DW's Blog

The Purpose of a Business is to Get and Keep a Customer

by DW Green — June 25, 2015

In view of Adam’s Cyber Monday blog and the resistance he’s encountered with respect to its markdown, considering the program from a different perspective might prove beneficial. Very simplistically a business must produce revenue in excess of costs in sufficient quantity and with sufficient regularity to attract and hold investors in the enterprise, and must keep at least abreast and sometimes ahead of competitive offerings.There is a wonderful book, The Marketing Imagination by Theodore Levitt. It was first published in 1983. Mr. Levitt was an economist and professor at Harvard Business School. He proposed a definition for corporate purpose: Rather than merely making money, it is to create and keep a customer. His book resonated with me. I believe that a business leader’s top priority is sales and the company’s ability to attract and keep customers. Sometimes this requires selling product at or below cost.Thinking about marketing through the lens of creating customer loyalty rather than merely generating profits has proven transformative for many business leaders. Theodore Levitt’s view of corporate purpose emphasized that the real objective should be to attract and retain customers, a concept central to long-term success. This approach aligns with the StoryBrand Framework, which focuses on clarifying messaging by positioning the customer as the hero, with the brand...

by DW Green — June 19, 2015

Listening is an extremely important quality. Being “present” in a conversation is the biggest gift you can give to another person. When someone feels that they have been “heard” they feel accepted and appreciated. We can all learn when we truly listen. The listening article below by Chris McGoff is excellent. I hope you it enjoy it as much as I do. I read it often to remind myself to be present in my conversations.

Stop Listening

Make yourself available.

by Chris McGoff

I ARRIVED AT THE RESTAURANT early to ensure we would be seated at a private table.
My expected guest was an executive of a major enterprise and one of my most important customers. I requested the meeting with her to solicit her feedback on how my team was doing and to better understand her priorities and pressing issues—to hear how we could enhance our value to her. I also needed to ask her a favor. I had a big agenda, and the stakes were high. Too much was on the line merely to listen attentively. I was there to be a listening from nothing deeply.You have likely internalized the value of listening. I now challenge you to stop listening and start being a listening from nothing deeply. How does this differ? The changes are subtle; the shifts in behavior, small. But the response will be staggering: People...

by DW Green — May 27, 2015

I’m an ardent proponent of product and service guarantees. A guarantee is a promise or assurance that a company will stand behind the quality of products it sells or services it performs. Guarantees build trust and loyalty with consumers. In a sense, a guarantee is a company’s commitment to the well being of its customers. Wow, what an intriguing approach to serving the customer. Imagine a conscious intention by company leaders to enhance the well-being* of a customer. Is that possible?

5 Reasons Why A Guarantee Works

First, it pushes the entire company to focus on customers’ definition of good products/service, not an executive’s assumption. Second, it sets clear performance standards, which boost employees performance and morale. Third, it generates reliable data (through payouts) when performance is poor. Fourth, it forces an organization to examine its entire service-delivery system for possible failure points. Last, it builds customer loyalty, sales and market share.What is a good guarantee? It is (1) unconditional, (2) easy to understand and communicate, (3) meaningful, (4) easy and painless to invoke, and (5) easy and quick to collect on.Cheating. Fear of customers cheating is a big hurdle for some when considering offering guarantees. Sure, there will be cheats—the handful of customers who take advantage of a guarantee to get something for nothing. What they cost the company amounts to very little compared to the benefits derived from ...

by DW Green — May 14, 2015

Faith is our sixth core value. Faith can be a difficult word to explain and define. Heck, even Dictionary.com has seven definitions. All of which express a piece of the essence of faith.

confidence or trust in a person or thing:
faith in another’s ability.
belief that is not based on proof:
he had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion:
the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.:
to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
a system of religious belief:
the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.:
failure to appear would be breaking faith.
the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one’s promise, oath, allegiance, etc.:
he was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.

To me, faith means believing in a Power greater than oneself. Whether it’s the combined wisdom and talent of your employees or the belief in the Divinity, the Creator of all things. Even personal intuition, or gut feeling arises from a power greater t...

by DW Green — May 5, 2015

Yep Adam, retail is all about presentation and merchandising! Especially food retailing. People eat with their eyes. They purchase with their eyes. Of all the varied supermarket activities, the single most important, the most valued, the skill set to “own”, the key to competitive advantage is presentation/merchandising. Even the value of “street appeal” rests in the appearance of the storefront from a distance.Presentation and merchandising set the tone for the entire shopping experience. Its what creates the “likeability,” “comfortability” and “authenticity” of the retail brand. Its what creates sales and additional sales and additional sales. Of course, readable, well-designed, well-placed signs and story telling add to the magic and message of BUY ME!!If you could do just one thing for the balance of the year, work on improving your product presentation and merchandising skills. If you do, you will experience a handsome increase in sales!

