A lot of people have been asking me to give a little detail as to how New Harbor Design works and why we provide the services we do.

First let me explain what New Harbor Design is and why we are different from every other marketing company out there.

New Harbor Design is a design and marketing service company. This means that we provide a wide array of services to help you with your marketing and design projects and achieve your ultimate sales goals. That sounds pretty generic. Let’s get into it a little deeper…

New Harbor vs. well…Everybody

Okay so how are we different from “Joe Shmo Flashy Web Design?” Simple.

Joe wants to sell you every service under the sun and wants to charge you a ton for each individual service. He doesn’t understand that you have a budget and, though you want or need everything he offers, your budget just doesn’t allow for that.

We know you need a ton of different services and in order to be successful you need to implement them consistently on a weekly, often daily, basis. We also know you can’t afford to do this! So we made it affordable for you. For one price you can have access to everything we offer and as many times as you need it. With us, you get the fun of owning an entire marketing and design department without any of the liability and hassle.

The Owner Operator Conundrum

You know you need marketing. You can’t afford not to market your business. Small to mid-size businesses, especially owner operated ones, first look to market their business themselves…in their spare time.

Spare time marketing equals spare time results.

But you have to market in your spare time because you can’t afford to spend your precious work hours on anything other than running your business. Plus, you can’t afford to pay or even manage employees in order to market your business. Even more, every company specializes in so many different things, it would be a full time job just to manage all of the different marketing companies out there!

The Options: Pros and Cons

Until now there were only two options if you wanted to have someone else handle your marketing and design needs. First, you either hired a staff, managed them, trained them, and paid them. You dealt with workers comp, human resource issues and you still ended up working just as hard as before. Or, you hired a web design company and a social networking person, an email marketing company and maybe even a printer designer. You then would have to deal with all of their different requirements, their schedules, their deadlines, their invoices and you still end up spending more time managing them then you should.

Notice I said, until now…

The New Harbor Solution

It is so simple: One Fee, One Contact, No Hassle, No Stress. We just do it. For one affordable monthly fee you get an entire design and marketing team. But you don’t have to manage them. You only have to deal with one person, in most cases it’s me Adam, the owner (me). That means you have an accessible professional who knows how to market businesses like yours and who will always make himself available to discuss your needs.

Adam is very detailed and consistent with his work. He is very passionate about what he does and the quality he puts forth. -Rick, C9 Balloons

Still not sure? That’s fine. Just email me or give me a call. I am more than happy to discuss anything you need.

Don’t forget, we want things to be simple with no hassle and no stress so you are not going to get some pushy polished sales presentation. You just get quality work with good people at an affordable price.

Wow, we’ve spent the last couple years devoting all of our time to the challenges of a bad economy. “Downsizing” and “bankruptcy” have been on the lips of everyone from news anchors to home based business owners. At times it has seemed insane to try and start a company in the middle of this economic wasteland. Even crazier, why would you prepare for growth?

My fellow business owners here in California and I have a saying,”if you can run your business in California, you can run it anywhere.” That’s a sad but very true statement. California is one of the worst states to start a business in. There is so much opportunity but the cost sometimes outweighs the potential. Throughout this recession I’ve added to the slogan saying, “if you can grow a business in this recession, you can grow it any time.”

Our flagship company, New Harbor Design is growing daily and we are even strategizing and planning for rapid expansion in the very near future. I’m always reluctant to tell people this as I don’t want to “jinx” the company or get our hopes up. Even more I don’t want to come off as arrogant or, worse, stupid if we don’t expand. I’ve second guessed spending the energy on growth questioning whether we should keep going and then just cross that bridge when we get to it. Regardless, we’re still planning for growth.

Today I got an e-mail from my favorite business magazine, Entrepreneur. I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed a new article “9 Ways to Prepare for Growth and Success.” This piece was very encouraging as I’m not alone in planning for growth. Even better, a lot of the tips they give are already on our list which makes me feel that we’re on the right track.

Take a moment and look over their tips. Are these suggestions on your list for growth? I looked down the list and created a mental report card both for my company and for the companies I’ve worked for in the past who have not faired so well during their growth. It is astounding how much these mere suggestions play a huge role in success and failure so much so that I would not refer to them as “tips” but rather “laws” for proper growth.

Check it out. It’s important.

I’ve been meaning to share this link with everyone for awhile now. Online Marketing Trends posted an article on the top five reasons brands fear social media. It’s really interesting and it makes a lot of sense to me.

I’ve talked to a lot of my clients over the last couple of years and all of them have some reason why they are NOT online. When it all boils down, the main reason I’m finding, other than lack of time, is that they just don’t understand it. They don’t get how it works for their business and they just can’t see the point in spending energy on it. At times I see where they are coming from.

