How to Find the Right People For Your Business

Imagine a beer commercial where old folks sat around in a nursing home drinking beer in their wheelchairs. Or a beer a commercial where soccer moms sat around drinking beer at child’s birthday. Obviously we’ll never see these commercials because the ads wouldn’t address the target market.

Beer makers know who their audience is, and they advertise directly to them. In the ads we see, the beer company clearly identifies and calls out their prospect. If you’re a young man interested in having a good time and meeting girls while enjoying sports events, this ads for you.

By identifying and addressing their target market, the beer company is happy to exclude a large portion of the population. They accept that not only will older folks and non-drinkers not be interested in the commercials, but the beer company also accepts that the ad will offend the non-interested party. This is a trade-off the beer company is happy to make. They are willing to exclude to attract.

This makes obvious sense in our extreme example. However, one of the most common problems in a new or stagnant business is the lack of a specific target market. All too often the business owner or sales and marketing team try to appeal to everyone. As the old saying goes, “selling to everyone means selling to no one”.

Too many companies are worried that they will offend potential clients by being specific with their sales message, but as a result they are not specific enough for their target market and miss out on making the necessary connection for the sale.

Your business needs a WHO before you can sell a WHAT. Unfortunately, most business owners and salespeople try to force their product on the marketplace without properly identifying their best customers.

Once you figure out the right market, everything else falls into place. Clearly specifying your market will allow you to identify the best ways to reach your audience. When you know who your audience is, you’ll then know where your audience can be found. You’ll be able to advertise in the right spots, whether it’s the newspaper, online, or even on the radio or TV. Your marketing will be dictated by who your audience is.

It will also help you create the all-important irresistible offer for your market. By knowing your audience’s pain and suffering, you’ll be able to provide the exact solution to solve this problem. You want your customer to exclaim, “This is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for.” Every sales message, product, and lead generation offer you create should be exactly for your target market.

However, it’s not just enough to know demographics about your audience. Sure, it’s important to know your best customer’s age, income, gender, family status, location, and job. But you also need to know what’s going on in their head. You need to understand their emotional wants and needs.

On the weekend, one of our coaching clients was struggling to pick the right target audience, and of main concern to him was figuring out how to reach his audience. Fortunately, thanks to ETR Publisher Matt Smith’s extensive business experience, the group was able to identify the best way to reach the prospect.

As Matt explained, knowing how to reach your customer goes beyond just demographics and he pointed out the importance of knowing customer psychographics.

According to Wikipedia, “psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. Psychographics can also be seen as an equivalent of the concept of "culture" as used most commonly in national segmentation.”

When you combine customer demographics and psychographics, you’ll have a powerful profile of your best customer. There’s one exercise that allows you to combine them into an important part of the business puzzle. If you're struggling to sell to the right client, one of the most important exercises you can do in your business is to create your customer avatar.

Go back and review this article I wrote where I show you how to create your customer avatar.

List out all the statistics you know about your customer, but don’t forget to tap into the emotional aspects as well.

According to marketing expert Yaro Starak, we need to know the “underlying emotional conditions driving the actions they take. When you have a deep emotional awareness of why they are there, you can better adjust all aspects of your marketing – in fact your entire business – to appeal to your avatar’s deep rooted emotional motivations.”

Take a step back in your business and take the focus off of WHAT you can sell and revisit the avatar exercise to make sure you know the right WHO for your business.

The Art of the ReTweet

Twitter is a powerful tool because once your tweet goes live on the site, it can quickly go viral. When one person sees a good tweet, they can then pass that message on to their own followers, and soon it's spreading all across Twitter. This is a very good thing for a marketer. On Twitter, it's called ReTweeting.

Twitterers can simply copy someone else's tweet and tweet it themsleves, but but they usually will give credit to the original Twitterer...YOU. It will look like this, "RT @username: original tweet message." When you retweet other people's tweets, be sure to add a small comment at the beginning or in brackets at the end: "Great article - so true! RT @username: original tweet message."

If your tweets are interesting enough, people will share them with their followers, and those followers will come to your page to find out who you are.

