Marketing Information |
This Information Brought to you by TopWebProducts, knowledge is power. |
Misrepresentation - Through Silence!
We're back to the subject of ethics, more specifically, business ethics. But unlike ethical dilemmas we've discussed in the past - when people are confronted with bizarre, freak circumstances they had never planned for, and then face agonizing choices regarding how to react - I'm now talking about cases where people willfully and proactively steer events in a certain direction. Take the case of the owner of a $32 million business whose daring entry into entrepreneurship was recounted in a leading business magazine. Just over a decade ago, Kathy Taggares was itching to ditch her employer, frozen-food maker Chef Ready Foods, to start her own business. She decided to approach Marriott International about buying one of its salad dressing factories. Not that she was overly optimistic("As a young single woman, I'd already had so many doors slammed in my face"), but what was there to lose? But surprisingly, her overtures met with a particularly warm reception. Marriott even offered to help her finance the $5 million purchase over several years. It seemed almost too good to be true. Actually, it was. Slowly it dawned on Kathy that the Marriott people believed she was representing her employer, Chef Ready, as a solo entrepreneur. Had they realized that she was, in reality, representing herself, there was no way they would have taken her so seriously. If she had owned up to the truth, the game would been up, for sure. Yet another door would have been slammed in her face. So what did Kathy do now? Simple. "They never directly asked me," she confesses, "so I let them believe what they wanted to believe." Sure, they found out at the end - and they weren't at all charmed by the deception - but by then, the deal had all but gone through. Twelve years and one more acquisition later, Kathy Taggeres' company, K.T's Kitchens, now employs 350 people. Effective communication? Having painted herself into a rather tight corner, our would-be entrepreneur yet managed to come up trumps by simply NOT communicating, and doing it very effectively at that. It remains to answer our question: Was it straight? Well, now, can we accuse Kathy Taggares of lying? No, it seems she didn't - at least, not with words. "I just left some of the blanks empty", as she expresses it. But do you have to SAY something in order to lie? Personally, I don't think so. I'd go along with Robert Louis Stevenson's definition of honesty: "not just to state the true facts, but to convey a true impression." If so, no objective person can sincerely deny that Taggeres lied. That being the case, we're forced to ask ourselves another pertinent question: Is it ever legitimate to lie in business? Omitting cases of outright fraud where the law clearly says it's not, the author of the article I cited (Jeremy Useem: "Should You Lie?") writes that his magazine "put that question to dozens of entrepreneurs and ethicists. And while the answers that came back are neither black nor white, one thing is clear: Those who say that lying has no place in business aren't telling the truth." Mark well what is being said here, and let it sink in. Sure, we weren't born yesterday. We know too much about the sharks that abound in the business world. Who is there amongst us who has not been bitten by them? But that's not what our author is saying here. He's saying that, in the eyes of the great masses of business people out there -including some of the most respectable among them - lies and deception have a LEGITIMATE place in the world of business. This does not necessarily mean that some respectable entrepreneurs condone cheating and deceiving as a general practice. (Hopefully, they don't, and probably, they wouldn't remain "respectable" too long if they did.) What it does mean it means many of them believe there's a time and place for everything. In other words, an occasional subtle deception,if not outright lie,is in order and appropriate when circumstances demand it. And to prove the point, the essay in Fortune Small Business presents a whole host of real life examples. Business person after business person is depicted as bending the truth in the most ingenious ways - whether through speech, deeds, or untimely silence - to mislead potential or existing clients, suppliers or investors. Why do they do it? Sometimes, they feel they have no choice. One professor of business education says company founders often mislead people because they find themselves in an "expectations trap": No one will do business with them until they appear successful, yet they can't be successful until people do business with them. One way to escape this "Catch 22" is to create the impression that they're bigger and more established than they are. Some might achieve this by playing office background noise in their home office or bringing in all their relatives to pose as staff members when a client comes to visit. Others don't hesitate to puff up their capabilities (Sure, we've built an aircraft hangar before,") or to describe their vision of their company's future as if it were happening already. Other academics point out that people tend to live with two independent sets of ethical standards - one for their personal lives (what you might call "religious ethics"), and one for their business or professional lives. In our culture, moreover, it might seem natural to model the latter set on the prevailing ethics of the world of sport, where shady practices are often seen as acceptable provided you don't break the Eleventh Commandment: "Thou Shalt Not Get Caught" (by the referee or umpire, that is). For my part, I'm not impressed. Not at all. Well, what do YOU say? Drop me a note and let me know! Azriel Winnett is creator of Hodu.com - Your Communication Skills Portal. This popular free website helps you improve your communication and relationship skills in your business or professional life, in the family unit and on the social scene. New articles added almost daily.
