THIS ISSUE INCLUDES: •  What's New? •  Going, Going … Gone! •  Resource Referral •  Lessons Learned •  Tips & Tricks •  Community Leaders •  Member Spotlight •  Community Stats •  Your Account Summary •  Success Story •  Special Thanks •  Last Laugh

Advertisement Starchy websites frustrate customers and lose sales. How much "filler" gets in their way? Make your site meaty in our "Killer Web Content" workshop with Gerry McGovern. Coming to three cities this June! Hurry for details ... and ask Shelley about the San Francisco discount.

WHAT'S NEW?

Dear Askers & Answerers,

Boy oh boy, things are getting exciting around here! We're just two weeks away from our first-ever in-person events in New York, Chicago and San Francisco (see Killer Web Content).

Shelley (event goddess) will be in all three cities. Roy and Ann will be in New York. Allen and I will be in Chicago and San Francisco. We cannot wait to meet MP members and hang out together through this 2-day workshop. If you're attending, please be sure to tell us your KHE Community Name and say hello!

In other news, next week we will release our first Vendor Selector. It's an interactive buyer's guide to help members shop for Email Service Providers. Watch for the official announcement in next Tuesday's issue of MarketingProfs Today.

Also, our Affiliate Program is off and running. If you're interested in getting involved, see the Tips & Tricks article below.

To those of you in the U.S., have a terrific holiday weekend!

Happy exchanging,

Val Frazee
Moderator, Know-How Exchange
MarketingProfs.com

GOING, GOING, GONE!

Here are KHE's 10 oldest questions. They're likely to close soon. Have an idea to offer? Better do it now!

1. starting my own venture immediately
2. need a detail write up on testimonial advertising
3. Key marketing metrics?
4. best usage of PR in B2B or B2C Website Promotion
5. How to Launch a PVC Insulation tape in the India
6. Web Alliance/Online Joint Venture Marketing
7. writing a creative brief for a brochure
8. Marketing Hip Hop & Urban Music
9. I need a Slogan. I'm a new Realtor.
10. Flier for Prepaid Legal--ideas--direct delivery

RESOURCE REFERRAL: GET YOURSELF PUBLISHED

This week's resource comes to us from Little Wacky. She invites us to learn more about her new e-book entitled, "Get Yourself Published." What I like about the e-book is that the information is gleaned from Suze's own experiences. This is a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to get motivated, get organized, get writing and get selling that wonderful first book.

Resource: BookShaker.com: Get Yourself Published

Browse 324 other resources recommended by our members in KHE's Resource Library. Or add one of your own!

LESSONS LEARNED: COMPETING WITH YOUR DISTRIBUTOR

On May 16, David joined our community and posted an excellent question. He wondered how his manufacturing firm should respond when one of its distributors is directly competing with his products. (The distributor is a reseller and a manufacturer.) Here are a few highlights from the conversaton.

• W.M.M.A.: What type of value-added can you provide? They obviously have tremendous differentiation. What's yours? Is there a market where they do not have penetration, that you can move in and begin to develop strong relationships? I am convinced that: a) Your model has to change to meet the demands of your customers; b) Your CRM program has got to get busy and visit with these customers to strengthen your relationships.
• leskennedy: Have you discussed this potential conflict of interest with this distributor? What are the terms of his contract with you? To increase market share: Make it clear how your different channels are distinct and that they don't compete. Your current distributor may consider it fair play, since you already compete with him by selling direct. ... At the same time, find other distributors soon, and dump this distributor. I suspect that you need to build a program that creates distributor loyalty. ... Continue to market your differentiated solution to the end-user, while driving them to your distributors.
• billc24: One thought I have is that often vendors who offer value-added services can turn-off budget concious purchasers because they spend a lot of time trying to develop vertical sales. Perhaps a short-term strategy you could investigate is as the "value" supplier, one that doesn't try to force feed you a lot of bells and whistles you don't really need. The difficulty with this strategy is that many companies are looking to farm out services and management of processes, much as your competitor is offering, so you would be giving up those customers.
• Peter (henna gaijin): Simply put: 1) Expand more in other channels so as to minimize the percentage of your business that goes through this distributor. 2) Find a way to differentiate your products from the distributor's, so they can't as easily swap yours for theirs. People still pay extra for Coca Cola over store brand soft drinks because they have differentiated their product through branding.
• ROIHUNTER: How about going to this manufacturer/ distributor and offering to make an OEM branded product just for them. Then they can continue their practice and you both benefit.
• mgoodman: We had a project with a company that found itself in a similar predicament. ... Our recommendation, was to focus on products/segments where they could truly add value and differentiate themselves, and cede volume in the products/segments where they were essentially a commodity. It became a portfolio management issue, and it ultimately improved their margins dramatically -- even at volume levels that were slightly lower than they had originally projected. ... The investment in R&D, marketing/advertising and sales support for the proprietary products went up, but the sales/profits went up even more.
• shamacharya: Come out with detailed literature or some other promotional material stating the difference between the tested and trusted products (yours) and look alikes (the ones manufactured by your distributor) to educate customers. Develop a parallel network of distributors and give this particular distributor a natural death
• conrad.mangapit: Several years ago I worked for a multinational giant based in Japan. Our competitor became our largest distributor. They had 3000 distributors worldwide and my company had 143 in North America, and yet my company sales were almost equal to our competitor's. How did we do it? 1) We treated our competitor as if they were a big customer and a business partner. 2) We avoided any head-to-head competition with them. 3) We concentrated on markets where they were not strong. 4) If they had a strong presence in a market where we wanted to be, we adopted the philosophy of targeting FIRST TIME users only.
• Wiglaf: Your distributor is profit motivated and will only distribute your product if it increases their sell-through or the reward is greater than selling their own brand. This implies that your product must either provide greater value to end customers or that your brand [must engender more trust]. In both cases, the marketing solution requires that your branding and product improvement be enhanced over that of all other competing brands.
• dcandey: I envision three primary scenarios, not necessarily exclusive of each other. ... I would examine your total marketing budget, projected for the market share you want to achieve (or protect). After determining your resources, develop a three-phase strategy to increase user/reseller brand awareness, lower distributor cost of sales and increase your distributors' desire to retain representation of your product through increased sales.
• leskennedy: As long as you compete on product innovation, then competitive advantage is not sustainable over the long term without doing exactly what you are doing - that is investing heavily on R&D and extracting a high return on the first entry in the market. Your best bet is a wide distribution network that can provide ample coverage for wide distribution of your solutions. For you, the service aspect is not as important as training your distribution channel well to sell your solution and the technical advances with convincing compelling business logic. With this strategy, this distributor is not really a problem in the bigger scheme of things - if he is one of very many distributors. Expand the network. Leave this guy to do his own thing.

