Shelley McQuade

Shelley’s career in branding goes back 25 years, with a focus on business-to-business marketing and sales.

As founder of SalesFertilizer.com, Shelley helps companies refine their unique competitive advantage (aka their Miracle Growth Formula) to build a sustainable buzz that generates “off the charts” growth.

With a passion for people and business, Shelley simplifies strategy to engage employees and enhance the customer experience. With a keen understanding of human behaviour, Shelley levers her background in advertising, market research and consulting to craft communication that breaks through the clutter to connect with customers. Knowing that learning is the key to growth, Shelley uses experiential learning techniques she honed as an adjunct professor.

In addition to sitting on the Chamber Board, Shelley mentors McMaster University post grad Masters students, is the founding Chair of the Value Accelerator Group and is on the Advisory Committee for the Golden Horseshoe Bioscience Network and Golden Horseshoe Manufacturing Network.

It's All About the Experience

You’re driving in your car, sunroof open, enjoying the beautiful summer breeze. You see a billboard — a beautiful beach, a lady in a stunning bathing suit, and a name, Daniel’s Swimwear. You need a new bathing suit and this one looks like it’s just your style. You eagerly head downtown and find the location. The front window doesn’t look much like that billboard, but not deterred, you go inside. The blaring rap assaults your ears; you can barely walk through the aisles, crammed as they are with merchandise. A teen or even maybe a tween approaches you. Chewing gum, holding up a barely there bikini, she says, “Isn’t this sick.” At that point you’re getting a pounding headache and starting to feel, well, sick. How could you have been so naive, how could you get fooled again?

What you see is not always what you get.

If this has happened to you, you recall only too well the sting of feeling lied to and deceived. Nothing — I mean nothing — turns off a customer more than an inconsistent experience. It’s high time you conducted a touch point audit on your business, and I recommend bringing a pair of fresh eyes along for the ride. The challenge is that when we are in our business day in and day out, we stop seeing like our customers, particularly a first time customer that has their radar high tuned to spot a fraud. Pre-Internet, when mass marketing was all the rage, it didn’t matter so much. Lose a customer, no big deal. There’s plenty more where that one came from, and who can they tell anyway? Today, they can facebook or tweet their friends and those friends will tell other friends and so on and so on. I think you get the picture — news, the good, the bad and the ugly travels really, really fast.

So back to the audit. The term touch point refers to everything that “touches” your customer. To simplify, consider these three categories. Communications and Media – everything from your advertising to invoicing; Environment or Space – your location, offices, store etc.; and People – the ones that deliver the goods.

First, establish your positioning. Sit down and decide what message you want to convey. Then document it. Next, pull together samples in the three key categories and run them through your “positioning” filter. Are they on target or wandering off in a different direction? Prioritize and identify your biggest “touch point" offenders and plan to change them ASAP. You should set a three-month goal to get all of your offenders in line.

From there, conduct your “touch point” audit annually to make sure your brand and all its touch points are still in line. Your customers will thank you; most likely by providing you with a larger share of wallet!

Shelley McQuade

Stuck in the '80's

Wall Street was on the big screen. Big hair bands were on the music scene. And traditional media ruled. Fast forward to 2010 and oh what a difference a few decades make. I lived the traditional media craze. If you had the numbers you had the advertisers – big business, government, franchises, retailers – everyone was clambering (will not quite clambering) but certainly willing to hear your story and pay your prices to have their message reach the masses.

A funny thing happened when technology i.e. the internet came on the scene. No longer were you forced to love what the majority loves; you had options. Think 70’s television – 3 networks – prime time, a hit show – bingo you’ve reached 70% of America. Try to reach that same audience today - with over 100 television stations and a myriad of entertainment options – prime time television ain’t what it used to be – your cost would be through the roof.

So what does this mean to business/advertisers? If you’re media plan hasn’t changed a lot you’re missing a ton of opportunities. I know of a restaurant that funnelled a good chunk of their ad dollars into the yellow pages – not online yellow pages – traditional phone book yellow pages. Unfamiliar with google ad words they were sceptical that the internet could actually bring in customers and astounded that you don’t pay unless people click and view. Six months later with a new web-site, a face book fan club, an e-newsletter and google ads the web is outperforming their traditional media in leaps and bounds. They’re attracting customers from a much wider geography and customers are dining their more often.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not suggesting you ditch all of your traditional media. I am suggesting you get really clear on your target market or as my friend Marty refers to it your “unique buying tribe” and connect with them where they hang out so to speak. You wouldn’t think of wearing big shoulder pads with a bad perm and a matching suit and earrings – think Working Girl (if you’re female) or donning a pink tie and puff (if you’re male or of course Donald Trump) today so why would you stick with the same advertising strategies? Fashion and advertising in 2010 is very different and hopefully more ah tasteful.

The Tribe has Spoken - Are You Listening?

I met Marty Neumeier (renown speaker and author of Zag, Brand Gap) when he was conducting a workshop at the Design Exchange. In conversation, Marty shared that he began his career implementing brand strategies only to realize there were a lot of flawed strategies that execution couldn’t fix. This prompted Marty to focus his effort on brand differentiation – the #1 strategy of a successful brand in Marty’s eyes. If you’re looking for verification of the power of differentiation think IPOD. 4th to market in the MP3 player category, Apple has 72% market share, a price point that is 2 to 5 times higher than the competitors....well I think you get the idea. High performance brands are way out in front in terms of loyalty, profitability and they’re tough to beat – unless of course you find your own unique way of differentiating.

