Sizzle! Posts

Checking Your Business Pulse. How Are Your Insides Working?

by Kas Kunz

How often do you stop and think about how your business comes across not in general, but at every point your company interacts with or touches your customer's?

I think about it when I go to the airport and the first contact I have with the airlines I'm traveling on is their porters who handle the luggage. The first thing they point out is the tip policy and how it's forced on them by their airline company.

I think about it when I go into my favorite pet store and I'm greeted with a smile and glad you came in today. Followed up by do you need help in finding a particular item, not a generic can I help you. I think about it when they ask me how I like a particular product, because it's a new item they stock and they want to know how well it's working for their customers.

I think about it when the cashier is friendly and patient when the credit card process is not clear, even though they've probably helped every other customer that day with the same issue. As opposed to the cashier who's impatient and makes the customer feel stupid and they're responsible for holding up the checkout line.

I think about it when I go to the car dealership and the cashier takes your coupon and says next time give it to the service rep so you don't have to wait... instead of making sure the service reps automatically ask the customer if they have a coupon.

I think about it when I call a business and it's handled as an annoyance and the whole tone changes when they realize I may actually be giving them some business.

I think about it when I call tech support, amazed when a tech asks me what the problem is and listens first before they go into a pre-programmed routine that has nothing to do with my issue and willingly stays on the line until they know its resolved.

I think about it when I have a very pleasant exchange with a bank teller and I get a hand written note in the mail thanking me for my business.

Do you think about the individuals that work within your company who are the first or have the most contact with your customer's? What is the value to your business with the type of exchange and interaction they have with your customer's? Do you think about the exchange and interaction your customer front-liners have with others inside your company and the affect on their response to your customer's?

I think about the enormous effort and cost it takes just to get a prospect or customer to call, to walk into your store, to visit your Web site — give you their email address, to check out and try your services, prospects to become customers, customers to recommend you to others, and the impact of just one exchange with them on your business. It's not just about efficiency, cost savings, and profit margins, but the impact the different touch-points with your customer's has on the bottom line.

How to Gain Online Insights for Your Business

by Kas Kunz

I don't think there is anyone at this point who doesn't realize the Internet has forever changed the way business is or can be conducted. To understand the value of the Internet in terms of what it can do for your business, regardless of the market you're in or the size of your business, requires first hand knowledge — participation.

To Start, Keep in Mind:

• Key in what the Internet has done via blogs, instant messaging, social networking, wikis, and other online collaboration tools is the ability to have direct contact with individuals — anywhere in the world.
• There are many tools, often free, which enable a group to participate and collaborate together in one space for all to share and see the information available in its entirety.
• To start with online participation does not have to be public, even with social networking.
  • You can start within the privacy of your own company and keep it for internal use only.  
  • You can make it a private collaboration between a customer or a vendor.  
• To begin you need a very specific, simple business goal. The most successful are laser focused, target a specific group, and keep number of participants small.
  • Small group keeps the committee mindset out of the project, minimizes conflicts, and more likely to stay focused on the goal.  
  • Simple goal doesn't overwhelm the group, easier to set guidelines and rules of use, and easier to make adjustments to get it accomplished, based on user input.  
  • Helps to determine which tools best suites your needs.  

Project Ideas:

• Plan and coordinate an event
• Manage a project i.e., product development, product launch, maintenance program, coordinate market research, create a proposal
• Documentation controls of marketing materials
• Collect ideas on market changes in a specific market or product area
• Internal blog of company news, events, ideas

Tools, Free and Paid Versions:

• Blogs
  • Vox.com 
  • WordPress.org 
  • WordPress.com 
  • Blogger.com 
  • MovableType.com 
• Wikis
  • Wetpaint.com 
  • PBWorks.com 
  • Wikispaces.com 
• Social Networks
  • ning.com 
• Online Collaboration
  • Google Docs 
  • Google Sites 
  • Google Apps 

These videos give you a very basic idea on a couple of these tools.

 

 

What are some online tools you've found invaluable for your business?

 

Company Growing Up, Are Your Competencies?

by Kas Kunz

Starting a business from scratch, growing a company, turning around a troubled company, maintaining success with inevitable upturns and downturns in the market or running a multinational company requires different skills. What does it require at each of these points in its existence? How do you market to achieve the different business goals?

Business growth and maturity — developing marketing intelligence is not something the business does by itself, but is intricately tied to the individuals who make up the company. Everyone is responsible for marketing — whether it's internal or external. What is done within the company always impacts the customer.  

Marketing is not something that is done once or periodically — it's always part of a successful company. It takes the business goals — defines what needs to be done and how they need to be implemented in order to be achieved. For a company to continue as a viable business a culture of learning, development, and growing competencies are always in the marketing mix.

Brought together in this video are two well-known individuals that have grown up in businesses started from scratch that grew into multinational companies, which have been part of major technology evolutions in the business world. No matter what scale of business you want to be involved in or achieve, as you watch and listen, imagine all the changes they made in their competencies as their businesses grew up.

What's up in the World of Blogs and Connections with Social Networking?

by Kas Kunz

This past week eMarketer.com published an interview excerpt with David Tokheim, the General Manager at Six Apart Media who are the creators of the blogging service TypePad, Movable Type, and Vox. One trend brought out is both blogging tools and social networks are making it easier to connect between the two. When you post on your blog such as TypePad you can publish through to your Facebook and Twitter — which means you don't have to use multiple systems to connect your various online activities. Other insights from the interview:

"Mr. Tokheim: We're seeing a lot more women blogging, a lot of mommy bloggers. They have a different dynamic than what we've seen from tech bloggers in that most of the moms have multiple blogs. They work with different networks like BlogHer, as well as Six Apart Media. And there's a very strong community around what they're doing.

eMarketer: What do you think is driving the spike in mommy bloggers?

Mr Tokheim: Two things: I think it's awareness, or word-of-mouth, and blogging platforms have become easier to use.

One of the reasons that technology bloggers were some of the first bloggers is that they were tech-savvy and able to write code, which you needed to do in the early days of blogging."

In the same week, Anita Campbell, the Executive Editor of Small Business Trends shared her insights on a recent 2009 Women and Social Media Study by BlogHer, iVillage, and Compass Partners released April 28, 2009.

3 Findings she highlighted from the study:

• Interesting Finding #1: Social Networks Like Facebook Get the Most Usage
• Interesting Finding #2: Blogs Wield the Widest Influence
• Interesting Finding #3: Women Look to Blogs for Business, Politics, Cars, and Technology

"Depending on the nature of your business, it might be worth it to focus on Facebook or MySpace — if, for instance, you are in the entertainment business. But for most things, such as if you are in B2B business or selling technology, blogs could give you more influence."

Read Anita Campbell's excellent post for more of her input on these findings.  

More from the Study:

• Women are twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information (64%), advice and recommendations (43%), and opinion-sharing (55%), while they are 50 percent more likely to turn to social networking sites as a means of keeping in touch with friends and family (75%)
• U.S. Female Internet Population 79 Million
• U.S. Female Active Social Media User Population 42 Million
• Age range in the study 18-77 years

For details of the methodology and to delve into the insights of the study Download the PDF Survey and read their press release.

Large, medium or small doesn't matter when it comes to the Internet, the services and connections it enables impact everyone's business. How do you see these market insights being integrated with your business goals and objectives?