Get in the Results Business – How to Drive Word-of-Mouth Marketing
The shift toward a customer service culture has caused customers to expect more from companies. What impressed them yesterday is expected today. Think of it as a form of inflation where your service Wow dollars don’t get as much as they used to.
At the same time, the power of word of mouth marketing is at an all-time high, with social sharing driving consumer choice at unprecedented levels. So what’s a company to do? Give up on wowing customers or jump into the wow business?
The answer is, and always will be, go for the wow! If there’s any business you want to be, you MUST be in, it’s the results business. Your customers want results, not excuses. Give them results, without hassle, and a few unexpected extras, and your customers will do the rest!
How to Drive Word-of-Mouth Marketing
#1: Know WHAT Results Your Customers are Seeking – Start by finding out EXACTLY what results your customers are seeking. This is not the time for guessing – if you want to know what your customers want, ask (and make it a priority to keep asking).
#2: Deliver Results with Ease – Don’t make your customers fight for what they want. Although most will happily play the angry customer game to get what they want, they won’t actually be all that happy with you. Make your customer experience simple and seamless.
#3: Create a Memorable Experience – There’s no point in going above and beyond in ordinary mundane ways. Savvy customers know to expect that as part of the package. The challenge is coming up with creative and unique ways to impress.
#4: Empower Your People – Give the people who really make or break your word-of-mouth reputation the ability to be creative in pleasing customers. Don’t tie their hands with difficult-to-navigate systems and official policies. Not only is that annoying to employees, it’s infuriating to customers.
#5: Remind Them to Share – Include a call to action reminding them (in a fun and friendly way) to share what they love about you with others. This can be as simple as posting requests to share via social media, using QR codes to enable sharing or asking in product documentation or signage.
One Task at a Time: Why Focusing on the Very Next Step is the Key
Ever look up the long winding path in front of you and think to yourself, “I will NEVER in a million years reach the top”? And yet, if you continue to take one step at a time, soon enough you will be looking back at that long winding path and think, “Wow, look at how far I’ve come in what seems like no time at all.”
In business (and in life), typically when you start out on a long and winding path, you can’t see the top or even the entire route ahead of you. Perhaps all you can see if the daunting rock wall straight ahead, the one the guidebooks assure you leads to a false summit. The only thing you can do is set a direction and take one step at a time.
Why Focusing on the Very Next Step is the Key
It’s ridiculous to imagine that you would start off from the trail head and in a single leap, jump to the top of the mountain. Or that you could take all 50,892 steps at once. And yet that’s often how we approach our businesses, expecting to get there in a single leap or by tackling all the steps at once.
Thinking that it’s simply a matter of leaping ahead and skipping all the steps is at best naïve and at worst, a grave shortcut that will cost you more steps than you save. Trying to tackle all the steps at once often leads to overwhelm and leaves you with the same amount of unfinished tasks. Both equal no forward momentum at all.
Taking It One Task at a Time While Focusing on the End Goal
Keep your chin up and focus on where you want to end up, but set your foot down right in front of you. That means tackling the one task that needs to be done to keep things moving along. Sometimes that means halting your forward progress to train an assistant or address technical challenges that are ultimately slowing you down.
Start at the beginning. Entrepreneurs are notorious for racing ahead in steps and trying to tackle the tasks that are fun and exciting and leaving the foundational steps for later. A good start is better than trying to rush ahead only to have to retrace and redo missed steps.
Finish each step before taking the next one! It’s a mistake to think that momentum means jumping quickly from task to task. Firmly plant each footstep before taking another so you don’t backslide on a misplaced footstep. Rushing ahead often costs more time on going back and redoing tasks that weren’t fully completed.
Check your compass! It’s easy to get lost in the woods, especially when you are lowdown in the valleys and can’t see above the trees. Continually check your course against your goals and make sure that each step you make it on track!
