How to cure jetlag and make a billion dollars.

Those great moments of clarity when the timing, idea, product and marketing seem to distill upon your mind like spring dew are few and far between. When they happen, drop everything and start writing! Next don’t lose your notes! When Howard Schultz jumped on a plane to go see who was behind a little coffee shop called Starbucks, he had no idea what he would find. He sold house wares, what did he know about coffee! He was dying to know how two coffee shops in Seattle could outsell the entire Macy’s account of a special coffee machine.

I am sure he had no idea that he would one day sit on top of the largest coffee franchise in the world some day. His gut told him, I smell the smoke; I need to go see how big this fire is.

In 1982 Dietrich Mateschitz found himself in steamy Thailand nursing a major jetlag. Asia is full of little shops with strange potions in even stranger bottles. He probably jumped out of a tuk-tuk at the first site of a store that looked remotely close to a pharmacy and somehow communicated his German clock has not reset to Bangkok yet. Maybe he was watching a kick boxing fight and noticed two Red Bull logos on all the shorts and banners and thought, “why am I watching this, I should be sleeping, and what is up with those Red Bulls?’

The details are unclear, but he knocked back a can and BANG, the big idea hit him.

Dietrich was the Marketing Director for a German toothpaste company and licensing and marketing was already in his blood. His big idea, let’s license this drink, change it to western taste buds, soup up the branding and see how much we can make selling to truck drivers, travelers anyone who needed a quick boost.

Do you think in 1982 he could see himself on the Forbes 400 2008 biggest swingers in the world list?

#260 all self made! Check out his photo. Like a good race horse, boxer, actor…Billionaires and future billionaires have a certain look, the vibe.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_Dietrich-Mateschitz_DGAD.html

No this is not a lesson on how to start a billionaire face franchise. Our friend Dietrich however, followed a proven formula to get fabulously rich and here is the lesson we can learn from him.

Step #1 Do something, anything.

Move around, travel, read, talk to people, do something for someone without any expectation of a return. That creates the ingredients. Great ideas are like good soup. You throw in a lot of great stuff but you need to let it simmer, it takes a while. Killer home runs start with fresh ingredients.

Step #2 Keep an open mind.

What does a marketing guy at a tooth paste company know about creating a global beverage empire? Ask Howard Schultz the same thing about coffee. Ask Ray Kroc when he was selling milkshake machines door to door, did he ever think he would control the biggest hamburger franchise in the world. They all had a common winning trait. A fertile open child like mind to anything new and creative. When you hear negative people that never offer a better solution, just tune them out and eliminate them from your social circles if possible. Anyone can criticize, but without offering a better solution, they are just a pain in the butt and they will never help you get to billionaire row.

Step#3 Play the long game.

With a massive 70% market share for energy drinks you would think that it was ok to kick back. Dietrich has what all billionaires have, vision. They can see 4 or 5 moves ahead. A brilliant move he made was to link Red Bull with sports early in the game.

Great marketing is a mile deep and an inch wide

While every beverage company was playing the short game brewing up new caffeine in a can ideas glutting the market, Dietrich was busy buying up sports franchises. Investing today's earnings on yesterday's business worked great during the industrial production phase 100+ years ago. Today old thinkers will always get crushed by nimble visionaries who take today's cashflow and invest in future businesses. When the competition comes, the winners have already moved the brand to a new and larger stage, leaving the copy cats holding a bag of thin margin, profit sucking vampires.

Step #4 “Don’t get safe, get creative.

The natural tendency when we are ahead is to protect the lead. Yea that worked for Memphis Monday night for the big game right? You are up by three points with 20 seconds left. Foul the guy! Don’t let him go down and drain a three, force him to a one on one! I know fouling when you are ahead and time is running out might seem counter intuitive but going against the grain, fading the herd is often the winning idea. Safe in marketing is a fast track to the poor house. Safe might work in the short run but it is a guaranteed loser in the long run. History is full of dead safe companies you have never heard of.

Additional articles:

“Why most advertising and investment ideas are wrong.”

http://franchisewhale.com/2007/12/why-most-advertising-and-investment.html

“Who knew cavemen could sell insurance.”

http://franchisewhale.com/2007/12/who-knew-cavemen-could-sell-insurance.html

OK, hit the road, keep an open mind, think five chess moves ahead and get creative! When you get on the 400 list, please thank the Whale, I know I will.

Give me a buzz.

This past week I received a press release about our friends at Play-N-Trade. They had orchestrated a national Guitar Hero contest in 100 of their stores around the country. About 1,000 players competed and the winner received $2,000 dollars in store credit and the bragging rights that they are the best player in the country. It was the largest event ever staged for that type of contest but the real buzz did not cost them anything!

On the day of the contest, Chris Chike made the 2 hour drive to his nearest store to compete. He probably felt very confident that the $2,000 prize would be his before the sun went down that Saturday. Chris happened to be the Guinness World Records champ for Guitar Hero.

