SURAHMIN BUSINESS

T-Mobile is taking a page out of Apple’s marketing handbook with their latest ad campaign. In case you haven’t seen it yet, T-Mobile has come out swinging at AT&T in an ad designed similar to the successful Mac vs. PC campaign. Just when you thought you had the latest and greatest 3G phone, T-Mobile shows up like that annoying friend who always has to have something better than you.

You see, the latest phone on their network has 4G capabilities and they’re making sure you know their competitor AT&T is living in the dark ages with their 3G network. According to the ad, the increased speed means you can make video calls from anywhere. Currently, making a video call on an AT&T serviced device requires a Wife connection. It would make sense to assume that browsing and downloading would be faster over 4G as well.

When one company directly attacks their own competition it’s always going to rub some people the wrong way. It’s not a new tactic though and it’s often very successful. Here’s what I think are the major positives of taking this approach:

People are talking. When was the last time you heard someone talking about T-Mobile and their 4G network? I guarantee that you’ll be seeing a lot more discussion about them now. This morning my Google Reader was full of posts about this new campaign. The video was just posted yesterday and it’s already making an impact.

Puts competition on alert. With this kind of campaign you’re sending a direct message to your competition (and shareholders) that you want some of their market share. AT&T is going to pay close attention to T-Mobile now and be forced to come up with a strategy if the ads have their desired effect.

Highlights major selling point. When you’re attacking the competition you’re always going to do it by bragging about what you do better than them. Why would I choose T-Mobile over AT&T? Well I didn’t know the differences between the two before but now I do thanks to these ads.

These kinds of ads make good business sense but there’s one major negative: dividing the customer market.

What type of healthcare brand are you marketing? A pharmaceutical or biotechnology product? Perhaps a medical device? Or a hospital? Or maybe electronic medical record technology? No matter the type, your brand will benefit from a well-crafted positioning statement and message platform. Here’s how to create both.

Positioning statement

What it is:
The positioning expresses the unique selling proposition of your brand. What makes it unique and better? Why is it on the market? Is it higher quality? Lower price? The first of its kind? More advanced technology? Supported by superior service?

You should be able to articulate your positioning clearly, concisely, and convincingly. You’ve heard of the “elevator test”? That’s when you have to explain, in 20 seconds or less (before the elevator carrying you and your prospect reaches your destination) why your brand is best qualified to meet your customer’s needs.

You also should be aware that, under your “umbrella” positioning, you may have variations of your positioning statement tailored to the specific agenda of each target audience.

Why it’s important:
The positioning gives everyone inside and outside your company a well-worded description of why your brand deserves to be a market leader. At every step in your marketing efforts, you can-and should-ask yourself, “How does this activity support our positioning?

Message platform

What it is:
Your positioning articulates your brand’s key benefit. Your message platform supports your positioning by expressing the main points substantiating it. The messages should be prioritized from most important to least. Here, too, the wording and prioritization of messages may need to be tailored to each target audience.

Why it’s important:
When you articulate your positioning, the natural response of your target audience may be, “Prove it.” Put simply, your message platform organizes your proof points.

Building your communications

With your positioning statement and message platform in place, you have the building blocks of any marketing communication tactics in any media targeting any audience. You know that all tactics will always be on point and on message.

There are not very many family offices database options for fund managers but luckily there are some exist that are very well put together and constantly updated. The trick is figuring out which option is going to work best for your fund marketing or capital raising objectives.

First before you start down this path figure out if you should be working with a single FO, MFOs or both.

Single FOs are those which are built around serving the needs for one single ultra high net worth individual or family who typically has a total net worth of over $50M and in most cases over $100M.

Multi-family offices are those which provide services to 3, 4, 5, or dozens of wealth individuals and families providing holistic wealth management and tax efficiency advisory and management.

If you are using the database for capital raising you will want to approach both of these groups but the reality is that you will end up connecting with and being able to develop more powerful relationships with the muftis. This is because there are more of them, they are less secretive, and in my experience they invest in external fund managers more often.

Some final tips in selecting a database is to look for one in Excel spreadsheet format, that costs less than $2,000, only costs $500 a year or less to keep updates over the years, and is offered by a team that is really focused on this industry and not just pumping out software driven script built databases scrapped from the internet.

Turning your restaurant into a training store is a lot easier than you might think it is. The first thing that has to be in place is having the best management team possible working towards the same goal. A management team that does not care about the out come of the restaurant will do more harm than good. Both the general manager and manager need to be talented. They need to show the staff how much they care. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

After you have the management team in place the next step is getting the current staff to make the changes needed to improve the store. You should also be watching them to see if they also care about the restaurant. Those team members that don’t care sit down with them and see what the concern is. Help them fix any problems you are capable of, and for the problems you can’t fix you might have to make a business decision. This will show to the other team members that you mean business and this is not personal.

Once everyone is on bought into the idea of becoming a training store, work along side with them not directing what to do. In order for your restaurant to be a training you need to show them that it is not about you but about the entire team. When you receive the store certification in most likely will say the GM’s name along with the staff at the restaurant.

Finally make sure everyone is certified in their prospective positions. When a new trainee comes through the training store everyone should know what their responsibility is. You can’t show the new trainee how to work every position by yourself. Everybody must know what they are doing with everyone working together there will be massive improvement in the daily operations and will help increase your transaction count and bottom line.

You’ve decided to take the plunge and get started in networking. You’ve decided what you want out of it. You know what to say when people ask, “What do you do?” You know where you want to go because you’ve thought about whom you need to connect with, what you can do for them and how they will fit into your network. You’ve made sure to always be ready with your business cards and you’ve got a good roster of networking events to attend. Once you get started and get over this initial preparation, you want to deepen your networking skills. Here are several to work on.

Polish your small talk.

We sometimes think that small talk, the light conversation style that includes the latest sports or weather or complaints about traffic is pointless. But it’s important in that it provides a bit of cushion when we first meet someone new. While it’s not good to beat around the bush or have pointless, meaningless conversation, we want to give someone a little bit of time to size us up. We learn about each others rhythms and styles before we do start going deeper in our conversation. We also find out what we might have in common and what interests we share when we engage in small talk.

Follow up with people you meet.

There’s a saying that “the fortune is in the follow up.” This is probably based on the statistics which show that salespeople rarely close a deal on the first contact with a potential customer. Or the advertising statistics which state that it takes seven exposures before someone even registers an advertisement. Whatever you’re trying to accomplish with networking, it requires more than one exposure to us. Follow up is our way of getting familiar with other people and getting them familiar with us.

Keep track of whom you’ve met.

When you need to follow up or get back in touch with someone you’ve met, it’s hard to dig though a stack of business cards, or paw through your desk drawers. A Rolodex, a database or any other way of keeping track of who you know is vital. It’s worth hiring someone to put them into a searchable system so you can always refer to them by name, company, what they do or how you met.