Lasagna

IBS

Do You Pass the 7 Rules of Sound Business Relationships?

Whether it's a love or a business relationship, we believe these rules apply for successfully working together:

1. Microscopic truth
2. Listening at three levels--Is this what you said? Is this what you mean? Is this what you want?
3. Pushing each other to reach their highest potential.
4. Time apart to create your best work.
5. Truey enjoying each other's company.
6. Trust
7. Commitment to working out any issues.

Let the Children Play for Peace

The will to end the Holy lands Unholy Wars

The Sons of Isaac and Ishmael come together this day in peace. God bless Sam Nachum and Achmed El-Sherif-- let their light shine in the darkness.

Po's New Spots

Po's Passion Drinks May Change Your Life

Great food, and the warm personality of Po and Rita make Po's Dumpling Bar dining heaven at a price the whole family will enjoy.

Big Dude's Music City

Big Dudes--Where Muscians Go to Find the Tools of Their Trade

Musicians of all ages find each trip in Big Dudes Music City a new experience. Vintage guitars hang on the wall next to brand new Fenders and Martins. Prices are as low or lower than the giant national chains. Yet it is the atmosphere of the staff who all are professional musicians that makes Big Dudes a draw for anyone who loves to make music. Nationally gold and platinum bands shop the walls of Big Dudes regularly looking the right instruments for their gigs reguraly. Big Dudes is their music store with an ever changing vintage collection of guitars and keyboards and audio systems to their wall collection of new musical tools.

Fly with both your eyes and ears wide open

"An army without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears." Sun Tzu

I've spent my life conducting personal interviews with my clients' ideal customers. They know why they choose my customers' products. After 40 interviews I've got a solid idea of my client's and my client's competitors strengths and weaknesses.

I get frustrated when my clients don't listen to their customers after I've spent a few weeks conducting hour long personal interviews. I feel worse when I don't listen to my own research.

Recently, I conducted research for Big Dudes located in the center of Kansas City's live music district. Ninety-nine percent of the customers I interviewed said they were professional musicians. They play until 1:00 am then go home to watch television. They turn off the TV at 7:30 am, then they go to bed.

They get out of bed at 3:00 PM. They stop at Big Dudes before 6:00 PM to pick up any gear they need before their nightly gig. By 7:00PM they're playing their instrument in front of a live audience. They done playing by 1:00 AM, another day done as a professional musician.

We ran our Big Dude's commercials based on our customer research. Our spots ran from 1:00AM to 7:30AM. Sales went up 15% the first month of the schedule.

With this success, I thought maybe we can lure suburban moms and dads to downtown KC to buy at Big Dudes. Ignoring my own research, I moved half the spots into prime time based on Nielsen ratings. Sales dropped 50% for 3 weeks.

"The Dude" let me know he needed more customers fast. I moved the spots back to the 1:00 AM to 7:30 AM schedule. Sales grew every week for next six weeks. This week they are up 60% above the first week that I moved half the schedule into prime time.

What is the rule of retail I relearned? Eighty percent of your business comes from within a 5 mile radius of your store. If you want a different audience--open a store within 5 miles of their homes.

Listen to your competitive intelligence. Or die a bloody sales death because you flew without eyes and ears, and your mind wide open.

Attack a place the enemy does not protect

Twenty-five hundred years ago Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War. Washington, Clausewitz, Mao, Lenin, MacArthur, Stilwell, Patton all memorized what this ancient Chinese general preached in 13 short chapters war.

If your company is 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th or 10th in market share, your a guerrilla. Pay attention to Sun Tzu's simple suggestion, "Attack a place the enemy does not protect." Small companies survive even become giants in their specialty listening to this simple advice.

Enterprise Rental Cars focused on auto-body repair shops. Enterprise promised to reward consumers who crashed their cars by personally delivering a rental to the body shop. They also rewarded the body shop with a commission.

