5
Educating your partners

THE CREATIVE CHALLENGE:
Using education to build awareness of your product and enthusiasm for how it can benefit customers’ lives

For most businesses, the driving force behind their success is their product. Make an inferior product, a product that is not in step with current trends, or one that people don’t want to buy again, and you have a recipe for disaster. And if you have 86a high-quality product that is in demand, you must make sure the product meets your standards—and your customers’ standards— each and every time it is sold. The same philosophy holds true for the way you convey your message (your mission, your commitment to your customers, your brand positioning) and the way your sales force presents the product benefits and your company.

Education can play a pivotal role in promoting your business and its product. Your education efforts should be aimed at your employees (for their own personal benefit as well as for your business’s benefit), your customers, and the public as a whole.

In this chapter we’ll examine companies that have created a wide variety of educational tools and services and implemented them into their daily operations to increase sales and build stronger distribution networks. Done well, education can help you build a business that matches both your socially responsible goals and your revenue target—without expensive advertising campaigns.

The following Support Strategies are designed to help you educate those connected to your business, which is often a vital step in helping people understand and embrace the value of your product and mission.

SUPPORT STRATEGY NUMBER ONE:
Educate the public about your product and mission and what differentiates them in the marketplace.

To put it simply, educated customers are often better customers. This is not a new concept in the business world, and successful businesses have been practicing it for years. What is important to remember, though, is that as a socially responsible company, you may be selling a product or service that is new to the public (in its design, ingredients, manufacture, or benefits) and may 87be priced higher than similar brands in the industry. For example, Honest Tea products sell for about 20 cents more than rival products. If company cofounder Seth Goldman never talked about his efforts to make the brand organic or to make every facet of Honest Tea’s operation socially responsible, customers would not know and certainly would not understand why his product is more expensive and, most importantly, why it is worth buying.

You can use education in many ways to enhance who you are and what you’re selling. Your business may lend itself to a true educational experience that you can market within your community. This may include developing a program for schools or other youth organizations in your area that educates children about your industry or your particular socially responsible mission. For example, if your mission is about respecting the environment, you could put together an environmental fair for local schools, sponsor an “improve the environment” contest, or organize and facilitate a recycling program involving school children.

You may want to conduct tours of your facility, during which you can educate those attending about your cause and how your product supports it. Special events that involve the community can be an excellent way to promote your mission and brand, and special offers that sell your product and promote your mission can be valuable ways to couple your sales with overall public awareness.

Your Web site is also a powerful tool. Create one that is interesting and interactive and that encourages people to explore. Then promote it and use it. You can put special offers on your site, promote new products, post press releases and news stories, and highlight customers, suppliers, and employees. If your product is food related, you may want to post recipes, hold a recipe contest, or invite people to write in with questions about your product or foods in general. Your Web site is also the perfect place 88to provide background information about ingredients that go into your products or detailed material about your industry. Once you have a great site established, promote it on all of your materials. Today a Web site address is as important as a phone number.

In planning how you can educate the public about your business, think about all of the ways your product touches people. As you meet the public, find out what people might like to know about your product or your industry. Consider ways you can educate them as you help them in some way. For example, holding an environmental essay contest for local schools in which the winners’ essays are published in a local newspaper can generate publicity for you, raise overall awareness about environmental issues, and benefit the winners.

And finally, make use of your own driving passion and expertise about your business. For example, consider writing a book or crafting articles for magazines or newspapers, investigate becoming a guest on a local television or radio program, or talk to colleges and community educational programs about becoming a guest lecturer, seminar leader, or regular instructor.

Championing the Environment Builds Sales

One company that uses education and an assortment of outreach programs to communicate with the public—and build strong relationships with its customers—is Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), based in Vancouver, British Columbia. MEC is Canada’s largest supplier of quality outdoor equipment, with 2.3 million members in 192 countries. MEC has eleven stores across Canada as well as a comprehensive Web store and phone/mail order service. As a co-op, MEC sets its prices to cover costs, not maximize profits. Members are also part owners who vote for the company’s board of directors. According to the Web site, people, not capital, control MEC.²

MEC does not engage in traditional retail marketing tactics in terms of flyers and sales, and because maximizing profits isn’t the objective, prices are kept as low as possible. The company does little advertising in magazines and rarely runs ads in newspapers. According to Peter ter Weeme, chief communications and marketing officer, the vast majority of MEC’s members come to the company by word of mouth and through the reputation of the organization. In fact, one in ten Canadian adults belongs to the co-op, giving the company a substantial market share in the outdoor equipment industry.

