Who is Your Audience and What do They Want?

Tigers rarely actually eat
cereal. They also rarely
wear neckerchiefs.

They say that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Well, if you lead a horse to a nice, juicy steak, you will probably not only fail to feed your horse, but probably spook him. Save the steak for your pet tiger. Lead the horse to grass.

As a consultant, I work with a number of different fan conventions and businesses. Most businesses think they know the answer to the question "Who is my audience and what do they want?" Do they really? Or do they just think they do?

Let's take Steampunk World's Fair, for whom I am Sponsorship Coordinator, as an example of one who does it right. Their primary audience is people who are interested in Steampunk, which is a subculture that includes literature, clothes, and a bit of music. That is who they are, but what do they want? The obvious answer is that they want great performances by bands and other performers that they enjoy and a great array of vendors. But, hose bands play a variety of venues and most of the vendors have online stores, so why do thousands of people make the trip to New Jersey for the Fair?

First and foremost, people go to a convention for an experience. They want to have fun. They want to be among their own people, having a relaxing and enjoyable time. You could have the biggest names and the best dealers, but if the vibe is bad, the event will be bad. Steampunk World's Fair creates that fun, engaging environment. From the web site, to the decorations, to the program book that looks like an old Victorian newspaper, to dozens of other little details, for one weekend in May, two modern hotels are made to feel like a great enclave of an age that never was.

Steampunks in their natural habitat: Piscataway, NJ

Among the work I do for this event is coordination of sponsorship. A sponsor has a very different perspective on an event. Many sponsors do attend the event, and, as an attendee, they love all the event has to offer. As a sponsor, however, they care about very different things. The fantastic program book made to look like a newspaper is exciting to them because its uniqueness will cause attendees to keep it, and the ad the sponsor bought in it, for years to come.

As a counter example, let's consider another business I have worked with. It is a game store in the Northeast United States. For those of you unfamiliar with game stores, they tend to be part retail store (selling board games, card games, trading card games, role playing games, and the like), but they are also part community space. Almost anything you can get at a game store, you can get online for less. People are willing to spend their money at a local game store because they enjoy spending their time at their local game store. The natural conclusion to draw about a store is that people go there for products and prices. For a game store, one would be mistaken. People go there for the experience. The products are just how the store monetizes that experience.

This game store, however, is very large and has become focused on product rather than experience. They have come to think that the customer cares only about price and event prizes, so they focus on what is on the shelves but fail to address the experience of the customer when he is in the store. They mistake a lack of other options in the local market for customer loyalty, believing that customers come back because they want to rather than because they have no other option. Customers say things like "There's something off about that store" and "It's not a comfortable place to hang out." The result is that in a business that used to demonstrate spectacular growth year after year, growth has slowed to almost nothing.

The goal is to give the customer what they want, not just what you think they want. You may be wondering how you find out what the customer wants. It's easy. Ask them. People love to talk and they love to give their opinion... if you ask for it.

You should also keep in mind that people are giving their opinion to everyone else. In the example of this store, all of the other stores in the region know what people think of them. Other customers know what people think of them. Random people on the Internet know what people think of them. Don't you want to know at least as much about your customer's opinions as your competition does?

It's a simple two step process:

Step 1. Just get into a conversation with a customer and ask "What do you think we do well? What do you think we should do better?"

Step 2. Shut up and listen.
Step 2a. No, seriously. Do not speak. Just listen.

You may be tempted to address their concerns, explain your choices, or even argue with the customer. Don't. Thank them for their input. Possibly ask questions to be sure you understand what they are getting at. Did they say something that surprised you or doesn't sound right? Ask a few more customers at random. If they all say the same thing that sounds wrong to you, it's probably not the customer who is mistaken. At the very least, you have a messaging issue.

Tigers like steak. Horses like oats. Mix them up and you're liable to be kicked by the horse and eaten by the tiger. What does your audience want?


