29 Dec 09 Giving the Gift of Trust this Holiday Season
The holiday season is a time we all think more about giving: we spend much of our time and money shopping for our loved ones, make sure our business holiday card lists are all in order, donate money or items to charities, and tip any number of service and delivery people. The holiday parties and mixers are a good time to start thinking about giving more to create strategic alliances. I want to make a case that one of the most valuable gifts YOU can give is the gift of trust.
Finding a natural peer group
Strategic alliances are about cooperation over competition, so finding the right peer group should be your first priority. What businesses serve the same customer base as yours, without necessarily competing for the same customer dollars? For example, an attorney whose practice focused on real estate transactions, wills and estates may find attorneys in complementary specialties (such as business and corporate law) at local bar association meetings. He or she may develop relationships through service organizations such as the Rotary, where the members come from different fields but share common interests. Holiday parties hosted by clients are another excellent place to make new business acquaintances who aren’t likely competitors.
In any networking situation, ask open-ended questions that encourage others to speak about themselves and their businesses- the more unusual the question, generally the better answers you will get, and the better conversations you will have. Try to listen more than you speak, and make a note to follow up with anyone of interest. Don’t let the conversation last much longer than ten minutes, and of course, be sure to have a clean hand free to shake with. If possible, make an introduction to someone else that your new acquaintance may find of interest.
Planting seeds of trust
Introductions to potential business allies are only the first step. The seeds of trust must be planted, and this is where a giving nature will shine. It’s not easy to develop trust without assuming some level of risk – why wait? Be the one to take those first steps. Take the risk by investing trust in your new strategic partner – chances are, he or she will appreciate it and work hard to deserve it. Pay it forward by recommending his or her services, making an introduction, or otherwise giving them a chance to prove themselves.
Being the person to start the process of trust puts you in a position to receive the most out of the relationship, as well. One way to make the overture is to talk about business processes – you probably won’t be sharing any deep, dark secrets – in fact, you may be surprised how similar your processes are to those of businesses in related industries. Exchange ideas that have worked for you, and identify areas that could benefit from sharing costs. You don’t necessarily need to be sharing costs with a strategic partner, but recognizing similar needs can make it easier to develop an even stronger business relationship over time.
Walking the walk
Aim One Marketing needs strategic partnerships just as any other business does, so I’ll use us as an example of building those types of relationships with a giving mindset. I’ve been searching for a sales trainer to do follow-up sales support and training for some of my students in my marketing classes. Sales and marketing are intertwined enough that I often have a lengthy discussion in class about the role of each in a business. I’ve given plenty of sales trainings myself, and I’m at least passingly familiar with all of the popular sales systems, but sales training isn’t my focus, nor real expertise, and having someone on my team that I trust to focus on that particular skill set would be a big value added for my clients.
So when I’m introduced to someone with these skills, are we more likely to benefit from fear or trust? I’ve been looking to add a strong, competent and trustworthy sales trainer to my ‘team’ for quite a while now, preferably locally. Many successful sales systems can be a great fit with the Duct Tape Marketing philosophies. I also know there are many sales systems that are packed with information that’s contradictory to the philosophy that I share, causing unneeded confusion for everyone involved. So here’s the question- if you are unwilling to trust a potential strategic partner enough to share an overview of your system, how can you ever hope to develop enough trust to form a mutually beneficial strategic alliance relationship?
This isn’t to say that one should always open one’s books and proprietary information to strangers – always use common sense. If you have a genuine “bad vibe” about someone, or you have reason to believe that he or she does not share your business ethics, then there is no reason to consider doing business together. Being willing to give doesn’t mean being blind to danger – but it does mean being willing to give up blind fear. It is nearly impossible to be trusted for long unless you make the effort to trust others first.
So in the spirit of the holidays try giving the gift of trust, and see how much your business grows in return.
Tags: Strategic Alliances, Trust
26 Oct 09 Public Relations tips from Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas covered US presidents as part of the press corps for 55 years- and she learned some important things over her career, and from her experience she offers president Obama the following tips here.
My three most important (for presidents of small businesses at least) are:
1) Open up- while you can try to avoid tough questions, distort the truth or try to spin away your problems, eventually the truth will come out, and the more you have avoided, distorted and spun away the real issues, the more severe the repercussions later.
2) Have Courage- Truman famously once fired Gen. MacArthur for publically disagreeing with him. This was not an easy decision, but it sure was a courageous one. What important business decisions are you putting off because your are afiraid?
Most recently, I was staying at the Boulder University Inn and their afternoon help was clearly stoned out of his mind, giving some of my fellow businesses travelers no end of grief by not being able to find their reservations, and not being remotely helpful or competent. We were impressed because we found out he was fired right away for being stoned on the job. For the manager not to have been courageous enough to take the action of immediate termination would have communicated, at least on some level, that his actions were remotely appropriate
3) Your vision is your legacy-
19th century historian Henry Adams wrote about the presidency that it “resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.”
As a president of a country, ship or small business, it is your job to have a goal to get to (your port) a plan on how to get there (your course) and appropriate tactics to get you to keep on course.
How many times do companies choose individual tactics to drive their ’ship’ without having a clear port? And when they fail to gain any momentum in any direction, isn’t that an obvious conclusion from not having a plan to meet your goals?
Yes, thank you Helen, many of your tips for Obama are just as good for our small business owners.
07 Sep 09 Business Lessons from the Phone Company
Business Lessons from the Phone Company
I look at what the phone company does and do the opposite.
- Craig Newmark
I’m expanding this to the cable company as well. They are, after all, now starting to offer each other’s core services with the same low level of actual service. Do I think now that most cable and phone companies have real competition that the service will start getting better? Yes. Are their current service levels yet acceptable? Nope- As a matter of fact- PLEASE- I want to hear phone company/cable company service hero stories!
