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When Changes Are Made

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WARNING: Really long blog post.

The perfect becomes the imperfect. The go-to place becomes deserted.

I fear Staples is heading in that direction. Next year, Fordham Prep will require that all students have a Windows 8 computer. Many schools are going through this transition as well.

So what does that mean for Staples? To sum it up quickly, it means a lot.

There’s no longer a need for a notebook when you can open up a document on your computer instead. Once you get the computer, everything else is free. Not only does that mean free notebooks, but some schools have started to implement etextbooks as well. Instead of carrying that heavy textbook in your backpack or shoving it into your locker, the electronic option is available.

With a computer, there is no longer a need for pens or pencils. This sentence didn’t appear because of a pencil or a pen. That sentence (and this one) appeared because they were typed.

Instead of worksheets on paper, students can be given the worksheet online. If all of the teachers of a particular school do this, folders are no longer needed. All of the worksheets just get organized on the computer.

The endless search for a 2 subject notebook is over. Two documents on the computer do the job for you.

The eraser has been replaced with the backspace button, and all you have to do to get a calculator is to search it on Google. Books will turn into eBooks. Only the sports lockers will be left. Maybe the backpack can even be left home.

The ruler and protractor haven’t been figured out yet, but if everything else has been figured out, we can only imagine how long it will take before those get figured out.

Fordham Prep has a computer center, but I don’t know what is going to become of that. Everyone will already have their own computer next year.

Backpacks are going to get a lot lighter, and since so much is in one device, less people will forget a particular notebook. All a student needs is a computer, and that student will already have virtually all of their supplies.

Staples is in danger. Staples is the go-to place for getting school supplies. In late August and early September, everyone is going to Staples. If there isn’t a notebook on the shelf, that’s too bad. You’ll just have to go to another Staples and search for that notebook. What if your also looking for folders? When you go home from Staples, what happens when you realize you needed to buy a box of #2 pencils? It’s another commute to Staples, another moment of anxiety when you wonder if Staples still have pencils, and of course, the lines.

The computer solves all of that because it gives you what you would have gotten, but the computer is way more convenient. The student body at Fordham Prep contains about 950 students. Let’s say all of those students spend $5 at Staples for school supplies. Staples would get a total of $4750 in sales (I used the Google calculator for that one). Since all Fordham Prep students will be required to have Windows 8 computers, going to Staples will no longer be a requirement. Staples loses $4750 in profit from 950 students alone.

Then, other schools require computers, and less people go to Staples. It’s already happening to Barnes & Nobles on a much larger scale. eBooks are dominating the market that used to belong to stores like Barnes & Nobles. Borders is done for (remember who they were). Barnes & Nobles is fighting to stay in business.

This is the calm before the storm. Fordham Prep is going to require their students to have computers. Many other schools will follow, and some of them already started.

Staples is safe now, but soon it will be placed in a dangerous situation. The market won’t be able to support Staples as it does now. Staples will have sell products for business savvy people such as business cards or something like that. Focusing on selling school supplies will no longer be an option.

 

When You Get Their Attention

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Everyone is so focused on selling their product and marketing it with a budget or social media. Spending money isn’t the best way to market because who’s to say you find someone interested in what you have to offer. Using social media will help you get more people looking at your product.

However, are you getting the consumer’s attention, or are they likely to get distracted. Using advertising on a blog such as Google Adsense distracts the visitor and makes them click away. That click could have been a click on one of your products or another blog post instead.

When you get someone’s attention, it is important to make sure you can keep that person interested. The less distractions, the more interested someone will be in what you have to offer.

When you get their attention, keep it. If you want someone’s attention, you have to remove the distractions.

Marketing With Proof

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You can say you’re product is awesome and talk about some of the features. However, if you don’t have any kind of proof, your marketing efforts aren’t as powerful. People used to be gullible to scams. That has changed. In fact, many people are learning from their mistakes and the mistakes of others when it comes to getting tricked by a scam. Some have learned too much.

A product could be incredible and do everything it is supposed to do. However, testimonials and actual proof are now essential towards marketing. When people look for something to buy, customer reviews play an important role. Most of the popular products also have a lot of good reviews.

More people understand the value of testimonials. However, it is important to mention for a second time that some people have learned too much about scams. Instead of accepting a testimonial, some people will search that person’s name into Google and see if the results come up with anything good. Names and testimonials aren’t good enough. Now, the consumers want to see links to actual websites and social media accounts (unless everyone already knows the person who is giving the testimonial).

More people are getting smarter faster. The old ways don’t work as well as they used to, and trickery is not an option. Trickery is never the right option to take, but more people are aware of the potential trickery that comes with marketing. Not everyone is telling the truth, and in order to stand out, you have to give the consumers evidence that you are telling the truth about your products and services.

