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I’m always looking forward to receive the newsletter from Trendwatching.com …their trend studies are one of my main sources of inspiration in comsumer trends. This time it’s about Servile Brands.

Demanding customers in focus

Yes, consumers are more demanding, time-starved, informed, and choice-saturated than ever-before (we know you know). For brands to prosper, the solution is simple though: turn SERVILE. This goes far beyond offering great customer service*. SERVILE means turning your brand into a lifestyle servant focused on catering to the needs, desires and whims of your customers, wherever and whenever they are.

Everyday great ‘customer service’ will of course forever be crucial: a 2011 American Express survey found that 70% of American consumers were willing to spend more with brands that provided a great service, and a whopping 60% thought brands weren’t thinking enough about the service experience.

What is a Servile Brand?

Here is 11 examples of what a Servile Brand can be:

1. Letting customers try out first
2. Helping customers monitor anything
3. Helping customers find anything real-time
4. Helping customers understand everything real-time
5. Being there when customers truly need you, even if they didn’t realize it yet
6. Picking up where the government isn’t
7. Helping customers save money
8. Helping customers start the day pleasantly
9. Helping customers to make the most of it
10. Bringing customers recommendations that actually make sense
11. Making things more seamless for customers

For me this is very exiting reading as all of the parameters doesn’t focus on price as the key driver to sell. Number 7 is directly a value innovation  is factor and the rest of them fits in as well creating value for the customer in one way or the other. Companies understanding the perspective in this trend can defeat competition by ignoring it and focus on the customers.

Being a Trendwatchers.com focus means that are things starting to move, maybe not fast, but make sure you have it on the agenda a management meeting within the next three to six month or be sure at least one of your competitors will.

Watch the presentation on Slide Share

In a small business market, where most companies are non-costumers, Paypal has taken value innovative leadership in developing the market for creditcard payments.

PayPal Here is the world’s first global mobile payments solution that allows small businesses to accept secure creditcard payment. The new service includes a free app and fully encrypted thumb-sized card reader, which turns any iPhone, and soon Android smartphone, into a mobile payment solution.With PayPal Here, small businesses, service providers, and casual sellers can accept debit and credit cards PayPal using one simple product.

A simple credit card reader for your mobilphone or tablet. Plug it in and you got an advanced card terminal accepting all cards.

Value Innovation is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low costs. Focusing on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leaf of value for both the customer and the company and thereby opening up new and uncontested market space. Because value for buyers comes form the offering’s utility minus it’s price and because value for the company is generated from the offering’s price minus it’s cost, Value Innovation is achieved only when the whole system of utility, price and cost is aligned.

Paypal has proven that they can cut the cost of a card terminal and eliminate the installations costs. They engage a whole new market segment which all the traditional players ignore. But as we know many little things add up to a lot.

Paypal focus on the non-cusutomers

Traditionally, to grow their market share companies strive to retain and expand existing customers. This often leads to finer segmentation and greater tailoring of offerings to better meet the customer preferences.

Paypal Here open up oppertunities in all three tiers of non-customers. They have taken the reverse course of their competitors. instead of concentrating on customers, they need to look to non-customers. Instead of focusing on customer differences, they build a solution based on technology platform used daily by all of us.

The convenience of your customer can be more crucial to the purchasing decision than the price. Payment methods is something every business, small or large, can not afford to neglect in their businessplan.

I hope this initiates a wave of rethinking the creditcard business and hopefully banking in general terms. We need changes in this industry.

Are you interested in the book: Blue Ocean Strategy – more information here

The political correct answer would be yes – I guess. – if you want to communicate with this consumer segment. But there isn’t any correct answer to that question – it all depens on our campaign/activity and the target group in combination with your product image – demographics are curical.

It is imporatant that you understand the LGBT segment if you want bottom line results and a acceptable return on investment for your LGBT marketing activities. Understanding the segment is much more than language.

Tyler Oakley is an experienced blogger, gay and small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world, who is trying to learn straight trying hard to learn the straight twins a little of his culture. His Video blog has been broadcasting a weekly feature for the last 5 years.

