Business With Passion: Joe Grand

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Trailer:

Joe Grand (aka Kingpin) is an electrical engineer, hardware hacker, and president of Grand Idea Studio, Inc., where he specializes in the invention, design, and licensing of consumer products, video game accessories, and modules for electronics hobbyists. He has also spent many years finding security flaws in hardware devices and educating engineers on how to increase security of their designs.

Involved in computers and electronics since the age of 7, Joe is a former member of the legendary hacker collective L0pht Heavy Industries and has testified before the United States Senate Governmental Affairs Committee regarding government and homeland computer security. He’s written a few books, holds a few patents, and is a co-host of Prototype This on Discovery Channel. Joe is also the sole proprietor of Kingpin Empire, a hacker-inspired apparel project that gives back to the technology and health communities through charitable donations.

Website: Grand Idea Studio
Email: Contact Form

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Business With Passion: Valerie Baadh

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Trailer:

Valerie Baadh, CLM is a movement consultant to schools and organizations, a movement trainer and mentor to teachers, and a movement artist. She is a licensed Lebed Method instructor and a certified Spacial Dynamics practitioner. Valerie has been performing, choreographing, directing and teaching movement and dance in San Francisco since 1973. As a certified Spacial Dynamics practitioner trained by Jaimen McMillan, Valerie Baadh was the Movement Education instructor at San Francisco Waldorf School from 1990 through 2006. She helped develop and taught a comprehensive developmental movement program for grades one through twelve and led workshops for parents, teachers and the community.

Website: San Francisco Movement For Health and Healing
Phone: (415) 218-7088
Email: valerie@sfMovement.com

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How Can I Market Wrist Identification Bands?

Products

I have been asked to market wrist identification bands (made of lanyard material with a backing material that can be written on).

Initially, they were manufactured for sale to parents /guardians / youth groups for school aged children in case the child became lost or separated from the group or parent.

The compliance & safety regulation standards for children’s products has recently been upgraded in Australia and as a result the launch of the product to this market has been put on hold.

Instead, we’ve decided to market them as a great substitute for layards – they don’t get lost (or left by delegates at the bar) and can be customised to carry conference logos &/or company branding.

To introduce the product we’re sending Conference Organisers / Coordinators a direct mail letter with a sample. I’m after a catchy headline for the direct mail letter. I’d thought of “Delegate Banz – the Conference Organiser’s Organiser”. OR maybe, “Sometimes we know you’d like to tell your conference delegates to GET LOST (especially if they’re heckling the keynote speakers or misbehaving in the lounge bar)…but what if they were? With Loc8me Wrist Banz your conference delegates will always be easily identifiable and their contact details and room number can be written on they back so they’ll never forget their seminar location or hotel room number.”

Hopefully this segment will provide a good market niche for this product.

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Jay’s Answer:

(Aside: I’m not sure of the need for this product to this niche. Generally conferences attendees wear a badge that clearly states their name and company for conference staff and other attendees to see. Perhaps investigate senior citizen market – in case they go out and forget where they live, phone number, name, where car is, etc.)

As for name, why not simply: Conference Wrist Badges?

Business With Passion: Jane Straus

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Trailer:

Jane Straus (1954-2011) was a relationship coach, bestselling author (Blue Book of Grammar and Enough is Enough!), judge for the Grammar Bee, radio host (Ask Jane on S.F.’s Green960 AM), and provider of pro bono “On The Couch” services.

Websites: www.GrammarBook.com and www.JaneStraus.com

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Business With Passion: Jay Harman

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Trailer:

Jay Harman, President and CEO, has developed a number of successful companies. As founder and CEO of ERG Australia Ltd, he took the company to a highly successful IPO. ERG went on to become one of Australia’s most successful technology companies. Jay has extensive experience in technology licensing and is the author of numerous patents. His designs have won numerous design awards and his products have been featured on the international television series “Discovery.” Jay is also CEO of PAX Water Technologies and Chief Inventor of PAX Streamline.

Website: PAX Scientific
Phone: (415) 256-9900
Email: info@PAXScientific.com

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Help For Electricians In A Down Economy?

Services

How can my husband market himself to diversify his business? His new residential business has hit a major low with the bad economy. How can he target new areas? He is a Master Electrician.

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Jay’s Answer: In a word, “specialize”.

Instead of simply being a master electrician, have him focus on a narrow area. For example, home theater systems, burglar alarms, solar panels, etc. People look to hire experts in an area rather than a generalist to solve specific problems. Have him become that expert.

One concern people have in becoming a narrow expert is that they’ll lose the opportunity to work in different non-expert areas. Currently, he’s not getting that work, so it’s not a problem. But when the economy comes back, by being an expert, he can charge more and market better. There’s also no reason he can’t also have a “master electrician” business card, but by starting to focus in a new niche (perhaps with a new business name & website) he can avoid any confusion.

What Are Our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)?

Products

I am looking for an advice on how to determine the KPIs (key performance indicators) for our marketing intelligence manager ( we have a new hired manager ). What do you think the most appropriate KPIs for such position ?

Secondly, what campaign would you recommend to get lost customers due to bad quality products ? some of our product lines giving us critical problem and has resulted in danger condition (6 months down trending stat). Do we have to redo our USP and the message incl.our sales force sales scripting.

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Jay’s Answer: Your second question is most important. You’ve had bad quality products customers have moved on. Some key questions:

  • How do you know that your new products are indeed improved?
  • How much improved?
  • How much (independent) testing have you done?

