Successful Blog

Do A Survey to Focus Your Business

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Our Customers Know

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Have you noticed? Everything about setting up a business requires clean decisionmaking that comes from both heart and head. In other words, to do it well, we have to know who we are.

My friend, Dawud Miracle, and I take that idea seriously. We don’t just discuss it in the one2one conversations on our blogs. We talk about it on the telephone and via email whenever the need strikes, which is often enough.

A few weeks ago, I asked Dawud how I might help a client get to his core offer and together we decided a survey might be one way to go. If you’re feeling a bit the same way, let’s see how a survey would help.

A Survey to Focus Your Business

The single greatest value that I bring to a client relationship is the truthful perception of someone who is not them. I stand outside their business and tell them what a naive, intelligent customer sees.

Getting focus means seeing who we are and what we do well. If the picture is too foggy, it’s helpful to have several points of view against which to test our perceptions of ourselves.

An informal survey can gather those points of view.

A Survey to Focus Your Business

Let’s start with the survey itself. Here are some survey questions to make this happen for you. You’ll notice a blank for your name or the name of your business.

  1. What kind of work does _____ love doing? Why do you think so?

  2. What successes can you point to that _____ has had in the past? What does _____ do better than almost everyone else?

  3. If you were to recommend _____ to a close friend, what would you say?

  4. Do you see any disconnects in what _____ loves doing and does well, and what _____ could be doing to serve customers?

  5. What do you think _____ can promise to deliver that people really need? Are you confident that _____ would keep that promise? What makes you think so?

  6. Would you count on _____ to deliver on that promise? What makes you think as you do?

Only six questions, but use them well and they’ll get some critical information.

Putting the Survey to Work for You

Sometimes the key is asking questions. Sometimes the key is having someone ask for you. To get a true picture of how folks see your business, I recommend that you allow them to talk a friend anonymously rather than having them write to you.

People often say the best things about us when we’re not listening.

Let’s get this survey rolling.

  1. Ask a friend to be an interviewer.

  2. Provide the interviewer with no more than 7 questions. Use the ones above to get you started. Ask interviewer to help you word any additional questions so that they leave room for explanation.

  3. Identify no fewer than 5 people who are familiar with your business or your performance at businesslike tasks. Have the interviewer help you choose folks who can give an informed response. Work toward a list that represents the customers you want.

  4. Discuss with the interviewer the best way to introduce the interview to each person on your list. Make it a goal together to set up a high-trust situation so that each respondent can answer freely.

  5. Have the interviewer contact the people on the list and conduct the interviews.

  6. Ask the interviewer to compile the constructive information into a summary or a bulleted list for each question. Respect respondent’s privacy. You’ll want to survey them again.

  7. Discuss a plan of action with the interviewer. He or she was heard the responses and so can say whether your reaction is the right size for the information gathered. He or she knows whether you need to find out more on some points.

  8. Use what you found with what you know about yourself and your business to
    • Decide what businesslike thing you love doing.
    • Choose your ideal customer.
    • What you can promise and deliver to the ideal customer you want to serve.

  9. Introduce changes you’ve identified into your business slowly and one at a time.

Information from people who know us is the most valuable data we can find. When we put it with what we know about ourselves and what we do well, we can make incredible things happen.

How might you use a survey to improve your business?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

The Mic Is On: We're Talking About Blog History . . .

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

The History of Blogging!

Here’s a few ideas to get us started:

  • How blogging started
  • Personal Stories
  • Traditions
  • Facts

And, whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey.

Oh, and bring links about the history of blogging to share!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Let's Talk About History!

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Yes the Mic Will Be on Tonight

Join Us Tonight

Blog History . . .

We can talk about how blogging started, personal stories, traditions, facts, and whatever else comes up.

Oh, and bring links to blog history you want to share!

The rules are simple — be nice.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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25 Outstanding Links to Help You Write a Compelling Tagline

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An Internet of Taglines

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Writing a tagline can seem an overwhelming task. How do you pack all of that promise into four or five simple words that will resonate with the folks you want to reach?

I discussed the strategy behind taglines yesterday.

To fill out the information, I thought I might reseach what some other folks are saying. Here’s the best I found from around the blogosphere. They are 25 to add to the one I wrote yesterday.

  1. Several Links and Information worth exploring: Channel 9 Tagline/Strapline Contest!

  2. Tag Lines Can Make Or Break Your Advertising

  3. A Good Tagline Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

  4. Wag the Tagline – The Rhetoric of Brand Messaging

  5. Tag, You’re It: Benefiting From a Memorable Tagline

  6. The Phrase that Pays- Creating a Tagline You Can Take to the Bank

  7. Tagline – your brand mantra

  8. How a Great Tagline can Help your Business

  9. Drew McLellan: Is a Tagline Part of the Brand?

  10. Does this Tagline “Get it Done?”

  11. That’s not a tagline!

  12. Taglines – Why Your Brand Needs a Tagline

  13. Got tagline? Arrrggghh!!

  14. Tagline Basics

  15. Are You Tagging? Create a Successful Tagline for Your Business

  16. Zzzzzz…Oh, was that a Tagline?

  17. Create a Winning Tagline: The Best Column You Can Get for a Box of Chocolate

  18. Playing with some homeschool stereotypes

  19. The Power of Taglines: Take My Tagline Test!

  20. 1% company ownership for a tagline

    21. Software and Other Related Posts

  21. YouTube Digger Tagline Poll

  22. Tagline Randomizer for WordPress

  23. RANDOM TAGLINE MANAGER

  24. Job description of a movie tagline writer: Big Screen, a Few Small Words

  25. How To: Hide Title and Tagline

Sometimes immersion is the best way to get to know how to do something.

