Category: Phil Bernstein

How to Lose Gracefully

A few years ago I managed to pry an advertiser away from another radio station in town. The client represented a significant piece of business, and had been with the other station for quite a while; the switch came as an unwelcome surprise to my competitor.

The client had previously recorded a commercial in his own voice, and asked the other rep to send me the voice track. The rep refused, and we ultimately re-recorded the whole thing.

This response made sense on an emotional level — why help someone who just fired you? But by refusing to send over the voice track, my competitor angered and inconvenienced the client, and ensured that he would never have a chance to get the business back.

The folks at Regence BlueCross BlueShield are a little smarter. In Sunday’s Oregonian, they published a full-page ad with the headline “An Open Letter to School District Employees in Oregon”.

Regence had been providing medical and other benefits to school district employees for nearly forty years. But this year, the Oregon Educators Benefit Board (OEBB) declined to select them as one of the three carriers in the program.

Regence could have claimed that the OEBB had made a mistake. They could have accused their competitors of underhanded tactics. They could have urged employees to call the Board and demand that Regence be reinstated.

Instead, after acknowleging his disappointment, Regence President J. Bart McMullan, Jr. made this promise:

“We will do everything we can to insure that this transition goes well for you, your families, and for OEBB… Our customer service staff will receive special training to help better assist you with questions and transition of care issues. During this transition, those of you receiving special assistance from our nurse case managers will continue to have access to the same people who have been serving your needs.”

McMullan then promised that district employees would also continue to have access to the resources of their members-only web site. He closed by saying “Regence will continue to be there for you in any way we can. Please call on us when you need us.”

Losing a major long-time account hurts during the best of times, and is especially painful during an economic downturn. Regence is undoubtedly already working on strategies to regain the business the next time the OEBB contract is up.

By accepting defeat with grace, and going out of their way to assist the transition, they’ve taken a huge first step.

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An Interesting Place to Put Your Cigarettes

“I’m sitting on the porch of a bungalow on the Yucatan Peninsula with lit cigarettes sticking out of both my ears.”

That’s the opening line of Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston. The narrator has consulted a doctor because his ears were clogged, and the cigarettes were the prescription:

“When my ears become clogged, I must stick a cigarette into each one and light them. The cigarettes, that is…

The cigarettes burn and create a vacuum in my ears, sucking the moisture into the filters. I have a towel draped over each shoulder to catch the hot ash as it falls. I’ve been doing this for a couple of days a week for years and it always works.”

In the pharmaceutical world, this would be called an “off-label use” – using a medicine for something other than it’s officially-approved purpose. And the concept may be a great way for you to get through an economic downturn.

New circumstances create new problems. If you can repurpose your existing product, service or skills, you may be able to create a new revenue stream. For example:

  • Recognizing the public’s increasing fear of germs, Kleenex came out with a line of anti-viral tissues.

  • As mortgage jobs have disappeared in many parts of the country, resilient loan officers have found new demand for their skills as “workout specialists”, helping homeowners avoid foreclosure.

  • Looking for an edge in the competitive aesthetic medicine market, a New York doctor decided to specialize in tattoo removal. Aging hipsters have flocked to his practice.

Take some time to gather your front-line employees, and brainstorm a bit. What’s the most unusual request you ever received from a customer? Were you able to solve the problem?

Other customers might have the same problem – perhaps they’d pay you to fix it.

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Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call me at 503-323-6553.

Empathy

Lots of marketing books recommend trying to see things from the customer’s point of view. And lots of companies give lip service to the idea. Few go out of their way to put themselves in their customer’s place.

Which makes Nissan’s initiative in Japan all the more remarkable. According to Business Week (subscription may be required to view),

Elderly drivers make up a growing share of Japan’s auto market—and its accident statistics, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK. Now, to help them drive more safely (and comfortably), engineers at Nissan are donning “old” suits that simulate the effects of aging. “It’s not always practical to recruit older motorists for product research,” says design engineer Etsuhiro Watanabe.

The suits include features such as “cataract goggles”, neck restraints, and special gloves to reduce finger dexterity.

What can you do to simulate the ways your clients will actually use your product or service?

 

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call me at 503-323-6553.

Free Advertising Podcast Now Available

A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by Michael Thompson of Marketing Accelerators for his podcast series. The subject was advertising mistakes and how to fix them. You can download the podcast for free, listen to it on your computer, or put it on your Ipod.

Download the full interview here.

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

How Easy Is It To Do Business With You?

Turner Realtors’ Portland Real Estate Blog has a post titled “Is Your House Really For Sale?” . The post offers a list of abbreviations used by real estate agents concerning how the house is to be shown. They offer some unvarnished views as to how those instructions are interpreted by buyers’ agents:

KEY-LO: I have to go to the listing office to pick up the key, show the property, and return the key. Not a good use of mine or client’s time. AG-ACCM: Listing agent accompany. It makes sense in some situations (multimillion dollar homes) but if the house is vacant or owner occupied, you’ve got to get over it. My client wants to talk about your house, in your house without your agent. That and your agent better be able to work to our schedule.

Whatever you’re selling, you may unknowingly be placing barriers between your customers’ money and you. Automated phone systems; hard-to-navigate web sites; cumbersome paperwork; any of these things could cause your prospects to give up and buy elsewhere.

 

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.