I’ve written before about how you must really understand social media in order to make a major impact. Every one of the five reasons listed in this article can be successfully dealt with easily as long as you have a firm understanding if the medium.

I’m reminded of that old saying, though I’m sure it never was meant for social media, “people fear what they don’t understand.” Well it applies here. You’ll never know that your brand will survive and even thrive in social media until you learn to understand it.

Dan Zarrella is always full of in depth studies. His website danzarrella.com is like a living text book on social media. I was digging through the archives today and came across his study on the click through rates (CTR) of links posted on Twitter. I’ll let Dan explain…

Tweet Much? Don’t Expect a High CTR. New data I’ve been working on seems to indicate that the more frequently you Tweet links, the fewer clicks you’ll get.

His post really goes into the details of why this is. I’ve often said, with no real data to back me up, that people posting endless links for their products won’t get them a valid ROI. This seems to back me up a little.

If you want your Tweet to get noticed and ReTweeted, you should slow down your posting rate.

If you’ve got a moment, his post is really worth a read.

I absolutely love vector art. Adobe Illustrator has got to be one of the best programs ever made and the talent of the people using it keeps growing.

Smashing Magazine has a list of some amazing illustrations from around the world. Be sure to check them all out.

Here are some of my favorites.

Yesterday, we learned that “finding the pain” with your customers could mean a huge difference in your overall customer experience. I even provided you with some working examples on how other companies are doing this.

Today, I want to quickly sum things up and discuss how you actually “find the pain.”

The best way to do this it to simply have a conversation. Talk with your customers. You could even implement a survey in order to get a large sampling with very little effort. However, I have found that actually talking with your customers takes things a step further and even earns some customer loyalty in return. At New Harbor, we do both. We send a quarterly survey to our clients asking them to provide us with feedback. But, “how can we make things better, or even more fun” is always a part of ongoing client conversations.

Ask your customers what they don’t like about buying from you. Do they feel that the sales reps are not knowledgeable? Are the people who answer the phone too eager to get the sale? Is it too cold in the office? What is their pain? At first they may think there isn’t one. After all, they came in didn’t they? But probe a little. What is the “bummer” in their whole buying experience? The “bummer” is the subtle weakness in their time with you. It’s the fact that they found what they wanted easily on the shelf but had to wait in line too long to buy it. Or, the staff was friendly, but you could tell that they had a lot going on and just wanted to get you on your way so they could get back to what was on their list. See, it doesn’t have to be something huge like the examples I gave yesterday. It just has to be…well..a bummer.

One example I may find when surveying this website is that “the content is great and relevant, but I have to set aside a lot of time to read it because the posts are too long.” See, not the end of the world but it’s a bummer.

It is important to note that you don’t want to ask just one customer. If you do this, you’ll end up changing the thermostat for the old lady who’s cold and forcing the rest of your clientele to sweat. Talk to everybody.

Also, talk to your staff. What are some things that they are seeing in your company? Are they finding that there are a lot of customers that are bored by how long it takes to write up an order? Maybe they don’t have a lot of the answers when their customers have questions. It is important to get a lot of opinions from both your staff and your customers.

Now that you’re armed with a list of “pains,’ head over to your competitors’ place. Watch their clients. Do they look to be experiencing the same pains as yours? Why or why not? If they aren’t having these issues start to see how you can implement similar strategies. I’m not telling you to copycat your competitors but it is kind of hard to create a better experience than them if you have a worse one already. Use this time to level things out before trying to take the lead.

In the end, it is all about subtle changes. You don’t need to make sure everyone that walks into your office gets greeted with champagne and caviar. Find out what’s bumming them out and fix it. That could make all the difference.

The other day I wrote about Virgin America’s customer experience and how customer experience can make a huge difference in your company’s success. I’ve received a lot of great feedback regarding that post so thank you the people who commented, e-mailed or even tweeted it to someone else.

In response, people have noted that the best customer experiences seem to be in high end markets. True, largely there are the hotels that cost $500 or more a night or the airlines that cost twice as much as the others. But there are many companies who are improving customer experience regardless of their price point. Believe me when I say that customer experience doesn’t have to be expensive. It just has to be thoughtful.

Recently I’ve given a lot of thought to the idea of customer experience specifically about how I could improve it within my own company. Like anything in business, starting is the hardest part.

So how does someone start to improve the buying experience for their customers? It’s easier than you think.

Finding the Pain

Starting Your Customer Experience: Finding the Pain

The easiest way to uncover a possible area for improvement is to find the pain. What area is the biggest pain in the @$$ for your customers. You may be saying “our customer like us, their coming into our stores aren’t they?” Believe me when I say that it doesn’t mean anything.