This is where PR genius is reveled or as the Chinese have a saying, “the sun even shines on a dog’s butt!” In simple terms, Play-N-Trade knew exactly what they were doing or they got a lucky break. Chris ended up beating his previous Guinness record at the contest! Free ink!!!!

Did the PR team orchestrate Chris showing up or was it a lucky break? It does not matter for us, we can all learn something from this and look like geniuses on our next PR gambit or promotion.

Get in the game.

You can wait forever trying to come up with some cool ideas. You will never win any hands you don’t play. Take a shot! I think the all time leading NHL scorer said it best. (That is hockey for you soccer fans).

“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

-Wayne Gretzky

Get creative.

As you plan your next event, think how you can create the most free buzz, not how much you need to spend. I loved the new logo rollout idea for KFC. Make the world’s largest logo in UFO crazy Area 51 and take photos of it from a plane, then tell everyone about it. The Colonel has a roll of cash that would choke Ronald McDonald, he did a very buzz worthy thing however. He thought small in terms of free buzz and not big ad buys. Free buzz is greatly undervalued today. It is the most credible, effective and powerful way to get your message across. Did I also mention that it is free?

“Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking.”

-Robert Stephens

Get smart.

I remember Jim Carey saying celebrity awards shows are genius. Invite celebrities to come to the event and receive their award and make a statement. If they do not show up, make sure they appear ungrateful. Think of the check you would need to write to pay for the film talent that shows up for 4 hours at the next Academy Awards. Big check right? Award shows are genius, and so are you.

At your next event, grab a copy of the Guinness World Records and see if someone completed some task that might fit into your next event then give them a call and tell them what you are doing. What local celebrities might have an interest in participating in your promo in exchange for a healthy amount of exposure or PR for their charity or projects? Remember people love to compete and they love to be recognized. Reciprocal exposure for the participants is mother’s milk for a growing company short on cash and long on ideas. If you want another example of this powerful formula at work, read this:

http://franchisewhale.com/2007/10/art-of-great-licensing.html

Buzz on Whale Watchers!

“Honey you smell like a Wendy’s jalapeno burger!”

I took that as a vote she liked the testosterone bouquet I was throwing her way. I just got back from the gym, so the acknowledgement was a sign I earned the right to eat one at least. My wife informed me that she did not intend it as a complement. It was her kind way of telling me I needed a shower, fast!

I have always heard that Las Vegas pumps in the right smell to keep you alert, happy and foolish. Not sure if it is an urban legend spun by losers at the craps tables or the truth. I do know this. Women are bloodhounds when it comes to nasal perception. I remember going to the movies with my wife when she caught a whiff of some 1988 mojo musk. She made me believe that time travel was actually possible! The detail behind the décor, sounds, fashion and cool hair styles was incredibly created by some strange emanation from a movie theater lobby. She even remembered, “Forever Young” by Alphaville was playing in the background. I have always thought that my wife had an extra nose DNA strand or two. I found out from my gym loving brethren, I am not alone. Hollywood seems to agree. It is always the woman featured as the CSI nose detective putting the aromatic clues together to hang her husband.

We are not marketing women hard enough through the nose! The reason women have so many choices in perfume versus men is not about more disposable income, they have finely tuned honkers. Like wearing the same dress to a party, they actually get miffed if another woman has her scent. I don’t think a guy could pick out his own cologne in a police lineup.

What about trademarking a scent for a retail franchise, car dealer or sports equipment? Yep, you can do it, but the key is specificity.

Until recently, the vast majority of countries only allowed the registration of marks that could be perceived visually. Today in the United States and the EU, marks could be the subject of protection providing they have a “distinctive character” regardless of the class you are registering the scent for. A good example a scent that won EU trademark protection was the smell of freshly cut grass. The smell was registered by a Dutch perfume company that uses it to give tennis balls their aroma. The key is that the product shape, sound, scent, color or other device must serve to identify a product as coming from a particular source.

It will take awhile for marketers to realize the nose can also be a protected infringement zone. With names, words, songs, colors getting snapped up, it is really tricky to make it through life without some trademark litigation if you want to create something in this world. I think scent is the last great bastion of marketing without the threat of trademark litigation around every corner.

Are you missing a memorable hook that can make a woman recall a 20 year memory with just one sniff? Why not create a nasal strategy to complement your audio and visual marketing? What should your business smell like? If the MGM lion roar and the Yahoo yodel are distinctive enough to trademark, I am sure you can come up with a smell that will be remarkable. Meanwhile, I will be trying to figure out how to get the smell of the ocean to waft your way each time you log onto the Whale! Surf the web by smell? Yikes!

Why Malcolm X loved criticism and so should you.

“If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.”