1) The Phone Company spends little time, energy and effort on customer service.
Why? Because if you want phone service, you HAD to go through the phone company. So they feel they can afford to abuse customers because most people stay with them, because, let’s face it- many of us preferred having phones and giving our money to a company we hate, than not having phones. So if the phone company measured ‘loyalty’ after customer service incidents- I bet for years the retention rate was nearly 100%.
For the record, I recall noticing some national banks that are measuring loyalty the same measure recently.
2) The Phone Company is ignorant of current events.
Of the major phone companies 15 years ago, AT&T and Verizon are the only ones that started competing with cell phones by offering lines of their own. This transformed Verizon into a national company from a local one, and AT&T jumped on so late and so poorly that they felt they needed to change their name to Cingular to help erase their past mistakes.
3) The Phone Company lies to their customers.
During my last “job” I had invested in many tracking phone numbers that proved to be very accurate. The phone company in one of our yellow pages books ALSO was able to track the same number. This filled me with marketing geeky glee to see how accurate the calls we were getting from the yellow pages reporting really were.
Our count during one month- 14. The Yellow Pages count (same number, same facility remember. . .)? 32.
For the record- new sales leads from that number (our giant $1,500-a-month ad) was 4. New sales closes were 1, and that facilities normal closing ratio among all lead sources was around 65%. Math & Excel Wizards- feel free to do the math.
4) The Phone Company is just plain rude.
How many people have gotten estimates from their phone or cable companies that the technician will be there between 8 AM and 1 PM? And then the service person shows up at 1:45 and insists he’s on time? Yes, that’s happened to me too, you aren’t alone.
It should be very easy to give a more accurate estimate based on which location is first, second and third. And you ought to be able to get a call, e-mail and or text 20 minutes prior so you aren’t glued to your house. And if you’re taking a vacation day from work, at the very least they ought to let you to sleep in if you aren’t going to be first in line that morning.
So how are you making your customer unfairly wait on YOUR schedule? Are you asking them to account for expenses you should be taking up? Remember- to many people TIME is an expense.
5) The Phone Company fights for the right to do outdated business.
In my town of New Windsor, Verizon’s FIOS service is all around my home, and I know the Fiber-Optic cable passes right by my house (I watched them install it about 3 years ago), yet I can’t subscribe because Time Warner made a deal with the local government that FIOS can only be offered to new home construction. Does this keep me as a “Loyal” client to Time Warner?
Yes.
Does it mean that I try to make fun of Time Warner whenever possible, for example in this blog post?
Also, yes.
General Motors did this by lobbying for years at tremendous cost for lower fuel standards successfully. So now, they are in a much weaker position to compete globally because they weren’t even forced to keep up with the other global car manufacturers now that fuel efficiency is something many more people are taking into account when they purchase a car.
So did General Motors really “Win” by changing the playing ground to sell SUV’s for a couple more years?
Are the health insurance companies doing this now to combat health care reform?
Tags: Cable Company Marketing, lying to your customers, outdated business., Phone Company Marketing
30 Jun 09 Training Your Customers to Be Loyal
My wife and I brought home a new computer desk chair from Staples the other day, and like a good husband I offered to assemble it for her. The instructions that came with the chair were so elegant, so clear, and so well-organized that I realize that Staples is one of the leaders in customer service today. They two areas I have found that they excel in are rife with customer abuse stories: the aforementioned assembly instructions, and rebate offers.
Product Assembly Instructions that Don’t Inspire Fear and Dread
We’ve all had assembly horror stories, whether it’s on Christmas Eve or when putting together new office furniture. Maybe the parts don’t match the list, or the diagrams aren’t all that clear. Sometimes they’re written in five or six languages, but the translation into yours leaves something to be desired. I’m especially wary of the ones that include a number to call for free replacement parts; experience has shown me that this means that the parts are cheap to manufacture and likely to break again. All in all, writing product assembly instructions is not given the attention that it deserves.
Putting together this Staples chair, however, was a very different experience. The instructions were a series of drawings that were very clear, and the parts were all labeled visibly. The hardware was individually wrapped, and labeled with the number of the step it would be used for. Even the spare parts were clearly labeled as such. The entire assembly took me less time than it usually takes just to inventory the parts.
Rebates Done Simply
I’ve just about given up on buying things that have rebate offers, because the instructions for getting the money back are usually incredibly complicated and filled with loopholes designed to prevent me from ever seeing the money. Not so at Staples, where the company’s own in-house rebate program can be completed online with the information printed on the receipt itself. The novelty of actually getting the money back never wears off.
Lessons from Staples’ Customer Service
Staples invests time and money into ensuring that customers don’t get frustrated after they’ve already spent their money. No business can afford to stop giving quality service after money has changed hands, because a returning customer is worth so much more than a one-shot. Not only are are customers already educated about your unique market position (right?), they are also the ones that are most likely to refer others to your door.
What client after-care can you be doing that will increase your customer retention?
Tags: customer service, Guest Post, Terence P Ward
02 Apr 09 With a Little bit of Luck…
A good friend of mine, Ben, is a practicing lawyer and he was once asked his boss for a raise. His boss replied, “Ben- why should I give you a raise? You don’t yet know the law”
Ben replied “I passed the BAR first time through, I studied for three long, tough years- Of course I know the law”
His bosses reply “You worked hard to learn enough basics to earn the right to start learning the law- When are you planning on starting?”
Many times in life, we will get a boon, a promotion, or a great positive thing happen to us. But far too often we get those things not because we earned the right to them yet, only that we have earned the right to prove ourselves worthy of the luck. Remember that your new luck isn’t the end of the journey- it is but the beginning.