“Fashionista” here at my fabulous local library again.
That’s right, I took another test and completed Lesson 3 on consumer behaviour. I am on a roll…
It was another informative chapter on the consumer buying habits—the “why, when, and where” of it all. This lesson really gave me a better understanding for and a direction of who I want my target consumer to be. I already had a good idea, but this lesson REALLY helped me to better understand my target consumer.
So, what are my dreams, goals, and aspirations?
I WILL become the successful owner of a small specialty store that caters to the more curvacious women in the nation. Yes, I said the NATION.
Starting with one store here in my new home city, I plan to make waves that will eventually lead to a tsunami. I’d like to open chain stores in not only the major cities like Atlanta, Miami and New York, but smaller cities too.
Even small towns have divas…
My chain stores will carry clothing that I purchase carefully as a buyer for my target market. Once my chains are up and running, I will then open up a few boutiques featuring custom designs by myself and other fashion minded designers.
I want to be a Brand. Clothing, shoes, accessories—the works!
Fashion week! Global recognition! Non profit organizations for the empowerment of young women!
I guess you could say I want it all. But hey, why want less if I can strive for much more?
Evita a.k.a. “Fashionista”
Student
Ashworth Fashion Retailing Program
Thanks to Chris Metcalf for permission to use this Photo.
In the hyper-competitive business environment of today, there are millions of dollars invested and mistakenly often wasted by companies looking for the “next big thing,” the elusive innovation that will electrify the marketplace. When most people think of innovation, they automatically consider it in the technological sense, but innovation means much more than producing a faster computer or a telephone that doubles as a home entertainment system; innovation is ultimately about ideas. In the following video, innovation expert Charles Leadbeater discusses how innovation isn’t just reserved for the corporate giants with infinite capital, but rather how independent thinking entities, people like you and me with a vision, are now empowered like never before to compete in the marketplace on our own terms. I found this presentation both informative and inspiring. I hope you feel the same way after viewing it and approach your next lesson with a sense of enthusiasm. Click on the image above to watch this video.
Any organization in which you find employment will have a variety of managers who have a variety of responsibilities. A typical business will have sales, operations, financial, and other types of managers, each with a different viewpoint on what it takes for the company to succeed. In smaller enterprises a manager may wear several of these hats. In a large corporation managers tend to be more specialized, either as to their duties or their geographic area or product line.
These managers speak different “languages” and sometimes the result can be a virtual Tower of Babel. For an example of this, you might try sometime asking an accountant, a plant supervisor, and an engineer what it costs the company to make a particular product. Having completed this course you should now be able to communicate effectively with a financial manager, and you should also know how to read and interpret financial statements, determining what they’re telling you and what they aren’t. Armed with these skills you now have the ability to ask the right questions to make better decisions both as a manager and as an investor. And you can appreciate why the accountant, the plant supervisor, and the engineer would look at “cost” differently. You needn’t expect them to all agree, so long as you recognize how you need to view the cost of a product.
Whatever profession you choose, if you’re not already tied to one, you’ll need to master its language and those of professions tied to individual departments, as well. These could include production, purchasing, materials management, human resources, sales and marketing, and even corporate legal disciplines. This is the purpose of a general business education such as the one you are pursuing at Ashworth University. (more…)
Sometimes technology is driven not out of necessity or productivity, but simply in the name of technology. I will let you decide on this one. Earlier this year, Papa John’s Pizza initiated a partnership with a private firm called trackmypizza.com. Drivers carry GPS-enabled handsets that feed location data to a TrackMyPizza server. There, the data is coupled with the customer’s phone number, providing location updates every 15 seconds. Customers simply go to www.trackmypizza.com, order their pizza and can then watch their delivery in real time.
Not all franchises have adapted it as of yet, but an eleven store chain in Alabama that did the initial test roll out experienced a 100% increase in online orders, which provides substantial savings to the chain versus the traditional order taking. Not to be outdone, Dominoes is supposed to unveil its own on-line pizza tracking system which will even track the pizza through the kitchen as it is made. One can only imagine what is coming next.
When I was the account executive on Mr. & Mrs. “T” Cocktail Mixes, the responsibilities of the advertising agency extended beyond creating advertisements. The agency also prepared shelf talkers, table tents, and other point-of-sale items. The client directed us to produce these promotional items because he wanted the product advertising incorporated into all trade and sales promotion materials.