Hertz, Avis, General, Budget, Thrifty all attacked each other for the airport business traveler. They paid no attention to this little company focusing on renting cars to people who crashed their cars. Now Enterprise is the largest rental car company in the world.

Don't forget Sam Walton's strategy. He attacked the small towns with his Wal-Mart stores for 10 years before he went head to head against K-Mart. He killed them.

"Attack a place the enemy does not protect."

The Power in Electronic Newsletters

Lou Anne Hummel, owner of Priority Physician Placement uses her e-mail newsletter to keep her 1000 and growing doctor clients aware of opportunities in Kansas City and the Heart of America region --Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.

It's not uncommon for Lou Anne to receive 300 responses from interested doctors the week she e-mails the newsletter.

Doctors appreciate the short, one page piece, containing two short stories of openings in the region.


Lou Ann also includes a video section with two to four 30 second to one minute videos on additional opportunities. Within five minutes, physicians know where the opportunities are in the Midwest.

The Peaceful Arab and the Jew

We must use our gifts for the betterment of mankind. Let the Children Play is a project Jimmy "The Kid" Keown and I work with monthly. One Arab scientist and one Jewish artist pulled together a group of interfaith leaders from Buddhist to Catholic to Hindu to Muslim and Jewish, in search of peace between Palestine and Israel. Here are the videos we shot of the founders.









Born in Palestine, scientist Achmed El-Sharif and Born in Israel, artist Sam Nachum sponsor Kansas City walk to collect toys for the children rocketed in Gaza and Israel
Traumatized by war as children, Sam and Achmed came to America as adults, Achmed to study science; Sam to chisel portraits in stone.
Both men found their success in Kansas City, now, together, they plan to help the children of Gaza and Israel suffering from adults rocketing each other.
Their dream is to see the day when Arab and Jewish children play soccer together on the same team, even if this dream should seem impossible to adults on both sides of the conflict today. They believe it will happen, it must happen in the future to heal the wounds of decades of war.
Achmed Sharif and Sam Nachum experienced the 1967 war between Egypt and Israel as children.
Both lost their childhood homes during the conflict, changing their lives forever. They met by accident at a discussion on the recent rocket attacks between Gaza and Israel. They decided to help the children on both sides of this war. It’s time for the children to be allowed to be children, the two decided after discussing the rocketing.
Together, Sam and Achmed formed a 501C non-profit organization called Let the Children Play. They also created a website letthechildrenplayforpeace.org.
On October 22nd, they’re sponsoring a one mile walk from Washington Park in downtown Kansas City, across the street from Crown Center, to the Rime Center a Buddhist Temple just on the one west on the side of I 35.
Tickets for the walk are $10 dollars. Those who walk will be served lunch. A truck will be at the site to collect soccer balls, and other approved, non-war toys. A list of suggested toys can be found on the letthechildrenplayforpeace.org website.
Kansas City leaders in both business and government will walk in the march for toys. The walk begins at 12:00 noon October 22nd.
At 6:00 PM October 22, 2009, Kansas City school children and their parents will hold a candle light vigil on the international bridge overlooking Bush Creek on the Plaza. Kansas City’s Women of the Drum will a peace dance in conjunction with the vigil.

Visit Their Website and Participate!

Strategy and Law #22

I’ve spent 30 years introducing new products into consumer and business-to-business markets. There is no difference in successful approaches whether you are entering a business to business or a consumer market. You must spend 75% of your advertising and promotion dollar on the end user and 25% on the trade.

Massey Ferguson is an example of my first experience with this phenomenon. In 1948 Massey Ferguson was the largest farm machinery company in the world, owning 48% of the global market. By 1978, when they were my client, they were nearly bankrupt. Their market share dropped to 3%.

Here’s what happened. They gave huge promotional money to their independent dealers with no strings attached. For example, the list price of a four-wheel drive tractor was $150,000. Massey gave their dealers a $75,000 dollar rebate to negotiate with their farmer customers, so the dealers could make a profit selling the tractor for as little as $80,000.