Remember, when building a sustainable business, what you do along the way matters. Choose your steps carefully and you will create a foundation that will serve you for years to come! Rush ahead too fast and you will be retracing your steps to find the path you should have taken to begin with.
Momentum Monday: Managing Interruptions – Tech Tools to Help You Regain Control of Your Time
Don’t you just hate it when you start the day with the best intentions only to realize at 5 o’clock that you got nothing on your list done thanks to countless interruptions?
It starts innocently enough – a simple phone call that turns into a half-hour discussion, a brief scan through your inbox that translates into 2 hours of email management or a quick social check-in that turns into a social media marathon.
The technical term is “productivity interruptus”, defined as the constant starting and stopping of tasks to respond to the litany of interruptions. The key to avoiding productivity interruptus and regaining control of your time is using technology to manage unwanted interruptions.
Track Your Time – Even if you don’t charge for your time on an hourly basis, it’s important to build awareness of how you spend your time on a daily basis. It’s the only way to get control of your time. For example, you may discover that those ‘quick’ telephone calls are eating up half your day or that social media represents an irresistible time trap.
Create a time log worksheet and record how you spend your time on an hour-by-hour basis or use an app, like Hours Tracker, to clock in and out of activities. Both will show you exactly how you are using your time, allowing you avoid potential time suckers and focus on increasing your productive work time.
Avoid Unwanted Interruptions – The temptation to answer the telephone is powerful. The thinking is that if you don’t answer this call RIGHT NOW, the potential opportunity that could be on the other end will be missed. It rarely ever happens this way.
Consider putting your office telephone on silent or use the Do Not Disturb function, if it’s available. VOIP systems offer a lot of unique features that allow you to manage your calls. For example, Google Voice lets you screen calls by listening in to the voicemail message as it’s being recorded, allowing you to jump in if it’s important.
Centralize Communication – Sometimes what takes us off task is those quick conversations with team members that turn into lengthy discussions when all you really needed was a status update.
That’s where using technology to communicate can save you a lot of time. Instead of calling in for updates or cluttering up your inbox with extended email threads, you can centralize project reporting using Wrike.com.
Schedule Social – Social media is another potential time void. It’s easy to get caught up in the conversation and before you know it, an hour or two has gone by. The best way to get your social media under control is to schedule content in advance.
Tools like Hootsuite make scheduling your social media extremely easy. All you need to do is click SCHEDULE to set the date and time or upload a CSV file. Don’t use it as a substitute for engaging, but as a way to schedule your basic activity. That way you can focus on interacting during your 15-minute power sessions.
Business 101: Disaster Clients – The 7 Types of Clients You Should Avoid at All Costs
Not all clients are created equal.
Everyone talks about finding your “ideal client” or the perfect “fit”. Not many people tackle the topic of the disaster clients. The train wrecks waiting to happen. The drive-you-insane clients you should see coming from a mile away.
Somehow we let them sneak in, under the radar, when our guard is down, or when our bad client filter is on the fritz. Perhaps it’s the guilt of turning down someone who needs help or maybe it’s simply that you needed the money to pay the bills.
Whatever the reason, you choose to ignore your intuition, failing to see the obvious warning signs and blindly step into a relationship doomed to failure. It’s time to take the blinders off and watch out for these disaster clients!
The 7 Types of Disaster Clients You Should Avoid at All Costs
Make no mistake about it: the best way to deal with disaster clients is to simply not work with them. If you find yourself faced with a client relationship that is looking more like a disaster in the making, try to untangle yourself as quickly as possible and use these coping mechanisms:
#1: Disorganized Client – The scattered creative entrepreneurial type who is always in a rush because they are ALWAYS running behind. Their constant lateness isn’t your fault, but it quickly becomes your problem when you become the rescuer of soon-to-be-missed deadlines.
Early warning signs are arriving at meetings late and/or unprepared, late night emails, and requests for last minute rush projects. The key with disorganized clients is to not become their superhero. Set clear boundaries around rush projects and insist on a clearly defined project before starting.