I gathered these links as a resource. Everyone needs a different sort of support when it comes executing the vision of a business that customers will see. Find the ones that suit you and take the wisdom you need.

What words will you use to define your promise in a tagline?
Want to test a few? Write them in the comment box here.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

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3.2: Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On
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Change the World: Let Them Discover

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It’s about Them

changetheworld8

It happens something like this. I meet a person who intrigues me. I rush in where the proverbial fool would fear to go. I want that person to see my value. I put it out there. I don’t realize that my thinking is all about me.

“Look at me behavior” is what I call it. The subtext of what I do is something like “I want you to see what I know, think, understand, have accomplished. I want you to see how worthy I am. I want you to see me.

The irony is that whenever I make things about me, it’s not me who shows up to tell the story.

I end up saying things in ways that aren’t my way of saying them. I hear myself handing over my weaknessess as I tout my strengths.

When I am lucky, when I have my wits about me and my heart in the right, relevant place, I know that the other person doesn’t know or even suspect. I’m only ludicrous facts that I’m spouting without context.

It’s so silly, We all know that folks discover the things they need to know.

When I choose to trust the person I’m talking to, I find that the right parts of me show through — without effort, within the bigger story of who I am. I find that my defensive self promotion falls away like water falling down a moutatin cliff.

When I trust in the thoughts of others, I am who I am.

When I trust the thoughts and humanity of others, the rest happens rightly more often than not. It’s so much easier to let them discover wht I am.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On to Others with Enthusiasm

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The Decision Model

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Back to business . . .

We’re on the way to Building an Outrageously Solid, Customer-Centered Model to Test All Business Decisions. What we’re going for is to define the business by building these four parts.

  • An explicit description of our customer and the niche market he or she represents
  • A company name and identity that fits and appeals to that ideal customer
  • A tagline that states what we promise and deliver
  • A “do line” that answers “What do you do?” in a few words

My version might look something like this:
Ideal customer: Thinking businesses and entrepreneurs who understand that relationships are crucial to success
Company name: Successful-Blog
Tagline: You’re only a stranger once.
Do line: I show businesses how to make irresistible products and services that attract fiercely loyal customer-fans.

What’s packed in that definition? Let’s concentrate on the tagline for now.

Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On

A tagline is brand statement. It’s what we want folks to remember about us — the perception and reality of who we are rolled together in a few words. Nike said, “Just do it.” Burger King said, “Have it your way.” Verizon knew we were all saying, “Can you hear me now?” Think on the businesses you know. How many taglines can you remember? My point exactly.

A killer tagline is not just one that we remember. It resonates. We find something we recognize, something we identify with inside the words. That’s why we wear a “Just Do It!” t-shirt.

Killer taglines describe something about who or where customers want to be.

Here are three steps to a killer tagline that customers pass on.

  1. Make a promise that benefits the customer.
    Do you remember ever saying, “But you promised. . . .”?

    Promises are things we don’t usually forget.

    If you want folks to remember a tagline, make a promise. Make it a promise that your customers will care about. That means the promise has to offer something for THEM.

    Make your promise about what you will do for them. What one thing will you deliver without fail. What need will you fill? What can your customers count on you to do over and over again?

    I want to work with thinking businesses that care about relationships. My tagline promises they’ll learn ways to establish long-lasting relationships with a community of customers they want.

  2. Say it simply, out loud, and often.

    Powerful taglines don’t waste words. The longest example I gave has only five. Five words make it easy to understand, remember, and repeat. Five words means that there’s nothing hidden, no small print, no “take backs,” no thing to worry about. Five words means that you have through what you’re promising and that you know it well enough to say it in five words. Can you use six? Sure, but be certain that you need every one.

    Talk about your tagline promise often. In other words, repeat your promise out loud. Call attention to it. Let folks know that you stand behind the words. No one does this better than Phil Gerbyshak. He’s the Make It Great! man.

    When we say the words out loud, or write them in a comment box, it tells folks that we use those words with intent. Every time we repeat our tagline, the subtext is “and you can say I promised.”

    Imagine a promise offered that comes with a subtext that says “You won’t be disappointed.” Who wouldn’t want to try that? How many folks wouldn’t talk about it after they did?

  3. Deliver on that promise every time.

    Under promise and over deliver. You’ve heard that before. But don’t back off on what you can do. Be there. Show up. Put your head and heart fully in it. That’s what you’re following your passion to do.

    Nothing beats the feeling of a promise that someone kept. Even better than that is when someone keeps it a second time. That moves a person to a special category of friend.

    When a business delivers on a promise once we’re impressed. When a business makes it their business to keep their promises every time, we give them back our loyalty and our trust. The next guy has a hard time stealing us away from that.

Three simple steps. We’ve known them since we were kids. Make a promise that means something. Say it out loud to show that you mean it. Then deliver without fail.

Who wouldn’t want to tell their friends about service like that?

What do you know about promises that businesses have made to you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.