Marketers Seek to Better Measure Social Media Success - eMarketer

Marketers Seek to Better Measure Social Media Success - eMarketer

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Have Your Customers Do Your Marketing For You By Julian Farley
	One of the biggest factors for success in any business is connecting with your customers. The more meaningful you can make this connection the more these customers will spend with you and the more they will tell their friends and family about you. I'm going to share with you how most businesses get this ALL WRONG, and what you can do to utilize the #1 most traffic'd website in the world for maximum benefit to your business. If you've ever imagined the power of having a community of loyal brand advocates spreading word-of-mouth about your business, then this article is for you. The absolute best channel for building this business asset is Facebook. Believe it or not, Facebook now has more traffic than Google. Facebook surpassed Google in mid-2010 and has continued adding users at an astounding pace. Currently they have 800 million users, with over 50% of active users logging in at least once a day. Facebook is where your customers are hanging out.  They are talking and seeking information for their future purchases. It doesn't matter who you are trying to reach, working moms, senior citizens, pet lovers... everyone is on Facebook. And, Facebook Fans will have the highest customer value of all your customers. Once someone has engaged with you through social media they are much more likely to recommend your business than traditional customers. There are numerous success stories for businesses large and small using Facebook. Kia Motors ran a Facebook Ad campaign that increased awareness of their vehicles 13-points, and allows them to regularly connect with over 89,000 people every day. Victory Motors, a small North American motorcycle company gets their highest conversion rates of any marketing channel through simple Facebook Fan page promotions. Some well known internet marketers use Facebook to bring in $14,000+/week. Despite success stories like these marketers have been wary of Social Media because of it's inability to track all the benefits you receive. What does this mean for you or others willing to take the plunge into Social Media Marketing?  It means the door is wide open for you to swoop in and take customers, market-share and valuable insights about your target market away from the competition. How should you approach this unique marketing channel? First, understand where to place value on social media. Here is a chart from eMarketer, who polled professional marketers for the value they receive from social media:   The graph above expresses that marketers are largely not worrying about putting an exact dollar value on each Facebook fan or Twitter follower. Even if this amount could ever be accurate, it will never come close to the real value of social media. Social media is the top of the buying funnel. Users here are looking for interesting information and in fact-finding mode. They aren't ready to convert just yet. Start getting prospects engaged with your business today. The 3 biggest advantages for a direct-response marketer to use Facebook: 1.   Social media fans have the HIGHEST lifetime value of any customer 2.   Social media fans tell your business about more friends and family then anyone else 3.   You'll be able to access extremely valuable insights into the psychographics, demographics, interests and social circles of your customers and prospects. Perry Marshall, an AdWords expert that sells PPC training, gained insight from Facebook that over 70% of his customers loved the book "Catcher in the Rye." He then added one sentence to his sales page about the book and saw a 48% increase in conversion rates!  These are the types of insights that are impossible to guess. The 2nd step is to know your audience. The more specific you get the better. Put your website, and your competitor websites into www.Quantcast.com to pull out demographic information. Look on Facebook at your competitor's fan pages and see what else their fans are interested in. Read the wall conversations and pickup on things like; standard personality type, unique words, lingo and recurring problems mentioned by your target customers. Make a big list of all the 'interests' you see and brainstorm some you think your customers will have. Think laterally and really get into your customers mind. Here at WorkingMomsOnly.com we serve professional moms. One of our highest converting interests has been 'Fast & Healthy Recipe's'. The 3rd step is for you to create a business Facebook Fan Page. This is the hub of the community you are building. It will serve as the entry point to your sales funnel, feedback loop so you can monitor your businesses perception with prospects, customer service center and act as an instant promotional channel. Hop onto www.oDesk.com or www.eLance.com (I recommend oDesk) and find a graphic designer who has experience building Facebook Fan Pages. There are thousands of them you will get at affordable prices. This is where your landing page tab  is designed. Ours looks like this: http://www.facebook.com/WorkingMomsOnly?sk=app_158206150905240 Make sure your tab looks interesting, fun and begs the user to engage with you. Providing some sort of content such as a video, free report or just stating the benefits of joining your community is enough to get high conversion rates and lots of fans. The 4th step is to join groups your target market has joined. You can do this as your business fan page. Get into the conversations on those Facebook walls and provide value. The #1 mistake marketers make here is trying to sell right off the bat. This is not the time or venue for this. You want to genuinely help people with their problems and provide valuable resources. This builds trust, credibility and moves prospects to your Fan Page. View it like virtual karma. The more you give the more you get. The 5th step is to setup a Facebook Ads campaign. Now that you've got some buzz around your business and a fan page its time to turn up the heat and really build the community. Create an ad account and start your first ad. This is where you use your 'interest' and 'demographic' targets from step 2. The key to successful Facebook Ad campaigns is specific targeting. If you are targeting dentists, doctors and lawyers then create separate ads for each. This allows you to have more targeted ad copy which speaks directly to the prospect. You already know what they're interested in, use it to your advantage! The next thing you must do is setup the right kind of ads. To cheaply build your fan base you want a 'Story' ad. To do this you must set your 'Destination' to an internal Facebook page (your new Fan Page tab!). Under 'Story Type' you can select either of the options. See below: This is going to create an ad for you that has the 'Like' button on it. Everytime someone clicks the 'Like' button you get a new fan without paying for it. That's right, it's FREE! Facebook will only charge you when someone clicks your ad and go to your Fan Page (which you'll also get Fans from). Step 6 is to write compelling ad copy. Facebook ads are really simple and fun to do. There are 3 main parts to them. 1.  Headline 2.  Picture 3.  Body The most important part of your Facebook Ad is the picture. It's what gets people to notice the ad. Some quick tips for great pictures are using photos that: are black and white look like amateur photos are a little blurry baby pictures bright colored picture (orange, yellow, reds, purples) unusual pictures Next, you need a solid headline. One of the most effective strategies is to call out the user based on what you know about them. Are you targeting someone who likes Lexus? Then you must try the headline "Do you like Lexus?" or "Hey, like Lexus?". This gets your prospects attention and speaks directly to them. Lastly, you need copy for the body of your ad that backs up the image and headline. Pepper in multiple benefits and add a call to action. Something like 'Click here to get your free report' or 'Limited time offer for Lexus fans only!'. These work extremely well. The last step to take advantage of all this work is to engage! Get back on Facebook with your new fans and give them valuable news, resources, software, downloads, help and most of all, listen to them. You are bombarded with messages from your kids, marketing messages, family and family everyday. Make a conscious effort to listen to your customers. This is time spent wisely. A really fun and quick way to leverage and engage fans is holding a Facebook contest. Contests on Facebook go viral very fast and when done correctly, will spread news about your business and bring in TONS of leads. We have used a plugin called 'Contest' Burner' http://www.contestburner.com/ to get Fans to spread the word about new products we role out. Ignore social media at your own peril! Social media users will be your best customers. Most businesses fail to recognize the potential of this channel because it's difficult to track things like 'word of mouth' sales and when prospects first became interested in a business. Filled with 'social' people Facebook is the spark that will ignite your free word-of-mouth advertising.