-Malcolm X

If you do not agree with an approach someone is taking in business, you must offer a proposal for a better solution. Ignoring the problem is not an option. Criticizing without a counter solution is not the right approach either. If you criticize without offering a better way, you are just being a pain in the butt. If we are trying to improve the process, then it is constructive even if our new approach does not become the ultimate solution. It opens our minds to reach the best possible outcome given a moving target of alternatives.

Constant creative destruction is the means to make a franchise strong, vibrant and viable.

Update on Loves:

On January 2^nd I sent the Assistant to Tom Love, the CEO of Love’s gas station chain an email after getting her voicemail. It highlighted a problem and my recommendation to solve it. So far, four weeks later, no answer. When you are big maybe you feel small problems are not important. In nature it’s not “big eats small” it’s “fast eats slow!” If you are the fastest in the jungle or your industry, you can sleep well at night.

Love’s Ranked #42 on the Forbes largest private companies in America, I am probably not considered a top priority. I am not sure if they have tried my recommendation in the story or not. If anyone can send me an updated photo of a new pump sticker at that location mentioned in the e-mail I will give them $50.00! Just a shot of the sticker and one shot with you and the store will do. I will post the photos and send you the cash. First photo update, first dibs on the cash for all you California highway drivers on the East 10.

Here is the e-mail I sent and a link to the story that prompted the e-mail.

“Information for Tom on his California Store

Hi Reta,

I called but missed you. Sorry to send an e-mail unannounced, I will be brief. I wanted to get a story to Tom we published, please print it and forward it to him for me when you can. We have a franchising blog at franchisewhale.com. The blog is a free subscription site that exists to infuse the spirit, theory and science of great licensing and franchising ideas to a global audience of creative business minds.

We are always looking to find hot business niches and improve the way existing companies interact with their respective markets. We found something I believe Tom will want to fix at the #207 Coachella California station. You had a lot of very angry customers four days before Christmas when my family pulled in to gas up. Here is a link to the problem, with my suggestions to fix it. I hope Tom finds it helpful.

http://franchisewhale.com/2007/12/no-love-at-loves-behind-pump-number-5.html

Also if Tom would like to respond, I would be more than happy to publish his response or do a 5 minute audio podcast with him. We have an audio section called "CEO Friday" we publish on iTunes.

By the way, please let Tom know the receptionist who answers your main line is absolute tops! Whatever he is paying her it is not enough. Please tell her personally for me the way she interacts with callers is a case study in making a big company act like a small one. She is very good.

All the best,

Chad “

Remember Whale lovers! Before you fire of a complaint or criticism, you need to offer a better solution or you are wasting everyone’s time.

Criticism like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his root.”

-Frank A. Clark

Thanks for your shower of ideas to make the Whale more user friendly. I have included a built in player on all podcasts now, so you can play directly from each story without downloading a podcast. Just click the blue button at the bottom of each interview we publish and it will play without leaving the story.

How to create a survey your customers beg to take!

I love surveys! Not for the colossal waste of time they create for customers or the “freebie” they have for you. I love them because they are extremely telling about the leadership within a company. Like a blind date who rips the waiter for everything. Run! That is the real woman coming out. How someone treats a waiter is a big indicator if you should marry them. Likewise, the way companies construct a survey, tells you what they really think of the customer.

The Chinese would say their “mask fell off” for a brief moment. Certain activities cause us to show our cards. I think the survey rips the mask right off the faces of the executives that created it. It is very telling of how an organization thinks. You can almost see what donuts they are cramming down their pipes as another day in the war room gets wasted, creating a long list of questions, so the CEO actually thinks you are doing something of value. Big clue, the shorter the survey, the sharper you are. You are saying to the customer, "you are valuable to me and I would never waste your time." If the CEO does not get that point, RUN!

“The purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two, and only two, basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business."

-Peter Drucker

Let’s learn something:

I logged on and took a TGI Friday’s survey to learn about what Friday’s is thinking. They wanted answers to 36 questions before they gave you a code for the free appetizer. Look them over and ask yourself, which questions are innovative or marketing oriented. Keep in mind they already have a paying customer that takes the survey. I already paid for a meal there that is key. Read through them and give me your thoughts. I have copied the survey below exactly as I took it. Sorry it is so long, that is part of the painful lesson.

Housekeeping Questions They Asked:

• Store code

• Date

• Receipt number

Survey Starts:

• What type of visit did you have at this Friday's?

• Where were you seated?

• What was the primary intent of your visit?

• Were You: Seated immediately?

• How would you rate the host or hostess on being friendly and welcoming you to the restaurant?

• How would rate the cleanliness of your table area when you were seated?

• Please rate the attentiveness of the server in being focused on your needs.

• Please rate the pace of your experience, in terms of meeting your timing needs.

• Please rate the accuracy of your order.

• How would you rate the taste of your food? If you didn't order food, select N/A.

• Please rate the temperature of your food.

• How would you rate the appearance of your food?

• How would you rate the overall atmosphere of the restaurant on being fun?

• How would you rate the staff on making you feel appreciated?