The dealers sold the tractors to their farmer customers for $150,000 then pocketed the $75,000 dollar rebate. They used these huge rebates to buy the local bank and half the land in the towns where their dealerships stood. They put nothing back into the Massey-Ferguson business that made them the wealthiest people in their respective towns. By 1978, a Massey Ferguson large combine or Tractor didn’t even fit in their service bays of many Massey dealerships because their dealerships hadn’t changed since 1948.

It was our agency recommendation to announce the $75,000 dollar rebates to the farmers and make the dealers deliver the rebates to the end user. Sales jumped 25%, but the dealers were angry because they lost their huge rebates. The sales saved Massey Ferguson from Bankruptcy until interest rates climbed to over 20% during the Carter Administration. Massey had acted 20 years too late in switching their customer focus from the middleman to the end user.

Fast forward to 2009, a new client of mine invented and patented a wood preservitive product. It protected wood better than the old carcinogenetic creosote, yet was safe enough to drink. The owners were finance men. They hated marketing and sales people. It offended them to have to pay for something they couldn’t understand. They, as many business owners in recent years have, succumbed to the dream that if “you build it they will come.” They spent 3 years selling and finally getting into all the best paint and hardware distributors in the country. They offered distributor incentives. The retail shelves were loaded with the product. The product worked. It protected the wood once applied for 25 years from water damage, chipping, cracking and termites. Termites and all other wood boring insects hated the stuff.
No consumer advertising resulted in NO consumer sales. Only 2% of the population will try something new if they have not seen the product advertised. Two percent of a new product category is nothing. In three years they were out of business. A completely unique, patented product that WORKED, failed in the market place without advertising support.
Ries and Trout, two working marketing guys wrote a book called the “The 22 immutable laws of marketing, nearly 20 years ago said beware of "Law Number 22-- a new product idea will not get off the ground unless it is adequately funded. The advertising must be aimed at the end user, not the trade. Ries and Trout spent 30 years in advertising and marketing business. They spent 30 years in the business before me. In the most recent 30 years, relearned this same truth.

In the business-to-business the same approach holds true. Sanofi Animal Health had a 20 year old chicken vaccine line of products that had 8 sales people calling on all the vet distribution points. No advertising, no branding. Our agency repackaged and re-branded the products as if they were brand new. We aimed our campaign at the vet end-user. Immediately following the advertising campaign, when the same sales people came to call on the distributors, vets started asking the sales people for Sanofi vaccines. Sales grew 250% for ten years until they were purchased by a Rhone-Meraux, the number one vaccine competitor at the time.

If you decide to enter the consumer grocery market with a product or the sanitation market or the retirement and nursing home market with a new product, you must brand product for the end user.

The average cost of entering a niche business-to-business market is at least $350,000 dollars in advertising and branding dollars per year, even for a smaller company. For this you must put multiple ads in the number one trade publication to the end user, use the web, and use social media to tell your story.

In the consumer market you can get by with $250,000 to $350,000 per market per quarter. You start in one market and become a regional player until you become a burr in a category giant, then they will purchase you.

Or you decide to grow market by market yourself. You start in a market that is not particularly visible to your competition so they don’t feel like crushing you. Remember, Wal-Mart started in small farm towns 10 years before they moved to the city to meet K-Mart head-on.

There are only four strategies in marketing:
•If you are the biggest player in a market you buy or crush your competitors—Microsoft.
•If you are the second biggest, you beat number one at one key marketing area—Avis—We try harder.
•If you are the third largest, you target number two—scope beat Lavoris out for number 2 spot next to Listerine by tasting good.
•If you are the fourth biggest or lower in a category you must be a guerrilla marketer picking a tight niche where you can be the dominator—Gatorade against Coke.

Pick your battle in the category where you can spend the money to compete.