17 Twitter Marketing Tips From the Pros | LinkedIn

17 Twitter Marketing Tips From the Pros | LinkedIn

The Power of the Irresistible Offer

By Joe Polish

Two of the most important elements in marketing are the OFFER and the LIST.

Now, assuming you have a great LIST of people that have identified themselves as wanting something, or that are interested in a particular subject matter, then you need a way to give them what they want.

So, what’s the mechanism or means that gives people what they want? An irresistible offer.

But the question is: How do you create and set up an irresistible offer that delivers to the other person something they already want (and preferably something they’ve been looking for)? How do you deliver a solution to a problem someone has that you can solve with your product or service (even if the other person is unaware that you can solve it)?

Well, the simple way you do it is by setting up the irresistible offer in a way that makes it easy to get the solution you have into their hands and compels them to want to BUY IT.

One thing you need to remember is this: The number one question in a consumer’s minds is, “WHO can I trust?”

That’s the question everybody has. You have it. I have it. Everyone has it. For example, I’m not going to eat a restaurant if I think that eating there is going to give me food poisoning! So, if you have a product or service that will truly help people, then what you need to do is remove the fear and then the other person will buy.

The job of the marketer is to establish trust and rapport, and simultaneously make the other person feel comfortable doing business with you. And one of the best ways to do this while eliminating virtually all the risk is through a powerful and irresistible offer!

Let me give you an example: When I was a dead broke carpet cleaner, I had to think of all the things that people didn’t know that they did not know about choosing a carpet cleaner. How did I do this?

I used education-based marketing to educate them on why they should do business with me and to get them off the issue of price. I would use headlines like, “The Most Thorough Cleaning Ever Or It’s Free.” I would offer a free room of carpet cleaning up to 200 square feet without any cost or obligation of any kind. I would also provide them with a free carpet audit, where I would go into their home and evaluate the condition of their carpets.

Now, to this day, 20 years later, since I came up with that offer, it’s still the most powerful way for a carpet cleaner to sell a service that, frankly, nobody wants to buy. And the reason is that we offer to give people a demonstration so that they can try it for free, and then we give them an education on evaluating the condition of their carpet. It’s an example of an irresistible offer.

So that would be an example of making an irresistible offer that gives people something valuable AND educates them about how your product or service solves their problem. And this works for ANYTHING from carpet cleaning to the human brain!

One more important point: You can make your offers even more irresistible by adding a GUARANTEE. In addition to giving the other person a sample or letting them try your product or service, you can say, “and if you decide to hire us (or use our product), we even back it up with a 100% money back guarantee. There’s no risk or obligation of any kind and if you’re not totally satisfied, you get 100% of your money back.”

So here’s what you should do now:

Get out a yellow pad (or a piece of paper, or a word document) and think of whatever business you’re in, and try to come up with an offer where you can eliminate 100% of the risk, let them try your services as best you can, and educate them along the way.

Ask yourself:

1. How can I eliminate 100% of the risk?

2. How can I let the other person try my product or service?

3. How can I educate the other person along the way?

Remember: The best offer is an irresistible offer and one that’s totally risk free and educates the other person so that they can make an intelligent, informed decision.

If people can feel like they are confident in making an intelligent, informed decision AND you offer a 100% no risk guarantee. That is even more powerful. And then when you can back all of this up by identifying and showcasing people just like them through the use of testimonials or case studies that have used your product or service, that is one of the closest ways you are ever going to get to making an irresistible offer.

Slightly Behind - The Best Place to Compete?

 

My brothers, identical twins, are a year older than I am. I also have two younger sisters. That gives me lifelong membership to the Fraternity of Middle Kids.

As a middle kid, I occasionally whined to my parents about being overlooked and ignored. They always patiently replied, "Stop being ridiculous, Anthony." I yelled back, "It's Andy!" 

OK, OK, that last part's a joke – but all kidding aside, I'm not the only middle kid who ever griped about feeling attention-deprived. Over the years, I've met plenty of others who could identify with me.

In talking with other middle kids, I've observed another shared characteristic. As adults, they're almost all fighters with a strong competitive drive. Just like me, many felt the need to work a little harder to garner the same attention as their first and last born siblings. 

Finally, I found some research that backs my observations and may offer insight to help sales managers stoke the competitive fire in the bellies of ALL their reps.