…notice how clever his is in using the twin to help building his followers at the end of the show where he introduces their blog. He is too smart to pay for likes or followers and he doesn’t need SEO optimizing. As businesses we can learn much by just looking at the young masters of social media – back to the subject again;

The LGBT society isn’t homogeneous, it consists of many different groups and cultures with different preferences and age ie. twinks and bears. The more specific you want to target your communication strategy, the more you need to understand.

A common LGBT denominator could be perfectionism and another sense for details – so get your message straight before you start to talk.

If you want to learn more about your LGBT business potential we can do a workshop around your wishes.

It’s okey if you just smile and move on

I believe corporate bullshit can kill company communication and directly influence the bottom line. If you have another oppinion please challenge me.

Does your company walk the talk?

What are they really saying? Often you have to be able to read between
the lines to get the real meaning.

As an entrepreneur in the middle of raising capital for your project, you must have been in the situation at least once. You are always well received, they are smiling, you get speaking time and then get a polite, well-founded rejection. Their formulation is nice maybe with an opening for another aproach later …but you get the feeling that they mean something else.

Here is the reality is behind some of the most common answers:

• It is too soon. We would like to look at the project again, when you have come a bit further and have proven some more

  As investors we do not really believe in the business. Forget about it.

• There are many good features in the project. But you lack some important expertise

  You are not the right team to follow this through

• Is it patentable?

  With no robust patents the concept is too easy for others to copy

• We acknowledge your fresh idea to become first movers, but…

  You just don’t know the other 250 persons with the same plan as you

• You may want to do too many things at once and should maybe focus more

  It is a tough industry. You will end up being run over

Don’t waste time on non-believers

Either the investor gets your message or not. Do not waste your time on convincing potential investors – in other words do not over sell, let them buy your message. There is always other potential investors so move on to the next one in line. Your time is too presious for doubters

1. Make your  very short pitch with all essencial investor questions answered. An appetizer document you can e-mail them to get an introduction meeting.
2. Follow up by phone, if you do not get an instant reply. Focus on a short one hour introduction metting
3. Prepare a 15 minute presentation of your investment project – that leaves enough time for questions
4. Give them the business plan – not when they ask for it, but when they show interest for your project.
5. Use you second meeting to go in depth with your plans – match them with their expectations.
6. If rejected make a note of the justification for your evaluation. Get at least three rejections before you adjust your material.

Be aware that too much information at the same time can immediately kill your initiative, no matter how important you think the information is for their decision.

If you want inspiration for your approach visit Mark Suster’s blog Both Sides of the Table. He is the entrepreneur that turned to venture capitalist and Mark is sharing views from both sides of the tabel. Read more about getting investor ready.

Yes it is true
…but why? you might ask

I have been challenged on my Facebook opinion when it comes to Business to Business social media communication. conzepts.net is present on LinkedIn and Xing – I find them relevant places as I use them to build my network and keep contact to it. Facebook on the other hand has never been a B2B place for me.

There are several opinions on this subject on the internet, and after reading several I am still not completely convinced that my initial point of view is correct. Knowing that we don’t live in black and white world but a grayscale, where it can be difficult to decide what is right and wrong for you, I have chosen to make a Facobook page for conzepts.net. I want proof of what my network there can produces of new trafic to this website.

Latest contribution to the debate is an article on Entrpreneur: 5 scarry mistakes to avoid on Facebook - emphasizing that social media isn’t easy. Read the article here

You are welcome to share your B2B experience on Facebook and other similar social medias.

New design and more content

conzepts.net edition 2.0 is air-born. I have worked the last couple of weeks to get both design and content up to day and matching the business I’m doing now, and have focus on in the future. True I haven’t updated the website as frequently as I should in 2012. The year started out in one direction with a large commitment to client. I actually didn’t think I would need this site anymore – but I keept it and am happy for that now.

