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Continue reading What Would Seth Grodin Say About Your Sales Strategy?

Downriver Community Federal Credit Union

Overcoming The “Lake Wobegon” Effect

Can you believe that 80% of companies said they delivered a “superior experience” to their customers? 

The customers, on the other hand, said 8% of companies delivered a superior experience.

In Lake Wobegon everyone is “above average.” Of course, if everyone is “above average” doesn’t that make them “average.”

Do companies give themselves too much credit?

The Lake Wobegon Effect works like this:
Humans are prone to an Overconfidence Bias: we consistently think we are better than we are. That assumption, and the complacency it encourages, explains why companies everywhere are failing to satisfy people’s growing demands.
Customers do not measure companies like yours against your competitors. They measure you against the best providers: Jet Blue, Starbucks, Federal Express and Four Seasons Hotels. If a coffee shop staffed by kids overcharging us for coffee can deliver a superior experience, customers have decided, why can’t everyone?
Harry Beckwith

http://beckwithpartners.com/

How do you approach the issue of the Lake Wobegon Effect?
First, assume that you will not get direct feedback from your prospects, your clients or your friends. They will avoid any direct comments – unless you ask.
How do you ask?
A survey is the best way and many find that a phone survey is the most effective because the questions can be adjusted with the answers. Use a third party to manage the survey. And your customers will appreciate the chance to offer suggestions in a non-threatening way. With new information in hand you can service your clients better – and may be able to sell new products.
So if you are part of the Lake Wobegon world find out where you stand by asking. The next step is to find the best way to ask.

Read or re-read Selling the Invisible for some superior sales and marketing tactics.

http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Beckwith/e/B000AP8Q0Q

Lake Wobegon

By The Center for Michigan – December 17, 2009

By Melissa Preddy

Michigan, MSU bank on research corridor

In Ann Arbor and East Lansing, GDP figures are flat or sagging this decade, knocking Ann Arbor from first among its Big 10 peers in 2003 to the fourth last year. The Lansing/East Lansing market held steady in the No. 7 spot but cities with aggressive plans, like State College, Pa. and Madison, forged ahead.

Ann Arbor has dipped from an inflation-adjusted per-capita GDP of $48,936 in 2003 to $45,480 last year – in part due to the loss of thousands of white-collar jobs when Pfizer Corp. phased out its 175-acre research center there throughout 2008 and recession-hit industries like construction and transportation contracted.

Ann Arbor’s unemployment rate leaped from 6.0 percent in October 2008 to 8.8 percent in October 2009. The Lansing market also saw a dramatic increase in its jobless rolls over the same period, from 6.9 percent to 10.6 percent, in part due to the automotive slowdown. Michigan as a whole suffers from the nation’s worst job market, and economists don’t forecast a complete recovery for decades.

Like their counterparts, Ann Arbor and East Lansing increasingly are focused on building more diversified economies.

“We’re catching up,” said Jeff Smith, project manager for the East Lansing Technology Innovation Center, a new business incubator. “I think we are doing much better now. We are catching up to the nation’s best and we certainly are ahead of the curve.”

He points to the three-year-old University Research Corridor partnership between the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, which aims to leverage expertise and more than $1 billion a year in research dollars across the three schools into business and technology development. By uniting, the three schools are a powerhouse of talent, funding and facilities with few peers nationwide.

“It’s a sea change,” Smith said. “Similar efforts are bubbling up all over.”

The urgency behind the efforts is reflected in the numbers.

The Business Leaders for Michigan Turnaround Plan is a sensible but ambitious attempt to pull together –  from the perspective of the business community – many of the reform ideas that  have been floating around for the last couple of years.

There are five ways to re-establish grow in the state, according to this group:

1) Michigan must change the way we manage state finances by requiring two-year state budgets, ruling out any new programs unless others are eliminated.

2) Right-size spending now, by reducing state employee compensation to the average of state workers around the country,  or to the average of Michigan private sector workers. Reduce the state workforce  by 5 to 10 percent.  Eliminating those steps, combined, would save from $597 million to $1.93  billion.

3) Undertake a wide-ranging series of structural reforms in the organization, workings and cost of Michigan government at all levels.  BLM specifically targets local government, school  district service sharing, reforms in the prison system and transition to a  defined contribution retirement system for educators. The group says these alone would save Michigan around $1 billion a year.

4) Reform the business tax system to make it competitive, more predictable and stable.  That necessarily means a reduction or elimination in the impact of the 22% surcharge slapped on top of the Michigan Business Tax a  little over two years ago.

5) Finally, invest in our future! Everybody who has run a business knows perfectly well that while you can  save a company from collapse by cutting costs, you can’t thrive on cost-cutting  alone. A business or a state has to invest in its durable, distinctive competitive advantages. Among those: Our great universities, our airport and  freeway infrastructure, and our  lakes and communities which make Michigan  a great place to live.

www.TheCenterforMichigan.org

Phil Power

November 13, 2009

Entrepreneur In Residence (EIR) Program

A major issue faced by Michigan’s start-up community is the absence of applicable, executive-level talent. Additionally, when a qualified executive is available for his or her next engagement, the community often lacks the necessary volume of deals to offer a smooth transition. This opens the door to the inevitable situation where that executive is recruited to opportunities outside the State.

The EIR Program is structured to merge the capital, talent, and business ideas to produce companies poised to succeed. The program is designed to assist a Michigan based venture firm in hiring an EIR. Together the venture firm and their EIR will look for a deal for the venture firm to invest in and for the EIR to lead. The ideal EIR is a person who has an outstanding track record as an entrepreneurial executive who participates in the program as an interim step to his or her next venture. Executives in the program become part of the venture team and gain access to its operations and deal flow. While in the program, EIRs may provide specialized management counsel to existing portfolio companies while finding new portfolio companies to join or to form.

Michigan Venture Capital Association

www.Michiganvca.Org

The upper Midwest economy obviously needs capital – but it also needs talent that can move new, and potentially very good companies, in the right direction.

Growing a company is not always about choosing the largest segment of the market. In fact, the smartest marketing strategy is probably about owning a segment of the market.

See the chart below – and call GrowBiz – for a strategic market review.

Posted by Seth Godin on July 18, 2008 | Permalink

When you launch a new product or service, you have a choice.

It’s tempting to go for the bestseller list, to create a mass market hit. This is the box labeled 1 on the tail above. Everyone wants to be here. It’s where ego meets profit. A home run. Pixar lives in box 1.

The second pocket is labeled, conveniently, #2 (not because it’s second best, merely because it’s the second one I’m mentioning). This is the profitable, successful niche product. Roger Corman’s horror movies, say, or Vandersteen’s $3,000 stereo speakers. The reason you can make money in the niche pocket is that it costs far less to compete here.

The third pocket is to own the long tail, to make a small royalty on a huge range of products. This is where and iTunes and the Garrett Wade tool are positioned.