In the latest Harvard Business Review "Defend Your Research" section, there's a reprint of an interview with Wharton School of Business marketing professor, Jonah Berger. He explains that his research reveals people compete harder when they're slightly behind (just like a middle kid). The methods and results of his research were quite convincing.

His findings state, "People who are slightly behind in a competition are more likely to win than those who are slightly ahead." He says, "Bonus structures typically reward the best performers. Our research shows there are better ways to motivate people."

If Berger's research holds up, what are some ways to apply his findings to your sales team?

Here are a few ideas:

Leapfrog incentives. Typically, sales incentives are awarded for reaching defined milestones or being the top performer. Imagine if sales managers incentivized sales reps just for outselling the rep in front of them. That way, your 20th place performer might be more motivated to improve based on the achievable goal of beating the numbers of your 19th performer.

Weeklong Contests. Every once in a while, hold a weekly contest. Whoever closes the most business that week or whoever is the first to land a sizable contract before the week's end gets a big prize. Make sure the prize is good - an iPad, football tickets, or a Kindle Fire. This type of contest levels the playing field so under-performers have the chance to dig it out for a week and win.

Incentivize 2nd Place. Challenge your 2nd and 3rd place performers to overtake your top seller. Offer them a special incentive if they dethrone the leader in the specified period of time. To make it fair, inform your top seller that if they remain the leader after the challenge ends, they get the bonus instead.

Alternative Incentives. Shake up your top leader by offering incentives for those who are first to a new vertical, capture the most twitter followers, or deliver their personal ezine first.

Target a Nemesis. Offer double commissions for a period for stealing work from a competitor. This incentive puts your top performers, some of which may be on cruise control, in the slightly behind position and may kickstart that competitive drive again.

Professor Berger's research makes sense and may have some practical and powerful applications to sales, though I wonder how much his research cost the university. To discover that those who are slightly behind compete harder, all he had to do was to ask a middle kid.

Do you think Jonah Berger's research nails it? What ideas do you have for pumping up your competitive drive?

Wasting Time

By: Dan Jourdan

I have a big sale that I am working on right now. It is one of those possible commissions that just the thought of the thing going through can send you on vacation in your head for hours. You start planning how you're going to tell your friends how you made it happen. It is almost like winning the lottery.

Early in my career, someone in my office had a $200,000 commission check. He told me he had a good year that day. I have always dreamed of saying that to someone else.

The challenge is that I have been working on this one for close to two years now and the magic is over. I just can't seem to put all the pieces in place and I am about to throw in the towel.

I told this to my mentor Earl (who was old when I met him fifteen years ago). It is amazing to think that he still has some sales wisdom left for when I need some. He listened to the story and I told him that I was sick of wasting my time on this deal.

Now I have to tell you that Earl asks a lot of questions and has an annoying way of letting you come up with the answer instead of sparring with people.

He asked:

1. How much actual time are you wasting on this? (Not much)

2. If you were not wasting your time on this, what would you be wasting your time on? (Watching TV)

3. If your solution is so valuable, then why have you not wasted the time of others in the industry to help them? (Because I am an idiot, and I don't believe in my product)

And then the killer question...

4. How much time are you wasting thinking about how you are going to spend the commission? (That one really puts things in perspective doesn't it?)

Earl, in his own casual way, once again let me realize that the problem with this sale not happening is not the fault of the deal, but the fault of the salesman... me!

He reminded me that building relationships and contacts is what we do. People buy from people because they want to and when there is a want or a need. Creatively providing value first is a must. Earl reminded me that the process for sales stays the same for every size of business and that no matter what you do, 30% of the people that you meet are price shoppers and you should give them to your competition.

Most of all, he told me again that all of this work could be looked at as a waste of time and if that is the case - you should get out of the business.

"What you are doing," he said, "is building your fortune one sale at a time. And that is not a waste of time."

Those four questions are now hanging on my wall to see all the time. I look at them when I'm not thinking and acting on ways that will help me get to the day when I can finally tell you about the commission that was so big that I had a good year that day!

Mobile Ad Effectiveness Helps Drive Investment - eMarketer

Mobile Ad Effectiveness Helps Drive Investment - eMarketer

Protecting the Lifeblood of Your Business at All Costs! By MaryEllen Tribby You could have endless debates about practically any topic related to business. You might argue over the best type of business... A traditional brick-and-mortar business... Or an online information publishing business... Or even something in between. You could debate the most important skill set required to run a business. Many will declare it's marketing expertise... Others will insist it's the ability to create quality products... Still others will state it's relationship-building prowess. But one thing in business is not debatable. It is the most critical aspect of ANY business. It is the single most important thing you need to obtain and maintain in order to keep your doors open. In fact, it's the very lifeblood of your organization. Customers! Making sure your customers are beyond satisfied with your products, services, and ongoing correspondence should be your number one priority! But sometimes the system breaks down and you end up disappointing your customers. Yes, mistakes happen. Sometimes your employees screw up. Sometimes you do. Sometimes the mistake is small... Sometimes it's major... Sometimes your customer is having a bad day... Sometimes your customer is understanding... And every once in a while, along comes your worst nightmare: that one-in-a-million customer who just isn't happy unless he's miserable. It doesn't matter which scenario you are dealing with: you have a lot at stake.  Not just your time and money, but your reputation as well. The good news is that you can turn an unhappy customer into a happy customer, one who stays with you and becomes your biggest fan. 10 Surefire Ways to Ensure Customer Exuberance  1. Cool off: Never deal with a customer problem immediately after reading or listening to nasty correspondence.  Take a moment to cool down. This way, once you start to investigate the situation, you can do so from a professional and objective perspective rather than reacting emotionally or being defensive. I know it is extremely hard to simmer down after you or some aspect of your company has been attacked. We take pride in what we do. When someone questions one of our products, one of our employees, or our integrity... it is personal. However, you must be able to acknowledge the underlying complaint or problem... Separate yourself from the situation... And respond in a professional manner. That way, you will come out of the situation knowing your actions were above reproach.