In February I moved residence from Copenhagen to Amsterdam to adapt to my new work situation. I must say I love Amsterdam – but I miss people and my network in Denmark. End August, early September it became clear that the project dedicated almost my entire attention didn’t survive. If you want details please ask. This changed my situation drastically and I now had to focus on updating my website.

New product focus

Moving to Amsterdam is almost like starting up a new business. Almost no one knows me here, and that required a different communications strategy than beore. Part of the new web communication strategy is giving more detailed information and idea on specific products/services that is avaiable for you at concepts.net ie:

• 10n1 workshop Trouble Shooter
• Corporate Bullshit Index
• 10n1 workshop KITA …kick in the ass
• Rainbow People & Pink Dollars

The other part is much more detailed information on my personality and background. I find it very personal when a company work with external consultants – as important as if they would hire you. I want to show who I am, even though I still find it much more difficult to write about my business and myself than about any client.

Why do I do it myself with WordPress?

It is still very important for me, that the site is base on a content management system I can easily handle myself. The platform is still WordPress and I found a new template/theme on which offered a mobile/tablet friendly platform ensuring a okey presentation for this viewer segment. Great possibilities for a not web nerd to change colors, background, fonts and build pages with more than just text. New and existing photos together with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator has made it possible to put my personal touch on a standard template.

I know myself good enough to know if I always have to brief someone on the new things and changes I want on the website, then it’s never going to happen – because this is one of the things I like to do when I’m relaxing in the evening at home. Another argument behind the “do it yourself” solution is of course also financial – keeping an eye on costs – and there by showing other entrepreneurs and companies, that it is possible to achieve a reasonable professional level with very little investment besides your own time. When I can do it anyone can and I know it will be easy to hand it over to my future personal assistant (that is one of my dreams).

The title Version 2.0 underlines that this is a work in progress.

Please feel free to comment on the preliminar result.

I am always looking forward to the email newsletters from Soulaima Gourani and today another one hit my mailbox.

Crowd Sourcing is her subject. It is about how to involve customers and find untapped innovative business potential. In other words is she directing her focus on customer driven innovation. Admitting that it is a buzzword that peaks frequently in these years I can only support her renewed focus on this tool as one of the ways of developing your business.

Soulaima Gourani is a highly respected businesswoman because of her knowledge, charisma, thought-provoking ideas, and straightforward manner, as well as her uncompromising focus on value for the company and its customers. She is  expert within strategy and leadership and helps companies to achieve a more strategic and profitable sales organization that focus on satisfied and loyal customers through relations. In 2012 was Soulaima nominated by the World Economic Forum as one out of 192 young leader talents in the world with the title Young Global Leader.

Link to Soulima’s newsletter - unfortunately it is only available in Danish.

Either you know from your own kids, or you put up a big sympacetic smile when you see a dad running round Disneyland to find his lost kid. Now it’s much easier – just give the kid a tattoo!

Design-your-own emergency tattoos for kids. Temporary tattoos can be an effective way to help protect children with a tendency to wander off, Baltimore-based SafetyTat,  not only sells safty tattoos but even lets consumers design their own.

SafetyTat’s new TatBuilder allows customers to choose from more than 100,000 possible combinations of styles in their SafetyTat tattoo. Background and border colours are among the variables they can control, as are the message text and accompanying icon. Two lines are available for contact information on each tattoo. Pricing for a package of 24 tattoos is USD 19.95.

Any sign yet that consumers are tiring of having it their own way? We sure haven’t seen it. Keep the design-your-own innovations coming!

Website: www.safetytat.com

I have a couple of domains bought for projects,
that we haven’t used.

If you’re interested in one or more of them let us know.

1. dailyreview.eu
2. insectfree.asia
3. insectfree.co.uk
4. insectfree.se
5. justracing.org
6. mini-mobil.eu
7. minimobile.asia
8. minimobile.eu
9. nineants.com
10. nineants.net
11. royalorchidspa.com
12. thefragrancecompany.net
13. blueoceanforum.com

If you are interested in one or more of them please send a email to webmaster@conzepts.net or use the contact form.