For example, “T” ran print ads in trade magazines targeting the grocery trade and the retail trade. The objectives were to convince grocery buyers to carry the Mr. & Mrs. “T” brand of cocktail mixes. For the retail trade, the objectives were the same: to convince bars and restaurants to buy and sell the “T” line of products. These advertisements utilized the same visual as the consumer ads. This strategy recognized that trade buyers were also consumers, and likely to see the same ads. However, the ads included modified copy, which spoke directly to the trade audience by addressing their needs. The copy detailed the advertising support behind the Mr. & Mrs. “T” line of products. This information was included to encourage purchases by demonstrating a consumer pull strategy. The copy encouraged grocery chains and retail outlets to carry the full line of products to fulfill anticipated consumer demand.
We also developed sales sheets for use by the “T” sales force. The front of the sell sheets featured, once again, a consumer print advertisement. The back of the sell sheet summarized the consumer advertising schedule. The Mr. & Mrs. “T” sales force used the sell sheet on sales calls with brokers and retailers to demonstrate the advertising support behind the brand, and encourage clients to buy the “T” line of cocktail mixes.
Furthermore, the agency developed contests to provide additional incentives to the trade to purchase the line of cocktail mixes. The media planners and the account team negotiated merchandising with the various consumer magazines chosen for the media plan. Southern Living and Sunset magazines were included in the media program in part because of their high reach against the grocery trade. (Research had shown that many purchase decision makers in the grocery store business read these magazines to keep informed of product introductions and consumer products for their stores.) Magazine merchandising supplied by these titles included tickets to college football bowl games. The client used these tickets as incentives for grocery buyers to stock and order more of his product. Through this integrated approach to advertising and promotions, Mr. & Mrs. “T” was in a better position to achieve its marketing goals.
The insights of cultural/media theorist Douglas Rushkoff are always contemporary and often prescient. He was deciphering the social codes of the virtual psyche, lifestyle, and marketplace before such concepts were formally identified by the so-called “machine.” TheMerchants Of Cool is a brilliant analysis of the incorporation of youth pop-culture that Ruskhoff created while working as a correspondent for PBS Frontline. This is a very entertaining documentary. You’ll learn a lot too. Let me know what you think in the comments section.
There’s that store over on the corner. It is one of your favorite stores or you just go there once in a while. But the next time you go by, it’s closed. Not just closed for the day, but closed for good. You feel bad as you liked going in there, but you may not have gone in there that often. You think to yourself if you only knew that they were near that point you could have done something – blogged on them, told your friends or simply went in there more.
For me there were 2 such places, an awesome Vietnamese/fusion restaurant and a coffee shop. Now a jeweler and a check-cashing store stand in each respectively. But what if each owner reached out to its customer base for help, would I have responded? I asked myself as I read about Toscanini’s, an ice cream shop I have visited in Cambridge, MA in a recent issue of Inc. magazine. In this case, getting behind on paying their taxes resulted in the store closing, and after an Internet appeal they were able to raise enough money to reopen.
As I said before, you can’t mess with the numbers. However, they did and paid the price for it, literally. Had they reached out earlier to their customers, how would they have reacted? How would I have reacted? (more…)
Thanks to Orin Zebest for permission to use this Photo.
When I was a small girl, my family would gather to watch The Art Linkletter Show, a television variety show which aired once a week.
Although I have watched countless shows since that time, there is one particular segment which comes to mind when considering the many facets of starting and operating a small business. During the segment, Art Linkletter introduced a juggler who proceeded to explain how we all are jugglers. There are those who juggle as a profession; however, the analogy was applied to the rest of the population. No matter your profession, age, or socio-economic status, we can all learn from the juggler’s lesson of “The Spinning Plates.”
To offer a brief synopsis of the lesson, the juggler first began the process by placing a dowel rod on the floor and balancing a plate on top of the rod. He gave the plate a spin with this hand and stood back to watch as the plate, balanced atop the dowel rod, would spin around and around. As the first plate was spinning, the juggler would set up a second dowel rod and plate. This process continued until the juggler had twelve sets of dowel rods and plates spinning. In order to keep the plates from crashing to the ground, the juggler had to run from one to the next to keep the motion going. Inevitably, he would be too slow to attend to all of the plates and one would crash to the ground with the plates shattering into pieces. Quickly, he would set up a replacement and run from one plate to the next spinning, spinning, running, spinning, running, spinning, and running again! I was exhausted just watching the process.
The morale of the lesson is that no matter how wonderful you might be at spinning plates, you can only manage a certain number of plates effectively. Add just one too many plates and they may all come crashing to the ground. The same lesson is especially true for those of us who are business owners.