“All of the decisions we make as a business are filtered through the lens of social-environmental responsibility,” says Peter. “Our purpose as an organization is to help people achieve the benefits of what we call ‘self-propelled outdoor recreation.’ And that means you have to do the work. In other words, crosscountry skiing versus downhill skiing.” According to Peter, MEC’s business is about getting people outdoors and into nature. The company is committed to acting as a champion of the environment—to educate people about the environment and how to use it. “If we aren’t good stewards of the environment and ensure there are places that people can access in order to practice those activities,” adds Peter, “we’re going to have a real hard time maintaining our relevance.”³

To this end, the co-op aligns itself with organizations in Canada that support its mission, including the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Alpine Club of Canada, Leave No Trace Behind, and the Canadian Recreational Canoe Association. In addition, MEC has created a “Clubs and Groups Strategy” designed to create relationships between the co-op and people who engage in activities for which MEC sells equipment. This philosophy plays a role in reminding people that they can go to MEC for their outdoor recreation equipment.

Because MEC doesn’t do a lot of advertising, its emphasis on partnering with organizations that further its mission, educating the public about conservation, and acting as a socially responsible company in general has paid off enormously in Peter’s eyes, even though MEC cannot determine to what degree people are increasing their frequency of purchase or their size of transaction. However, MEC did some research on its members to look at how much of their connection to the company was based on its products and services and how much was based on the values of the organization. Peter says the researchers discovered that roughly 70 percent of MEC’s members are very strongly attracted to the co-op on the basis of its values.

In addition, the co-op’s actions result in an incredible amount of media attention, which Peter equates to over a million dollars a year in free publicity. And of course, publicity helps identify who you are in the business world. And finally, the co-op’s continual education to the public about its social-environmental values has helped pave the way for MEC’s launch into new markets. Says Peter, “We get people lining up from government levels as well as other business community leaders saying, ‘How can we help you? How can we smooth the path? You’re a great company; we want you in our town. We want you in our city.’ That’s a very different equation than Wal-Mart, for example, which has been beaten out of communities.”⁴

All of this amounts to loyal customers who are educated not only by the co-op’s ongoing social-environmental efforts but also by MEC staff members, who are noncommissioned and trained to provide customers with the information and equipment they need. “There’s a level of respect that takes place between the member and the employee serving them, and that has been an important part of our secret of success, and people respond very well to that,” Peter adds.⁵

SUPPORT STRATEGY NUMBER TWO:
Be clear about what your brand represents and how you want to present it.

For business, the brand can be everything. High-priced advertising agencies spend millions of their clients’ dollars ensuring that their brands are not only visible but clearly defined and uniform. Educating the public with strong brand messages is integral to many advertising campaigns. Chances are you won’t have the dollars to spend on expensive advertising, but you can delineate your brand and make sure it is always presented so customers know who you are and what they are buying each and every time they make a purchase—and that can translate into continued and repeat sales.

Making sure your values are strongly connected to your brand is also an important part of the education process. MEC provides a good example of this concept. According to Peter, the MEC brand is based on four pillars: offering quality gear at the lowest, most reasonable price; carefully training its employees to help co-op members make the right decisions about the gear they need; focusing the co-op’s attention on its social-environmental beliefs; and creating a sense of belonging in that each member is part owner of the co-op and also belongs to a greater community of outdoor recreation enthusiasts. Together, these pillars have built a strong brand and have turned MEC into a company with projected 2006 earnings of about US$180 million.⁶

According to Scott Mayhew, CEO of the image-branding design firm Corsair Studio, based in New York City, “The care in the way you build a brand really needs to be conscious—at the ownership level. And if not, it sort of falls apart. Or it gets more difficult.” Scott believes this is especially critical for startup companies. For new businesses working with design firms, like his, a collaborative effort between the visionaries of the 92company and those helping to shape the brand is important. He feels incremental growth (versus large, fast growth) helps new companies get established, especially if they’re aware of their audiences and strategies. Then as momentum builds, everything will start to click.⁷

Protecting your brand by duplicating it in the same fashion each time it is used and educating the public about your brand are critical factors in building awareness of your product. For example, if you allow other people with whom you are associated (such as partners in a special event) to use the brand on products that you have not created and do not match your quality standards, you run the risk of tainting your brand with inferior merchandise.