The Professor and the Kid

I met Jimmy "the kid" in class. He worked for a social media agency while taking my advertising and promotion class.
"I think, we need to learn the classic storytelling of the great old advertising and combine it with new types of media," said Jimmy the kid.
"Im bored with Twitter and Facebook already," said Ryan Peltz.
"Ya, Ya, Ya,"chimed in Gordon Obermueller, Ashley Trullinger, and Muriel Weaver, all class members.
"People Twitter me, 'I just put on my shoes.'"
"I just brushed my teeth."
"I have more important things to do this read this bather," said Miriam.
"I've found that web agencies hate classic media and advertising, and that classic advertising agencies hate the web and social media. They all work together today," said Jimmy. "Using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn blogs, and other online resources helps spread the message and increases SEO, but also creates an opportunity to tell a story and engage the customer"said Jimmy. "The classic, web and evolving media need each other and nobody seems to be willing to put it together. Every business has a voice, and that voice can be defined through multiple advertising and design outlets"

So Jimmy the Kid and I (the Professor) started integrating them all together this May. The results are more sales for our clients. Big Dudes Music City's sales are up 15% over last July. July historically is a bad month for Big Dude's Music City, going back 10 years. Business dropped 30% after the September 2008 bank crash, so the net effect of being up 15% means it returns the 30% loss of the bank crash plus 15% more sales.

Po's Dumpling Bar is up 50% in this economy. With 3 billion websites on Google, you have to drive your potential customers there using all the forces of media today--classic, web, and new media. If a marketing plan isn’t firing on all of its potential cylinders, then the car will eventually stop working.

Our web and design group is Departika. Take a look at our site. The Professor does the classic, Jimmy the kid does the online media, but we both create strategy. Our Departika team develops the web experience by combining great design with great programming. The business world isn’t a field of dreams in that “you build it and they will come.” The same goes for websites and stores. Departika is a marketing communications dream team. All are talented. All love to create. All have positive attitudes. All can laugh at themselves. It is a slice of business heaven on earth.

Susan Boyle: A Lesson

CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO-

Susan Boyle's story speaks to me in significant numbers--71 million views. All these views have happened since April 15, 2009 following her performance on "Britain's Got Talent." Each week a million and half people go to YouTube to watch Susan's performance. Why? Susan is real. In her face you read her innocence. She is the unknown, 47 year-old-woman with a uni-brow who comes on stage looking as if she just threw down her floor brush to stand up and sing. Her dress looks as if she made it out of her old curtains. The crowd jeers her, yet she stands defiantly with a smile and says her dream is, "To become a professional singer."

As the crowd laughs at her dream, Susan opens her mouth. Her voice, the voice of an angel, fills the auditorium. The jeers turn to cheers.

"You didn't expect that did you." says the backstage crew.

Her performance rocks the world.

She is the example of what kind of story draws human attention worldwide.

Today the news seems more the the voice of political parties and sensational stories rather than the voice of truth.

America hates most of the advertising that clutters up our airwaves, print and web pages because for 50 years most ads exaggerate the truth.

Susan's story is the story of an untarnished soul who lives in a small town in Scotland. She is,seemly, untouched by the modern world.

She is an example of a fresh human soul, who has suffered hardship, yet she continues to dream.

"I've always wanted to sing in front of a large crowd.I going to rock them," she says before going on stage.

Those of us in marketing and advertising must learn from Susan's story. If we are not getting stories of other Susan Boyles in our own communities through the traditional media, let's tell their stories in honest, documentary style, feature stories. We can do it in the form of one minute and thirty second advertising. These are the kind of stories we use to see in the Style sections of newspapers long ago. There time has come again. They must be told with passion, and facts that throw you into lives and the personalities of the characters.

I think the new advertising must show purity, joy, determination, raw guts. We don't see this passion nor guts in the giants of industry very often today, but we do see them in the small business owner.

As once we were a nation of independent farmers, we must become a nation of independent business men and women, who care enough to turn our dreams into great businesses that build communities for all citizens no matter what race, what faith what gender. We can do it by advertising with power the independent businesses that are run by people who care and have a passion for what they do.

RJ Dutton