Read more about merchandising and Wegmans

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by DW Green — April 22, 2015

Perfect. Values. Wholeheartedness. Humility.Adam speaks about perfection in this week’s blog. In the spiritual realm of life, it is said that all life, in all its expressions is perfect. But spiritual is another conversation for another day and another blog, though spirit is a topic worth exploring. To provide context for the word perfection let’s consider the notion of values.Values are a set of guiding principles that unite people as they work toward achieving a common goal, their purpose. In their strongest form—when individual employee and organizational values are in sync—they generate tremendous energy. Rather than just complying, employees become more committed, enthusiastic and driven, and they have a reason for caring about their work. They enjoy a sense of collaboration, group spirit and pride that make the company more fully alive. Great service companies have a soul that underlies their strategies and day-to-day operations. Although strategies and tactics may change, the company’s value system, or soul, remains the same. It is this continuity of values that will sustain business success, even in the most volatile times. The DW Green management team spent countless hours over the course of a year working on our company values. We amassed an incredible list. And while we didn’t discard many, we identified and selected seven core values. The Number 7 represents or symbolizes perfection and completion. The number seven is a very powerful and...

by DW Green — April 15, 2015

What do golf and magic have in common? Well, depending on the veracity and skill level of your playing partners they have a lot in common. For example, your buddy’s tee shot clearly lands in the middle of a water hazard then magically ricochets back into the fairway. Wow! Many a lost golf ball have magically appeared in their original condition after found.So in the spirit of golf season and the magical record-breaking performance of Jordon Spieth in last weeks Master Golf Tournament, lets take a look at the 10 best caddy comments to his employer golfer. Sadly, many of these comments apply to me!

#10
Golfer: “Think I’m going to drown myself in the lake.”
Caddy: “Think you can keep your head down that long?”

#9
Golfer: “I’d move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course.”
Caddy: “Try heaven, you’ve already moved most of the earth.”

#8
Golfer: “Do you think my game is improving?” ...

by DW Green — April 9, 2015

So Adam is talking about cool. Cool, as in the context of slang, as an interjection to express acceptance, approval or admiration. And what’s more cool neat, nifty, boss, keen, groovy than a brand mark or Icon. Brand marks are simple, clean, and an easy to remember graphic representation of a company’s Brand name. Brand marks are like punctuation symbols:
. stop
, pause
; pause longer
! exclamation mark
? question markBrand marks and icons can represent a deeper meaning of a company’s purpose or an abstract expression like the Nike swoosh. We have a Northwest client whose brand mark is a sailboat. Who would have thought of a sailboat icon for a food store? The sailboat is very meaningful to their company culture. It’s meaningful to me too. I’m proud to wear their caps and jackets that showcase their company icon.The DW Green icon reflects our design mantra “Less is greater than more.”So if you’re considering a new or updated design for your company’s brand mark, give us a call. dwgCMlogosH

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by webmaster — March 10, 2015

Differentiation is the essence of competition. I love the word differentiation. It’s a difficult word for me to spell and pronounce—the word inaudibly tumbles out of my mouth, often landing on deaf ears! But aside from poor enunciation skills and misunderstanding, differentiation is a very powerful business tool.Everything can be and is differentiable, even such “commodities” as steel, cement, money, chemicals and well, ground beef. Success goes to those who differentiate themselves in ways that attract differentiably superior numbers of customers to themselves.Though clothes may not make the man, they help make the sale. And if they do, the customer is buying something beyond the generic product that the salesman offers. That is what is meant by “differentiation.”While positioning is about performing different activities from rivals or performing similar activities in different ways, differentiation then, arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. See “Activity Breeds Success.”Adam’s Setting Your Ground Rules blog is an excellent example of differentiating both your store and your ground beef program. Your gro...

by DW Green — March 4, 2015

It’s well documented that consumers prefer shopping a locally owned retail store to a national or regional chain store. But being locally owned, in and of itself, is not reason enough to maintain a long-term business relationship with consumers. A local retailer needs to minimally match the national or regional retailer in terms of its product offering, quality, customer service, store cleanliness and other operational considerations like product presentation, signage, stock conditions and so forth. From my perspective, the local company should strive to exceed operational standards of its larger size retail brethren.Aside from the many “financial benefits” of supporting a local business, as described in Adam Zack’s “In Support of REAL Local” blog, the underlying benefit or “reason to believe” in local businesses is the deeper emotional connection that consumers hold for their local community. This emotionality is enhanced by the authenticity of the local retailer. Authenticity is expressed through merchandising and messagi...