.
• Be a committed brand manager, constantly nurturing the brand in the market by continually directing and helping to manage strong marketing campaigns.

If a bad recession in the overall economy does happen, your market share and brand awareness will determine how well you ride it out or even grow right through it.

Top-of-mind brand awareness is priceless. Those who have it usually earn it, and they remain in the market like flashing beacons as their competitors fade from the promotional stage.

I’m going to increase my marketing budget now and step on the gas even more during 2019. I also pledge to follow the sales, production and customer service advice listed above.

Are you with me?

The post Business Growth in 2019: Who’s with me? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Is this too much to ask a man or woman with some authority and resources? For some business owners and executives, it may seem like a nagging request. Why should they take time away from their important work to jot down notes and hunt for files? Important work. Hmm…

Is marketing communication vital to growing and sustaining a business? In other words, are your product features, pricing strategy, distribution channels and promotional messages important to your business? Marketing is all of those things so why not give it the time and attention it deserves?

But you have “fires to put out!”

Why is that? Maybe some of the fires result from misfired marketing communications or not enough communication. If you own a business, your input and decisions mean everything! If you want high-quality brand, product and direct marketing communications to consistently work for you, you need to consistently contribute to the marketing effort. As the company leader, you hold the keys to what your company can faithfully and consistently deliver to customers, therefore the keys to messaging accuracy and consistency. Realness sells!

Why Me?

For marketing communications to deliver results, two things happen. 1) Appropriate resources are allocated and 2) the business owner leads the marketing team. If there is a marketing committee, the owner or CEO should lead it, not a staff marketing director. You might think, with all this work and commitment, what am I paying a marketing agency for?

Here’s what for: To nudge you toward greatness in branding and sales results; to request and gather the shy pieces of accurate, relevant information you keep hidden – to make them into attractive and vibrant messages that look and sound great in every different media format.

In order to execute an effective campaign, all an agency really needs is about 20 minutes (maybe an hour) of executive time devoted to jot down a few key points, and maybe hunt for a photo (with help) or authorize a photo/video shoot. That’s all it should really take for the company leader. What’s nice is that as the owner or chief executive, you have a phone number and voice to which people answer.

Leverage Your Knowledge and Directives

Once you make relevant facts and images available, the real work begins with the creative agency people who are very eager to please! We direct, we write, we design, we produce, we enhance, we refine and make attractive the raw facts about your value proposition. Executive input and decisions enable all of this to happen!

With the right amount of executive input, professional marketers can execute stronger campaigns. We can nimbly make adjustments to our tactics from marketplace feedback, ever striving to improve and authenticate the brand experience for customers & prospects.

The most successful companies in any category have authentic and refined brands. They produce the most successful marketing campaigns. These campaigns succeed because the company leader is engaged in the marketing effort, devoting thought and directing resources toward successfully delivering their own key messages.

The post Executive commitment is marketing gold! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Still tasting the raunchiness of some phony baloney served up to me as legitimate business fare, I felt motivated to tackle a controversial yet in-your-face-everyday topic, and an important one in business: attempted consumer manipulation. You can even call it fake news.

Now well past the Industrial Age, we’re neck deep into the Information Age which has devolved to the era of “Fake News.” Media in every form is being used in an attempt to manipulate rather than inform. While this has always been true in advertising, it is now the purview of most mainstream journalism and corporate public relations. Just look at your newsfeeds and ask yourself, is there unbiased veracity and relevance to this information or is it agenda-driven? If the latter, who’s agenda and why? The answers lead either to money or politics or both.

Media today are being weaponized against business and I’ve seen competitors smell blood in the water and attack cowardly from behind concerning some made up accusation of social injustice. And the fact is, most corporate reactions to fake news leveled at them are pathetic. They fold like cheap suits at false claims when any pressure group attempts to slander and shake them down. Why? Because they’d rather allow a lie to propagate if bowing to it makes brand controversy blow over. They unwittingly damage their integrity and lose brand loyalty with every cave-in.

Truth is an awesome differentiator!

Ironically, as an advertiser, you now have the opportunity to stand apart from all the phony baloney being distributed from the manipulative minds of so many “journalists” and marketing writers – your competition for time/space and audience attention. All you need to do is tell the truth in every communication that your organization publishes, including every advertisement and promotion. You will rise above the fray because truth in media is no longer a predictable commodity, but a highly valued communication specialty.

Do you want to distinguish your brand from the competition? Get real now!

Advertising and Sales Veracity Audit

If you tell simple truths about your products and services in every message emanating from your business, consumers will take comfort in the absence of brash claims and hyperbole. Truth has the ring of truth to it. Truth in advertising quietly stands out because of its automatic differentiation from mainstream message clutter. Put every promotional message through the veracity test. Can all your claims be backed by multiple testimonials?

“Seek first to understand…”

How do you figure out the truths that you need your target audience to understand and believe?

Stop thinking about your stupid solution for a minute!  Ask customers and sales prospects what’s really important in a vendor partner who provides what you do. Ask only to listen, not to respond. Just listen and really understand what’s important to your customers, putting any solution response off to the side while you walk in your customer’s shoes and feel their cramped feet. Then, having a better understanding of what shoes will fit, you can become their personal cobbler, helping them take bigger strides forward in their own business by delivering customized value with consistency.

When you know what’s important to your customers, it’s easy to shoot straight with them and you become their trusted, go-to resource. They will even ask your advice before making some of their purchase decisions. Keep listening to customers on a daily basis so you can respond to your market with honest advertising and promotional messages that matter to real people including your friends and neighbors.

The post Advertising and Marketing: The Real Deal or Fake News? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.