Check out the many ways to use this and learn about all the
aspects of each form of this that is available. Explore and learn
from all that is given here. There are many uses for this
in all of it's forms. For your use from TopWebProducts. |
RELATED ARTICLES
How To Choose a Qualitative Research Market Qualitative research, whether individual interviews, in-homes, focus groups, ethnographies and the like are conducted all over the world, as everyone knows. But how are the markets to be studied selected in the first place? Why Most Marketing Videos Dont Work Every now and then I will meet someone who has commissioned a marketing video that did not work for their company. It is a sad state of affairs and it is avoidable. The Real Path To Big Bucks On The Internet! "Instead Of Wasting Time Trying To Hit The Lottery Of Internet Riches, Focus On Building Your Business One Sweet Income Stream At A Time!" Your Marketing Message Your message is first among your weapons in the battle of perceptions. Why Direct Mail Advertising Works And How To Lower Your Costs I met a lady who said she received a notice in the mail from a company offering plaques of various animals. She knew her daughter would love them as a gift and ordered them. This lady said, "I don't know how they got my name but I sure am pleased to have found out about those beautiful plaques, my daughter just loves them." Small Business Pricing: Setting A Price For Your Product / Service The importance of pricing can not be underestimated as incorrect pricing can often result in the failure of a business. New businesses often make the mistake of either charging too little or too much for their product or service. So to help you avoid making one of these mistakes, the following section will outline some of the guiding principles of price determination. Price is a key part of marketing. Setting prices is called pricing. Postcard Direct Mail Marketing Tips And Ideas Postcards are perhaps the least expensive way of reaching a large number of people with your sales message. Although they have their drawbacks, they are cost-effective at attracting new customers. But only if you follow some simple rules that professional direct mail copywriters follow. Reasons Why People Usually Dont Buy Again There are many psychological reasons why people will buy from the first time and why they do not buy from you again. There are books on many of these reasons. Many of these reasons are totally out of your control. Marketing Messages: Your 10 Most Important Business Principles As a self-employed professional, you have two basic strategies for your marketing efforts: Writing or Speaking. Turbocharge New Sales with a Marketing Database What is the most valuable asset your company owns? Inventory? Equipment? Employees? If you've got customers, your number one asset is your customer list. Ten Reasons Why Most Yellow Page Ads Fail -And Yours Does Not Have to Grant Directory users are ready to buy Yellow Pages have a major advantage over all other forms of advertising. It's used precisely when people have decided to buy. They open the directory to check out options and sources. The directory doesn't create their desire, but assists in finding the products and services they want. A typical telephone directory has 18,000 display ads - a recipe for sensory overload. Even within any category, readers encounter page after page of look-alikes, all jammed together. So it's easy for advertisers to get overlooked. Catching the reader's attention is tough - unless your ad differs from the others in ways that matter to readers. Find out how to get more mileage from your ad at http://www.yellowpagesage.com a smarter way to attract Yellow Page customers. The ideal Yellow Page ad provides the answers readers want to find A great ad provides the connection between what buyers expect to learn before buying AND what your particular business offers. The more precisely a business understands its customers' frame of mind, the better it anticipates and answers their questions. It can provide specifics, instead of the general phrases appearing in every competitors' ads. Avoid these common reasons why directory ads fail, so you get more mileage from your ad dollars. And a higher percentage of callers and sales. Fails to provide the information directory users want Information trumps images and expensive extras, like color. Readers are looking for specific answers. Use your ad space delivering them. Words provide persuasion's heavy lifting. If your message applies equally to the other ads around yours, you haven't sharpened it enough. Keep honing the copy until it embodies why people prefer YOU. Fades into background - doesn't get noticed While larger ads can be overlooked, smaller ads have to work harder for the same shot at being noticed. Overlooked ads cost just as much as chosen ones. The solution isn't about changing the size, but focusing the words to match what readers want to know. It comes down to saying something unique and relevant to them. Treats the business name or logo like a benefit It isn't. That's probably the least relevant information, as far as directory users are concerned. Yellow Pages aren't the way to build name recognition. But if you've already developed name recognition in other ways, you have a major chance of getting called. Inconvenient business location Half of all users scan for location before actually reading the ads' information. They only pay attention to businesses that are convenient (within driving distance) and easy to find. (That distance varies depending on the product or service.) So make sure your location is prominent and findable (maybe a map). Or compensate for an undesirable location with house calls or free delivery. Expects more than an ad could possibly