Ignore your competitors.

Pay attention to your competitors just long enough to make sure you're not like them, then ignore them. Completely.

Differentiate. The key to any business is limiting the ways in which you are similar to your competitors. The best marketing messages are different messages. The best experiences to work on marketing are experiences that are different from all the competitors in your market. As you get started in your business or product line, study and analyze your competitors. List what they do, what features they have, how they operate, how the market, where they market, know them better than they know themselves.

Then, completely ignore them. You heard me right. Ignore them. OK. Bold statement. Now, I'll tell you why.

You (currently) do not exist. That's right, you don't. You see the marketing fight is not between you and the competitor, it's between you and The Black Void. That Black Void is in the minds of people who don't know anything about you or your competitor. I've found over the years that, in general, the market is much bigger than I previously imagined.

Your market is, too. Spend your time and energy notifying people that you exist, not crafting a message that tries to make you sound better than your competitor. Most operations are so small compared to the potential market that expansion is infinite compared to current attendance.

For instance, if you and a competitor each have 10,000 visits in a season, not too bad for fall harvest farms, in a smaller market of 250,000 people, the battle isn't for your competitor's 10,000 people, it is for the REST of the 230,000 remaining! In marketing, notification beats (to quote George W. Bush) trick-er-a-tion. The math still works for bigger operations in big markets: If you've got 55,000 visits in a market of 1.2 million, you're still nothing compared to the total market.

You're more important. Any ounce of energy you spend chasing, watching, tracking your competitor is energy your not using to make your product, experience or farm better. I'm sorry, but you're just not that good, yet. You can't spare the time or energy. You need to pour everything you've got into your guests. So, set your plans and go full speed ahead on your project. What you do for your guests is more important than watching your competitor.

You have no control. Surprise! You can't control anything your competitors do, say, launch, sell, publish or advertise. You can watch (in horror) as their plan unfolds and wish you would have planned better, but you are powerless to do anything about it. So don't even watch. Ignore them.

You'll be tempted to copy (even if you don't admit it). Remember the key to marketing is to be as different as you can be? If you keep watching someone else, you'll be tempted overtly and subliminally to copy what you're watching. We can't help it! We all begin to mirror what we see and the people with whom we spend time. Repetition is how we, as humans, implant new ideas and new patterns in our minds. So if you want to be more similar to your competitors, just keep watching them. Then, the closer to identical the two of you become, the sooner you can start competiting on price! ('cause that's where we all want to be!)

Dare to be different. You don't (currently) exist in the minds of your potential customers. You are way more important, than your competitors. You can't possibly control them. You will be tempted to copy them and make yourself, not more, but less competitive. You need every minute, every dollar and every thought to be focused on doing the best job you can possibly do for your customers with what you've got.

Each year, go ahead - watch your competitors like a hawk. Study them. Make lists. Compare them to your operation or product. Get nitty-gritty. Get into the details. Know everything you possibly can. Plan to make your product or attraction or  farm market or customer service or educational programs as wildly different and completely, authentically your own. Differentiate yourself. Create the widest gap possible between you.

Then, completely, ignore them. And go about your business.

Have a great week.
-Hugh

PPM: Parts Per Million Marketing.

The world is like one big swimming pool. It's full of 'water' in whatever market you are trying to reach. Adding your message is like adding chlorine to the water. Even after a big shock, you have to keep adding more or you lose the powerful concentration needed for results.

Childhood summers. My summers were not spent at the pool. That is not where I learned this. No, as a boy, my summers were spent in the peach packing house. All the clanging, banging moving parts. The psssst, whooosh of the box filler and me placing yet another empty box to be filled with peaches that were so hard, we farmers knew only "city people" would eat them.

But I digress. It was when I learned to mix the chlorine and take the chemical readings (the concentration of chlorine) in the hydrocooler that I finally got a break from putting boxes on the filler. The hydrocooler was basically a big pool of water that was chilled freezing cold and chlorinated.  Sun-warmed peaches from the fields was placed in the hydrocooler in bins and the cold water was pumped over the bins dropping the fruit's internal temperature to increase shelf life. The chlorine in the water cleaned and disinfected the fruit to eliminate brown rot, again to increase shelf life.

"Chemical Mixer" was a big promotion (unless you breathed the chlorine by accident while scooping.) It was as "Chemical Mixer" that I learned about Parts Per Million (PPM). At the beginning of the season, we had to dump buckets of chlorine into the water to get even a small reaction of increased chlorine levels. Once we finally got the chlorine reading where it needed to be, we'd only have to add a little more after processing X number of bins of fruit tomaintain that level of disinfection.

Shock value. Blasting the pool from ZERO PPM took a lot of chlorine product and a lot of effort. Sound familiar? If you're launching a new business or product or service or church or campaign or even trying to correct some staffing issues that have been neglected for a long time, you are going to need some "shock value."

PR is shock value. Advertising blitz is shock value. Incredible service is shock value. Sitting down with someone and having that honest conversation you've been avoiding and they know you've been avoiding is shock value. Going to a trade show or convention is shock value - you study for 3-6 DAYS on just one topic! Hugh's visit to your farm is shock value - we spend ALL DAY talking about the project.

