Getting ideas and concepts in front of your target market early and often is critical for any early stage business. Listening and making changes based on their feedback is the obligation of any smart entrepreneur. While you can’t and shouldn’t implement every suggestion, and should never let early naysayers distract you from your mission, when the market talks, you better listen.

Early Feedback

PF recently conducted an online survey to help validate our initial thinking and get feedback on some critical elements of the business model. While the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and encouraging, a few people seemed adamant that word of mouth with rewards was a bad idea. They felt that the reason word of mouth marketing is so effective and trustworthy, is that it is disinterested and objective. It was very important that the individual providing the referral does not stand to personally benefit from referring you.

Benefiting From a Friends

When a person is rewarded with a personal gift, they are no longer objective. Worst case scenario, if you refer somebody and they have a bad experience, it may impact your relationship. This is not good, PF depends on satisfied customers reaching out to their friends and family to recommend businesses, if there is even the slightest inclination that there might be negative consequence to making referrals, people won’t use the service.

Turn you Biggest Weakness into Your Biggest Strength

In the recent edition of Business 2.0, leaders from the some of the worlds leading firms offered nuggets of advice on How to Succeed 2007, Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, spoke about turning a weakness into a key strength.

The Big Change

We listened to people’s concerns and came up with a new model for referral rewards that not only solves the objectivity/benefiting from friends concern, but adds an element of Social and Community value to the business model. Instead of getting an iTunes gift card when your girlfriend joins the Yoga Studio you recommended, now a donation is made on your behalf to a local charity of your choice, by the business you recommended. We think this will feel good to everyone involved and add another compelling element why people would want to use PF. Thank You to everyone who took part in our study and to the individuals that made this point really hit home!

FlickrPhotoCredit

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When “Under the Buzz”, an online newsletter written by TGC Advisors co-founder and managing director Philip Lay arrives to my inbox, I usually stop whatever I was doing, print out a copy and begin reading. I’ve subscribed to the newsletter for a few years, and in my humble opinion it is one of the premier resources of thought leadership available anywhere. Most MBA’s and tech entrepreneurs are familiar with TCG partner Geoffrey Moore, but may not be familiar with Mr. Lay, I recommend digging into the archive.

In the December 4th issue of “Under the Buzz”, Mr. Lay discusses the topic of: market innovation by managing customer relationships proactively. He points out that many of Silicon Valley’s premier systems and software companies seem to have forgotten about the value of their existing customer bases, and are opting to use despised (from a customers perspective) mass-marketing and hard-sell tactics.

He lays out his Three Cardinal Rules to Observe: (excerpted below)

1. Redefine your business in terms of the biggest problems that you can help your customers to solve today, rather than in terms of the products and services you provide (or the problems you helped them solve yesterday). Customers are less interested now than they ever were in your products, because they have so many equivalent feature sets to choose from – one predictable result of markets reaching maturity.

2. Stop treating your best customers the worst - especially with respect to commercial practices (pricing policies, maintenance contract terms and conditions, support practices, etc.) – this is one of the most vivid and troubling examples of familiarity breeding contempt between vendors and their customers. One way of differentiating your company in a situation like this is to find out how to become easier to do business with than your competitors are willing or able to be, instead of being preoccupied with protecting your maintenance and other revenues at all costs.

3. Develop between two and five creative, powerful customer-intimacy marketing programs that you will be willing and able to implement on a sustained basis.

Customer-intimacy Marketing Programs

Lay’s third cardinal rule is of particular importance to PromoterForce, our mission, and our customers. PF is developing a revolutionary tool that allows big and small (mostly small) companies to develop, implement, and manage “powerful customer-intimacy marketing programs”.

While Lay and the TCG team serve mostly large firms, the strategies and tactics they prescribe are applicable to businesses large and small. I would take it a step further and say that small firms are actually at an advantage when it comes to leveraging customer relationships as a source of innovation and bottom line growth, because small co’s are easier to do business with and more acutely aware of the value each client represent to their success.

Savvy marketers are refocusing their strategies to better leverage customer relationships as a cost effective and sustainable source of innovation, organic growth, and profits, are you?

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Dear Readers,

Please take a few minutes right now to answer the Referrals Between Friends questionnaire:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225XAT68GQ5
(just 18 questions)

Your responses will validate and direct the development of our new startup company’s effort to develop a revolutionary new referral tool, which will potentially be used by millions of people around the world.

In return, along with our immense gratitude of course, you will be entered to win a new Apple iPod Shuffle ($79.99 value)

That link again:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225XAT68GQ5

Sincerely,

Hasan Luongo – Chief Promoter – PromoterForce.com - hasan(AT)promoterforce.com

P.S. By the way – If 1500 people complete the questionnaire, it will be the BIGGEST study on real-life referral practices ever. Please share this link with friends, family, and colleagues. Thanks for your help in spreading the word:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225XAT68GQ5

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