A good example of a company that retained its brand’s integrity as the business expanded with new products and distribution channels is Tweezerman.

The Tweezerman Is Here!

Dal LaMagna’s journey to success got a unique, albeit painful, start over twenty-five years ago in California after a zesty encounter with a female friend on a wood sundeck. The episode left him with thirty-two redwood splinters in his rear, and he quickly discovered that he didn’t have the right implement to remove them—he needed a combination tweezer and needle. So he put on his pants and set out to buy one. But none existed, so the splinter removal process was extremely slow (and painful). Fast forward to New York City a few months later where Dal was working at an electronics company. The instrument used to pick up capacitors and diodes was exactly what he had wanted. “I went, ‘Whoa! Where’d you get those things?’ Because, I’d just been so frustrated. You get an idea, and then you go try to find the product, and it’s just impossible.”⁸

Dal started buying the needle-nose tweezers from the European supplier, named them “splinter tweezers,” and began calling on lumberyards and hardware stores. The store buyers doubted that the tweezers would sell, but they agreed to display them. And to their surprise, the product sold. When a friend who owned a beauty salon commented that she could use precision tweezers for shaping eyebrows, Dal found a jeweler’s model that was pointed but not sharp, called them “precision eyebrow tweezers,” and soon had beauty salons clamoring for his tweezers.

Throughout the growth of Tweezerman, Dal kept adding personal grooming tools as he found new customers and needs. But the one element he never fiddled with was the integrity of his brand, and this is the important lesson Dal’s experience provides. “One of the rules I had was I would never split the brand. In other words, Tweezerman is Tweezerman,” he explains. “Everyone kept saying, ‘You have to use a different name when you’re selling in the drugstores because the professional market’s not going to tolerate the product being available in Walgreens.’” Dal solved this problem by creating variations of the name. For example, he had the Tweezerman Professional, Tweezerman Spa, and Tweezerman Limited lines. Each time he developed a new product line, he kept the Tweezerman name so he could continue to build the brand. Even when cosmetic giant Clinique came to Dal for a tweezer it could market, he held firm to this brand dedication. “On the Clinique tweezer, we said, ‘Our name has to be on the tweezer beside theirs so we could focus on the name Tweezerman and stick with the brand.’”⁹

A final comment regarding the name Tweezerman. Dal was repeatedly told he should come up with a name denoting precision and quality—perhaps something Swiss sounding. He toyed with such ideas and even started out by putting his own name on his products. But the day he walked into a beauty salon and 94one of his previous buyers yelled, “The Tweezerman is here!” he knew he had found the perfect name. Even though some people felt he was making a terrible mistake, he stuck to it—to huge sales success. “I tell you,” he adds, “I couldn’t have come up with a better name. It was just too perfect.”¹⁰

Remember that your brand is you —your product, your business, your integrity. As Dal discovered, branding his grooming products and never compromising the brand helped him increase sales and build customer loyalty. Many other companies have built extremely profitable businesses on their brands as well. Their brands tell consumers what to look for, what they are, and what they stand for.

SUPPORT STRATEGY NUMBER THREE:
Educate your employees so they can knowledgeably and enthusiastically share your mission and product benefits.

We’ve all encountered sales staff who sound less than enthused about the products they’re selling. As we pointed out, one of MEC’s strategies is to train its employees thoroughly about the company’s products so they can help customers buy exactly what they need. This helps the co-op’s members feel safe about shopping at MEC, knowing they won’t be confronted with bait-and-switch tactics or be sold an item that doesn’t fit their requirements.

Another way to educate your employees is by giving them more information about your mission and your industry and why you feel your mission is important to building a successful business. If your employees buy into your goals and actions as a company, they are far more likely to pass along your enthusiasm and knowledge to others they encounter—from regular customers 95 to members of the general public who may become customers. And this translates into more effective sales.

You must first determine what makes your product unique and consider how you can train your employees so they can best explain this to your customers. Your unique selling proposition may involve the ingredients you use (or don’t use, if you exclude harmful items that your competitors may include in similar products), the manufacturing process, and even alliances you may rely on in producing or distributing your products (such as Indigenous Designs’ partnerships with NGOs and artisans). Educating your employees effectively is especially critical if your product has a higher price tag than some competitors’ products.

In the following example you’ll learn how one company makes educating its employees a critical component of its sales strategies.