Question: Distributor Also Manufacturers Competing Products

Do you have something to add? Feel free, if you like. Even though the question is closed (and you can't earn points for it), the Asker will be alerted to your response.

TIPS & TRICKS: EARN AFFILIATE COMMISSIONS

In the last newsletter, I announced we launched our new MarketingProfs Affiliate Program for our Charter Affiliates. Things have gone very smoothly with this first group. In fact, one KHEr earned $60 in commissions on the first day!

So we're ready to go ahead and open it up to all applicants. If you are interested in promoting MarketingProfs memberships and seminars in your newsletter, blog or Web site, just fill out an application, and I'll get back to you.

Affiliate Application: https://www.marketingprofs.com/aff/

The link you offer your readers will track their purchases on our site for 90 days. So, if you like, you can do a soft sell by using one of our "View My Profile" graphics to link to your KHE profile page. Then, later, if the visitor upgrades, you'll receive the commission.

Have a question? Ask the experts.

Post a brief synopsis below, and invite other members to offer their feedback.

My Question Title

COMMUNITY LEADERS

As of this week, these are our superstars! The Most Resourceful are those who have contributed the most entries to the Resource Library. The Most Expert are those with the highest number of Expert Points (earned by answering questions).

NOTE: These are our top members as of midday May 27, 2005

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: MEET MICHAEL GOODMAN

Michael Goodman, a.k.a. mgoodman, is a Top 25 expert who has been a member of MP since July 2003. In April, alone, he answered more than 80 forum questions and will probably top 100 this month. Read on to learn more about this week's featured member.

Where are you based?
I'm in Westport, Connecticut, USA, overlooking Long Island Sound, about 45 minutes from Manhattan. I grew up in the Chicago area (Northern Indiana, actually), and I've lived in California (Northern and Southern), Cincinnati and Dallas along the way.

What do you do in real-life?
I'm a full-time marketing/management consultant and have been in brand management and marketing most of my career.

Tell us about your company.
I founded Dialogue Marketing Group, Inc. to bring proven consumer packaged goods marketing principles to industries, companies and organizations where they have not been applied before, or where the application isn't quite so obvious. We've been involved not only in consumer markets, but also in B2B and industrial markets, healthcare, financial and professional services, not-for-profit organizations, and some very non-traditional marketing situations. Really, what we do is provide a strategic framework for understanding customers and consumers, organizing around a set of specific objectives, and creating marketing and business plans that reflect the insights we get from our analysis.

How did you find KHE?
A friend sent me a link to one of the articles in the MarketingProfs newsletter and I thought it was particularly useful and interesting, so I subscribed to receive the newsletter every week myself. Then I started to browse the MarketingProfs website, contributed a few articles (on marketing and career planning), and found KHE.

What kinds of KHE questions do you enjoy most?
I enjoy just about all of them, but I'm particularly drawn to Strategy, Branding, Customer Behavior, Research/Metrics and Career/Training. I also appreciate it when the person posting the question gives us a thorough briefing on the situation and not just a cursory (and often ambiguous) question.