One of the first rules is you can’t be all things to all people. In the session Marty talked about knowing your “tribe”. I caught up with Marty to get further clarity on why the tribe matters. “You have said the emphasis today needs to be on the Unique Buying Tribe rather than the Unique Selling Proposition. Can you explain that?”

Marty Neumeier: The Unique Selling Proposition was the brainchild of Rosser Reeves, an advertising genius from the "Mad Men" days. He worked for the Ted Bates agency and wrote a bestseller called, "Reality in Advertising." His thesis was simple: Advertisers need to focus all their energy on one strong claim or one strong concept. In a time when the industry believed "the more you tell, the more you sell," this was a refreshing idea that caught on almost immediately. It was so powerful, in fact, that to this day advertisers search high and low for "the big idea" to hang their campaigns on.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this inclination, as far as it goes. Without a unique value proposition, your campaign---and your business---will lose focus and have no compelling point of differentiation. The problem is that the principle now seems dated. Customers today don't like to be sold. What they like to do is buy, and they buy in tribes. Every brand has a tribe that supports it. If you talk WITH your tribe, they may well continue to support it. If you talk AT your tribe-using manipulative one-way conversations-they'll tune out in a New York second.

So rather than focusing on a Unique Selling Proposition, focus on a Unique Buying Tribe. If you find the right tribe and give it the right stuff, you'll get enough love to sustain your brand. People crave tribal identity. What they want to know is, "If I buy this product, what will this make me?"

Thanks Marty for sharing your insights. Marty is currently Director of Transformation at Liquid Agency.

Two Pigs an Oinking and a Chicken in a Pen

I opened up a Christmas card the other day from my cousin and was thrilled to receive two pigs (she assured me there was no pun intended). Will my pigs be arriving in a one horse open sleigh on Christmas day? Hmm good question, if they are arriving via one horse open sleigh I won’t be seeing them; they’re going direct to Zimbabwe. I’m guessing this was in response to the goats I gave her last year.

In this festive season we often get caught up in consumerism. We’re decking the malls and buying incredible amounts of stuff for people that “have everything”. We’re so busy purchasing, partying and stressing all of the holiday festivities that we forget to adopt an attitude of gratitude.

This year, we’ve all experienced some kind of financial repercussions from the economic downturn. That being said, we’re still well over half way up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs while a good chunk of the globe is in need of food, shelter and clothing.

And don’t even get me started on our political freedom. As a post boomer female, I haven’t experienced workplace prejudice; I’ve shared equal rights with my male counterparts and had the ability to be all that I can be. It may seem like a small thing but on the world stage where many girls are struggling to get an education it's paramount.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day hassles, focus on the things that aren’t going right and believe that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Wake up, we are in Shangri-La and the grass doesn’t get any greener. We have the right to choose and an attitude of gratitude and the good life is a choice. I learned this little trick many years ago that may help if you’re down, feeling sorry for yourself or otherwise irritated. Write down 5 things that you are grateful for. Do it every day and eventually that feeling will disappear. As Aristotle so aptly quoted “We are what we repeatedly do – excellence then is not an act but a habit”. Why not start the New Year with new habit – an attitude of gratitude.

Coffee Talk

Now that the recession is officially over (well maybe not officially over but certainly a marked improvement compared to this time last year) it’s time to refocus, regroup and engage your team. That’s right, engage your team. Why? So they in turn can engage your customers. According to Gallup, organizations that achieve both customer and employee engagement are rewarded with customers who deliver a 23% premium over an average customer. Hmm a premium, music to my ears – couldn’t we all benefit from more customers that deliver more $.

So what’s the magic bullet, how do you engage your team? Well, it’s not a magic bullet but it is proven; firms that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to report high levels of employee engagement versus firms that communicate less effectively. This stat is courtesy of the folks at Watson Wyatt.

The challenge, all of us are doing more with less and squeezing in effective communication time is tough. Behold the power of “Coffee Talk”. Short but sweet; this meeting is best held on a Friday morning or afternoon for 15 to 20 minutes- tops.

As the leader, you bring in or supply your team’s favourite beverages – coffee, tea, lattes - you get the idea. Depending on the size of your team you sit, you stand, whatever works in your space. Here are the:

5 Coffee Talk Rules

Rule # 1: Kudos - Each person on the team shares something that went right this week. It could be a new client, accolades from a client, a tough deadline that was met – the sky’s the limit!

Rule # 2: Mission Critical aka Did we drop any balls? - Using a round table format figure out what went wrong. Next discuss - Did we fix it? Does it still need to be fixed? How can we prevent this problem from happening again? Can we systemize the fix?

Rule # 3: Heads Up - This is a recap of what’s on the horizon for next week, next month whatever works within your organization. This is designed to bring potential problems to the forefront. Is someone swamped? Who can lend a hand? Is someone stuck? Who has a solution? This informal brainstorming and planning goes a long way in getting everyone on the same page and building team cohesion.

Rule # 4: Parking Lot It - Is there a problem to big to solve in a short session, a process that is broken and needs repair. Many meetings get unwieldy as people go off on tangents about every bugaboo they’ve experienced since the dawn of time. Don’t squash it, just parking lot it. Put it to the side and schedule another meeting to prioritize and deal with Parking Lot items.

Rule # 5: Give a little bit - If time permits get everyone on the team to share something about them. To level the playing field, have each person answer the same question. What was your best vacation and why? What was your favourite childhood story? This simple process builds trust and helps people to get to know each other, both precursors to creativity and innovation – something every workplace could use more of.

So go ahead, pour a cup ‘a jo, share the coffee talk rules and watch your workplace transform from a “he said she said” finger pointing place (well maybe this isn’t exactly how it is at your place of business but you get the idea) to a “we’re all in this together, making a difference” mode.