#2: Demanding Client – The bossy types who believe their needs come first, no exceptions. Beware: their demandingness borders on abusive and they do not respect your rules or your boundaries while (ironically) expecting others to respect theirs.
Watch for boundary pushing behavior, like calls to your cell phone after hours, or snarky remarks aimed at you or others. Both signal the beginning of what will turn into a toxic relationship.
#3: Needy Client – The emotional time bombs who turn consulting meetings into personal therapy sessions by dumping their emotional baggage on you. They are constantly dealing with some sort of crisis and attract drama like a Shakespearean actor.
Warning signs are oversharing of extremely personal details early in the relationship and a perpetual “Poor me” complex. Try not to engage in their personal drama and set clear boundaries between your work and personal lives.
#4: Dazed and Confused Client – The space cadets who simply cannot make up their minds, but expect you to shift your project 180 degrees at no additional cost to them because they had a flash of brilliance.
Typical dazed and confused types often can’t put into words what exactly they are looking for and resort to a “I’ll know it when I see it” approach. Avoid stepping into this minefield – you are not a mind reader!
#5: Cheapskate Client – The penny-pinchers who take frugality to the extreme. Often they tend to expect top dollar from THEIR clients, but ironically aren’t willing to pay you the same courtesy.
The cheapskate clients tend to want to “Cherry Pick” your time and expertise for quick one-off projects, only paying for what they have to and doing it themselves whenever possible.
#6: 24/7 Workaholic Client – The 24/7 workhorses who rarely take a day off and never turn off the BlackBerry. The trouble is they also expect that you are on-duty whenever they get inspired, even if it’s 3 in the morning or during your child’s soccer game.
The best way to deal with these boundary pushers is to simply not be available. Turn off the cell phone, don’t look at email and whatever you do, don’t respond to their after hour requests!
#7: Financial Pinch Client – The on-the-brink clients who, despite all their good intentions, will not be able to pay your invoice at the end of the day. Unless they are upfront about it and you are agreeable to not getting paid, steer clear.
Often it’s difficult to gauge the true financial situation of potential clients unless you do a credit check so watch for early warning signs like not paying bills on time or conveniently misplacing your invoice.
Momentum Monday: Why Is Commonsense So Uncommon? Uncommon Commonsense Advice
Whatever happened to good old-fashioned common sense? It seems that commonsense advice less and less common these days – what with all the technology and tools available to distract and misdirect.
Where businesses are failing isn’t with mastering the extraordinarily complex aspects of business, but with the boring, every day simple stuff. That’s why this post is dedicated to the less common commonsense advice every business needs to master.
5 Pieces of Uncommon Commonsense Advice
#1: Create Space – Idea and implementation are perhaps the two farthest points in the continuum of success. In order to move from idea to implementation, you need to create the space to do that – whether that be in the form of financing or simply making the time in your calendar to manage an influx of business.
Simple yes. But do entrepreneurs forget to do it and plow ahead without first figuring out HOW they are going to implement their ideas? Where this new project is going to live in their already full lives? Yes absolutely. Start by creating space.
#2: Know Your Margins – Everything has a cost – from printing out copies of handouts for your presentation to the time you spend managing the IT. Before you can be profitable, you need to know your margins!
A very big mistake made by very successful (on the surface) companies is not knowing how profitable a particular project is (or isn’t). Imagine that mistake propagated across an entire organization and you can see how even big companies with full client rosters end up losing money.
#3: Learn How to Sell – One skill every business leader must master is the ability to sell. Perhaps once the company has grown big enough, as the CEO, you won’t be on the frontlines selling the product or service, but you will be required to sell people on your vision.
Learn how to sell because every single day you will be selling someone on something – whether it’s selling your shareholders on the new direction for the company or your employees on a new compensation package, you will be selling.
#4: Master Distribution – A common stumbling block for many companies is getting the word out about their latest widget. Focus on how you are going to get your widget out there!
