One of the hard truths of business is that you are paid and evaluated on your results, not your effort—a fact that occasionally makes “knocking it out of the park” with pricing feel unattainable. (And job satisfaction, less than desirable.) Particularly for businesses that specialize in custom services (raising my hand; are you as well?), establishing concrete pricing is … [Read more...]
PR 101: Customer Service Counts
Interesting business conversations can crop up just about anywhere—if you're paying attention and know exactly how, and when, to jump in. Such was the case the other day, during an informal meeting with a potential client. Informal, because our entire meeting took place at the checkout counter of her specialty food market. I knew from the start, that there would be … [Read more...]
Buy and Get Out!
As entrepreneurs sometimes we get so preoccupied with making sales that we forget to take care of the customer. Sadly enough that seems to be the rule rather than the exception the bigger the company. I had one such experience with the vendor Verizon Wireless chose to insure their devices. My company moved to Verizon less than a month ago and as a consultant I get paid by the … [Read more...]
Build your Brand by Building Relationships
What better day to mull the topic of relationships than today? After all, the masses (and, you and me) have been at it all week, conjuring up the perfect plan to show their significant other that he/she is special, and taking extra care not to overlook any hidden expectations. I'm trusting you've got that one in the bag, but what about your business relationships? Have you … [Read more...]
Brand journalism 101: Tell a Better Story
If you want your company to succeed at brand journalism (aka corporate media gone social), you better know how to tell a good story. Otherwise, be prepared to take a lot of heat from its critics who would be elated to escort "brand journalism" out of 2013 STAT. Brands, of course, love it, because it enables them to bypass the media and take their message directly to the … [Read more...]
Laws of Attraction – Attracting the People You Want
What kind of people are you attracting? Are you attracting the kind of people you want to work with? Or the contractors you want working for you? When writing on your website, twitter, help wanted ads, whatever it may be; it's important to write for the people you want to read it. If you have everything written in very professional language with a very professional … [Read more...]
Play up your strengths
Focus on your strengths, hand over the rest. We all fall into the trap of thinking we can do it all, or taking on too much. This goes right along with getting help when you need it, but expands upon that thought even more.... make sure you are passing over the right tasks. What are you good at? Maybe you are great at sales, but then dealing with the nitty gritty, … [Read more...]
7 Tips for your E-commerce Store
When we're going into e-commerce, we often forget the basics for what makes a good e-tailing experience work for our customers. Here are seven tips to remember when building and designing your online store: 1) Tell the customer about you. If you have a history, a mission/vision/values statement, or more about the proprietor, make sure to highlight this information. People … [Read more...]
Customer Service Lessons from a Kindergartener
Customer Service, When to Take a Break Another piece of my personal life, but then again, when you work at home, its all personal. I was having a particularly rough day, but had shut the computer for now to go pick up my daughter from school. She got in the car, and I started the now regular routine of drilling her with questions to try and get any piece of information … [Read more...]
Is it Okay to think Customers are stupid?
RyanAir CEO Michael O’Leary made headlines this week when he argued that a customer in Spain deserved to pay $380 for having RyanAir print a boarding pass. He went even further when he said that “all passengers are stupid who think we will change our policies or our fees”. I’ve been thinking about this statement all morning and I can’t shake the bad taste it’s left in my … [Read more...]