2. Listen: Let your customer tell you her issue without interruption. When you try to correct or interrupt your customer, you will make matters worse.

3. Apologize: If you are the person the customer is speaking to, always apologize and take responsibility. Let him know you intend to get to the bottom of the situation once you have all the facts.

If you cannot resolve the situation during that initial communication, let the customer know you will get back to him within 24 hours. Make sure you follow through on the conversation!

4. Assess the situation: There is an old saying that goes like this: "When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me."  As corny as it is - it's correct.

Don't make assumptions. Always get ALL the facts before trying to resolve a problem. If your employees are involved, talk to them. Ask them to give you their side of the story. If a joint venture partner is involved - even if she resides in a different time zone - wake her up or have an email ready for her in the morning.

Your customer may (and usually does) have a legitimate issue that may be a simple misunderstanding. When you know the facts and refrain from jumping to conclusions, you will usually be able to find a quick and mutually beneficial resolution.

5. Communicate via phone: How many times have you received an email and thought, "Boy was that rude! When I speak to that person I will give him a piece of my mind!", only to speak to that person and find him to be polite and respectful? It is so hard to detect tone of voice in an email! A phone call is much better - especially when you're dealing with an upset or dissatisfied customer.

But conveying tone of voice is just one reason to correspond by phone. The other is that a phone call is immediate - and it takes more effort than dashing off an email. Picking up the phone shows respect and a sense of urgency. You make it clear that you care about the customer's experience and want to solve the issue as soon as possible. If the customer does not answer, leave her a message and then follow up with an email.

6. Never dispute a refund: All of your products should come with a money-back guarantee. If a customer wants to return a product for a refund - either within or outside the refund period - give him his money back. This shows that you are more interested in your customer's satisfaction than in his money. It's a good way to keep yourself in that person's good will.

By the way... Don't worry about people taking advantage of this. While some customers will ask for a refund at any time, most customers will honor your refund timeframe.

7. Send a surprise follow-up gift: We all love getting surprise gifts in the mail. Well, so do our customers! There are wonderful online services from which you can order little gifts for under $10. If you've just saved a $500, $1,000, or $5,000 sale, isn't spending $10 on a gift worth it?

While it doesn't need to be expensive, make sure the gift is personal and thoughtful. Do not send your customer a digital ebook via email or anything else that shows little effort.

8. Never ignore a complaint: So many entrepreneurs make the mistake of ignoring customer comments and complaints... especially if the complaints come from only one or two people. They brush it off as an anomaly. In reality, for every one comment you hear, there are 33 people who feel the exact same way or have the same problem but just choose not to tell you. And you can be sure that if they chose not to tell you, they will not buy from you again.

9. Meet with your team: I am not big on meetings for the sake of meetings. However, you should hold a team meeting every week. This way you will hear about any and every potentially damaging situation. This is where members of your team should bring up issues that need to be addressed right away.

10. Survey your customers: Communicating with your customers - and asking them for their thoughts - shows that you really care about them. Ask them to tell you not only what they like about your organization but also what they don't like. Chances are that you already know what you're doing right. But you may not be aware of some of the things that are bothering your customers.

Do not blow off the complaints or negative comments just because you disagree or do not want to face reality. Every complaint is an opportunity for you to improve your business!

All of these tactics can help you save relationships with your customers. But no matter what - whenever you deal with a customer, happy or angry, satisfied or dissatisfied - remember this:

Put yourself in your customer's shoes.

This is the easiest way of all to create a strong, lasting bond with your customer. Simply ask yourself how YOU would feel if YOU were in the customer's situation. And not just how you'd feel if you had the problem she may be having... But how you would feel if someone did not take you seriously... or kept interrupting you... or responded to you via email instead of the phone... or failed to respond to you at all. Then treat your customer the way YOU would like to be treated.

Do this and your business will flourish.

Tired Of Negativity?

Sharon Lechter, annotator of Outwitting The Devil

 

Are you tired of negativity? From the nightly news to cocktail hour conversation, are you frustrated with the constant talk about the roller coaster stock market? Unemployment and underemployment continue to be front page news wherever you look. Statistics clearly show that health problems are increasing related to stress from the ups and downs of the economy. What are we to do? You and I may not be able to impact the global economy, or even our state economy...but EACH of us can take control of our own wallets. And the first step may be taking control of our mindset.