Education Builds Brand Loyalty

According to Dave Knutson, minister of human resources and sustainability at Chaco, Inc., based in Paonia, Colorado, a businessperson can choose from many different business models. “You can be a commodity and try to compete on price, or you can create value,” he says. For the leaders at Chaco, creating value from the beginning and in the customer’s mind that their product is worth a premium allows them to pay their employees decently and treat the planet well.¹¹

By educating your customers, you are giving them valuable information to help them wade through a sea of products and make a decision that is based on quality, integrity, and values instead of price alone. Chaco does very little traditional advertising, but it thoroughly educates its customers by training its employees about the popular sandals. This philosophy results in powerful word-of-mouth “advertising” that has helped the 96 company go from sales out of the founder’s pickup to over $15 million in annual sales today.

The company began in 1989 when founder Mark Paigen decided he could make better river-rafting footwear than the tennis shoes and Velcro sandals that were then on the market. When he began looking for stores that would sell his brand, Mark focused on specialty stores and made sure their staff members knew what made a Chaco sandal different—and worth the price. Chaco has remained loyal to these stores, a strategy Dave feels has gone a long way toward building sales. But even outside the stores that carried Mark’s brand, the sandals were gaining fans among river-rafting guides, which prompted rafters on their trips to ask where they could get them.

According to Dave, the sandals’ high price was quickly offset by satisfied Chaco wearers, including salespeople in the specialty stores. “A customer might comment, ‘Boy, these are awfully expensive! They look pretty simple.’ The salesman will say, ‘Well, we don’t want you to put those on your feet because you’ll have to buy them because, essentially, they feel so good on your feet. For the typical foot, it does great for motion control and cushioning, and just the whole feel of walking in a Chaco is huge.”¹²

According to Dave, a Chaco sandal should fit a certain way. “You know, you don’t just order off the Internet and throw it on your foot. We want people to understand how to adjust the straps and how close their toe should be to the front of the shoe, whether they need a wide or a narrow, and other things that may affect the proper fit.” In addition, Chaco wants people to understand that they are buying durability along with fit and comfort—the sandals tend to last two or three times longer than other sandals.¹³

Dave believes that this attention to quality design and education about the sandal, as well as the company’s loyalty to the 97specialty stores, has been instrumental in driving sales throughout Chaco’s seventeen-year history.¹⁴

SUPPORT STRATEGY NUMBER FOUR:
Educate your distributors so they can better educate your end customer and increase sales.

Getting your product into stores is only part of the process of generating sales. Your product must then be purchased—again and again by the retailers’ customers—for you to be successful. One way to help promote sales in stores is by educating the retailers that are purchasing from you. This requires giving them information about your product and what differentiates it in the marketplace, providing display materials so they can highlight your product, and offering price breaks for ordering in bulk or for a special promotion.

As you consider ways to promote your product to your distribution channel, think about how you connect its unique design, manufacture, or usage features into marketing materials and messages that consistently tell your product’s story. You want your distributors to be familiar with your brand and your product and, hopefully, become excited about what it offers them as retailers. If those in your distribution channel feel really good about the product you’re giving them to sell, and if you give them materials to help them display it, they will do a much better job of placing it in their stores to attract customers’ attention.

The Dirt on Educating Your Distribution Channel

Joy Maples and her husband always intended to sell wholesale. And they try hard to support the retailers through their educational and marketing materials. For example, for Earth Day they choose a few organic T-shirts with messages relevant to the day and make them available as a package, offering a discount for 98the purchase of a certain quantity. They also supply the retailers with a press release designed so they can fill in the blanks and send it to their local media outlets. In addition, Joy sends them point-of-purchase information to be placed on clothing racks that promotes the environment and how Earth Creations clothing is made, from the field to the end consumer, and why it is a quality item.

The press kits the company produces and distributes to the media also drive home the sustainability message. Each kit comes with a little plastic bag of dirt and includes samples of the company’s garment tags, which describe some aspect of the fabric or the production process.

In the opening example we showed you how Joy created a campaign to entice retailers to visit Earth Creations’ booth at trade shows. She focuses on her product’s connection to the earth with each of these promotions, which helps underscore the company’s mission to be environmentally responsible and the reason that Earth Creations clothing is worth buying to retailers and then promoting in their stores.¹⁵

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Making a difference is really what education is all about. You’ve read about many ways and reasons to use education in developing strong sales and effective distribution. What is important is to think about what you can do and how you can carry out your education policies so they make a difference to your sales goals and overall revenue.