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Vending Victory from the Jaws of Vending Defeat

I had a mentor who told me a story which changed the way I approach almost every challenging situation. At the time of the story, he owned a store that sold collectible card games like Magic, Pokemon, and Yu Gi Oh!, and he was going to GenCon, one of the biggest non-electronic gaming conventions in the world. He had spend thousands of dollars to be there, and had brought a fantastic selection of all the card games he carried. Everything was set up and ready, but as the first day progressed, sales were terrible. No one was buying. Few people were even looking at his booth.

Vending with Worlds Apart Games at
Arisia in 2010
(That's Dan in the hat)

If you are a vendor reading this, you may have been in this situation before. What did you do? If you have never experienced this, ask yourself, what would you do? For many, including myself before hearing this story, I would have tried to make the best of the weekend, sell as much as we can, maybe slash some prices to move some stock, then limp home, lick our wounds and try to figure out what happened so we could do better at the next event... if we could even afford to attend the next event.

Our hero could not afford to fail this weekend. He had invested more than he could afford to lose, and he wasn't ready to lose. During the course of the first day, someone had come by with a large trash bag full of Heroclix and offered to sell it to him for $20. He'd never heard of Heroclix, but it looked like a lot of whatever it was for little money, so he bought it.

Having an already disastrous weekend, and having bought this bag. What would you do? Some would just throw the bag in the back of the booth to take home and figure out what it is next week. After all, this weekend is a disaster, who needs another thing to deal with. Others would see the bag differently...

He didn't know anything about Heroclix, but he knew that he had just bought over 100 of them for $20, so he grabbed an empty bin, dumped the figures into it, and put a sign on the front that said "$1". Within an hour, the bin was empty.

Heroclix Superman figure
For more information on Heroclix,
visit the Wizkids Website.

He proceeded to go around the convention, looking for other people unloading their bulk Heroclix collections, and by the middle of the second day, his original stock was pushed to the side to make room for an entire table of Heroclix figures. The event was more than profitable for him.

This story teaches a very important lesson. As long as there is still time on the clock, there is still time to play and win, but not by pressing a losing strategy. The more important part of this lessons is to realize is to think about how long your decision cycle is. When I was vending at conventions, I would think during the week prior as to what I would bring, how I would display it, and what the strategy would be. By the time I arrived at the convention and set up Friday, the die was cast. I was committed to that strategy, win or lose. No matter how Friday went, I stuck to it all weekend. My decision cycle was a week long.

His decision cycle is hours, sometimes minutes. You can always reevaluate your strategy on an ongoing basis, not just when the event is over, but a few hours in. When you get home on Monday, it is too late. When you walk out of that sales presentation, it is too late. When you lock up the shop at night, it is too late.

Don't wait until the game is over to tally your score and figure out why you lost. Figure out while the game is still going how you can win.


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How to Make People Like You: Scratch Them Under the Collar

Early in my relationship with Amy, who is now the love of my life and the soon to be mother of my child, we were in the courting phase. Getting to know each other, learning what the other had to offer, and figuring out if this person is someone we wanted to get serious with.

As anyone who has dated a pet owner knows, getting a woman's animals to approve of you is half the battle. If the cat or dog approves, you are well on your way. This is a concept that has been much fodder for the romantic comedy genre, but it is quite true.

One of her cats is super friendly and loves everyone, but the other was skittish and standoffish. He was leery of this new, hairy creature who was hanging around. Both of her cats wore collars with name tags on them. Now, I know that cats like to be scratched on the back of the neck anyway, but I figured that a cat wearing a collar all the time might get particularly itchy there. I slowly approached the cat, rubbed his head a little and proceeded to scratch under the collar. He was purring contentedly in seconds.

I could have taken many approaches to this situation. I could have ignored the cantankerous cat and hope he comes around eventually. I could have tried to have a serious sit down talk with the cat, explaining that I'm really a good guy and that he should give me his paw of approval.

Does that second one sound absurd? Ask the cat nicely? That doesn't make sense. Even if he did understand me, which he doesn't, he doesn't care what I want. Absurd or not, think back in your life to times you have wanted something from someone. Did you try to tell them what you wanted, or did you consider that their collar might be itchy*?

*Most Americans have personal space issues and would not respond well to you scratching them under their collar. I recommend that for most situations you take this as an object lesson rather than specific advice.

