Practical Lessons in Product Development and Marketing That I Learned In Laos

I arrived to Luang Prabang, Laos in late 2017, the city colored with french architecture and calm sensations driven by the country's Buddhist heritage. Set along the Mekong River I travel by long boat to work, admiring the force of the river current as it pulls us downstream. Each day, the boat driver takes a different route determined by the river flow and the rises and falls of the water levels. The tropical characteristics of this place are center stage to everyone who travels here - palm trees, lush forest and rolling green hills abound. This is paradise, and it's where I've come to turnaround a struggling social enterprise.

Ten years prior, a visionary Dutchman with creative spirit and a knack for the arts decided to start the country's first botanical garden. He worked tirelessly for years to collect, study and showcase plants native to Laos. In a country where 70% of plants have not been studied, Pha Tad Ke Botanical Garden has tremendous potential to position itself as a contributor to ecological research and a national leader in plant conservation.

It was our second year open to the public. Our revenue failed to cover our expenses. Days into my second week the founder left country for vacation in Bali. I was on my own co-managing 50 staff and leading product, marketing and sales in a country and market I knew little about. Here's what I did:

My first 30 days was all about learning. I met with travel agencies. I became friends with workers of restaurants, hotels and tourism sites. I spent quality time with staff. I interacted with every customer. How did they hear about us? What was their opinion coming in? What did they like about their experience? Where did they see opportunity for improvement? When people asked for recommendations did they mention us? Why or why not? There was an intense focus on forging those relationships, inquiring and listening. Information gathering was the pivotal tool I used to strategically plan and develop products. What I learned was crucial.

80% of all of our customers heard about us from Trip Advisor. 90% of all of our revenue came from walk-ins and word of mouth. 80% of our revenue came from the sale of one tourism product. Customers didn't appreciate our high prices. They compared it to similar tourism products they could access for much lower prices. Armed with this information we forged a plan.

1. Determine how we could improve our #18 ranking on tripadvisor
2. Make our #1 selling product so good that customers don't question pricing
3. Implement marketing strategy to achieve explosive growth in our B2C channel

Here's what we did:

Trip Advisor Ranking: I learned the Trip Advisor algorithm. Quality of reviews matter. Quantity of reviews matter. Recency of reviews matter. Influence of the reviewers matter. I put in place a point-of-sale email collection system at our front desk and asked every customer for their email. It became a communication ritual for our front desk coordinators to gather that information and be accountable to it. Every day we went through the list. How many people visited? How many emails did we receive? If we didn't get emails why? How could we approach that conversation better to improve our conversions? We championed a mindset of continuous improvement and here's what happened:

We got hundreds of emails in the first month. We measured daily. We reached out personally to every visitor thanking them for visiting. We requested a review on trip advisor. In 60 day, we went from #18 to #2 for the best tourism destinations in Luang Prabang, Laos. We responded to every review. We made trip advisor a core focus of our work, and it helped drive 150% YOY revenue growth for the business. We focused on the part of our business that mattered most and asked "how can we do this even better?" It's the question we asked ourselves every day. Be tenacious. Be kind. Be clear on your goals and track them like your survival depends on it, because it does.

Product Improvements: A boat ride, a walking stroll through our medicinal plant garden, an optional hike to overlook the Mekong River. Was this enough? A majority of our customers didn't think so. Price didn't appear to be a barrier. Yet it was easy for them to compare to similar experiences that were 20% of the cost. Instead of saying "those aren't our customers" we said " these are our customer and we need to deliver more value to them".

We served them tea while they waited. We delivered cold refreshing towels to them and a glass of water when they arrived. We taught our staff how to be more kind, compassionate and welcoming to our visitors. We offered conservation talks by our botanist and scientific staff. We delivered more handicraft sessions. I made time to get personal with customers. We looked all around us and asked "where are there gaps or opportunities for enhancing the user experience?"

We started receiving less reviews that indicated price as a point of concern. A focus on continuous improvement once again prevailed, and now it was about figuring out how else we could grow our customer base. Here is one tactic we used:

Grassroots Marketing: I looked around Luang Prabang and identified four locations where there was a very high volume of customers: Phousi Mountain, Bamboo Bridge, the temple in the center of town, and the night market. I asked our team a few questions.

"What if we could hand out discount coupons at all of those locations? What if those coupons could be provided to every customer who purchases a ticket from those destinations? What if we paid the front desk people for every 100 coupons they distributed? What if we tracked their success by putting their initials on their coupons so we can understand our return on investment?" Because most of these sites were run by the government we needed government approval.

We negotiated a deal with the Minister of Tourism and got approval to carry out this initiative. We visited these sites every day to observe, learn and thank our partners. After the first month, we realized that for every $5 we spent we earned $75. We scaled up this activity to drive revenue growth, and this became a key activity for us to reach more customers.

If you want to create great products you have to take a boots on the ground approach to understanding customer needs. You need to obsess about listening. You need to focus on what's working. Make everything you do better. Improve the experience every day like your survival depends on it. Do the hard things. Continue learning. This, I've discovered, is key to helping you reach new heights and achieve excellence.

Be healthy,

Dave