Being a "Best Kept Secret" in business is not a good thing.

The best way to go from "Secret" to "Known" is to focus on a specific community/group of people you'd like to be known with. "Everyone" isn't going to know or even care about you. "Everyone" can't and probably won't be your customer. But you can offer something of value for your niche audience and engage them in your success. You can "own" a segment of the market. Word of mouth grows faster and relationships grow stronger within a niche community.

Some businesses have a very natural niche--like Fairview Gardens (Sauk Rapids, MN) clearly focuses on the gardening community. But they also carved out two other small niches within that large community: 1) beginner gardeners by offering classes/events for them and having staff on hand to help people of all gardening abilities. and 2) families looking for fun activities together. Combined with the general garden lovers of the community, Fairview grew fast and furious by focusing on a few key targeted communities and treating those communities like gold. They offer so much value for those niche communities, that the people in the groups cannot help but sing Fairview's praises from the rooftops.

And then there are businesses who do not have an obvious niche and end up creating one for themselves. Fiskars scissors is a national brand example. They worked with Brains On Fire (shout out to Spike!) to identify and focus on building their brand within one specific community: Scrapbookers. They engaged scrapbooking fanatics across the country, recruited them as ambassadors and treated them like royalty. The scrapbooking community responded by opening their arms and blogs to the wonders of the Fiskars brand.

What niche do you serve? What small community of connected people are you focused on or could you be focused on? What do you offer them that no one else does? Have you treated them like royalty? Have you brought a group of those people together recently to share your Vision with them and get their feedback?

What are you waiting for? Afraid the secret will get out?

Are your customers "Satisfied"? I hope not!

Satisfaction:
So, as long as you perform within the lines of basic customer expectations, you're doing "Fine"; people are "satisfied". You're doing your job and meeting basic customer expectations. How many businesses are comfortable right here? Become complacent? They say things like:

"Our customers all like us. They tell us we're doing a good job."

"I'd bet 99% of our customers are happy with us."

"No one ever complains, we're obviously doing something right."

Ahem. I'm calling your bluff.

Because no one makes everyone happy all the time. And of course, unless you're actively soliciting feedback and allowing some degree on anonymity, then you're not getting accurate feedback.

But the real point here, is so what if they're "Satisfied" ?!?! "Satisfied" doesn't inspire much of anything--certainly it does not EVER inspire word of mouth! You never hear a consumer or business saying "Oh my gosh! You HAVE to check out this business! They met my expectations!"

"Satisfied" is not Satisfactory for businesses anymore. We need to go above the line of satisfaction and really delight our customers. Daily. In this economy and going forward, having "Satisfied" customers means you have customers who care not loyal and who could be wooed away by a competitor.

Are your customers "Satisfied"??

What if you pretended everything was fine. Better than fine? Good, even? And you made good, well planned decisions because you have every intention of being around next year, in 5 years, in 10 years? What if instead of panicking, you and your staff buckled down and worked smarter instead of harder? What if this new "crisis" inspired new ideas and afforded new opportunities rather than worry and depression? What if you looked ahead to the upswing and positioned your company to take advantage of the opportunities that are almost gauranteed to come?

Don't worry, this isn't a "Socialist" post :) This is about the wealth of knowledge held in the heads of your staff. I'm working with a client with around 40 employees and very rarely do those staff members ever network with each other and share their ideas and knowledge. Intentionally share your knowledge within your own business and everyone will benefit. If you have an intranet, post ideas, book recommendations, and success stories. Start talking to each other and see the wealth (of knowledge) grow within your own company.

shhhh . . .don't tell Dell, but they have REAL employees out in the "wild" talking to customers! Actually, I'm fairly certain they know about it. I'm sure they talk to people they run into at the store, etc., but they also have purposely placed their employees online in different forums (like Twitter) to interact and talk with real consumers. like me! What a brilliant way for us to build relationship with Dell (or, with John B and Kara K at Dell specifically).

Mack Collier does a great job talking about Dell building relationships via their employees and the relationship is about the people (not the Brand): http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2008/11/people_dont_want_to_connect_wi.html
(but I have to say I'm personally impressed with a Brand like Dell who is so purposeful in their accessibility)

I had my own personal experience with that today. John Blain, Consumer & Gaming Liaison for Dell answered a personal email from me (a confused Mom trying to purchase a Dell for her game-savvy son). I connected with John via Twitter (follow him @Dell_John_B ). I sent him all my questions and he took time to answer them thoroughly and offer me real options! I felt cared for! and he managed NOT to make me feel dumb (easy to do when dealing with me and technology).

So, translating the lesson for smaller businesses--are your employees (and you) out there and accessible to your customers? Are you actively engaging them in dialogue and making yourself available? Where could you physically be to make yourself accessible? Where could you virtually be? (online)

Check back here for a NEW BLOG site soon where you'll be able to subscribe!! (so I can better interact with YOU :)

and you can follow me on Twitter @tarabuzz