For service companies, mastering distribution means developing reliable lead generation mechanisms that bring in a steady flow of new prospects. For product companies, it likely means a more complex arrangement of channel partners and salespeople.
#5: Grow Your Capacity – The other side of distribution is capacity. Before growing your business, you need to grow your capacity to be able to handle an increase in volume.
What that means depends again on the type of business. If you are a service-based business, that may mean training additional team members. For a product business, it may mean rethinking your entire production model.
Business 101: Stop Letting People Pick Your Brain! How to Put Boundaries Around Your Knowledge
The words “Pick your brain” roughly translated into entrepreneur means “Please tell me what you’ve invested time and energy (and most often money) in learning for free”.
Not only that, but the main culprits for brain-picking tend to be the people who never (EVER) invest any of their own time or money in acquiring that knowledge.
The end result is you end up sharing what other people pay you for with someone who doesn’t even appreciate it and will never become a future paying client. So you are down two points: one for not getting paid and another for having your valuable time wasted.
The solution? Put a clear sales barrier around your time and knowledge.
How to Put a Sales Barrier Around Your Time and Knowledge
#1: Clearly Define the Boundaries – Know exactly WHAT you charge for and what you give away to demonstrate your knowledge. For example, a typical consultant will charge for a one-on-one consultation, but give away general how-to tips via a blog.
That means no one-on-one time without a client relationship! Direct the brain-pickers to the resources section of your web site or an audio recording so they still benefit from a little help from you without it turning into a free session.
#2: Know Your Value – Get clear in your own mind exactly how you benefit your clients. Do you help them avoid costly mistakes? Do you give them a jump-start on their project? Do you shorten the learning curve to success?
Knowing your value helps you be firm with enforcing your boundaries. Asking a potential client to pay you a consulting fee when you will end up saving them thousands of dollars on the wrong direction is a more than fair exchange.
#3: Communicate the Boundaries – Don’t hesitate to communicate what you charge for upfront. Often boundaries get unknowingly pushed when the pusher doesn’t know the rules.
The simplest way to do that is answer brain-picking types of questions with an offer of an introductory consultation or coaching session. It’s up to you if you want to offer that for free or a special rate, but the point is to clearly communicate when people are stepping into paying territory.
#4: Avoid the Sneak Attacks – Beware of the brain-picking sneak attacks. The seemingly innocent questions that turn into a full-on interrogation. Again, chances are the brain-picker has unknowingly crossed the line. Often the sneak attacks start is with a simple request for an opinion or an answer to a “quick” question.
Typically the sneak attacker will ask to set up a call or a coffee via social media or email. Respond to quick questions with quick answers, but stay in the medium. How sneak attackers work is they start with something small, but in reality it turns into something a lot bigger.
#5: Be Firm and Fair – Remember the golden rule: be firm with them and fair with yourself. If you ask yourself if you feel cheated or used by responding to a request for your time and knowledge, be firm with your boundaries.
Instead of wasting your time with people who will never value what time or knowledge, focus on over-delivering to those who do: your paying clients!
Momentum Monday: Asking is Free – So Why Not Do More of It?
Sometimes you would think asking costs millions of dollars the way people avoid it, doing everything BUT asking for what they need to grow their business – be it support, referrals or even the sale!
Timid entrepreneurs do almost anything EXCEPT ask. You overspend on marketing that distances yourselves from the results. You hire a sales team to do the asking for you. You hope and pray that customers will magically find you and tell their friends.
Asking doesn’t cost a million dollars. It doesn’t even cost a cent. Asking is absolutely free (it’s sometimes just all the other stuff that leads up to the asking that costs money, but that’s a different story altogether).
So why don’t we do more of it? Why don’t we turn to the people around us who already know, like and trust us and want to see us succeed? Why don’t we get over our egos and simply ask for what we need to get to the next level?
It has nothing to do with the person you are asking and everything to do with you. It has to do with the fear of rejection, judgment, or awkwardness. It has to do with the inner critic who tells you that you aren’t worth it.