If they are coming into your store then your marketing works. If they are telling everyone about your store and going out of their way to stop by, then your customer experience works.

Here in Southern California there are three, of many, stores that I’m obsessed with and always like to stop by. Note: I’m obsessed with them and I always like to stop by. Read the above quote, then read this paragraph again. What do you think makes me want to do that? Customer experience! Sure, product and price play a role from time to time but trust me, it’s the experience.

Store One: IKEA Now, there are a lot of things about IKEA, and I could devote a whole website to this brand, but I’ll just give you a couple examples of “finding the pain.” First, they have successfully implemented a supervised play area for children. Basically, a daycare. Customers at IKEA, usually couples or parents, spend hours walking the large display floor trying to decide what items they want to purchase in order to decorate their home. The display floor alone is a big part of the experience but it would be ruined if you had your toddler hanging on your arm; begging you to leave. The play area alleviates this pain and allows parents to shop and even have some quiet time together. When I was a kid, you just cracked the window of the car but I guess things have changed.

The second pain they’ve alleviated is my favorite (probably because I don’t have kids). Everybody has been to a store and had to deal with the shopping cart with one crappy wheel. The worst is when you get one where the whole cart vibrates and rattles. Not at IKEA. They spent extra money on shopping carts and it shows. Each wheel is heavy duty and rolls as smooth as possible. I’m not kidding when I say it drives smoother than my car and I’m positive these are the carts we’ll use in Heaven.

Simple pains but, if alleviated, these can make a huge difference.

Store Two: Whole Foods Whole Foods is amazing for many reasons. They always have the freshest produce – and what about the meat? I used to think words like “organic” and “free range” were used so they could charge more but it tastes way better. So, besides product, where’s the experience? It’s in the people. Everyone who works at Whole Foods is very friendly. It is as if they actually want to be there. When I’m running errands I am not much of a people person. But, regardless of the mood I’m in when I arrive, I always leave Whole Foods happy. It’s just a vibe you get. Again, it all comes down to experience.

Store Three: Apple The grand champion of finding the pain. Their products have always been about experience. They’ve found a number of problems and solved them all better than their competitors. There is even this legend where, the night before the first iPod launched, Steve Jobs was frustrated with how stiff the “click” was when you inserted the ear buds into the jack so the team had to spend the entire night filing them down. True or not, that is how much they care about experience and satisfaction.

For the sake of this article, the area I’m going to discuss is not their products, but their stores. Like most people my age, I live on the internet. I buy all my gifts online and most of the stuff in my home was bought online at some point. I’m even trying to convince my wife to let us buy our groceries on the internet so I don’t have to leave the couch on Saturdays. However, the one store I will willingly choose to buy from in person is an Apple Store. In fact, I’m sure I can find some of my Apple products cheaper online but I always make the 20 minute or more drive to my nearest Apple store. Why, because I enjoy the experience.

One of the many pains they’ve alleviated is the whole checkout situation. When buying electronics, or any product that has a personal sales cycle, the frustration is when you work with a sales rep and, once you’ve decided to purchase the product, you’re sent to a checkout line where you are forced to wait even longer. This is always a pain, especially during the holidays. The Apple store has removed this all together. If anything, it’s just like an online checkout process: decide to buy, purchase, leave. How do they do this? Once you have decided to buy a product, the rep grabs a handheld (I think they’re using iPod touches now) device and checks you out. You pay right there in the store without ever waiting in line. Again, they found a pain and took care of it.

Ironically, Starbucks made it big because of their customer experience. However, their grand size has now altered the experience. When I think of Starbucks now, I think of waiting in line. Maybe, if Starbucks implemented a similar ordering process to Apple, things could be different.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll discuss ways you can find actual pains in your customer’s experience. Stay tuned…

Okay, this week we’ve got a completely random assortment of things from the web.

We’ve got really good beadspreads, geeky apology cards and luxury toiletries in 3oz increments.

Let’s dive in shall we?

Best of the Week: Unique Bedspreads

Check these out when you get a chance. Here are some really cool bedspread sets to really get your geek on. I doubt I’ll be buying these anytime soon but it’s a fun idea for those of you who want to “cool” up the futon in your apartment, or as others call it “mom’s basement.”

Coolest Niche Store Idea

Here is an awesome idea for a business. Those of you who are frequent travelers will know the frustration of either settling for crappy toiletries from the WalMart travel section or trying to pour your nice shampoos and soaps into one of the empty 3 oz bottles they sell. Well 3floz.com has come to your rescue. To quote their website, “3floz.com is an online boutique offering TSA approved beauty products.” This is a really cool idea. Check it out.