The phrase "just do it!" says it all! The first step may be as easy as changing our environment. A newly released book, Outwitting the Devil, shows you how to expel negativity and how to attract opportunity. It may just be the kick in the pants we all need.

Originally written in 1938 by Napoleon Hill, the year after he published the international blockbuster Think and Grow Rich, Hill addresses the self-limiting beliefs that may be keeping you back from the success you so richly deserve. In a bold and provocative move, Hill interrogates the Devil about how he uses fear and negativity to derail people from success. Is it the real devil, or an imaginary devil? Hill allows you to decide for yourself.

Even though written in 1938, this book is even more relevant today. If you have seen fear, greed, avarice, ego, vanity, procrastination and negativity create havoc around you, Outwitting the Devil will illuminate why it is happening, and how you can rid your life of these elements. It reveals seven specific steps that you can take to drive out negativity, start to recognize opportunities, and capitalize on them to propel you to success. It is those of us who take action today who will create the success stories of tomorrow. Will you be one of them?

I had the honor to bring this book to your attention when Don Green of the Napoleon Hill Foundation asked me to review the original manuscript. With that great honor, came great responsibility as I set forth to annotate the book and draw comparisons between the world in 1938 to that of today. Why was it hidden for so long? Could it have been the Devil at work? The fear that gripped Hill's wife and prevented the book from being published in 1938, may have been a blessing in disguise. The power of its message is exactly what the world needs today!

I can honestly say that the book changed my life for the better and I can also say without a doubt that it will change yours as well.

Demand Life's Best By Napoleon Hill Criticism has been leveled by some people because they feel there is too much consideration for the material things in life. If we seem to overemphasize the importance of money and material riches, it is because so many people let fear of poverty ruin their chances to enjoy the other riches in life. The real good there is in money consists of the use to which it is put and not the mere possession of it. True happiness consists not in the possession of things, but in the privilege of self-expression through the use of material things. They are but a means to an end - physical instruments of impression and expression. You must have money in order to enjoy freedom of body and mind, which is a choice blessing. A person cannot be really free if he must be chained to a routine job most of his waking hours and receive in return for that a mere subsistence. If a person has to pay that much for existence he is paying too high a price! These lessons will give you the formula for breaking with past habits of accepting the crumbs from life's table, and teach you a proven way in which you can rid yourself of self-imposed limitations and enjoy your fill of life's riches. But let anyone who imagines that he does not want money try to get along without it. He will soon find out that one of the worst crimes a man can be guilty of is to be poverty-stricken and broke. Let us be realistic enough to face the facts of life, and demand from life the best that it can give.

A survival guide to SoLoMo (social, location, and mobile)

Articles By Bruce LeSourd on October 19, 2011

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In the immediate future, people will be leaving their PCs and stepping out into a world of internet-connected devices and context-specific information services. Are you prepared?
A hot buzzword in tech these days is SoLoMo (social, location, mobile). A new industry of SoLoMo startups has appeared in the last two years, built from the ground up to exploit the convergence of people, information, services, things, and places on modern mobile platforms. But what should established, brick-and-mortar business do about SoLoMo?
This is a serious question, because SoLoMo is going to have a huge impact on the way your customers and employees do business, spend money, and live their lives. Consider that Apple's App Store debuted July 2008, and by 2011 reached 10 billion downloads -- in less than half the time it took to reach 10 billion songs downloaded from iTunes. New media, new tools, and new technologies are going mainstream at an ever faster pace.
The next few years will see a wave of digital natives and other tech-savvy folk leaving their office and home PCs and stepping out into a world swarming with internet-connected devices and context-specific information services. These web migrants will bring their social networks, research tools, authoring platforms, and games with them. They expect SoLoMo to be even cooler and more seamless than the web. Digital natives, in particular, have grown up in a world where the cycle between technological watersheds and fundamental social impact happens in under five years, and will keep getting faster. Far from being overwhelmed, they expect to be empowered with easy-to-use tools that help them shape their reality, in real time, in response to unpredictable technological and cultural change. Digital natives live in a world where revolutions start on Twitter and governments consider the internet an existential threat. That's as real as it gets.
As mobile technology transforms Main Street, some traditional brick-and-mortar virtues will fade, some will flourish. Storefront in a prime location will lose some of its intrinsic value as mobile devices make Off Broadway "visible," but physical presence in a vibrant district with diverse services and activities will become lucrative again as mobile lures people back onto the streets. Traditional advertising and sales will lose traction in a world with instant everywhere access to the web and social networks, leaving high touch, expert customer service to rule brand loyalty. Digital natives looking for a place to gather, together with mobile devices offering extended inventory, will erode the value of shelf space as a sales driver.
All these changes can disrupt or kill even the most successful traditional business models. Fortunately, brick-and-mortars already offer three things digital natives crave that can be supercharged with mobile technology: location, immediacy, and ubiquity.
LocationLocation isn't just a point of interest on a Google map. The next generation of mobile will be capable of interacting with every aspect of your store, factory, or business processes. This will be enabled by near field communication, augmented reality, and less exotic tools like commodity card swipe accessories, scanning and bumping, and location search. Integrating all these new systems can be expensive, and predicting how they will be used by the time you deploy is impossible. Stay nimble by opening your physical infrastructure and your brand to become a platform for digital natives, whether they are your customers or your employees. Instead of providing highly controlled services, give them the tools to help you build out your SoLoMo presence.
Takeaway: To build mindshare and stickiness, make your brick-and-mortar a SoLoMo platform.
Immediacy Smartphones put everyone a few taps away from nearly anything on the web: Google search, competitive pricing, reviews. What the web can't offer is the human touch. Once digital natives are hanging out in your space, you have the opportunity to offer them unique services in person, with the same speed and convenience they get from the web. To make this possible, streamline routine tasks with mobile technology to free employees for high-touch services only you can provide. This will generate a positive feedback loop where your physical locations generate more foot traffic, higher social value, and better ROI, part of which can be reinvested in your human touch.
Takeaway: Remember, with SoLoMo, the human touch is more important than ever.
UbiquityMobile technology is everywhere, so you should be too. Use your brick-and-mortar presence as a base of operation and extend your unique, high-touch services into your neighborhood and beyond. Offer free Wi-Fi. Use 3G iPads as mobile offices. Offer delivery services in a two-block radius. Build virtual stores in key locations. Make your stores nodes in scavenger hunts and other massively multiplayer games. Create networks with other local businesses to build mindshare for your neighborhoods.
Takeaway: The web is nowhere, the SoLoMo business is everywhere.
In the end, the convergence of social, location, and mobile will force every business to look beyond traditional notions of technology ROI. Make sure you are on the playing field in this fast-moving, high-stakes game. Seize the opportunity presented by SoLoMo, and you will present an existential threat to your competition.