Tell your inner critic to Shut Up Already and start asking!
5 Ways to Start Asking for What You Need
#1: Help Others FIRST – Asking is a lot easier when you help others. Call it the Karmic balance or self-confidence, but it feels better asking for help when you know you have freely helped those around you.
#2: Offer Reciprocal Support – Nothing wrong with the good old fashioned “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”. Surround yourself with likeminded people and establish a reciprocal support network where you each help each other out. Referral networks and master minds are two examples of this type of arrangement, but it can apply to anything.
#3: Share Your BIG Vision – One of the reasons non-profits are truly gifted at asking (besides a serious lack of funding) is that they truly believe in what they do. They are able to share their vision of how what they are doing will make our world a better place. Share your big vision with the people around you and enlist their support in achieving it.
#4: Shift Your Thinking – Stop thinking about what you are doing as asking and start thinking of it as sharing your gift with the world. This especially applies to asking for referrals or asking a potential customer to choose you. It’s amazing how zealously we will promote for others and not for ourselves!
#5: Simply Ask – Take a deep breath and ask. Your job isn’t to determine the outcomes – it’s just to ask the question. Ask for exactly what you need because if you do, you may get a yes, but if you don’t, you are guaranteed to get a no!
Smart Start-Up Tips: Too Buzzy Equals Bland – Why Buzzwords Should be Banned from Marketing
What’s the buzz on buzzwords?
Too many trendy words and over-hyped catch phrases makes for meaningless ‘me too’ marketing. Words like “innovative”, “authentic” and “out-of-the-box” at one time or another became so overused that their meaning got lost.
There is nothing innovative about using ‘innovative’ to describe your business. Chances are if you need to reassure your audience of your ‘authenticity’ then you need to do a morality check. And if the most ‘out-of-the-box’ thing you can say about your company is to use that catch phrase of days gone by, best to stay in the box.
The best-case scenario you come across at as corporate copycats who are unable to come up with their own creative marketing. The worst is that your buzzy buzzwords make for bland and boring marketing that confuses rather than inspires your target audience.
Does Your Marketing Pass the Buzzword Test?
#1: Does It Say Something? A sure sign of buzzwords is marketing that says nothing or what it says can be said about almost any business. Take this gem: “Innovative Solutions for Business”. It could apply to printers or consulting or almost anything that solves any of the zillions of problems, big or small, that businesses encounter.
#2: Does It Sound Like Everyone Else? The reason “Out of the Box” anything became meaningless is everyone was using it. Literally no one was spending any time in the box, according to the marketing. Everyone was running around outside the dang box doing everything BUT being original.
#3: Is It Easily Understandable? The trouble with buzzwords is they tend to rely on the meaning behind the buzzword, making it complete gibberish those not-in-the-know (which tends to be the majority of people as buzzwords tend to be industry-specific or insular).
A Final Word on Buzzwords…
The best approach to creating compelling marketing is to start by simply explaining what you do, how you do it and why it matters to your target audience in plain old boring English. No fuss. No frills. And definitely no buzzwords. From there, add a bit of flourish and flare, but never sacrifice the core message.
Think of your core message as what you would share with your target audience if they were sitting across the table from you at a local coffee shop because chances are you would never say something as vague and meaningless as “We offer innovative solutions for business”.
Momentum Monday: A Little Every Day Adds Up to A LOT – Achieving Success in Teeny Tiny Steps
What you do everyday matters. Perhaps more than you think.
It matters because every day you are taking (or not taking) teeny tiny steps toward your goal, your ultimate success. It may not feel like you are making much progress some days, but trust me, you are.
The reason comes down to simple math. Little steps taken everyday propel you farther than one giant step because your teeny tiny steps are multiplied by every day you are consistently taking them.
Giant steps, while useful for catching up, rarely spring you farther forward than the momentum that gets build up by taking consistent steps. It’s the reason most big efforts get broken down into smaller steps.
