Abiah.com, Christian Organization and Ministry Brand Development

I'm not putting up with it any more

I'm afraid one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Chick-fil-A, has lost me as a customer.

I ran to the mall Saturday afternoon and decided to get a drink for the ride home.  My preferred poison is Chick-fil-A's diet lemonade.

I went up to the counter and the young lady just looked at me.  There was no greeting.  She at least made eye contact with me.

I told her what I wanted, but apparently she didn't hear me so she said "What?"  No "I'm sorry, but I didn't hear you," no "Could you repeat that please?" or anything like that.  I repeated myself.  She made no effort to upsell me anything (didn't confirm the size of my drink or ask if I'd like a larger size, didn't ask if I wanted anything to eat with that...no extra effort).

Don't wait for bad publicity to change

At Abiah Designs, we don't believe gambing is a good business; but we appreciate the learning opportunity their mistakes provide us.

Today's lesson is a brand breakdown from Philadelphia Park in nearby Bensalem, PA. 

Last week, a patron at the new racino (a race course with slot machines) was playing a couple of coins at a time in a slot machine.  To his joy, he hit and according to the display on the machine, he won $102,000. 

He was told they wouldn't pay him because it was a mistake.  Apparently the machine malfunctioned.  They offered him a comp for two to the buffet.  He refused. 

Can't say I blame him. 

Needless to say, he didn't just quietly go home and resign himself to not getting his money.  He filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.  No luck.  Technically, the casino doesn't have to pay.

This story has been in the local papers, made the regional nightly news, and has been blogged about (and not just by me).

Do customers deal with you because they have to?

Do customers deal with you and your brand because they have to or because they want to?

I recently had to make a change to my cell phone plan.  You know what that means.  Instead of being month-to-month I would be back under contract.  Of course, they try to incent you by "giving" you a new phone.  I'm now locked in to Verizon for 2 years.  Ugh.

I've only had the phone a week and some things weren't quite right.  I wasn't sure if it was me or the phone.  And you know those directions are the most convoluted things.  The manual isn't organized in a way that makes it easy to find anything, PLUS...

What's the Gap to do?

The Gap is facing some tough times.  While they may have high brand awareness and recognition, they've also got seriously slumping sales (say that 3 times fast) and a confusing product mix. Who is the Gap, and more importantly, who are their customers?

Why should someone shop there?  What do they offer that no one else offers?  I can't answer those questions and it looks like their management is having a hard time trying to answer them too.

What about your brand?  What exactly makes you unique from all the other businesses out there in your segment?  What are you best at and can you say that with confidence?  Who does your brand message resonate with?  Are these the people you want to resonate with?

How do you fight the competition?

Hi Everyone-

I was at the gym this morning when I saw a commercial for a furniture store in our area that's going out of business.  The store, Kensington, has been open for nearly 100 years.  What a sad time this must be for them.

Lou and I have bought much of our furniture from Kensington even though we complain about doing it.  We've never liked their sales people, there's so much inventory it's a little overwhelming, and their prices are pretty high (although every now and then we find a bargain).

Of course, you all know how easy it is to schlep from store to store, look through catalogs, and not find what you want at the price you want to pay.  That's why we always ended up there and would pay whatever the price was because 9 times out of 10 they'd have exactly what we were looking for.

There've been several large furniture stores move into the area in the last several years and we've been to them all.  None had a clear brand image or a clear target they were shooting for.  Some have closed quickly, lasting only a few years.

Lou told me he saw an article that included an interview with one of the Kensington owners and they were blaming their closing on the internet (of all things!).  I guess it's possible that local people are shopping for furniture on the internet, but really, does that sound likely?  Don't you like to sit on the furniture you want to buy?

I think Kensington would still be open if they had made clear their brand image and went after a clear target.  Instead, they tried goofy gimics over the years that didn't really do anything to make them standout.  Now they're closing. 

