Matthew Kenney

Small Business | Workplace Law

Archives for June 2016

A Marketing Lesson from the Toy Aisle

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Do you remember visiting the toy aisle as a little kid? Toys for boys were on one aisle, and toys for girls on another. Toys for boys normally had masculine imagery, while toys for girls emphasized femininity. This is the way toy companies and retailers wanted it: A clear gender-based line of demarcation.

The only problem: This is not how kids wanted it. To a kid, a toy is a toy. Toy retailers were — and arguably some still are — reinforcing outdated social norms in their marketing. Savvy toy retailers are doing away with this approach. So called “boys” toys are now intermingled with so-called “girls” toys. The focus is now on gender-neutral marketing.

In Practice: Go Where the Market Goes
One’s gender is sociological not biological. One’s sex is biological not sociological. While children begin understand gender as toddlers, sociologists tell us there usually isn’t full understanding until a child is about 7 years old.Look at little kids on a playground, for example. While there is some awareness of gender…kids couldn’t care less. Kids just want to play. The same principle applies to retail. There is no reason to segment toys for boys and girls. This is done purely for the benefit of retailers, not customers.

Of course, the broader lesson: Society is constantly evolving. Norms slowly change. Sometimes — as in the toy industry — the values of consumers are not aligned with retail practices. However, when retailers adapt their practices…the outcomes are well received. For example, companies like Amazon and Target have received positive public relations benefits (i.e. free advertising) by focusing on gender neutrality in their toy marketing.

The lesson for entrepreneurs in other industries: Go where the market goes. Think of it this way: If the market is constantly evolving; and your business stays the same; how long will it be before your company is totally disconnected from the market?

Understanding Customer Cognition

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When you visit the Kenney College web-site, you’ll notice it doesn’t look like other college web-sites. We intentionally take a minimalist approach to web-design, and pretty  much instruction in general. Let me explain why using a metaphor.

Have you ever been in an airport, placed your boarding pass in your pocket and two-minutes later can’t find the boarding pass? Maybe you then go to your hotel, check-in, and can’t remember where you put your room key. Then, after a few frantic seconds you find it. Why does this happen? Thank your unconscious mind.

When in a new environment your unconscious, unbeknownst to your conscious mind, is processing hundreds of bits of information. Putting your boarding pass in your coat pocket gets blended with other bits of information (like going through security, listening to overhead announcements, and seeing ads for $12.95 grab-n-go sandwiches). It isn’t until your conscious mind realizes your boarding pass is needed that this vital information is differentiated from noise and clutter.

Now, imagine a customer feeling the same way walking into your business — or visiting your web-site — for the first time. He/she experiences a flood of stimuli.  Just like the airlines at an airport, your business is taking people from where they are to where they want to go. The only difference is that you are facilitating arrival at some other preferred destination. In our case, the desired destination is the acquisition of knowledge. For your business, it will be something else. Yet, every entrepreneur is in the business of transporting customers to a desired state of mind.

It seems logical to flood a web-site, or showroom window, with a lot of content. It is tempting to fill web-pages with image, after image, after image. However, this is often counter productive. If your goal is to help people understand anything, it is best to remove as much visual noise as possible. Try to place yourself in your customer’s unconscious mind.

Here are a couple of tips to help crystallize a consumers cognition, so that he/she is focusing on what you want him/her to focus upon:

  • Ask visitors if they are return customers. First time visitors may need more time to acclimate to the stimuli they are processing.
  • Give customers your name; ask theirs; and refer to customers by name often. This will enhance both communication and the customer’s recall. Entrepreneurs who jump right into sales mode without establishing inter-personal rapport will blend into the consumer’s subconscious. Essentially, they will block you out until their conscious mind is ready to accept the value proposition. As a customer, have you ever dealt with a salesperson at retail store, and a week later have no memory of the person’s name or what they told you? This is likely because they didn’t connect with you the correct way. They missed an opportunity to make a mutually beneficial connection, likely, because they focused on selling their product….not meeting your needs.
  • Focus on the person, not the product. People generally visit a business with a desire to learn more, or buy something. Thus, entrepreneurs cut-to-the-chase and start talking about products. Remember this: The product is incidental. Focus on the customer’s needs and desires and they will buy more often than if you simply focus on the product. Entrepreneurs (and professionals in general) often know everything about their products…and nothing about their customers. When you understand how your customers think, you’ll be better prepared to market your goods and services. This process is easier to begin when we resist the temptation to inundate the consumer’s unconscious mind with a lot of unneeded clutter. Just give customers what they need to make an informed decision….that’s all they want.

Entrepreneurship Requires Humility

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One key lesson I learned from my dad, while growing up in our family business: The value of humility. Never walk past what needs to be done, regardless of how unpleasant or tedious the task.

My dad was a caterer and prominent local merchant. I recall a fancy reception for a judge, attended by all the leaders of our community, when I was a teenager. We were short on waitstaff, and my dad — in his best suit and tie — assumed the role of clearing tables. A court employee saw this, and said to me “your father shouldn’t be doing that, it’s demeaning”. That person didn’t understand entrepreneurship. There is nothing demeaning about doing what is needed. This was a great lesson, and one my wife and I try to impart to our children.

This it is also a principle we; our team and faculty try to impart to our students. Entrepreneurship requires doing things we might not want to do. Why? Because they need to get done or the business will fail. It isn’t that complicated, but too often entrepreneurs think first about outsourcing unpleasant tasks. This is generally a mistake. We should outsource what we cannot do ourselves…not what we don’t want to do. There is a big difference.

Take delivery as an example. I’ve seen many examples of entrepreneurs outsourcing their delivery, which can easily be rationalized as a sound business decision  (especially if the items being delivered are heavy and/or labor intensive). Yet, when we place a variable between our companies and our customers…we are adding risk.  We are also missing what marketing professors call “touch points”. That is, an opportunity to connect with a customer and build loyalty. You want as many touch-points as possible.

Bottom line: If we want to own a business, we cannot expect others to run it. We cannot walk past what needs to be done. My family’s business lasted nearly 63 years, until my dad’s retirement for health reasons in 1996. It was started in 1933. Fewer than 1-in-10,000 businesses last over 50 years. Why did my family beat-the-odds for so long? We had good products and good service, but lots of companies that failed during those 63 years had good products and service. The need for good products and service is self-evident. I believe what differentiated us was humility. Every job and every task was viewed as important, and nobody saw what need to be done as beneath them.

 

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