Why Should Customers Bother? Mike Dias talks brand building in pro audio

Pro audio executive Mike Dias explores the best ways that pro audio companies can build their brand…

What’s the best way to build your brand? In this day of constant noise and overexposure, this is the central question facing all sales and marketing teams. And the answer is as relevant for artists and engineers as it is for gear manufacturers.

We live in a time beyond overabundance — in the age of überabundance — where everything we could ever want is less than one click away; where the algorithm serves up our anticipations ahead of our needs. There are more goods and services available to us than ever before from an endless supply of artists and manufacturers. Amazon is a flawless distribution center for goods bought in bulk on Alibaba and for music made for and curated by robots.

So a more meaningful way to ask the same question is: How on earth are you ever supposed to stand out from the crowd? Or more importantly: How do you telegraph that you are worth someone’s time and attention?

HOW CAN YOU CONVINCE ANYONE TO CARE?

It turns out there are a lot of ways. And while the knee-jerk reaction is always about quality — assuming that people are bound to care if you make and offer a great product — that’s not always true. There are plenty of great products that don’t sell and plenty of great companies and artists that fold because they couldn’t find a viable market.

Don’t get me wrong, quality is important but it is not the main driver. I started off in this business by selling $1,000 headphones to pop stars and audiophiles, and while I wholeheartedly believe that the value those products delivered was 100% worth the sticker price, the market got flattened and decimated when a Chinese knock-off brand became available on Amazon for twenty dollars. Look, there is no way that a $20 in-ear monitor compares to a $1,000 dollar in-ear monitor in terms of quality or performance. But is the $1,000 in-ear really 50 times better? No. Not even close. And that would be a ridiculous argument to even try to make. Price trumps quality almost every time. This explains why YouTube is the largest music streamer in the world; it is very hard to compete against free.

But even giving things away for free doesn’t ensure that you capture attention. Because there are a whole lot of people and companies willing to give you everything for free. They’re hoping that you stick around long enough for them to figure out how to monetize you later on. And sometimes that works brilliantly. Most times, it doesn’t. Because you are still competing for attention against everyone and everything else.

HOW CAN YOU STAND OUT?

How can you ever possibly compete for attention? Well… this is where it gets funny and ironic. Because with all of the advances in technology and with all the marketing tools available to us now — the things that will actually help you stand out are the things that you can not automate, the things that you can not fake, and the things that simply just don’t scale. This is where authenticity and personality and service come into play.

Word of mouth is still the number one driver for sales and marketing. Which means that how you treat people is how you stand out. How you treat people is how you grow. And it’s not just you. It matters how everyone in your entire organization treats people — not just your customers — but your partners, your suppliers, your vendors, your contractors and your employees.

People talk. There are no secrets. Everything that you and your team do is dissected and picked apart on some forum somewhere. And no one wants to do business with someone that they do not like. There are simply too many other choices available and your customers’ loyalty is not a given.

Loyalty has to be earned at every touchpoint; again and again and again. You must be flawless in your approach as an organisation and if you do not put service first as a leading cultural value, you will lose your customers and fans to someone who will happily take them from you. Loyalty is as fleeting as your customers’ attention span and it can only be earned on a one to one human level.

So a better way to talk about ‘brand’ is to talk about relationships. Rather than talking about building your ‘brand’, you would be much better served to ask your teams how they are growing their relationships. And the way to judge this relationship building is by thinking about and understanding how many new fans or customers each existing customer is bringing you each year. How do you judge and gauge the power of your word of mouth marketing efforts through your service excellence?

Since I sell fairly expensive pro audio gear, I use a conservative benchmark. I expect each customer to bring me two new opportunities every year. And my numbers track to this. If you offer more economical goods or services, those numbers should be higher. (If you offer free services, those numbers should be MUCH higher.) And if you are selling more expensive items, you should expect that ratio to be lower.

FOCUSING ON WORD OF MOUTH

When you and your team focus on measuring word of mouth, you will be forced to think about your levels of service and how you treat everyone in a different light. And when you ask your customers and partners the right questions in the right ways, you will hear and learn how poor service choices have cost you many accounts — accounts that no longer bear exponential fruit.

How you respond to those honest answers will in turn impact how long-lasting this service-first mentality will last within your organization. If you think that you know more than your customers or if you challenge what they are telling you, then you do not have the right internal team in place for a service-first led organization. But that's a larger discussion for a different article.

For now, I’ll share one last timely tip since the holidays are just around the corner. If you want to critically judge just how well you treat your partners, vendors, suppliers, and contractors — look around your office this next month. How many holiday cards did you get? How many fruit baskets got delivered? How many cakes and sweets got sent? What’s it look like in your breakroom?

Because if it’s not overflowing with holiday cheer and gifts from your team members, then take that as a sign that you have a lot more work ahead of you and ask yourself this basic question: “If you can’t stand out as someone worthy of your team’s time and attention and if you can’t convince even your own partners to care, then why would you expect your fans to bother.”

Mike Dias writes and speaks about Why Nobody Likes Networking and What Entertainers Can Teach Executives. He is one of the few global leaders in Trade Show Networking and he helps companies maximize their trade show spend by ensuring that their teams are prepared, ready, and able to create and close opportunities. This column will be an ongoing monthly feature because Mike loves talking shop and is honored to give back to the community. If this article was helpful and useful in any way, please reach out anytime at Mike Dias Speaks and let Mike know about what you want to hear more about next time.

You can read Mike's piece on how to achieve great product placement in pro audio here.