What is your favorite marketing book? Why?
There are so many good ones. I think Malcolm Gladwell's books, "The Tipping Point" and "Blink," while not marketing books per se, are must reading for professional marketers. I also think that "Positioning: The battle for your mind" (by Al Ries and Jack Trout) belongs on the short list, as does Dr. Philip Kotler's "Kotler on Marketing." I think Seth Godin has some very good ideas in his books ("Permission Marketing" is one of the better ones), and they're very easy to read. And, of course, my own books on marketing-related topics should be on the list. ;-) 
 
"The Potato Chip Difference" - How to apply leading edge marketing strategies to landing the job you want (www.potatochipdifference.com)
 
"Rasputin For Hire" - An inside look at management consulting between jobs or as a second careeer (www.rasputinforhire.com)
 
Did you study marketing in college?
My undergraduate degree is actually in industrial engineering, and I started life as a computer hacker. When I was with IBM (systems engineering/artificial intelligence), I realized that I needed to understand business better so I went back to school for an MBA, then continued with doctoral level studies (in business/marketing). My real education in marketing, however, began in brand management at Procter & Gamble. That's probably the best education a professional marketer can have.

Do you have (or have you had) a mentor?
I've been lucky to have several. Perhaps the mo st memorable (and the one who had the greatest impact) was John Pepper at Procter & Gamble. He's a terrific strategic thinker, focused and intense, and he has a way of motivating people to do their best all the time. He was a great role model and mentor for me. Among many other things, he taught me the importance of listening carefully and getting the strategy right before you begin executing.

What is your next career objective? 
I love what I do, and if I can keep doing it for the rest of my life, I'll die happy. I like helping people by bringing my skills to bear on tough problems, and I get a real kick out of seeing my ideas work in the marketplace. It doesn't get much better than this.

Describe one of your non-marketing hobbies or interests.
I am an avid crossword puzzle solver. I'm addicted to great crossword puzzles, and I solve at least 25-30 puzzles a week. I also participate in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament each year and have consistently finished better than average (among 500 solvers from all over the U.S. and Canada).

Do you have a favorite quote you want to share?
I've used this many times in answering questions in KHE, and it's really appropriate in many cases: "If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up someplace else." -- Yogi Berra

COMMUNITY STATS

Active Unique Participants (to date): 6,148
Closed Questions (to date): 7,159
Currently Open Questions: 149
Total Responses (to date): 48,935
Subscribers to this newsletter: 15,306

YOUR ACCOUNT SUMMARY

These numbers come directly from YOUR profile. Question Points tells you how many points you have available for asking questions in the forum. Expert Points indicates your standing in the community based on answers you have posted. Visit this FAQ, if you want to know more.

Question Points: %%PointsBalance%%
Expert Points: %%PointsCum%%

Click here to buy more Question Points

SUCCESS STORY

kelleybred shares this week's good news:

"After coming across your website, I thought it was a godsend to be able to ask questions that would be very expensive to buy in the real world. I was looking for a slogan for a "farm" type area that I could market to while differentiating myself from all the other real estate agents in the industry. Everybody says and does the same thing, and business cards and literature all tend to look alike.

I have seen some people try to differentiate themselves by including photos of their pets on their business cards to appeal to the pet lovers of the world. Since I have a housebroken pot belly pig, I thought I could incorporate her somehow into the materials. Your Experts came up with some really good slogans - on a moment's notice. Everyone thought I should rethink the branding aspect of incorporating a pig into my material. I plan to go ahead with some of the ideas they had, such as a one-sentence slogan.

I truly appreciate your forum, the services you offer and above all, the creative individuals who give so freely of their time and expertise. Keep up the good work. YOU ARE THE BEST! And many thanks to everyone who responded. My hat goes off you to all!"

The Question: Pig Slogan for Real Estate/Mortgage Professional?

SPECIAL THANKS

Thank you, mgoodman, kelleybred and Little Wacky, for your contributions to this newsletter. And thanks to all the community members who have emailed or posted suggestions, technical reports or questions since the last issue. Your energy drives this community's development. We couldn't do it without you!

Finally, thanks to my MP colleagues for making my job easy: Aaron, Carrie, Shelley, Sharon, Achim, Ann, Roy and Allen.

LAST LAUGH

I like to close with a smile. So this space is dedicated to something amusing one of you folks have posted in the forum.

In this thread, ASVP/ChrisB shares a little lesson with us geographically challenged North Americans. We learn that "Oceania" is not a short-lived project from the '90s to create a floating sea city, as KSA feared it might be.

Discussion: Stats Re: Passing On Good Vs Bad Service

Forum Feedback: The Know-How Exchange is still young. So we're constantly refining how things work. We have a gigantic list of action items, and your feedback helps us prioritize it. So please feel free to reply to this email with any suggestions. Thanks, in advance, for your time!

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