Awesome Still Life Photos

Check out the Horatio Salinas Still Life Photography Collection over at Trend Hunter. The photo below is my favorite of the gallery.

Stationary for Geeks

Here is a collection for the rare few of us who are both nerdy and like stationary. Ok maybe that’s the same thing. Oh well. Check it out.

Okay, that’s it for this week. Enoy!

Okay, normally something like this would be reserved for Sundry Saturday but I’m not really in the mood to write about marketing today. Plus this kind of intrigued me and grossed me out at the same time.

‘Chicago Now’ posted a gallery of the 15 strangest beer flavors in the world. If you’re not very familiar with me yet, you don’t know that I am a huge beer lover. No, not in the “we need to make sure he gets to a meeting” sort of way. But I would say that I am a beer enthusiast and, frankly, a beer snob. I love everything about it, the science, the art, the craftsmanship, the taste…all of it. And, more than anything, I like trying beers I’ve never had before. On any given weekend, my poor wife is forced to wait while I browse every shelf at our grocery store in search of something new to try. Sometimes it is a regrettable choice but sometimes I get a new favorite out of it. It’s fun to me. I’m a beer geek I guess.

That being said, there are some flavors on this list that I probably couldn’t bring myself to try. Some, though labeled as weird, sound good like the Chocolate Donut Stout or the Espresso version (chocolate and espresso make sense in stouts anyway so it’s not that weird). I even saw a couple on the list that I’ve tried already. But then there’s the weird ones.

Ever try Wasabi Dry ale? I don’t like Japanese beers anyway but wasabi? Ouch. I’d rather have a mild sake bomb with my ahi but thanks. And then there’s the dog beers. Yeah, I had to read that twice too. These beers are made with “USDA choice meat” and other ingredients that enhance your dog’s coat.

Yeah, I’m weirded out now too. Though there are a few on the list I’d like to try, reading all these makes me think I’ll just pick up a case of Guinness Extra Stout at the store tonight instead.

My newest “Twitter Friend” @izliz wrote a brief article on her experience with Virgin America that’s worth checking out. Note: You have to watch the included video of Virgin’s safety presentation as it is a much needed breath of fresh air for those of us who travel enough to know the normal ones by heart. Yes, I am aware that my nearest exit may be behind me, now let me turn my iPod back on.

I’ve never had the privilege of flying Virgin. They don’t cover a lot of the areas I fly to.  But I have found myself looking on their website in order to see where they fly and what excuse I can have to go there. Cheesy, but it’s true. I’m not alone in this. With airlines like JetBlue and Virgin making that extra effort and airlines like Southwest trying to decide if they can make an extra buck by adding more seats in the baggage compartment, it’s no wonder people are wanting to fly the “actually friendly skies” instead.

I’m so attracted to companies that clearly spend more on customer experience. It seems like every company I run into won’t focus on that aspect of their approach. I understand why, you can’t always get a clear cut ROI from the added investment. If you hire “Jim the Sales Agent” and he sells enough of your product to pay his salary plus increase your profits then you know Jim was a good investment. But, if you add nicer couches in your waiting area and spend more for nicer magazines you won’t know for a fact that it will increase your bottom line. I get it. As  a marketing consultant, I see this every day and I can empathize with a company’s predicament.

But let’s think about this. In the opening paragraphs of this post, I mentioned that I was searching for an excuse to fly Virgin. In fact, in my head, I was having the inevitable conversation with my wife where I have to sell her on spending more for Virgin and flying in to San Francisco instead of in to San Jose to visit her family the next time. It will be a tough sell indeed.

Why do I bring this up? Well…

Who do you know that is trying to come up with an excuse to use your brand? Who do you know that is figuring out what they’ll say to their bosses when they sell them on using your company? Who is writing blog posts about how unique and awesome their experience with you was? That’s my point. Customer experience doesn’t always have a quantifiable ROI but it does actually have an ROI so don’t forget that.

I can’t say this enough. Customer experience turns eager “try-ers” into loyal buyers.

So how do you do this? You don’t have to have a swanky Virgin-esque waiting room but there are things every company can do to make a better experience.

To start, just offer things that your competitors are not. But be sure to keep it within the scope of your company’s image. A termite company is probably not going to want to offer warm face towels and champagne to it’s clients. It doesn’t really make sense. But they could make an effort to make sure that their inspectors are dressed nice, clean shaven, don’t smell bad and even provide them with FAQ brochures to better serve their clients.

Again, it’s all about a little extra effort.

If you know of a company that is providing a great customer experience please send me a comment as I would love to know about them.