There are lessons here for all of us. 

Be well-

Winnie Anderson, on behalf of Abiah Designs

Lessons from The Sands Casino closing

Hello Brand Builders-

At Abiah, we don't work with clients in the gaming industry; but we observe them and can learn from the Sands’ closing.

This is another example of a brand breakdown – this time the breakdown is more like a teardown since the Sands Casino Hotel is going to be razed in the next 60 days or so.  It’s a shame for the employees who will have to scramble to find jobs, but there are many lessons to be learned by all of us in how a brand can get worn out and ulitmately collapse.  As this story continues to unfold, we'll share any lessons we see.

So what can we learn right now from this mess?  Lots of things, but we'll try to limit them to a few big lessons:

1. Identify and serve a clear target market and a niche within the target.  OK, so the Sands is a casino and gamblers are its target market.  That’s just too big a target.  It’s like opening a retail store and saying you sell women’s wear.  Which women?  40-somethings? Teens?  Focusing on a finely defined niche would have allowed Sands to spend marketing dollars more wisely.  They just didn’t know what they wanted to be or who they were trying to serve.
2. The importance of consistency.  I was making my way from the parking garage into the main building to meet a friend who worked there and saw a larger than life picture of The Rat Pack in front of the original Las Vegas Sands.  The

   Atlantic City

   property had embraced its Rat Pack roots (or tried to) a few years ago and had hung this picture.  As I headed down the escalator I found myself singing the song playing over the sound system.  It took a few lines of the song to realize that it wasn’t Sinatra singing Luck Be a Lady Tonight. It was Don Henley and The Eagles singing Best of My Love!  How could the employees or the customers know what kind of place they were in with that kind of disconnected themeing going on?

3. Buying business puts the focus on price and giveaways.  Casinos "buy the business" when they spend too much on marketing, promotions, and give-aways.  That may drive revenue but it’s not a profitable way to do business because profits are low or nonexistent.  When you try to drive business through sales, coupons, and other promotions, you put the focus on price as opposed to value.  You often end up attracting customers who aren’t loyal and who are only coming for the deal.  Sure, you hope that the experience they have leads them to return but often it drives them to chase the next bargain or wait for you to have another sale.  Use coupons and other promotions wisely.
4. Not investing in brand ambassadors or promoting a value laden experience.  By throwing all of its cash into marketing programs, Sands didn't have money left to invest in its people.  Everyone on your staff must be committed to delivering the finest customer experience possible and they must understand they either serve the customer directly or they serve someone who directly serves the customer.  Staff members are your partners.  Without them, you can’t grow the business; you can’t deliver on your brand promise; and you can’t attract or keep customers who appreciate the value of your business.  Every business must hire the finest people, then give them the finest tools, and the finest training, so they can deliver the finest product to the customer and turn those customers into brand champions.

Building a strong brand takes an integrated approach.  It’s not easy.  It costs money..  But if you’re in it for the long haul, then it’s absolutely worth it.

We’d love to help you figure out a plan to get you where you ultimately want to be.  Drop us a note if you’d like to talk about it.  Visit our portfolio and sign up for our newsletter.

We don’t want to just help you avoid what the Sands is going through.  We want to help you grow and thrive.  We want you to have a great brand and a great return on your investment.

Until next time –

The team at Abiah Designs

How would your brand perform?

Hello Brand Builders-

How service oriented is your organization?  Your brand is on the line in hundreds of “moments of truth” every single day.  If your organization doesn’t consider service to be one of its brand values then how loyal can your customers be?  You may be creating an environment that attracts the kinds of customers you least want – those that are primarily price driven and who will find another provider of your products / services as soon as they find someone cheaper. 

Guy shared a great story that illustrates this point.  It also demonstrates the power that a negative experience has to generate the wrong kind of buzz about your business.  He’s told several people what’s happened to him; and now I’m blogging about it. 

