Redbox Biz Blog

If you are in business, you would most certainly have competitors. You cannot escape them. Every industry has them and sometimes you cannot ignore them.

I had a good laugh last year when I saw the extent of price competition on two homegrown hypermarkets in Subang Jaya. While Carrefour is a competitor for Giant hypermarket in many ways, they were both located at different areas. As such, the competition, although distinct, was still negligible. Those who shopped at Carrefour would have been those who had just walked across from Subang Parade. Those who shopped at Giant would be those who really wanted to buy their groceries from Giant as it was still a long walk away from Carrefour.

Anyway, I suppose it was all fine until Mydin decided to build its hypermarket building right next door to Giant! Besides creating such a buzz (and causing a long line of traffic along the narrow road fronting these two hypermarkets), Mydin has always been known for its low prices. In a word, if you wanted cheap, you would run to Mydin. Giant used to be affordable for the average middle-class Malaysian but Mydin was even more affordable. The price war is obvious. In Mydin, you’d see prices of goods compared with their “neighbour” (of course everyone chuckles because they know who this “neighbour” is!).

Unfortunately for Giant, the curious folk who wanted to take a look at what Mydin had to offer would park their vehicles in the Giant parking lot (free parking) and saunter over to Mydin! (Mydin had its own free parking bays but they weren’t enough to cope with the onslaught of people, especially on weekends).

To deal with this, Giant thought up a clever idea – it posted signages that if you parked in their parking bays, you had to be a customer of Giant. On your way out of Giant, you had to show the security guards your receipt, proof that you did buy something from Giant. If you couldn’t do so, you would be charged RM10 for parking. Well, it wasn’t fair but then again, it wasn’t fair for Mydin’s customers to use Giant’s parking bays either.

Anyway, speaking of competitors, we have our share too. After all, everyone seems to be a web designer these days. And in Penang, boy, do you get a whole load of designers.

Three months ago, I received this email from a manager of a firm who wanted to revamp his company website and could I meet him to discuss matters. I drove over to Seberang Perai where I met him and we spoke at length about the intended website revamp. Later I found out that this particular manager was actually a competitor. He was working for a web design firm over on the Penang mainland.

Oh the irony! A web design firm which purportedly designs websites for its clients had to ask us at Redbox Studio to help design theirs! Of course I refused to have anything to do with these people once I found out (and here’s how I found out – he accidentally sent me email using his company email address!) and I quoted him a cost estimate atrocious enough for him to fall off his chair. After all, two can tango eh?

But it is a good laugh because it just shows that even bigger web design firms cannot even design their own websites. (By the way, this is a true story. If anyone needs proof, I can give you a screenshot of the emails that guy sent me.)

So, yes, even we have our share of competitors. But even if you have competitors, you don’t have to worry about them – it’s how you choose to deal with them that matters.

Our competitor thought he could snoop and do a price check on us but you know what, he actually supplied us with more ‘arsenal’ – we tell this story to our clients and prospects (with actual email proof) to show that so-called web design firms like Spxxxxxxc can’t even re-design their own website!

This firm isn’t the first either. Last October, I got a call from a guy who ran his own web design firm but wanted us to design theirs! He refused to tell his firm’s name which is plain fine with us because we are not web-savvy for nothing. A quick check on Google told us what we needed to know about this person. (By the way, if you or your business is not online and cannot be found online, you might as well be invisible and non-existent. I know, it’s terrible but this is the Net generation after all.)

On one end, we are definitely pleased - we are the web design firm that other web design firms rely on! On the other hand, it just shows what sort of web designers you have in the market these days. Absolutely mystifying!

Or perhaps their own design isn’t pulling in the results they need?

Makes you wonder hmmm?

Many business folks think that lowering prices is the only way to get more business and more customers. Well, think again. In many cases, price doesn’t even feature!

One of the clearest examples I can think of is my neighbourhood wet market. We get our fresh vegetables from this particular stall in the market although there are many other stalls around (I think I counted something like five or six different stalls selling fresh vegetables in that one tiny market).

Why? Auntie (that’s what we call her) doesn’t even have as much variety as the other stalls. Sometimes we end up buying the same type of vegetables we ate the week before – kai lan, baby choy sum, brinjal, long beans, French beans and broccoli! And we believe Auntie’s vegetables aren’t that cheap either but we’re her loyal customers, week after week!

Is there some magic formula at work here? Did she charm us?

The charm is in the relationship we have with her.