Life Begins at 34

For much of my 20s, I had an overwhelming sense of running out of time. I needed to do something spectacular and make something of myself before time ran out.

During my 20s, I started a game store, a Rocky Horror cast, a sci-fi convention: all excellent things but nothing that I could really point at and say "that was my great accomplishment". Around the time I turned 30, I was at Wicked Faire and had the pleasure of meeting Terrance Zdunich, the creator of Repo: the Genetic Opera. I was talking to him about the fact that I was turning 30 and felt like I had not been able to accomplish much. Terrance pointed out to me that when he turned 30, he had not started working on creating the movie version of Repo, likely the accomplishment he will be most remembered for.

I was made to think of this again yesterday when I attended my step grandmother's memorial service. She had lived in Newton, Massachusetts for over 60 years. She was much beloved by many people, having done a great deal for them. She moved to Newton in 1948, and since then had touched a great many people, either through her work as a teacher of reading or simply by being an amazing and caring person.

I was amazed by things I heard about her that I had never known, and I worried that so much time had passed me by as I was still forced to move from here to there by the forces of my life. Suddenly, it hit me that she had been born in 1914, which meant that she arrived in Newton at age 34.

I turned 34 this week. Perhaps there is still plenty of time to make my mark. And maybe, just maybe, I have already begun.

Stepping Back From Goals

If you read about how to be successful, you will see GOALS GOALS GOALS. While this is especially true in books about winning at Soccer, it is quite prevalent in all self-help books. The problem is goals is that you have to know what you want.

If you have kids and want to make sure they go to the right schools and then you want to be able to retire in comfort, then your goals are pretty clear. If you own a store and want to expand to a chain, the goal is readily apparent.

However, what happens when you are at a transition point in life. The vicissitudes of life brought me to Connecticut following a job which I would subsequently quit a few months later because it was even worse here than it was where I came from. For most of my life, I had some kind of overriding goal. First, I was in school, and a goal was prescribed for me, finish school successfully. There were subordinate goals, but it always came back to that one. When I graduated college, I opened Phoenix Games, and everything was driving towards making Phoenix successful, and, later, making Phoenix survive.

In 2007, when it was apparent Phoenix Games would not pay the bills, I started working for my father teaching people with special needs to drive. It was a good job which helped people, but it was not satisfying because I went from what felt like a holy quest to a job that kind of did some good for some people.

In 2010, I started working for American Income Life. I had a new fiancee and we had a bold and ambitious dream. I would achieve the success that AIL promised was possible and we would find greatness. I could focus all of my energy towards AIL and that dream. Unfortunately, that dream, for various reasons did not pan out, and in January of 2012, I left that job and entered the car business selling Audis and later Volkswagens as I still do.

I had not driving ambition, but, for the first time, I was financially stable. I could start paying down, rather than racking up, debts. My credit score is floating up to a respectable level. Most of my immediate debts incurred running Phoenix Games are paid off.

In this situation, I was able to relax, not worrying about what was to come next. I just did what I wanted to, enjoyed things as they came. Recently, things changed again, and for various reasons, many of the things that I was distracting myself with became unavailable, and it came into stark focus that I do not have a direction in which I wish to head.

This bothered me greatly for a time. I sometimes have the feeling that the clock is ticking and I need to get moving before time runs out. I would try to make a long term goal, then shift to another, then another, only to realize that I really didn’t know what the right long term plan was.

I realized, that, while the clock moves, there is plenty of time left on it. It’s ok not to know what the big plan it. As they say, go as far as you can see, and then look further. Sometimes as far as you can see is up to the next bend in the road, and that’s ok. So, today, I will sell cars, maybe try to arrange a nice role playing game group, enjoy board game night, and, for now, let things fall where they will.

If You Don't Ask for What You Want, You Get Everything You Ask For

There is a lesson that I have been reminded of a few times recently, both by things that have happened in my selling life as well as my personal life, and that is that one rarely gets what one wants when one does not ask for it.