If you’re selling a low-ticket item, give it away for free (or at cost) to your lost customers. If it’s a higher-ticket item, you’re asking for your past clients to: 1) trust you again and 2) give up whatever solution they’ve come up with. There’s a cost for this risk. In either event, I’d offer a 100% no-questions-asked return policy. If they don’t like it, then you’ll pay them to switch back to their other solution. So there’s no $ risk for them. If you’re selling software, then you need to protect the possibility of someone making a copy of the software and still returning it.
You don’t need to change your USP, but you do need to change your sales script. You need to stress the “new and improved” (with guarantee) product/service.
Be honest – people understand that companies make mistakes and appreciate transparency in communication.

As far as your Marketing Intelligence Manager, KPIs will vary based on what you want them to achieve. Are you asking them to launch a new project? If so, then have them create a timetable for rollout, and then have milestones be KPIs. If it’s to perform SWOT, then again you’re measuring both time taken and accuracy. You could independently audit their analysis (spot checking information). You could also measure the ROI of their suggestions (and have them estimate the ROI before hand). What you’re really trying to do is figure out if:

  1. They’ll do what they say they will
  2. They product correct research
  3. If their proposals result in actions that produce (significant) revenue.

How Can I Change Tech-Oriented to Marketing-Oriented Sales?

Services

I am working as VP of Marketing and Sales for Manufacturing Company.

My question is What topic and sales tips/ideas on how to change the technical oriented salespeople to marketing oriented salespeople.

Our salespeople are technically educated from engineering faculty and sell our shrimp food to farmers.

The problem with their approach is they focus more on their technical skill and experience in selling the products.And neglect the marketing / sales conversation to close the sale.

My goal is how to talk the business aspect not technical data whereas the customers / prospects are more knowledgeable that even our technical support.

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Jay’s Answer: The simplest thing is to basically ask the prospect, “What information do you need from me and why?” and listen carefully.

Before you can sell anything, you need to know what your potential customer’s mindset is. Are they focused on price, supply, technicalities, competition, quality, customer service, or something else?

The “why” part of the question is to understand their “story”. Have they used the product in the past and had poor results? Are they looking for something new? Do they have a specific problem that they need solved? Are they the decision makers or simply gathering information on behalf of someone else?

Technical people (as a rule) tend to feel more comfortable talking technically. They’re skilled at problem-solving and details. To sell well you need to talk in the language of the customer and from their perspective. So, give your technical people a problem to solve: Find out what it would take to sell the product.

For your workshop/training, you don’t want to try to make the technical people into sales people – that might cause a lot of internal friction. Instead, role play. Create a simple scenario to sell your product (you can have tech people play both roles: the client and the salesperson). Give the “client” a goal (who they are and why they want to buy it). The salesperson needs to find out these things (ideally without asking directly) and then sells accordingly. After each “scene”, critique it. First, have the actors tell their perspective on the conversation, then have the observers critique it. Changing the perspective of conversation and language is simply one of practice. Make the selling process more familiar and less unpleasant. What will naturally happen is that the actors will ask for more information to do a better job – and here’s where you can provide some simple resources for them. For example: You Can’t Teach a Kid…

Alternatively, hire a consultant that would craft a workshop to help train your technical people.

Name + Tagline For Professional Development Training Series?

Names + Taglines

We are trying to implement a professional and personal development training program/series at our company focusing on ways to enhance professionalism, presence, communication style, presentation skills, confidence and credibility, when networking and when with clients; just to name a few. We want to draw attention as to how this will benefit the person’s development and generate excitement to be apart of this program. For example, “It’s all about me (me=employee)” kind of thinking as by default the skills developed will help the company overall. Our staff is primarily Gen X/Gen Y and maybe 30% Baby Boomers. We are looking for a name for the overall program and an associated tagline.

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Jay’s Answer:
Names:

  • Executive Education
  • Executive Privilege
  • EmployAbility

Taglines:

  • Tips For Boosting Your Business Savvy
  • Your Business Skills Toolkit

Branding a University Pharmacy?

Branding

I recently joined the staff at a mid-sized University. My position is the Coordinator of Managed Care Pharmacy Services- I oversee two outpatient pharmacies and employee prescription benefit for 13, 000 covered lives.

I need to create an image- the main campus University just merged with the Medical center and I have two outpatient pharmacies to merge together and get acceptance and incentivize our employees to use our pharmacy

Medical Center Campus- very professional accepting of employee benefits
Main campus- union oriented- not so accepting of employee benefits but moving towards starting to like us.

Two challenges

  1. Need for a look and feel for our two pharmacies
  2. Need to name our employee pharmacy benefit newsletter. Here are the names we have so far:
  • Medifacts
  • Benefacts
  • RX Benefacts
  • Tablet Tabloid – I think cheesy?
  • RX Review

How do I get focused for a look, theme and newsletter name?

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Jay’s Answer: Before a new look & feel, I’d suggest focusing on the key unique benefits your pharmacy provides. The good news is that you already know who your target market is and your competition. To get people to shop your pharmacies, you need to focus on your benefits, whether they be: guaranteed low price, fast service, convenience, hours, range of in-stock medications, etc. Can you go the extra distance and offer an on-campus delivery service? This would be ideal for the busy employee – they can renew their prescription and you can deliver it (and have them sign for it for security’s sake).

The union-oriented “friction” that you’re perceiving can best be handled from the top. Meet with the union leaders on campus, and find out what their issues/needs are. Then meet them. That’ll provide great referral business from the leadership.

For naming, you need to again focus on the key benefit you’re hoping to convey. For example, if you’re focusing on location: Pharm Convenience. Your existing names are pretty generic, and don’t convey the benefit (other than mentioning Rx or Pharm).