ESC San Jose

Great to see so many customers at ESC in San Jose last week on the Pico booth -even customers from our early days of 20 years ago! The display of various scopes, loggers and probes/clamps caught the eye of many engineers and opened the door to some detailed application discussions. For others, the large PicoScope and Saelig banners provided needed brand recognition to passersby. Many people acknowledged familiarity with Saelig and/or Pico Technology, though we were surprised to find more than a few that hadn’t even heard of PC-based scope products -we’ve got additional marketing work to do! We distributed almost the entire supply of Pico datalogger and scope product family brochures.

We spread the available products over the two tables and ended up utilizing a portion of one of the tables to display three new, unreleased touch-panel PCs from our partner Comfile - whose president brought the devices from Korea. .

I canvassed the crowd and drew people in with queries about needs and applications, often tempting them with “healthy anti-oxidants” (Hershey’s chocolates). We had the PicoScope application demo running on a laptop which we used frequently to introduce them to the PicoScope GUI. We were surprised at the number of inquiries for native Mac and Linux s/w. Predictably, quite a few visitors were asking for performance in the range of 500MHz. Always more for less. No surprise, right?

See you at ESC 2010 San Jose?

Saelig staff will be assisting our partners Pico Technology on Stand (1446) at the Embedded Systems Show in San Jose April 27 -9. Come and see Pico's latest PC oscilloscopes and software. And meet some of the Saelig staff members in person! Four other Saelig suppliers will be there at ESC - Byte Paradigm (Digital Signal Generators), WIZnet (TCP/IP ICs), Atmel/Quantum (Touch-sense ICs), and ZeroPlus (Logic Analyzers). We'll also be handing out valuable product coupons to be used on any product at www.saelig.com

10 Things Customers Don't Want To Hear

Bill Lampton in Business Knowhow (http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/donthear.htm) lists of ten of the most common language blunders, with the comments that staff should be making instead:

I "I'm surprised you haven't heard about our product."

Why that's wrong: Sounds condescending, arrogant, and insulting, implying that the prospect is ignorant.

Better statement: "Since you said our product is unfamiliar to you, I'll take a couple of minutes to describe it and answer your questions."

II "That's not my job."

Why that's wrong: Not only do you avoid handling a customer's problem yourself, you offer no solution from anyone.

Better statement: "I know just the person who can help you with that problem, and I'll introduce you to her."

III "Sorry, it's closing time, so I can't talk with you now."

Why that's wrong: Indicates that you work by the clock, not by commitment to customer needs.

Better statement: "As you can see, the store is closing now, but I will be glad to stay around a few minutes until we meet your need."

IV "To schedule delivery, let me see when I'm going to be in your neighborhood next week."

Why that's wrong: Shows that you have your convenience as the decisive factor in scheduling, not the customer's convenience.

Better statement: "Yes, we can deliver this to you next week. What day and time will suit you best?"

V "You're the first person who has complained about our service."

Why that's wrong: Implies that the customer is a grouch and troublemaker, and that your company could not possibly be wrong.

Better statement: "Even though we hear plenty of compliments about our service, we know there's always room for improvement, so I'm grateful that you reported this problem".

VI "Tell me your name again, and what the problem is."

Why that's wrong: Shows that you didn't listen carefully, and this will infuriate a person who is dissatisfied already.

Better statement: "Mr. Adams, as I understood you, your car's air conditioning isn't cooling adequately. Right?"

VII "If you buy this item, you'll help me meet my sales quota for the month."

Why that's wrong: Makes you sound only marginally successful, and reflects that you are using the customer instead of becoming useful for the buyer.

Better statement: "This item has been quite popular this month, and we are hearing good reports from customers who have installed it."

VIII "Walk through that door over there, turn left, take the escalator, and you'll be on the floor where we accept returned merchandise."

Why that's wrong: Many people get confused about directions, and if the customer gets lost, you are adding to her frustration.

Better statement: "Let me tell my manager that I am going to take you to the clerk who can assist you with this returned merchandise."

IX "Gosh, I barely got here--had to drop my dog at the vet, traffic was terrible, and I've got this awful headache."

Why that's wrong: Customers aren't interested in your problems, because they are depending on you to solve their problems.

Better statement: "Good morning, I'm glad to meet you." That's all that you need to say about yourself and how you arrived.

X "That's against our policy."

Why that's wrong: Customers don't want to deal with inflexible bureaucrats, but with sales people who care enough to adjust to unmet needs.

Better statement: "While regulations seem to indicate we can't do this, I believe we can find a way to accommodate your request."

You should never hear any of these from Saelig staff!

Thanks, B.A!!

British Airways held a Face-to-Face competition last year, and I was one of 100 winners of a fantastic prize: 10 business class tickets to anywhere BA flies, with up to 3 intermediary stops. The idea is to boost face-to-face meetings, as opposed to "internet meetings".

I just got back from my first "free" trip, visiting the EmbeddedWorld show in Nuremburg, and CeBIT in Hanover. Then I spent all last week visiting 10 of our UK suppliers, to catch up on news and upcoming products.

Highlights were in the serendipitous conversations amd bonding that occurred while eating and discussing together. It's a true adage that "people buy from people" - meaning that impersonal emails and websites are trumpoed by personal contact.

More exciting, unique products that I saw will appear on our website over the next few weeks. Sign up on www.saelig.com for our newsletter to get the latest as it's announced!

Viral growth trumps faux followers

Seth Godin the internet marketing guru (www.sethgodin.com) says that:

"Many brands and idea promoters are in a hurry to rack up as many Facebook fans and Twitter followers as they possibly can. Hundreds of thousands if possible.

A lot of these fans and followers are worthless. Sunny day friends. In one experiment I did, 200,000 followers led to 25 clickthroughs. Ouch.

Check out the graph attached. The curves represent different ideas and different starting points. If you start with 10,000 fans and have an idea that on average nets .8 new people per generation, that means that 10,000 people will pass it on to 8000 people, and then 6400 people, etc. That's yellow on the graph. Pretty soon, it dies out.

On the other hand, if you start with 100 people (99% less!) and the idea is twice as good (1.5 net passalong) it doesn't take long before you overtake the other plan. (the green). That's not even including the compounding of new people getting you people.

But wait! If your idea is just a little more viral, a 1.7 passalong, wow, huge results. Infinity, here we come. That's the purple (of course.)

A slightly better idea defeats a much bigger but disconnected user base every time.

The lesson: spend your time coming up with better ideas, not with more (faux) followers.

Remote monitoring and control

We've just signed a distribution agreement for North American sales with Remmon Remote Monitoring Ltd. Israel (www.remmon.com). Remmon is a major provider of cellular-based GSM remote monitoring and control of automated systems. They make cost-effective cellular-based remote monitoring devices. Remmon's cellular-based devices are installed in more than 22 countries around the world.

We strive to bring unique, high quality electronic products to American engineers, and Remmon's cutting edge remote-controlled products means that both Saelig and Remmon can expand our market opportunities, while at the same time solving engineering design challenges.