Interests Change

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And along with those changes of interests, marketing is changed as well. 5 years later, marketing will be different. 5 years ago, marketing was different. Some changes are dramatic while others are minor. Companies and big name industries are spending millions of dollars on marketing campaigns that don’t work the way they used to.

Other than Super Bowl commercials, TV advertising isn’t as effective as it used to be. Getting your own following on social networks, products, and a blog is the way to market nowadays (although that can change too).

Marketing etiquette is inconsistent because interests change. Commercials might have been really cool to look at when someone watched TV for the first time. In the 1950’s, commercials must have been really cool since the television wasn’t that old. Now mobile advertising is the way to go although I doubt mobile advertising will be the way to go forever.

Interests change, and when those interests change, the rules of marketing change. By paying attention to those changes, you will be able to see the rules of marketing change before everyone else.

 

Better Than Expected

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Some things are expected. A person who pays for coaching expects to be coached. A person who pays for someone to mow their lawn expects their lawn to be mowed efficiently. Those are expectations.

When the coach in that session decides to give a free book to you, that’s better than expected. In order to be effective, having an extra surprise will help you out a lot. This is the concept of over delivering which is important for your business.

The problem for most people is that they give everything away. We knew everything there was to know about the iPhone 5 before it was sold. We knew the price before we paid. Those are expectations, but these people aren’t over delivering.

They’re just delivering. The iPhone 5 is an incredible iPhone (as they all are), but people are quick to say that the only difference is a bigger screen which we all knew about. Maybe a surprise could be more space on the phone, applications getting installed as soon as you press the install button with no hassle.

Apple will continue to succeed for a long time because they create quality products. For most products, it is very difficult to have a surprise. For Apple, the media revolving around the iPhone 5 could have been the reason there weren’t any special surprises.

The advantage of being an entrepreneur with your own business is that you can easily have surprises. If you coach someone and receive $50, surprise the person you coached by giving them one of your free books (or something like that). You still get a profit, that person is happy because you gave them a surprise (over delivering), and in this case, the person would read your book. They’re even more likely to remember who you are.

The surprises and extras you hand out will only result in one giant surprise waiting to be given out to you. Free is better, but only for the consumer. If you can give someone a product for free while making a profit (similar to the coaching session), that is your gold mine. Exceed expectation!

An Underrated Way To Market Yourself

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When everyone thinks of marketing, they think of social media, blogging, and advertisements. Advertisements aren’t as effective as they used to be, so don’t use those. That narrows down the playing field to social media and blogging, right?

Wrong. There are plenty of other ways to market your business or product. When thinking out of the box, an entrepreneur will end up creating merchandise for their business or product. However, no matter how much people think outside of the box, most people won’t notice the one thing that is essential to marketing.

Business cards are an essential way to market yourself. You strike a conversation with someone, they respond. The conversation continues until it ends. Then, you give the person your business card. They look at all of the things you put on that business card.

Everyone has a business card at a business expo. However, few people actually see business cards as a way of marketing. Most people see business cards as an, “Oh, let’s keep in touch. These are some things about me,” while thinking that not everyone may visit your website, follow you on your social networks, and so on.

When you hand someone your business card, I want you to remember that the person you hand your business card to could become your next top client. If you meet a person, you’re more likely to buy their products. If you met Jeff Bezos at a store and talked with him for 30 minutes, and he gave you his business card, that would make you want to buy from Amazon even more.

There are some people and products that I have never heard of before a business expo. However, the people who give out business cards are also going to be the people who tell you about other products and offer a lot of products. I didn’t know who Mike Michalowicz was before I went to my first business expo. I ended up leaving that business expo with The Pumpkin Plan. He also had a business card.

We only have 2 seconds to grab a person’s attention. Teenagers are really good at getting other people’s attention at a business expo because there are so few of them. My brother and I are always the only teenagers at any of the expos. I run out of business cards, and on the day I went to one of the business expos, I got multiple sales for my books.

However, no matter how much attention anyone gets, all of that attention goes in vain if the person forgets about you. In a business expo, everyone has business cards, everyone is talking, everyone is trying to start another conversation, and everyone exchanges business cards. There’s a lot of activity. If you’re really good, you might get 15 seconds of attention before the other person talks about their business or talks with another person.

When I was new to business expos, I would say that I’m an author, teenager entrepreneur, and blogger. In addition to that, I would mention some of my social networks which also takes up a lot of time. With a good business card, I was able to fix that problem. In my next blog post, I will show you how to make a good business card.