Shock value is great! It gets things moving. It kicks your a**! You get fired-up again, but then it slowly dissipates as life, routine, habit, busyness creep in and you start to lose your "concentration"; you start to dilute your PPM. Think about marketing. If you get one big news story in your local paper, you love the shock value of that free press. The PPM in your market are for your marketing message is through the roof! Over time, however, the value of the story decreases, people forget, the message is diluted by all the other messages and business slows. You find yourself back at square one. That is why you specifically cannot rely on "one big story" to drive business for you all season.

Maintenance. To keep up your "concentration", your PPM, you need maintenance. You need an ongoing marketing campaign. You need to keep eating right after your yoga-vegan retreat. You need to add chlorine to your pool after "shocking" it. You need to keep making sales calls. At Maize Quest, we have our big Maze Master Summit. A full day of sessions focused on getting our operators the knowledge and motivation they need to be successful, but we can't stop there. We have monthly online classes, ongoing support, unlimited email and phone support, bi-weekly emails all for maintenance; for maintenance of that fired-up, can-do spirit. One big day won't last all year.

In advertising, shock is nice, but maintenance is key. You have to be there every week. You have to own the media outlet. You have to be consistent more than you have to be "shocking."

Think about your staff training. It's not the big hiring and training event that kills you, it's the short half-life of the employees' knowledge. You have to have a continuous training system in place. They can't possibly "get it" in one helping and you absolutely can't expect them to. What is your maintenance program for your staff training? Are they losing "concentration"? Diluting the PPM you "shocked" them with when you hired them?

As marketers we often live for the "shock value" of a big story, a huge product launch, a grand opening, a full-day seminar, but the real victory is won in the maintenance department. As you plan your marketing, keep in mind that if opening day is your biggest day - you've failed. Real, sustainable business is built consistently over time by delivering your best day in and day out. That may not be sexy, but it's profitable.

Be consistent. Consistency in applying chlorine was the only way to keep those peaches clean. Consistency is the only way to keep your marketing going, your weight loss on track, your employees in line, and your clients motivated. Sure, it takes a little "shock" to get things started to boost the PPM, but if you never lose your "concentration" you only ever have to add a little bit more at any one time.

Have a great week.
-Hugh

My $700,000 trip.

Spring has sprung and it's a great time to get out of the office and be with clients, new and old, as they prepare their businesses for a new season entertaining guests. What a great experience: 7 clients in 7 days, 6 states, 6 hotels, 5 cars, 8 airports, 1,000s of miles.

Why bother with all the hassle of travelling? I'm a bit "old school" in that I really like to meet clients face-to-face even if we can do all our work remotely. It occurred to me as I boarded the last plane home that I might have just made a $700,000 trip.

Experience first hand. I've found that Google Map and Street View and TerraServer are awesome tools for working on client layouts. Nothing, however, replaces standing in the field with your client talking through his/her vision. I absolutely love site planning! I've seen so many farms over the past 15 years, I can 'feel' the right layout. We always plan the site to minimize labor requirements, encourage ancillary purchases and maximize throughput. You just can't put a monetary value on ease of operation and you can't site plan from a satellite.

Look people in the eye. I'm a fun guy, but I'm really serious about what we do. Clients need to see that, not just hear it on the phone, but see it. I'm fully committed to each of them, individually. That's real nice, but it's only real when they see it in my eyes. I, too, need to look them in the eye to see if they are serious, or if they are living a fantasy. I can smell lack of commitment. I can see through fluff. I can't always see it over the phone.

We live in a world of electronic communication, of email, of voicemail, of text messages. We are, however, human beings wonderfully made to communicate with more than voice alone. There is magic in the connections made between people in live, person-to-person conversation. There are ideas, thoughts, inspirations that cannot be duplicated over the phone. You get more when you work things out together, in person.

Uncover the real reasons "why." To bring two college-graduate kids back into the business. To enhance a profitable business unit. To bring the family farm back to profitability. To be able to quit a part-time job and be on the farm full-time.  To educate non-farm guests about agriculture. To keep the family farm going for the 4th generation. To diversify and stabilize family income. To support three, close-knit families and provide a better future for 9 young children.

What an amazing, powerful list of "reasons why"! Together we uncovered the kind of motivation gets you up in the morning to go do it all again. After being cooped up in my office talking to people on the phone, the ability to to get out and learn the true, honest reasons why these families joined our family of maze operators was just awesome... and humbling.

I asked for this responsibility and now I have it. After being with my clients face-to-face, I'm so fired up I can hardly stand it, but there's so much more work to do now. I feel like I've been adopted into 7 new families. That's 7 new farm families which means, as Grandmother McPherson used to say, "If you don't work, you don't eat." Being part of farm family definitely carries different responsibilities, doesn't it? Now that I know them personally, it's a different level of commitment for both of us.

As I boarded that final flight home to my family, I thought of the incredible journey to visit my clients' families, old and new alike, over the past week. With our designs & plans and their hard work implementing, it might just have been a $700,000 trip. $700,000 in new, on-farm income to support some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet.

I can't think of a single thing I'd rather do with my life.

Have a great week.
-Hugh

PS I actually visited 8 farms when you include my impromptu visit to Mesilla Valley Maze and the Lyle family. Anna (my dear friend from NAFDMA), Steve and two of their daughters welcomed me with all of "15 miles worth" of notice. I knew the town name sounded familiar and it didn't occur to me that I'd be driving past Anna's farm until I was 15 miles away. That is why I love NAFDMA (the North American Farmers Direct Marketing Assoc.) Everyone is so friendly they'll take you in, give you a tour, and feed you (Thanks!) even on short notice :-)