I’ve summarized his story below.  There are lots of lessons to be learned from this.  If you’re not sure just how service oriented your staff or business is, consider hiring a mystery shopping service to do some undercover work.  Drop us a note if you’d like to get some information on how to hire one.

Here’s Guy’s story:

Guy and a friend met for breakfast at a diner not too far from the Abiah office.  When they went out to his car at 7:25, they discovered he had a flat tire.  He pulled out the spare to change the tire and discovered that was flat too.  Guy and his spare tire got in the friend’s car and they drove to a local garage that appeared to be open – bay door up and a man inside working.  It was about 7:30 and the man said “We open at 8.  You have to come back.”  Of course this was frustrating.  How hard would it have been to plug the flat?

They headed down the road to the next garage which was even bigger than the last.  The bay door was up and a man was working on a car.  This person told Guy to come back around 8:30 or 9.  How frustrating! 

There’s a lesson in everything, especially our frustrations, and Guy told his friend that this is a great lesson on the importance and value of service.  These two service stations have lost two potential future customers, they’ve also lost whoever else Guy and his friend tell about this. 

At 7:45 --  the time Guy usually arrives at work --  they pulled into a Service Star.  It was obviously closed but there were workers around back getting ready to start the day.  Guy’s friend asked a woman who was walking towards the store area if he could get a tire plug kit to fix the tire.  She smiled at him (the first person to do that!) and said “Sure.  I just have to get the register up.”  While he and his friend, Casey, were outside the store, Guy noticed a beach chair with a price tag of $57.95 – a lot more than the average chair.  He said he would have been willing to buy the chair if he had been in the market for one, just because the lady treated him well.  She even loaned them the extra tools needed to do the job right. 

Lots of lessons in that story on how to deliver good service and just plain be a nice person.  Sure, it might cost more to hire outstanding applicants and pay them well.  You may have to charge more for products and services because you can’t buy in volume the way a large business can.  But focusing on the end result you want – great customers who are driven by relationships, value, and service – will help you create a plan to achieve just that.

Hope this little story gives you some food for thought on how you can make your service stand out from the crowd of mediocre businesses out there and get a great BrandReturn.

If you’d like some help to revitalize your visual image, create and execute a strategy to grow your brand and your business, drop us a line or give us a call at 609-653-2233.  We’d love to help and we promise to give you great service.

Until next time-

The team at Abiah Designs

When brands go bad, part 2

Hello Brand Builders-

I read an article online today that talked about bad brand extensions.  A brand extension is when a company with a solid reputation and good market share into a different product or service.  Sometimes the products are very similar (think about Tide's new eraser pen for spots) and sometimes not (Harley Davidson's cake decorating kit...which begs the question, what were they thinkin' when they came up with THAT?).

At Abiah Designs, we love the concept of multiple streams of income, but not at the price of losing focus on your core product or service.  Sure, businesses have to take risks and history is full of stories of pioneers who were told it can't be done or it shouldn't be done (the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell...shoot, even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates).  I think part of the definition of "entrepeneur" should be "person who refuses to give up or listen to people who know better."

So how do you extend your brand and generate an additional stream of income?

Start by thinking about the consumers of your product.  How do they use it? Where do they use it? When do they use it?  Timberland makes hiking boots.  Maybe they decide to make backpacks.  Maybe they decide to make jackets.  (of course, maybe they already do...you see what little I know about hiking).

Perhaps you can extend your brand by selling your knowledge.  I was talking to a client today who teaches people how to get out of debt.  Now, when you do something like that, you're limited by the fact that it's just you and there are only 24 hours in the day and you can only be in one place at one time.  If he created an e-course and taught it online, or created course materials he could sell and license, he'd be extending his brand and generating additional streams of income.  If he genuinely enjoys teaching, he can do that too.

So, grab your favorite brand of beverage, put your feet up on your favorite piece of brand name furniture, and think about how you can extend your brand and generate an additional income stream or two.

