Big Cheese Marketing

Domino’s has built an EMPIRE in the short time its been in business. From 1960 until now, they’ve created some of the most unique USP (Unique Selling Propositions) like, “Hot, fast, and to your door in less than 30 minutes, guaranteed”. Can you better explain what your business does in less than 12 words? I think not!

And let’s not forget that icon of the 80’s, the Noid!

But most recently, Domino’s has broken the mold when it comes to standing out from the competition. In two ways, actually.

1. The Self-Depricating Story: One of the best ways to get potential customers or clients to listen to you is to admit your faults! Domino’s went on national television in a series of commercials stating that they conducted some focus groups where the overwhelming majority said that their pizza tasted like cardboard.

What company in their right mind would admit they had a crappy product? ONE THAT SHOWS THAT ITS LISTENING TO ITS CUSTOMERS AND HAS THEIR FINGER ON THE PULSE OF WHAT THE CUSTOMER REALLY WANTS!

But Domino’s didn’t endear themselves to the pizza-buying public just by admitting that they were guilty of serving sub-standard food. It was that they went back and FIXED IT. They made a NEW crust, went back to the focus groups at their homes, and (from the appearance on the commercials) surprised the focus group participant with the new crust.

They showed they were genuinely sorry for their mistake and went back to fix it. But then, there’s the #2 way Domino’s is now standing head and shoulders above their competition:

2. The Social Factor: Domino’s has recently created a series of TV ads where they show just what is done to a pizza in order to make it look so mouthwatering for a TV commercial. They thumbed their noses at this idea and said that the new crust and sauce they’ve created could stand on its own without fake glitz and glamour. So they asked their viewers and buyers to get a pizza and take their own pictures and submit them at showusyourpizza.com.

As of this blog post, there are almost 600 pictures of Domino’s pizzas taken BY THEIR CUSTOMERS! The winner gets $500!

So what have we learned today, kids?

First of all, don’t be afraid to be human.

Second, make sure you get your customers involved with a good promotion (and a prize is great incentive!)

But finally, there’s the 3rd lesson that I think Domino’s might have overlooked. Millions of dollars have been spent on the campaigns to reinstill the trust and loyalty that Domino’s is known for. However, they needed to have remembered Steinbeck’s words.

In 1937, John Steinbeck wrote, “The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.” Seventy-three years later, Domino’s Pizza may wanna be reminded of that quote.

Yesterday I decided to give Domino’s new pizza a try. I called the store and placed my order. I informed the gentleman who answered the phone that this was my FIRST TIME trying their new crust.

His reply? “Oh, its not really new. We just took the old crust and smeared some garlic sauce on it. It’s pretty good, though.”

And that brings us to the final lesson of the day:

3. DON’T FORGET YOUR EMPLOYEES! All that money Domino’s spent on advertising was potentially wasted because they failed to properly educate their employees on how to sell the customers on the new crust when they called!!!

Your employees only do what you tell them to do. The concept of doing above what’s expected isn’t taught in school. That’s why you color INSIDE the lines. You RAISE YOUR HAND to ask a question. You NEVER do extra homework unless you’ll get ‘extra credit’ in return.

Your employees aren’t gonna know what to tell people about ANYTHING unless you instruct them on what to say and how to say it!

NEVER forget who’s writing the paycheck and what you’re writing it for!

With life as fast paced as it has become, accurate thinking often falls to the way side. In this clip, Mr Hill stresses the importance of thinking before you act. Great success principle.

Ever spend hours on a project, new product, or service only to find that it doesn’t sell squat? Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

You poured HOURS of your time and energy into crafting, creating, and really making something that YOU were proud of! And no one wanted to buy it?

What’s wrong with people?

It’s not the people that are the problem – it’s you. You’re overthinking it. You’re trying to hard to make something that YOU want. Something that YOU think is nice. Something that suits YOU best.

And you’re wrong.

Because you aren’t in business to do/create/craft/come up with something that YOU want. (Granted, it makes the business more fun if you enjoy the same thing as your customers – but YOU aren’t your customer!)

YOU are in BUSINESS to do/create/craft/come up with what THEY (the customer) want.

Here’s a prime example, taken from a recent episode of Spongebob Squarepants. Plankton (the little green guy in the video) is trying to come up with a slogan to get people into his restaurant, the Chum Bucket. Patrick (the village idiot) doesn’t get it:

See what I mean?

It doesn’t have to make sense to you. It doesn’t have to be something YOU want.

It just has to provide a product or service that makes people want to buy from YOU. That’s all that matters. It’s the only way to keep score.

Go back and re-read some of your past marketing material and count how many times you mention yourself, your product, or your company in the material.

Now guess how many times the customer is mentioned? (And if the customer IS mentioned, it’s probably something like “You won’t believe how great we are at…” – you can’t count that as referencing the customer if you follow it by talking about yourself!)

Remember, your customer listens to the world’s most popular radio station – WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Talk to them on THEIR level, and you’ll win every time!

Napoleon Hill,Walt Disney and Henry Ford both had multimillion dollar ideas using their creative imagination which Napoleon Hill describes here in this discussion on creative vision.
Today, creative imagination is the method successful companies are reinventing themselves.

Napoleon Hill wrote in Think and Grow Rich that with every adversity comes the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

Enforce Self-Discipline
•Self-discipline is the process that ties together all your efforts of controlling your mind, your personal initiative, positive mental attitude and controlling your enthusiasm.
•Self-discipline makes you think before you act.
•The subconscious has access to all departments of the mind, but is not under the control of any.
•If you don’t discipline yourself, you are sure to be disciplined by others.
•Without self-discipline, you are as dangerous as a car running downhill without brakes or steering wheel.

Control Your Enthusiasm
•To be enthusiastic-act enthusiastically!
•Enthusiasm is to progress toward success as gasoline is to a car’s engine. It is the fuel that drives things forward.
•Enthusiasm stimulates your subconscious mind. By feeding your conscious mind with enthusiasm, you impress upon your subconscious that your burning desire and your plan for attaining it are certain.
•Enthusiasm is a state of mind. It inspires action and is the most contagious of all emotions.
•Enthusiasm is more powerful than logic, reason, or rhetoric in getting your ideas across and in winning over others to your viewpoint.

Build a Positive Mental Attitude
•A Positive Mental Attitude is the single most important principle of the science of success, without which you cannot get the maximum benefit from the other sixteen principles.
•Success attracts success and failure attracts more failure.
•Your mental attitude is the only thing over which you, and only you, have complete control.
•A Positive Mental Attitude attracts opportunities for success, while a Negative Mental Attitude repels opportunities and doesn’t even take advantage of them when they do come along.
•A positive mind finds a way it can be done… a negative mind looks for all the ways it can’t be done.

Create Personal Initiative
•It is better to act on a plan that is still weak than to delay acting at all.
•Procrastination is the archenemy of personal initiative.
•Personal Initiative:
is contagious
succeeds where others fail
creates work
creates opportunity
creates the future
creates advancement
•Procrastinators are experts in creating alibis.
•Personal initiative is the inner power that starts all action.

Your personality determines if people are attracted to or shy away from you. It distinguishes you from other people and draws like minded people to you.