(Time to read this Blog is about 3 minutes)
To all our Canadian readers, ‘HAPPY CANADA DAY’!
To all our American readers, ‘HAPPY 4th of July’!
To everyone else, just have a good day.
Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:
- My Biz Quote of the week:
“Do you see your business and yourself as a proactive and courageous ‘creator of circumstances’ or as a ‘victim of circumstances’? The choice you make will hugely affect how your business and your life turn out.”
…Donald Cooper.
- Quick Biz Tip:
Where do your new employees start?
Many companies announce to new employees, “You’ll start at the bottom.” What a horrible phrase! ‘The bottom’ sounds a pit of degradation from which you may never escape.
At Concours Collision Centres in Calgary, Alberta every new employee starts at the beginning. ‘The beginning’ sounds like the start of journey of learning and gaining experience which you might actually enjoy. What a difference one word can make. So, where do your new staff start?
- Everything you ever wanted to know about the official balls used at the FIFA World Cup. Last week I wrote about the Slazenger tennis balls used in the classic Wimbledon Grand Slam Tournament in the UK. This week it’s the FIFA World Cup soccer balls (I’m Canadian, so we’re calling them ‘soccer’ balls).
Adidas supplies the official ‘Trionda’ balls as part of a larger sponsorship deal with FIFA. The balls are made for Adidas by a company called Forward Sports in the city of Sialkot, Pakistan, where most of the world’s soccer balls are produced.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 official balls are used over the 104-match tournament. These balls are highly customized with the balls used in each World Cup game printed with the names of the two competing teams, the date of the match, and the venue.
In addition to the 2,000 and 3,000 official match balls, each of the 48 competing National Teams is given 20 to 30 balls for their training sessions prior to games.
Each match ball has an imbedded micro chip that tracks and relays information about the ball’s movement and position 500 times a second. This information is used by the Video Match Officials more fairly determine offsides, hand-touches and penalties.
After the World Cup tournament, the balls will be distributed as souvenirs to the competing National Federations, the tournament sponsors, host cities and the FIFA Museum.
- Fun Fact – the world’s happiest city: The ‘Happy City Index’ reviews 1,000 cities based on 64 distinct indicators, including work-life balance, sustainability and health-care access. This year’s happiest city is Copenhagen, Denmark. Canada has 14 cities in the top 200 and the USA has only 3. To check out the results for the world’s happiest cities Click Here.
- AI update. Meta plans to replace 90% of its Content Review staff with AI by the end of 2026. AI will also take over most coding work at Meta, from writing and testing to debugging and optimization.
Now, to this week’s important topic:
The power of a great guarantee in your business:
Whether you sell a product or a service, one of the most powerful marketing tools you can create is a compelling guarantee. The right guarantee will do these 5 things for you. It will…
- Clearly differentiate you from your competitors,
- Make you memorable…and perhaps ‘famous’,
- Create customer confidence,
- Focus every member of your team on delivering the compelling value that you guarantee,
- Increase sales and profitability.
To be most effective, your guarantee must include these two things…
A) Promise a specific level of performance or value that’s compelling to your target customers (and then make absolutely sure that you can deliver on it 99.9% of the time).
This could be a promise that something will happen if they do business with you (ie, “We guarantee that your parcels will be delivered anywhere in North America by 9:00 am the next day” …or, it could be a promise that something won’t happen (ie, “We guarantee that your car won’t rust for 5 years.)
B) Be specific about what you’ll do for the customer if you fail to deliver your promise.
My favorite example is, “Your pizza will be delivered in 40 minutes…or it’s FREE!” They don’t guarantee that it’s a great tasting pizza. No, this guarantee is for people who value ‘fast’ more than flavor.
Hampton Inns has a simple but powerful ‘100% satisfaction guarantee’. If you don’t like the room it’s free!
Years ago, when I was an award-winning retailer of ladies’ fashions, we created an outrageous and powerful guarantee that made us famous and grew out bottom line!
We came up with what we called, ‘The world’s most unusual guarantee!’ It went like this, “We’re so sure you’ll love our store that if you show up and think we’re ‘for the birds’…I’ll pay your gas mileage!”
This gutsy guarantee differentiated us and gave 1,000 of new customers the confidence to travel up to two hours to try us out. And, it focused our staff on delivering the amazing customer experience that made it worth the drive.
Competitors, friends and our accountant all said, “Cooper, you’re nuts! People will rip you off.” To which I replied, “No, you don’t get it. It really is an extraordinary store!” In over 11 years, we paid out less than $200 in gas mileage!
A guarantee is a promise, and breaking that promise will kill your business! So, here’s how it works…perfect your delivery, then make the promise. Don’t promise first, and then try to figure out how the heck you’re going to pull it off. That will end badly.
So, what gutsy and powerful guarantee will you come up with in your business? What could you promise to do, or not do, that will clearly differentiate you, excite your customers, create confidence, focus your team and grow your bottom line?
That’s it for this week…
Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!
Donald Cooper
Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability. He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.