Want more great tips to build a strong brand (who doesn't, right?)? Well, stop by our website and sign up for our newsletter.  It comes right to your mailbox twice a month with an indepth article on a business and brand building idea.  When you register, you'll receive access to our archives and get all the articles we've written.  You'll also be the first to know about great things we've got planned.  Here's a hint:  We're going to be extending our brand (and our services).

Hope these ideas help you build a great brand and bring you a great return.

Until next time-

The team at Abiah Designs

When good brands go bad

Hi Brand Builders!

What a glorious day here in beautiful South Jersey!

Friday was my 8th wedding anniversary and that night we had dinner at the Borgata in Atlantic City.  You've probably heard all about the Borgata...how it cost a billion (that's no typo!) dollars to build...how it's changing the casino business in Atlantic City...etc.

A colleague of my husband, Lou, suggested Ombre, one of Borgata's "fine dining" restaurants, and volunteered to make the reservation for us since he works there.

When you go to a restaurant that bills itself as a "fine dining" establishment (or any other business you deal with for that matter) you go into it with a certain mental image of what you're going to experience.  That's just something our brain does naturally.  It forms a set of expectations based on past experiences, definitions it carries around for certain words, plus the images that it's been exposed to over time, whether those images have been sent out by the specific company or by other businesses in the industry.

We showed up for our big, romantic night on the town and the first breakdown occurred when we had some difficulty finding the place.  We ended up going into the wrong restaurant (we read the sign wrong) and had to get pointed in the right direction. That was the first breakdown we experienced that night.

We went down the dimly lit stairwell ("A risk management nightmare," said Lou) and walked to the hostess podium where the next breakdown occurred.  "We don't have your reservation," said the hostess.  We stood there, feeling awkward, while she did some stuff on the computer but she didn't talk to us or tell us what she was doing.  That was another breakdown.

We sat down at a table for two and were faced with paper placemats! PAPER PLACEMATS?!  Where do they have paper placemats?  At DINERS! That does NOT signal "gourmet" to me.  A GIANT breakdown.

The server came over and gave us our menus.  They were in a plastic sleeve.  Where do menus come in plastic sleeves?  In a diner!

Lou forgot his reading glasses so I had to help him read part of the menu.  We had to repeat ourselves frequently and ended up getting louder and louder with each exchange.  The acoustics were terrible.  So much for our romantic dinner.

While we were eating, the conversation was punctuated with the sound of bus staff crumpling up those paper napkins.

Yes, the food was good (I've had better in the Atlantic City area and in other cities).  But was it worth the $150 (including tip and without drinks or dessert)?  No, I don't think so.  I can't say I'd recommend the place to anyone.  Most people I know don't want to shout at their dinner companion no matter how good the food is unless they're at a barbecue joint.

So, what lessons are there for us as brand builders?  Recognize that people bring expectations and mental images with them.  We've got to meet their expectations at a certain level (a gourmet restaurant should have the details of a gourmet restaurant) and then exceed all their expectations for service and product.  Your brand is much more than the logo or the physical appearance of the business or product.  The brand is defined where it's delivered --  on the front lines with the customer.  Service breakdowns are brand breakdowns.  Is it cheaper for Borgata to use paper placemats?  Of course, but people who go to a gourmet restaurant aren't focused on price, they're focused on the value of the experience. 

Each of us as business leaders and brand builders should be focused on delivering the finest experience, the finest product, the finest service.  When we cut corners, we end up putting the focus on price rather than the value of what we're providing.

Hope these thoughts help you build your business and bring you a great return on your investment.

If you'd like to be notified whenever we post to this blog, it's simple.  Just sign up at the top of the page.  You'll get an email every time a new post is made. 

If you'd like to learn more about us, what we do at Abiah Designs, and how we've helped our clients grow, visit our website and checkout our portfolio.

Until next time,

Winnie Anderson