• Please rate the level of warmth with which you were thanked for visiting Friday's. If you weren't thanked or don't remember being thanked, select N/A.

• How would you rate your visit on the value for the money?

• Please rate your overall satisfaction with your visit to this Friday's.

• Return to this Friday's restaurant within the next 60 days.

• Recommend this Friday's restaurant to a close friend or relative.

• Did you personally place an order from the Right Portion, Right Price Menu? Yes

• Please rate your overall satisfaction with your Right Portion, Right Price item

• Including this visit, how many times have you visited this Friday’s restaurant in the past 60 days?

• Was this your first visit ever to this Friday’s restaurant?

• For what occasion was your most recent visit?

• Did you order beer, wine or other alcoholic beverages on this visit?

• Gender

• Age

• Including yourself, please enter the number of people who were in your party.

• Did the staff try to influence your ratings when you received your survey invitation?

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Now, you'll need a pen to write your validation code on your receipt.
Here is your validation code:

Your invitation can now be redeemed at any participating Friday's restaurant. Thank you so much for sharing your opinions with us. We hope you will visit a Friday's restaurant again very soon.

Whew!

Now they ask me my comments, I post this and to be fair, gave them the link to the story you are reading now. I even complimented them on the service, it was great!

• Please tell us one thing we could have done to improve your visit at this restaurant.

My response:

The value menu was really bad, horrible. I have not been to Fridays in 10 years. I thought we would give you guys a shot again. I was shocked how bland the food was. The presentation lacked imagination and it was as if the entire meal was prepared by someone with no cooking skills in my opinion. I know that sounds harsh. We are not expecting a “wow” experience for $40 for two people but the food was below a McDonald's. Applebee’s, Chiles, Olive Garden has left you in the dust. The best you could hope for is to pass Taco Bell in my book. You have a lot of work to do. The service was great however. Tops! Feel free to go to http://franchisewhale.com to get the rest of the story.

My impressions:

If the idea is to innovate and market. Why not sell me something in the survey? Why not capture a way to connect again. They just gave me the code, I might never come back.

To start, what’s with 35 questions? The purpose is to sell stuff right? Sell me! I am right in front of you and I have not paid yet. This may be your last shot, do you really want to take a chance of me going home and filling out a long survey on the hope I might return?

How to build a survey that customers love to take:

Step one: What is the Purpose?

We are trying to sell you more stuff. Keep that in the front of your mind when you design the campaign.

Why not just have the server give you a secret code at the table and tell me. “I am going to give you an inside tip, if you text this code to this number, I can give you free desert today!”

What percent would text if you could get desert before leaving? Higher number than the long survey right? Next, now I send the coupon to their phone and it says “If you would like to continue to receive just our hottest special each month for free food click yes, if not, click no.

That cost is less than .10 cents a text message to the Franchise. We will publish an interview with a company doing text marketing for MGM, Remax, Jamba Juice… on Friday the 25^th. You can connect directly with them or give us a call.

Step two: Keep the customer's trust

Now I have a customer that has opted in. Don’t mess up the relationship! No lame offers, surveys, “did you know” crap. They have entrusted you with one visit to their text inbox. This is sacred ground. Don’t mess up the relationship. You can really turn in to the annoying neighbor that borrows your stuff and never returns it and never reciprocates. Don’t let some overpaid, under worked corporate stiff have access to the text marketing dashboard. Now is not the time to survey.

Step three: Send hot offers they will love

Only send offers that are unbelievable and time sensitive when you have dead tables. Monday-Thursday. Never on the weekend. Make the offers only good for 24 hours and they must bring a friend.

Step four: Tell a friend

The next step is to look at the coupon on their phone and let them in on another secret. They can have their friend text right now and both of them will get another extra bonus appetizer on the visit. They now have a surprise bonus. Peer pressure and free food work to your advantage, the friend will also text. Now you just added one more to your text dashboard.

Can you see how effective and big this can be if you don’t play games?

To be fair I asked the server how many receipts with the code have been presented. She did not know. She did say 51 people had called into the 800 number to do what I did online in the first 11 days of January. I bet online might be 4 times that number. To me that is a screaming endorsement that people will walk on hot coals for free appetizers. One text to get a free desert, you may have 100+ a night easy.

Think of the size of book you can build. They are eating somewhere; why not give them an unbelievable time sensitive offer once a month during your dead time.

This blog is getting way too long to cover the innovation side of the equation.

This system will work for any product. Let’s keep things fresh. Be the anti-marketer and just give people what they want. Free stuff without the fluff! If anyone has either a really great survey or a really bad one, send it to me and I will post it and send you a $20 gift card from TGI Fridays. See I am a nice guy Fridays.

Reagan’s nicotine stocking stuffer-4 winning rules of dead President marketing.

How do you market someone who is dead? If I can successfully market the non-living, marketing something alive should be a snap right?