It’s the same relationship we have with our fishmonger’s wife, Mrs Gan. Mrs Gan tells us which fish is fresh, which is worth buying and as she knows we do one whole week of marketing, she only lets us buy the freshest fish which we can freeze and keep for a whole week. Always smiling, always helpful and always asking if we had had breakfast, Mrs Gan informs us when she has really fresh fish, or lets us know if the sardines, garoupa or mackerel comes from the big boats or if the prawns are organic or inorganic (useful tip: go for fresh marine prawns – they may look mangled but they’re tastier. Reared prawns, she says, are tasteless although they look cleaner and unbroken!).

The relationship that we have with both Auntie and Mrs Gan is one based on mutual trust, value and credibility. We trust them because they offer us more than their fresh produce or fresh fish – they are looking out for our best interests. Auntie gives us fresh coriander, spring onions and cili padi even when we don’t ask for them! Mrs Gan used to give us sardines for our cat!

And how does this tie in with marketing and business?

If you establish a real relationship based on honesty, value and credibility with your customers, they’re yours forever. They won’t shop around either because PRICE is never going to be an issue. What they value is something money can’t buy. They value your honest opinions; they value your ability to deliver what others can’t.

Mrs Gan helps us gut and clean the fish we buy – we just let her know which we want and come back to collect the fish after breakfast and our fish are clean and gutted, ready to be rinsed and popped into the freezer. Auntie gives out hints and recipes on cooking vegetables, going so far as to introduce us new ways of cooking and sometimes even tells us to try out this restaurant or restaurant!

So yes, we get lots more when we buy from Auntie and Mrs Gan. And it is this authentic experience which keeps us loyally their customers.

There’s no need to go on a price war if your competitors are doing it to annoy you – just up the value, credibility and trust factors and create a relationship with your customers. When you have these ingredients in place, price will never be an issue!

Read this for more insights on this topic: http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/01/so_you_dont_believe_in_marketi.html 

How did you celebrate 2006 and welcome 2007?

While we had great dinners with clients and friends over the past two weeks, celebrating our friendships and having plentiful conversations for Christmas and New Year’s, it was also a little bit dampened by the Taiwan quake.

Yes, the damaged cables did nothing but slow down our lives a bit too…and the last few days of 2006 made me realise that our world depends so much on technology that it’s scary!

As we could not surf or work much (as it is, many clients and friends were off on holidays, clearing leave and doing the necessary such as buying school supplies for their children), we did spend more time reading, thinking and talking.

Anyway, I was a bit amused to read about New Year resolutions in the newspapers recently.

I know two types of people - one group swears by resolutions and they make them without fail each year. The other group swears by NOT creating any resolutions as they feel this is just stupid and no one achieves or meets them anyway. They believe that by 20th of January, most resolution-makers would have forgotten most of what they promised themselves anyway.

Which is true.

Now I am of neither type. I don’t make resolutions - I set objectives. You might be thinking, OK, that’s euphemism right? It’s like calling a cow a four-legged animal which gives milk and moos.

No….. and here’s why.

Most people are gungho about resolutions and setting them with the intention to change for the better. But people get excited for all of five minutes before Life takes over. They have kids to fetch, errands to run, work to complete, and etc. And in no time, they would have forgotten what they promised themselves.

Now objectives are different. Objectives mean you have a purpose to meet. And objectives (or goals if you prefer) should have an expiry date and methods of meeting that objective.

Say you want to lose weight. You’re keen to shave off the 10 kilos because your friends think you’re way too rolly polly for your own good. Plus you know, obesity does bring a host of other health problems too. So you mentally tell yourself that you will lose weight this year. Yes, all of those 10 unsightly kilos.

The better way to do this is to set it as an objective. You write down an objective of losing 10 kilos by 31st March 2007 by jogging for 30 minutes twice a week, swimming 20 laps twice a week and cutting down on taking supper for the entire 3 months. This is more concrete. You know how you want to do what you need to do. And you write this down and paste this note to yourself everywhere - on your PC, in your car, in your wallet, on your bathroom mirror etc.

It’s crucial to see it and read it and remind ourselves daily because we, homo sapiens thrive on reminders - that’s why we have so many PDAs, organizers, to-do lists, calendars, etc. We always need to jog our memory to remember this and that.

It’s also good to set a specific date to do something - it gives us a sense of urgency due to the deadline effect. Objectives should never be vague or flimsy; if they are, you will never achieve them.

Better still, give yourself a reward when you reach your objective(s). That’s more fun too!

* You can remind yourself via your mobile phone too. Set it on your phone as a weekly reminder. When your phone beeps, you will remember your objective.

** Or you can use this free reminder service which I use called http://www.memotome.com   Just sign up, key in your reminders and it will send you reminders regularly!