I had a customer recently who, when they came in, all they could say was that they wanted lease payments. I tried to ask them what kind of car they were looking for, features, trim level, anything, but all they wanted was to know what the payment was. The lowest one, of course. It was all about the Benjamins, they claimed, and they mentioned the Jetta S, which they knew was cheapest. I mentioned that it had the smaller engine, but they just wanted the lowest price.

So, I showed them the numbers on that car, around $250 with very little out of pocket, and we took the car out for a drive. They assured me that they liked how the car drove, but they needed to think about it for a night.

I called them the next day, and they told me that they bought a Ford for $360/month. The reason they gave me was that there was not enough power in the engine of the Jetta. Of course, there wasn't enough power, they wanted the cheap one with the 115 horsepower engine. If they had told me they wanted more power, I would have shown them the SE with 170 horsepower for about $285/month. Instead, because they did not tell me what they wanted, they had to settle for a more expensive vehicle elsewhere.

I know that some car shoppers think that they are somehow better off keeping their cards close to the vest, but the fact of the matter is that if I don't know what someone wants, I can't possibly help them to get it.

You get this in the personal relationships as well. Have you ever had or heard about this conversation, perhaps on a road trip.

Wife: "Do you want to stop and get something to eat?"
Husband: "No, I'm fine."
Temperature in the car drops about 20 degrees.
Husband: "But maybe we should stop."

It's a funny story, but think of how often people do not get what they want from their partner because they don't ask for it. Usually this is because they feel that their partner should "know them well enough" to know what they want. If expecting your partner to read your mind is part of your happy relationship strategy, you should not get too attached to the idea of getting what you want. The plain and simple fact is that no matter how much you partner may want to make you happy and give you what you want, it becomes very difficult if they do not know what it is.

If you want to get what you want, whether it's a car with a little more power or to stay within a certain budget or a cheeseburger along the highway, you are much more likely to get it if you ask for it.

Pressure Sales is So 1987: How to Sell in 2013

When people walk into a car dealership, they usually do so with a sense of trepidation. They expect aggressive salespeople, pressure tactics and a generally unpleasant experience. Some people would rather go through an IRS audit than shop for a car. They will do all kinds of things to protect themselves from the maneuvers of the car salesman.

It doesn’t have to be this way. This happens because “old school” salesmen have used pressure tactics for years and they have worked. They teach the young guys that this is how it works. They become managers and require such tactics of their salespeople. But does it really work?

Certainly pressure will get some people to sign on the line, but will they want to come back? When it come times to replace that car in a few years, they’ll shop around again. Why would you be loyal to a dealership that treated you like a piece of meat on a conveyer belt? So the customer will shop around again, get abused again, and the cycle continues.

This is not how I sell. I don’t sell with pressure for two reasons. First, I don’t do it because I don’t like it. I do not want to come in to work everyday and cause stress to nice people. Second, it doesn’t work. I don’t just want to force someone to buy a car today. I want to give them a pleasant experience. A customer who has a pleasant experience is easier to work with, they don’t worry if there’s a slight delay to meet with the Business Manager. They give us a good review online. They tell their friends and family. Most importantly, when the time comes for their next car, they won’t need to shop around. They’ll know that they can call me again and get the same good treatment.

I had one customer a few weeks ago say that buying a car is usually like going to the proctologist, but buying one from me was a pleasant and easy experience. Another customer had such a good experience that she gave me a $50 gift card as a thank you.

A lot of people in the industry think that customers only care about price and that they’ll go down the street for $5. This is true, if and only if, you have not treated the customer right. If you abuse them and pressure them, they’ll go down the street to pay $5 more, if only to be treated right. I have customers who come in, experience the way I work, and still shop around because that’s how they buy a car. However, when they go, I am confident that they will come back, because I know unfortunately that the other salespeople they will encounter have yet to learn this lesson. I’ve had customers offered a better price elsewhere still come back because it is worth it to people to be treated right.

I don’t know about how cars were sold in the old days. Maybe I couldn’t sell a car in 1987. Fortunately, it’s 2013, and in 2013 a customer wants to be treated right. In 2013, I sell plenty of cars the right way.