I found the answer to that question at the top of a hill in Simi Valley California. If you are a big Reagan fan or history buff, you must take a trip to Simi Valley and see the Reagan Library. You will not only get to see the largest collection of personal items from the “Old Gipper”, but you will get a crash course in great marketing. The library is located about 1.5 hours from his Santa Barbara ranch and 45 minutes to Hollywood. Reagan shot a few westerns in Simi over the years there but he has no other affiliation to the valley. I asked around “why build the library here?” According to the staff, “the developer of this subdivision donated 100 acres for the library, they could not pass that up.”

“Is there a lesson at the top of this hill waiting for me? I am a loyal reader give me the goods!”

Hang on, we are almost there. As you wind up the road, the library sits on top of the best ground in Simi Valley in my opinion. It is surrounded by new upscale gated communities, golf courses and parks. I am sure that is why the family also selected the library as his final resting spot. You do not find his grave by asking a librarian “where do they keep the dead people?” Nor can you find it yourself in a dewey card catalog under “buried Presidents.” The term “library” really is not accurate, to the joy of my kids. It should be more accurately called “The Ronald and Nancy Reagan historical theme park” or “The Reagan Institute of his really cool stuff!” They have an entire wing of every dress Nancy wore for major events, a life sketch of the President from Dixon Illinois all the way to the Whitehouse. His actual diaries, his desks, Hollywood memorabilia, a re-created set of his oval office, the actual cars he drove, the limousine he was standing by when he was shot at, the actual helicopter he took from the South lawn to Camp David. Way too much to list.

Take everyone to this, it is about the best time you will have for $9 bucks. Kids are $3 and under 11 are free. I am sounding a little like a tour guide, please forgive me. I will get to the main point of why you are probably reading this blog.

“Harris, what can I learn from marketing dead Presidents that will help me make money in my business or franchise?”

Make it remarkable

As you make your way to the end of the library, it opens up into a dramatic auditorium with Air Force One parked in it! This is the same plane that Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush One, Clinton and G W Bush has used as a war room, conference room, media room and private office. The exhibit winds around a catwalk to the side about two stories up. As you approach you will see the marketing accelerate.

Create demand

As you continue on the catwalk you will see a sign, “No pictures beyond this point.” That sets the hook into your primal brainwaves that you are in an area that you want to take a picture in. You fire off a few nice pictures after the cut off line to show them who’s the boss. As you approach the steps to the front door, you see another warning sign about picture taking. They also dress a college kid like a security guard which only adds fuel to my trigger happy fire!

Cut off all supply

The security guard makes each party wait at the bottom. Then a nice guide takes each family separately up to the top and stand together at the front door looking out at their camera. “This is just a free picture, if you want a copy you can grab one down by the Reagan pub.” Very nice touch! Set it up so no trigger happy cheapskates can get a nice picture, then make it a no obligation experience. This creates your hot list of prospects you will process later through your sales machine. Mr. Hunt the library Director has some marketing chops or else hired someone who has. Play to your strengths.

Show Time!

I feel I am immune to most marketing tricks, but this was too much. I had to do the Nixon “I will return” peace sign pose with my family at the same door he made the same historic photo. You wind through the plane, nose to nose and end up down by the Reagan Pub and gift shop next door. A wall of HD panels displaying the photos, with 5X7 for $10, with the option to trade up. I asked a few people how many they sold a day. They did not want to give me the answer. I smiled and joked until I heard those sweet marketing words, “about 1,000 photos a day on average” whispered with a conspiratorial grin. Reagan will make more dead than alive. Sorry Reagan pub, the “Presidential Water” with the seal on it did not work for $3.50 a bottle. I am not sure I want to drink any dead President’s water even at a buck a bottle, sounds old. The hats and shirts slow, but the photos at the minimum take, they would bring in as much as three million a year.

What do you have waiting to make remarkable in your business? Think until it hurts than think some more. We all have our own Air Force One experience waiting to monetize, it is just waiting for us to discover, brand and market it in dead Presidential style.

Gas station: food, fuel and beer, blah, blah, blah…

A man will go across the street to save a nickel on gas but a woman will drive a mile for clean bathrooms. The interstate gas station battle front seems to have missed that point entirely. The combatants believe the local gas convenience market, is the same as the interstate gas business by the way they have built their franchises and marketed their product. They seem to have missed a huge opportunity; the demand for clean bathrooms grows in direct proportion to the miles one has driven from their home.

Billboard after billboard you read the following on the interstate:

Gas Station: Food, Fuel, Beer

Gas Station: Fuel, Beer, Food

Gas Station: Beer, Food, Fuel (This one is rare, they keep the beer in the back on their marketing, let’s be safe).

Safe is an overpriced skill in marketing, safe will give you average results at best. Nowhere does safe rear it ugly head than in platitude filled corporate marketing crappola.

Plat-i-tude (noun)

1.a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound.