Imagine trying to catch up on saving for your retirement in one giant effort. It’s almost impossible! There’s a reason financial planners recommend starting early and consistently putting money away until you reach your goal.
How to Achieve Success in Teeny Tiny Steps
#1: Clearly Map the Path to Your End-Goal – The trouble with breaking projects down into very small steps is that it’s easy to lose sight of the end goal or get distracted and go off on a tangent that moves you further from your goal. The key is to clearly map out your strategy for how you will step yourself to your end goal one tiny step at a time.
#2: Think Small Steps, Not Giant Leaps – It’s tempting to try to make up for missing steps by taking giant leaps. The exact opposite is true: the giant leaps forward will come from consistent efforts and not from monumental efforts.
#3: Never (EVER) Skip Days – The trick is to continually take steps forward and that means doing something every day that steps you toward your goal, even if that step is very small (the exception being the weekends when you should be enjoying a bit of creative downtime).
#4: Start and Finish in One Step – Just because the steps are small doesn’t mean they aren’t full steps. Half steps don’t count! Get in the habit of starting and finishing in one step – that’s the reason for making them small. Otherwise you are wasting effort by only getting to 80 percent before moving onto to something else.
#5: Whenever Possible, Take Extra Steps – The nice thing about taking teeny tiny steps is it isn’t that much of a stretch to take an extra step or two on a daily basis. Get in the habit of pushing yourself to take that one extra teeny tiny step every day and you’ll reach your goal that much faster.
The added bonus of thinking about your goals in teeny tiny steps is it brings even the loftiest of ambitions down to size. As soon as something feels doable, the chances are even greater than you will actually do them.
Momentum Monday: Give Yourself the Gift of a Holiday – Why Your Creativity Needs Downtime
There’s nothing like the blissful quiet of the holidays – no telephone ringing to interrupt you, no unread email demanding your attention, no one expecting brilliant ideas for your next meeting. Just peace and quiet…
It’s tempting to think of the holiday quiet as the perfect time to catch-up and maybe even get ahead. How else are you going to find uninterrupted time when no one is demanding your time and attention?
Do NOT give in!
Yes, you probably could get more done without all the distractions of the regular 9 to 5, but that probably means how you are currently managing your time isn’t working. It means you need to carve out more quiet, distraction-free time in your everyday routine.
It’s tempting when the kids are outside playing in the snow and your husband is assembling the latest holiday gadget to quickly rid your inbox of that extra email, clean up your desk, go through that backlog of paperwork, get a head start on the stuff that fell behind before the holidays.
Don’t. Not even for 5 minutes.
Besides the obvious work-life boundary problems and the fact that your family wants and deserves your time and attention during the holidays, you need downtime. The creative energy you pour into growing your business needs downtime.
How to Use the Holidays to Restore Your Creativity
#1: Do Nothing – Not the doing nothing that involves reading business books or magazines, but the special kind of doing nothing that only happens when you are truly on holidays. If you must entertain yourself with consuming media, make it frivolous and in no way related to work or of any intellectual value whatsoever.
#2: Enjoy Life – Cookies are especially suited to this job so give yourself permission to indulge. If sweets aren’t your thing, treat yourself to a long bubble bath, a relaxing stroll in the snow or an hour sitting in front of the fire.
#3: Simplify Your Routine – Get back to the basics of living and enjoying and ditch all the fussy routines and daily household to-do’s. For example, save on laundry hassle by declaring family pajama day and spend the entire day working on the giant puzzle dominating the dining room table.
#4: Disconnect – Give yourself the benefit of a media blackout period to clear your mind of all the noise and clutter that goes with modern communication. That means no email, no checking voicemail and no social media (yes, I said no social media).
#5: Be Lazy – If you insist on catching up on something, catch up on sleep. Chances are you were burning both ends to get ready for the holidays so pay back the debt by sleeping in or taking afternoon naps.
Now do what needs to be done to give yourself a much-needed and well-earned break. Your success in 2012 will thank you for it!
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