There are many aspects of your new business which will spin at the same time: financial, marketing, sales, service, employer/employee relationships, customer relationships, deadlines, industry regulations, ordering supplies, overseeing production, submitting bids, and the list goes on! With all of these responsibilities, it is no wonder that we find ourselves spinning and running just to keep all of our “plates” operating as they should. New entrepreneurs are often overwhelmed with the magnitude of responsibilities created when they decided to start and operate a new business. Realizing that all of the different areas must be effectively operating at the same time can create quite a bit of stress for the new business owner. To be successful, it is imperative that we understand our value to the new business. The primary responsibility for the new business owner is to focus time and effort on actions which contribute the greatest value to a new business. So what happens to the rest of the plates left spinning? Ah, that is the portion which must be delegated to others. In other words, the business owner should “spin” the value plates and delegate all activities that others can do. To capitalize on entrepreneurial strengths, new business owners must learn to delegate in order to spend valuable time strategizing and leading rather than doing.
Art Linkletter has been quoted as saying, “I’ve learned it is always better to have a small percentage of a big success, than a hundred percent of nothing.” An entrepreneur himself, Linkletter learned early in his career that the quality of employees he hired was in direct correlation with the success of a venture. Linkletter hired the most creative people he could find to assist with the production of his television shows, “House Party” and “The Art Linkletter Show.” Then, he shared his success with the employees realizing that without creative employees, his ventures would not have yielded the same results. If you were to ask the 96-year old entrepreneur his secret for success, he would tell you that he has learned not to spin more plates than he could comfortably handle. Of the many books Linkletter wrote, it was the title of a book released in 1980 that states the fact entrepreneurs must remember, “I Didn’t Do it Alone!”
As this article comes to a close, I hope that you also learn from the juggler’s lesson and realize that you can not possibly “spin all of the plates” found in your new small business. Instead, learn to delegate responsibilities to others within your organization so that you can concentrate on that which brings your enterprise most value. I’ll leave you with another bit of advice from Art Linkletter: “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out!”
Dare to be different. A look at why advertising professionals should consider standing out from the competition, not copying them. To make your advertising work, follow the principle if your competition is doing it, don’t. To succeed in today’s crowded marketplace where most of the products and advertising look exactly the same, a small business owner must stand out, shouting above the din with a message so clear and compelling that prospects stop and take notice. It’s a matter of business survival. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs quickly retreat to the supposed security of sameness, soon to be lost in a sea of anonymity and a tidal wave of frustration.
In effect, albeit at a subconscious level, they are saying , “I don’t want to be different”. In back room offices and store fronts everywhere, salespeople are telling business owners they should do this or that kind of ad because it worked so great for their competitor. The owners nod and sign on. It’s already proven to be a winner, right? WRONG! Change the name, background color and a font style and you’ve got sameness. Put those ads in the yellow pages, a coupon magazine or a TV commercial cluster and you’ve got advertising death. Want proof? Get the latest statistics on small business failures.
About the author: Brian Grinonneau is the general manager of McMann and Tate advertising, an agency that works with small business owners helping them stand out from the crowd.
When I read the book Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin, it reminded me of one of his previous books I read, Purple Cow. But was it just the content of the book, or the fact that the book arrived to me several years ago in a milk carton?
The premise of the book Purple Cow, published in 2002, is about being remarkable. Godin’s point is that in an age where we are deluged with images and messages, these have reduced their overall effectiveness, and to get your message out there, your product or service needs to be different or unique in its own way. The first example in the book is driving through farm lands and seeing cow after cow and they all look alike, but a cow that is purple will stand out and be remembered, thus remarkable.
So is remarkable something you put on top of a product or service? Not necessarily. The book gives examples of how L.L. Bean and Sears Craftsman line of tools are remarkable in their unconditional return policy. Ikea is remarkable in how they sell low-cost, assemble-yourself furniture that is extremely stylish. Dr. Bronner’s soap is remarkable in its unique labeling.
My greatest takeaway is that remarkable is not a gimmick. From the above examples, what makes them remarkable are attributes that have lasted for years. Gimmicks may drive sales, but not over the long term. Gimmicks are also not considered sincere.
Another takeaway is that you may already be remarkable. When many entrepreneurs venture out on their own, their catalyst is often they can do what they do better or in a more unique way from where they previously worked. They may not have been able to do it, whatever it is, when they worked for someone else and have the conviction to do it themselves. This was part of my own motivation for starting Dunkirk Systems, LLC.
The book Purple Cow does not over-do it with examples and is an energetic, quick read. If you are venturing out on your own, or taking a strategic look at your business I recommend reading the book as it will definitely inspire you, and you may get some ideas from it as well.
Mike Maddaloni
Founder and President of Dunkirk Systems
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger
*We consider it a great privilege to share the business-tech perspectives of entrepreneur Mike Maddaloni with the Ashworth University Business Community. Mike’s Internet consulting firm, Dunkirk Systems, is based out of Chicago and has steadily built a reputation for providing superior service to their growing list of satisfied clients. Visit The Hot Iron blog to gain additional insights into Mike’s business life. Thanks Mike!
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