Why the QR code is failing | LinkedIn

Why the QR code is failing | LinkedIn

Maple Syrup Boosts The Health of One of The Most Important Organs In The Body

Maple Syrup Boosts The Health of One of The Most Important Organs In The Body

Dear Readers, What does self-actualization mean? Supposedly it is the highest level of personal achievement wherein we do what it is we were put on this planet to accomplish. At different times in our lives it is different things, but sometimes there are these two or three haunting desires that do not leave us alone no matter our age. That little nudge, or that little idea that wakes us up at night could just be the one thing that the Creator wants us to accomplish while on this side of heaven. Let me tell you something about myself that few of you know - all of my life I have had a love affair with cats. From the cradle and probably to the grave, cats have ranked in the "very important" category to me. Currently, I have one special cat named Mole, (pronounced Moley - as in Guacamole), who is one of my all time favorites. There have been others, but he is the one on this side of the rainbow as I have heard others express it. By that I mean he is older, but hasn't transitioned yet. Recently, I traveled on a vacation to Alaska and was gone for several days. Although Mole was cat-sat at home, he still was glad to see me. Dr. Arcy, one of my traveling buddies, commented that "he actually smiled when he saw you." Not only did he do that, but he purred non-stop by my side for the entire night. What a welcome home greeting. Now, what's the point of all this? The point is - back to self-expression - I have been haunted about doing something with and for cats for years. But, what to do and how to do it? Long story short. A few years back, I met Michael Telapary from the Netherlands and he listened to my crazy cat ideas and thought that they were interesting. He helped me combine his musical talent with my cats' "purrforming" and together we have launched a website www.purrmagic.com that is dedicated to my family of feline friends. Is my life complete because I have done this? Well, I hope not, but it sparked my creativity, it aligned me to a friend who shares my passion, and it has allowed me to scratch another item off of my Bucket List! Crazy cat lady! Maybe. But let me ask you, what have you done with your passion? Is it still inside of you? At least I have very tangible proof now that I have manifested something that I have only wished for in the past. And maybe, just maybe, it will make the world a better place, one purr at a time. Be Your Very Best Always, Judy Williamson Share Email to a friend or share on Facebook or Twitter. Recommend this on Facebook: Contact Pat Andreatta for package Malaysian Tour and Convention Program at: pandreatta@sbcglobal.net   Self-Expression and Recognition By Napoleon Hill We should be working harder for the opportunity to express ourselves and to gain public recognition than for any amount of money. There are a great many people who are doing just that and they become successful. Many thinking men believe that the ultimate purpose of all life is seeking new and better ways to express one's self. In the process by which life evolves new models it proceeds from a simple type of idea to a more complex one, for the reason that it wishes to enjoy a greater variety of impression and expression. The ego, the self-existent, living entity of man, follows this principle and has this desire for expression. A rich source of satisfaction of this desire may be found in daily contacts with people, if contacts are made with a positive mental attitude. In the business of becoming successful, you will find you will need both hands. One hand will be stretched upward, to receive the blessing of Infinite Intelligence, with the other extended down and outward, sharing and giving to others who are helping you in the climb. No one ever achieved outstanding success without the cooperation of others; and you realize, of course, that you must give something in return for this co-operation.

A Must-Have in Any Business

There is nothing that can affect my day like feedback about the customer service in my fitness business. I accept that not everyone will like my products, and there’s nothing I can do about that. However, when someone is unhappy with our customer service, it causes a spike in my blood pressure and knots in my stomach.

Why?