You can learn a lot about marketing just by getting out and taking good notes. 95% of what you will find is full of platitudes. The idea being, if I just copy what they are doing, than my results will be at least no worse that my competition. Being no worse is no formula for fat margins, niche markets and happy shareholders. Platitudes are boring and annoying. “Imagine a gas station selling food and gas that is so unique!”

What about the bathrooms? Why not use it to your advantage? How about this billboard:

Our bathrooms are so big, bright and clean, you will forget to buy gas! Everyone welcome!

Or

Forget the beer and gas, you have got to see our bathrooms!
Everyone welcome!


Gasp! What have you lost your mind, you are going to let anyone in your bathrooms? Even the non-customers?! Isn’t the idea of marketing to take non-customers and convert them to habitual paying users? Can you think of a better way to make that happen than invite the entire state to see your fantastic can? Our family had a interstate adventure last week. What prompted this blog was the look on my wife’s face when she returned from a freeway fuel stop bathroom. Apparently the only thing that was missing in there was the farm animals. It confirmed why they want you to pay first. No sane human would buy anything that would go into their mouth after they see how you take care of your bathrooms. Get their money first boys! I know, “bathrooms are for customers only” is all the rage, so is charging 50 cents for 3 minutes worth of air for your tires. Do you think the five bucks you get from the ten desperate drivers with low tires will make up for the permanent brand damage and ill will you create by nailing them for 2 bits each?

It is the small things that are so memorable because they are expected to be neglected.

That is why they jump out at you when someone takes the time to market the small details. For example, In-N-Out Burger gives you a soda with the straw already in the drink. Look at the straw, the top one inch of paper is still intact, the rest removed. Nice touch. Clean, totally unexpected and thoughtful. Big company mentality does not have time for that noise; they focus on only the big problems. It comes from their inbred genetics of old mass production mentality. Think small, in a noisy world slammed by options, the small differences really jump out.

So where are the bathrooms in all this, they are expected to be overlooked right? Now I am not saying you need to go overboard but this is marketing remember? We measure and respond, not bet and hope. I don’t care what the analysts say, the extra variable cost of letting a guy take a leak for free is missing the point. Turn your bathrooms into a marketing engine because if they know how to wow me there, they obviously know how to take care of my other needs. A man’s wallet is strategically close to where he plants his cheeks don’t forget. No better place to test that theory than the interstate fuel market.

My favorite horse in the race today would be Quick Trip or QT, as the habitual paying users call it. They are not a franchise in the traditional sense but have built a great brand of company owned stores that I absolutely love and tell everyone I know the same thing. They recently entered the local market where I live, maybe they service interstate off ramps back East, I cannot say. I can say, they have created an absolutely fantastic experience that is crushing everyone around them here. First, you go in and the universe seems ordered. The ice, beer, food, snacks, 24 station drink bar, 24 station gourmet coffee, the smokes, all meticulously lined up, you feel centered there. Next, they make sure the floors are mopped, a lot. The snacks, a huge island of rotisserie madness, grab and bag premium hot snacks, surrounded by perfectly faced bagged varieties of all the favorites. Next, they hire very bright, fast and friendly help and comp them better than anyone else. The sticker by the register says it all “Fortune top 25 best places to work” ask them at the register what is so special and they gush about it, you can feel a company that is on the move. The bathrooms? Way too average and a letdown for the experience you get out front, in a word, unremarkable.

Come on guys, you are firing on so many cylinders; why not build an interstate gas station around a bathroom. Give the analysts the day off and go with your gut on this one. How about spotless designer finishes? Why not have a guy in a tuxedo in the bathroom that works for tips but keeps the place incredibly sharp, opens the door when you leave. Not that door! That’s creepy, the main door! Have some Vivaldi playing or ESPN radio and XM Oprah for the ladies. Monogrammed wrapped dinner mints in a bowl, logo on one side and the words “Stolen from the bathroom of Quick Trip” on the other. You are selling an experience, not a service remember?

So where does this leave the rest of us in our respective enterprises? Make a list of all the platitudes in your marketing, be brutally honest and willing to scrap it all. Start changing the small things first. Measure the results and let the clutch out and have some fun. Your customers will spread the word fast if you give them something fresh to talk about.

No love at Love’s behind pump number 5

Last week about 100 miles west of L.A., and late at night I ask my wife, “T and A or Love’s!” She thinks the miles have made me snap, “What are you talking about?” A look of relief came over her face when she heard, “South side TA Fuel Center, north ramp Love’s, which one has the best bathroom?”

My wife has a spidey sense about long haul travel bathrooms, on this day she chose Love’s because of their little heart in the logo. My wife’s bathroom sense was taking a nap that night , what she was about to find out a little heart does not mean great bathrooms, more about that later.