deliver This problem isn't about the ad, but the advertiser's frame of mind. There's too much hype and biased statistics about what the directory can deliver. New businesses, especially, have unrealistic expectations. The longer a business is in operation, the less impact their listing has upon drawing new business. Treats the Yellow Pages like a stand-alone marketing method It works best for getting new customers, to capture the "undecideds." But relying on mostly new business is an inefficient way to operate. An enterprise also needs repeat customers and referrals to balance out the high financial and effort costs necessary to keep attracting new ones. Therefore, a business needs a variety of strategies to keep, as well as find, buyers. Trusts ad size and placement to do the work Industry statistics show that larger ads and those toward the front of the category get more calls. But that over simplifies what makes people choose a particular ad. If an ad doesn't fit the reader's preferences or match what they're looking for, it will be passed by (whatever its size). Looks like the rest Too bad if your ad doesn't capture the eye in the two seconds it passed by - then landed somewhere else. That's all the attention most ads get. Look-alike ads were probably done for free by directory employees. They follow standardized guidelines and templates without much variation. And they don't have a clue about what's special about your operation. That's not the best way to go. Fails to track the calls so you know why people call No getting around it, if you don't keep track of customers you can't tell how they find you. Or what's working (or not). Logging the source of new business shows how much credit to give to the Yellow Pages (or other marketing efforts). Callers can't get information they want That ad did its job fine. But the customer still got away because the call wasn't answered or desired information wasn't forthcoming. Fielding calls effectively is crucial because unsatisfied callers just call the next ad. Develop a strategy that covers all your bases An attention-grabbing Yellow Page ad doesn't just happen. The business needs to back it up with additional promotion to get more than their share of calls. But when the directory works together with other marketing effort, they all do better. ©2004, Lynella Grant Postcard Direct Mail Marketing Works (Its Cheap, Quick, Affordable and More) Used the right way and with the right audience, postcards often outperform their mailbox "competitors" in money saved and revenue generated (the competitors are sales letters, self-mailers, unaddressed flyers, dimensional mailers and catalogs). Here's why postcards are so effective. Top 7 Ways to Get Your Products in the Hands of Celebrities Celebrities are the tastemakers that drive brand awareness and usage. Celebrities drive the direction of trends. For example there has been a huge resurgence in the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand. They are the second fastest growing beer in the US and they have not spent a dime on advertising. How did they resurrect this brand without spending a fortune on re-branding efforts? Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer has risen to the top through celebrities using the brand. Rock musician "Kid Rock" was seen wearing a PBR belt buckle and T-shirt and from there it's history. Here are 7 solid ways you can build your brand through celebrity and tastemaker usage without breaking the bank. Common Exhibit Marketing Mistakes: Ten Tips on How to Avoid Them The key to great exhibiting is marketing. But marketing is a very inexact science that leaves room for a multitude of errors to occur. The following are 10 of the most common marketing mistakes that exhibitors often make. Learn to avoid them and you will increase your chances for a successful tradeshow. Four Super-Deadly Marketing Sins - And How To Fix Them How Nearly Going Broke Taught Me The Value Of Niche Marketing If you want to learn how effective Niche Marketing can be, I suggest you "don't" take the route I did. Small Business Marketing Tip ? Putting the Customer First. I am a great believer in the keeping to the basics ? the totally obvious things that we all learn in Running Your Business 101, and then promptly forget. I often have people come up to me after a speech and say, "This is all blindingly obvious, just common sense." And they are right, but my immediate response is always the say, "So are you doing it??" Funnel Your Way to Marketing Success A funnel is a good way to think of the marketing process. The top is very broad and consists of using mass marketing techniques. Mass marketing includes items like mass mailings, national advertising, billboards, and airing commercials during the Super Bowl. The marketing message is sent to a broad audience with little or no discretion. Mass marketing is very expensive, difficult to evaluate, and has a low return on investment. Mass marketing is a stab in the dark, like trying to find needles in a haystack. The next section of the funnel narrows the target audience into market segments. The communications still appeal to a large audience, but they are at least targeted to a specific market segment by means of the chosen media. When The Stars Align - Choosing the Right Entertainment Savvy event producers follow the Golden Rule: know thy audience. When they set out to create a special event, the first thing they do is slip into the shoes of a typical guest. Understanding their audience helps them choose the right location for the event, determine ticket prices, and select the proper advertising and promotional vehicles. How Do You Know Your Clients Cant Pay More? "My clients can't afford higher rates." |
home | main | site map |
TopWebProducts © 2006 |