Someone Call A House Doctor

Looking at your home through the eyes of a potential buyer can be more than a little daunting. What we fondly think of as comfortable and lived-in can turn to cluttered and faded before our eyes. But knowing that something needs to be done to make our home someone else's 'desirable residence' and knowing what to do and how to do it, is another matter.

Is There A Doctor In The House?

Enter Placelift, the professional 'house doctors' who specialise in preparing, presenting and styling residential properties for sale or let. Featured on this week's Kickstart Your Business on Newstalk, they have only been in business for seven months, but are already making a name for themselves in the Wicklow, Bray and Greystones areas, helping home-owners to give their place a lift before potential buyers come calling.

Physician Heal Thyself

As Gerard noted during the show, the Placelift website and promotional flyers and brochure are attractive and well-designed but would really benefit from the same 'de-cluttering' that's such a vital remedy in the house-doctor's medicine bag. A jumble of information and promotions vie for the reader's attention, reminding us that whether a space is virtual or physical, less is often more when it comes to that all-important first impression.

Over To You

How do you suggest that Clodagh and the team at Placelift make that great first impression on potential buyers? Listen back to the show on the Newstalk Kickstart Your Business blog and let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from you.

You've Got (Even More) Mail!

Being the inquisitive and social creatures we are, it's no surprise we find it hard to resist checking our email on an increasingly regular basis over the course of our working day. We now spend up to two hours a day trawling through two hundred plus emails, wasting precious time and distracting us from the things that really matter.

On Newstalk's Kickstart Your Business this week, our featured business Hiri (pronounced 'heery') may be just the solution to put manners on our email. A well thought-out product, Hiri is an email application, designed for business users, that promises to sharpen up email communication within organisations and claw back some of the lost time dealing inefficiently with email messages.

To Whom It May Concern

So what did we make of Hiri? They've already done a great job with the smart look and feel of their website, but they may be leaning rather too heavily towards the user (who's hugely important, of course) rather than addressing their key customer, the enterprise itself.

Stop, Wait A Minute, Mr. Postman

We suggested to Hiri that the best way to advertise a product is through the product itself. There's a real opportunity to illustrate the power of efficient and thoughtful communication by way of email. For example, through its sign-up facility, Hiri can respond with an email demonstrating clarity, brevity, tone and behaviour (which they tell us are the four cornerstones of excellent communication) rather than the more perfunctory mail that's currently sent out.

Over To You

How do you suggest that David and Kevin at Hiri might better communicate with their key customer? Listen back to the show at Newstalk's Kickstart Your Business Blog and let us know what you think; we'd love to hear from you.

To Market, To Market, To Buy A Fat Pig

Bringing the Market Place to Life Online

There is something romantic and earthy about the traditional market place where we get to meet producers and stallholders, each one good-naturedly vying for our attention as we meander through the hustle and bustle, savouring the competing sounds, sights and smells.

On yesterday's ‘Kickstart Your Business’ on Newstalk, we were introduced to an exciting new business MarketDirect.ie. Set up by Keith McGuigan, Marketdirect.ie gives people the opportunity to buy goods from farmer’s market all over Ireland and provides a platform for local market producers and stallholders to reach a wider audience.

One a Penny, Two a Penny, Hot Cross Buns

Like any business and website starting out, MarketDirect.ie is a work in progress but already their visual identity is spot on. What is missing from the website is the sense of personality and character we associate with stallholders and their produce at local markets.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

We suggested Keith first look at how customers choose to buy from a real market and then host that interactive experience for them online. For example, the buzz of the local market could be better captured with vibrant and eye-catching photography and the personality of the market could come to life with videos of stallholders pitching their wares (rather than just talking to camera).

Over to You

How do you suggest that Keith and his team might better go to market? Whether you listened to the show and / or read this blogpost, we’d love to hear what you think.

A Moment On The Lips: How Hot Chocolate Goes To Your Bottom Line

A Guest Post from Anne Tannam, Brand Manager at Islandbridge Brand Development

Earlier in the week, I was sitting in the foyer of a hotel close to Baggot Street waiting for a client to arrive. There was the usual mix of people sitting on the comfortable couches; tourists poring over city-break brochures, business people glued to their laptops, and inquisitive me: people-watching to pass the time.

Looking around, I noticed that though it was a Tuesday and very close to lunchtime, the restaurant beside me held only a handful of customers who, by and large, were eating on their own and in silence.

Hey, Is There Anyone Out There?

As my client had texted ahead to say she’d be another ten minutes, I decided to treat myself to a hot chocolate to hold off the hunger pangs until after the meeting. I tried to catch the eye of a member of staff to order but they all seemed distracted, moving quickly across the foyer with other business to attend to.

I glanced around at my fellow foyer visitors and saw most of them were also sitting there without drink or food and, more tellingly, without any interaction or banter with staff.

A Missed Opportunity

My client then arrived, declined the offer of a drink and we settled down to have our meeting. Afterwards, though hungry, I wasn’t tempted to stay for a bite of lunch and instead, nipped into the deli next door and ordered a sandwich to go (the hot chocolate would have to wait for another day).

As I cycled back to the office with both my helmet and brand manager hat on, I thought about my experience at the hotel and couldn’t help think that they had missed out on a very important opportunity. 