I pulled in and went to work on the gas as she made her way to the back, kids in tow. As I swiped my card I saw a real corporate eyesore, the cover-up. In my experience, the tales that corporations spin are equal in size to their payroll. Like some oath they take inside a large company when exiting the HR interview, the truth must be safely buried deep inside the boardroom or heaven forbid, the front office. Large corporations spin their mistakes or inadequacies in weird perverse ways to try and make the customer actually believe they are perfect. It’s as if they believe their customers are either so dumb they cannot accept the fact that they are dealing with an imperfect organization or they are so paranoid about the true nature of their inside realities being exposed, it will ruin them overnight if the customers ever found out.

Reality check, your customers are much smarter than you give them credit for and the truth is your friend, it will set you free I am told. That is one of the liberating traits of being a small company; you have nothing to hide because you literally have nothing to hide. On the other hand, large corporations seem to have their own spin department to postpone the inevitable. No one is perfect so deal with the problem and move on, we can take it, we are human too. Well I just had to post the photo of the spin masters at work with a sticker they put on the pumps. Now I am not implying that Love’s is dishonest or sole proprietors are more trust worthy than their fortune 500 brethren. Small operators have not cornered the market on transparency. This story is not about Love’s at all, they were just unfortunate my wife did not choose TA Travel Center that night. This story is about the herd mentality of humans and how it is amplified in direct proportion to the size of the organization one chooses to work for. Human nature has a tendency to move to the center of the corporate herd. Likewise, the larger the herd, the more the leaders hire members that like the safe middle. No need to be a hero, play it safe. No more animal stories you get my point.

For all the readers who cannot view the photo of the pump sticker in your reader, please jump out to franchisewhale.com and check it out. In summary, they are trying to “control fuel costs” by limiting MasterCard users to $75.00 per transaction and apply the same logic to Visa users but they seem to need more help controlling fuel costs so they assign them $50 limit per transaction. They then let the customer know “feel free to run a second transaction if necessary” and then they apologize for any inconvenience.

Apparently American Express users don’t need to conserve fuel and the poor Visa users really need to be more disciplined about their fuel use. With the option to run another transaction, it really doesn’t seem that “control fuel costs” is at the root of the problem.

At least get some good spin doctors if you persist in covering up the problem instead of fixing it. We know you are human, it’s ok, we all have problems and can even help you solve them if you shoot straight with us. For the sake of being fair, I went in and talked to the cashier and got her take on it. She said, “our software is old and will not process a transaction higher than that amount at one time.” But what about your companies’ effort to help control fuel costs? “I don’t know anything about that.” Lesson number two, if you persist in spin, you need to involve the people in the front lines in your stories.

I would recommend we try a completely different approach. Recognize the problem and tell the customer what you are doing about it, then turn the problem into a new opportunity.

New sticker:

Attention Visa or MasterCard customers:
Our software stinks! We bought it long before the price of gas shot up so high you need to swipe twice just to fill your big tank. We are working on the problem and appreciate your patience; you will be required to swipe twice for really big tanks. If you bring in over $50 in gas receipts on this fill up; we will give you a free 32 ounce fountain drink for the headache we have caused you. Our CEO says the drinks are going to come out of the IT department’s budget until they fix the problem, so filler up!

What did one little new sticker do for your relationship with your customers? You became human in their eyes; the CEO is a problem solving super hero and they like you because you are paying for their inconvenience which means you are sincere, that causes them to spend even more money.

If the CEO saw and heard the customers on that busy holiday week complaining about the old sticker, he would make the change immediately. I am sure he does not know anything about it until I send him a copy of this blog. Accounting might say, we will lose too much in drink revenue, wake up you already have! One of the other bits of magic is when someone receives something for free; they tend to spend up to the amount of the free product they received in actual new purchases. I predict, one little new sticker will actually increase your bottom line and your employee moral while you are working on the problem. Also talk to us in a human voice, not so stiff please. The marketing department would be a great start for stickers like these, not the operations department. Problems are your greatest marketing opportunities, get out of the damage control mode, raise the kimono and let the world see things for the way they really are, we can take it, we are human too. Now for the bathrooms, we'll chat about that tomorrow.

I love a parade

What can we learn about business by watching a parade? How to turn a dirty street into a cash cow that’s what! Step one, invite people to sit on the side of the road. Step two, ask other people to walk in the street. The franchise concept you are selling? The people on the side, look at the people walking in the street. The people walking, wave at the people sitting on the side. Then brand it so people feel they need to pay you rent just to walk and wave at the people sitting. Start the music! Next, license the trademarks, TV rights, and memorabilia. Stop! I am not in the parade business am I?

If they can make a dirty street in small town USA print money, I know you have something far more valuable to market. Is your business missing the parade?

Last night I went to the Zoo lights with my family. I live in Phoenix and the winter is the best time to go to the Zoo. After I walked around for an hour it dawned on me, any Zoo that is closing down today has nothing to do with what they tell you, “Oh the high cost of animal care, poor donor base, high overhead…” It has nothing to do with the animals at all or the donors. It has everything to do with this simple concept. All business is the show business! My 10 and 12 year old boys get an earful about business wherever we go. I can’t help it, I think it, dream it, talk about it, it is not something I do, it is who I am, I’m sick, there I said it. I think they actually believe the Zoo trip was just a smoke screen to another branding lesson, without the whiteboards.

Each year, 265,000 out of the 1.4 million annual visitors, see the Zoo lights at the Phoenix Zoo over 46 nights. This has nothing to do with their “main attraction”, the animals. The only animals I saw were 20 flamingos and a large mechanical giraffe that talked to the kids and made a crowd of 200 at a time pause for 15 minutes. Nice bit guys by the way, the longer you are in the park, the more you want to eat. More stops, more revenues. Note to management, add more talking animals. The real kicker is in the numbers. They did those numbers only open 4 hours each night versus 9 hours during their regular calendar. That means on an operating hour, trade weighted basis, 20% of their annual revenues are generated using only 7.5% of their operating hours to create that revenue. Sorry to spreadsheet on your parade, but the next time you are singing the blues about your flat sales, try juicing your franchise by creating a crowd around what you already have.

Who knew cavemen could sell insurance?

Imagine having a caveman in your living room every Monday night and another billion or two for Warren Buffet who acquired GEICO several years ago. If the executives at ABC have anything to say, both will become a reality very soon.

The quirky commercials of the caveman GEICO series are tops for me. The PC Mac ads would be number one and the GEICO caveman would be a close second, both have a very powerful method at work underlying the psychology that makes people want to buy more of your stuff. That method is the hook. Think of looking at a chocolate cupcake with the letters scrawled in white icing, “Got Milk?” Great stuff! Many ad agencies write great copy and catchy phrases but they forget the most important thing, “Will this sell more product?” It seems as if they are more interested in receiving an award from their advertising peers and securing their careers with their agency than selling more products for their clients.

Not the case with the caveman series, very effective. The writer and creator of the series is Joe Lawson formerly with the Martin Agency, now making his move on Hollywood. I knew I liked the guy when I saw his commercials but I loved the guy when I read a quote from him being brutally honest about the advertising business in general. I quote from Joe as he had a chat with the Banterist shortly after creating the series.

“The most important thing is to avoid big industry functions. That way you're not reminded of the transitory nature of goodness in advertising. Every once in a while, if you are lucky, you catch the tail of an opportunity and put something on TV that doesn't annoy people, but most of the time 99% of us are producing crap.”

Well said, but why a caveman? That’s easy, literally it’s all in the hook presented in a way that does not annoy you. You can get commercials that entertain, but if they do not start with a hook, they will leave their clients with flat revenues while the agency fills up their trophy case with yet another creativity award.

If I asked you what type of beer would you drink at the beach? I bet Corona came to your mind. At the risk of upsetting some beer heretics, I don’t think any beer tastes more “beach like.” I am a non drinker so I could be wrong but I don’t know what the beach tastes like, do you? Anyone could have grabbed that spot but Corona chose to draw a line in the sand and say “This is our real estate, we own the beach.” I love their spots because they create an experience that transcends price and reason. It is difficult not to think of Corona when you have an idyllic summer beach day or if you want to be transported to the paradise while stuck in a dark bar at the end of a strip mall. The hook is the beach scene attached to Corona, like “Got Milk” to the cupcake or a milk mustache to a celebrities lip. “If I drink milk maybe I will look like Cindy Crawford too!”

The hook with the caveman is “It’s so easy even a caveman can do it.” To test the effectiveness of a hook, ask a 10 year old what is the BEST car insurance company and don’t be surprised that the “it’s easy” ads have even spilled over to the “best insurance” in their minds. When you can create generational shifts in buying patterns by using the right hook, it can be the most valuable time you will ever spend before branding what you do.

So what about the pilot for ABC? It sounds like it will be Seinfeld with hair. Cavemen will be filmed dealing with everyday issues living in Atlanta. GEICO, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will have no creative control but will receive a royalty payment for the use of the character.

"We sell car insurance; we don't make TV shows," says Ted Ward, GEICO’s vice president of marketing. Ted please!!! Don’t go stuffed shirt on us now, we know you are dancing around in your caveman jammies laughing hysterically that you are the guy that actually approved Lawson’s wacky idea. If the caveman makes it past a pilot and actually gets picked up for 13 weeks we will have GEICO on the brain for the next 20 years. Good bye Aflac, I hated that duck anyway, what was the hook, Gilbert Gottfried in feathers? He is hard to take as a human, as a duck it just makes me want to eat more chicken, not call the 800 number.

What’s your hook? Before you start off down the long branding road, decide what differentiates you from your competition. What is the competitive advantage you bring that nobody else does? If you cannot think of one, maybe you should consider a different path in life. If you can come up with a few, how do you convey that edge to the market? Start with a hook. A hook promotes your franchise while you sleep, what could be better than that?