In money and bottom-line thinking, it probably doesn’t seem like much; eight to ten euros on a hot chocolate and a sandwich but the opportunity was so much bigger than that.

When You Say Nothing At All

Simply put, the hotel failed to invite me to become a customer. I was just someone sitting in the foyer of their hotel for an hour. During that time, there was no eye contact, no invitation to purchase and no attempt to establish the type of business relationship that might prompt me to return again or to recommend the hotel to others.

In short, despite the very comfy couch and the soft music playing in the background, I did not feel like a welcome guest. And that has to be the aim of all those working in the hospitality sector and the reason four billion euros was spent by tourists in Ireland in 2012. 

And I’m sure some of it was spent on hot chocolate!.

A Moment On The Lips

Bottom line is, as business owners and managers we must always remember that people are not just buying a product or service from us; they are buying an experience. We are social animals by nature and personal interaction with your customers, coupled with a clear offer and proposition, is likely to yield both far greater results and profit margins for your business and to create satisfied customers who feel welcome and appreciated and therefore much more likely to return again and again to relive the experience.

What Do You Think? What are the opportunities in your business both to make a sale and create a customer, who's likely to return again and recommend you to others?

Uncrowning The Customer

In the Dublin of my boyhood, the Superquinn brand was truly a household name. Particularly in our household, where my mother, who knew the value of things, repeatedly chose to turn left out of our home near the Children's Hospital to shop in her favourite store in Walkinstown, rather than right to the nearby Crumlin Shopping Centre with its shiny new Quinnsworth (now Tesco).

I've written previously in Open-Heart Branding (When It All Adds Up) of the extraordinary retail brand that Feargal Quinn built in the sixties and seventies, and his amazing feat of persuading cash-strapped housewives to see the real value in shopping at his stores, where great food, innovative offers and exceptional service were available at a premium. Feargal had so much faith in his own offer that he knew he didn't need to compete on price.

As an artisan brand-builder myself, and a keen student of the great brands, I read and re-read his book Crowning The Customer, in which he describes the simple but difficult task of putting the customer first, and of crafting an offer laden with value which can be readily appreciated by the customer. And by appreciated, I mean ready to pay for it, and pay handsomely too.

And in these difficult economic circumstances, I often use the example of the Superquinn of my boyhood to inspire those clients of mine who are inclined to lose faith in the quality of their own offer in the mistaken belief that customers cannot appreciate the value in it. If Feargal Quinn could persuade the hard-pressed but savvy housewives of seventies' Dublin to spend their money wisely with him, I say, then surely there's a place in your marketplace for products and services that crown the customer in much the same way.

And yet I was unsurprised by last month's news (Superquinn Brand To Be Dropped By New Owners) that recent buyers Musgraves plan to rebrand the 24 Superquinn stores as Supervalu.

Unsurprised, because I believe that Superquinn, having crowned the customer triumphantly throughout the seventies and eighties, lost faith in the value of its own offer when the competition upped the ante in the nineties, and surreptitiously stole back the customer's golden crown to replace it with a shiny but copper-based replica, the classic fool's gold.

I trace it back to an apparently innocuous event, sometime in the late nineties, at the entrance to our local store. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but it heralded the beginning of the end of the great Superquinn brand. There it stood, a simple supermarket trolley, packed with the mix of products you'd typically find on a weekly household shopping list. Attached to it was the legend proclaiming that the cost of the products in this Superquinn trolley was as cheap as those to be found in its Dunnes or Tesco equivalents.

Now, I knew that this was probably true in this case - I had no doubt the local shop-manager had carefully researched and assembled this particular trolley-load of goods so that it would bear comparison - but that wasn't the point. I knew that it wasn't true in general.

In one clumsy gesture, Superquinn had swiped the crown from the customer. Remember that Feargal Quinn had always appealed to the intelligence of the savvy shopper, and in doing so had created a very grown-up brand. No cheap tricks for Feargal. My mother knew that she was being charged a premium, and she was happy to pay it. The last thing the savvy customer needs is to have their intelligence and loyalty insulted.  Because, whilst it was almost certainly true that the particular trolley-load in question was as cheap as its competitors, the customer knew that shopping in Superquinn once came with a bold premium attached: a premium on great food, innovative products and exceptional service that they had agreed was worth paying for.

Superquinn, which had achieved the near-impossible task of creating value in a cash-poor economy, managed to destroy that same value in the cash-rich (and growing richer) society of late nineties' Ireland. Fool's gold indeed.

They may have lured in a few carpet-baggers on the heels of their sleight-of-hand, and perhaps they turned a quick profit, but from then on the Superquinn brand lost its lustre and became just one of many retailers hawking their wares to a critical customer, and competing on price.

And so I was unsurprised to see that the brand's new owners don't see the value in retaining the Superquinn name. In many ways, their own Supervalu brand, which champions local producers and personal service, had already stolen a march on a brand that lost faith in its own values, and the value it offered its customers as a result.

Others too have taken a lead from Crowning The Customer, and Irish retail has a number of young pretenders vying for the Superquinn crown. But as a child of the seventies, I still think it's a terrible pity that one of the few Irish brands from that time that could truly claim greatness, has fallen from grace and become largely irrelevant to the customer of today.

Over To You: Do you think it's possible to create a brand today that doesn't compete on price? Do any other Irish brands (emerging or established) come to mind?