Because this is something we control, and also because our customer service reflects my reputation as a businessman. If a customer question slips through the cracks, and this will happen from time to time when you receive thousands of requests for help, it makes you look like you don’t care about your clients. And that’s one of the worst reputations you can have as a business owner.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth in my business. Our customer service mindset is simple, ”Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Providing the best customer service in the fitness industry is one of the Core Values in my business, and we succeed at this almost everyday. Unfortunately, it’s only on the days that things go wrong that I hear about it.

In today’s article, Robert Ringer explains why customer service will never go out of style. It doesn’t matter if your customer service team consists of you or people you have trained, customer service is one of the most important parts of your business.

Customer Service Is a Mindset
By Robert Ringer

Some years ago, I was having lunch with a business associate at a fine restaurant. The food was superb, but when you pay eighty bucks for lunch for two people, you also expect great service. When the waitress brought our appetizers, I asked her to please give me some cracked pepper on my salad. Though she was pleasant, she responded with, ”The cracked pepper is on the table.”

Being the peaceful, gentle soul that I am, I let it go at that. But what I really felt like saying to her was, ”What I meant was that I wanted you to put some cracked pepper on my salad. I don’t like to work for my food, especially when I’m paying $80 for it.”

About a month later, I checked into a fairly high-priced hotel in Los Angeles. Because I’m an ex-artillery guy, wherever I go I tend to set things up as though I were going to be there for an indefinite period of time. And when it comes to hotels, the first thing I do is call housekeeping and read off my standard list of requests.

One of those standards is two extra boxes of Kleenex. Being an efficiency aficionado, I always put one box on the nightstand next to my bed and another box on the desk. Why walk into the bathroom every time you want to blow your nose? Okay, so I’m strange. But so was Howard Hughes. (Hmmm ... maybe not such a good example.)

No matter how much traveling you do, every trip brings with it one or more surprises that you’ve never had to deal with before. And so it was that when I called housekeeping and related my list of requests to the lady on the other end of the line. She nearly took my breath away when she snapped, ”I can only give you one extra box of Kleenex.”

Out of morbid fascination, I asked her why. She explained that it was simply the hotel’s policy. She added, however, that after I used up the extra box of Kleenex, she would be happy to have another box delivered to my room to replace it. How kind of her. It was beginning to feel like a Saturday Night Live skit.

In truth, however, her absurd statements were a result of a contagious employee disease known as ”Make Up the Policy as You Go Along.” Trust me, there is no hotel in the world that has a policy which states: ”If a guest asks for two extra boxes of Kleenex, tell him he can only have one at a time.”

I didn’t want to make Ms. Housekeeper’s mental condition any more painful than it apparently was, so I simply said to her, ”Not a problem. Just put your supervisor on the line and I’ll place the order with her.” Remarkably, she immediately opted to change her One-Extra-Box-of-Kleenex-Per-Guest policy and leave her supervisor out of our fascinating discussion.

”Offering” to speak with a supervisor about some petty issue is something that is very easy to do and that produces quick results. Just make certain that in your business, a customer never finds that to be necessary. I seem to have a vague memory of an old business rule about the customer always being right… oh, and another one about going the extra mile.

Kind of remarkable how so many maxims never go out of style. But, then, there’s a simple explanation for it: They produce results for people who want to get ahead in life

                       PUMP UP THE VOLUME

Customers are starving for courtesy, patience and respect.  If you can manage to give them enough of each, they'll keep coming back for it over and over again.

A Public Agenda poll asked customers what turns them off most, and the answers were:

• Being ignored, not acknowledged, no greeting or contact (43%)
• Employees who seem too busy to answer questions, indifference, condescending tones, lack of appreciation (28%)
• Long waits (25%)
• Not honoring commitments or appointments, employees handling personal calls while customers wait (21%)
• Sour attitude, sarcasm, argumentative employees, smart remarks (13%)
• Poor phone practices, long holds, voice mail, unreturned calls (13%)

It should be no surprise that companies who can make customers feel appreciated have a much better chance of turning those customers into repeat business and referrals.  51% of the people responding to the poll said they'd come back and bring others if they received:

• A cheerful, enthusiastic greeting (37%)
• Helpful, intuitive service (36%)
• A listening ear and knowledgeable answers (26%)
• Being treated fairly (21%)
• Prompt follow-up (16%)
• Appreciation (15%)
• Remembering their names (10%)

The information above is basically a roadmap to increasing sales, in any economy.
Share it with your sales team, work on reducing or eliminating the problem areas, and pump up the volume on giving customers the attention they want.

Doggie day care and shelter coming to La Grange - The Doings LaGrange

Doggie day care and shelter coming to La Grange - The Doings LaGrange

What Do Facebook Users Expect from Brands? - eMarketer

What Do Facebook Users Expect from Brands? - eMarketer

How to Leverage LinkedIn to Land Your Dream Job

By Lewis Howes


LinkedIn is one of the best places online to find and land your dream job.
Let me explain.
There are a number of sites that have you fill out a profile, upload your resume and then send them out to hundreds of employers for you.
However, most of these sites have so much competition that every employer is receiving hundreds (if not thousands) of resumes and applications.
This is the most inefficient way to spend your time looking for your dream job.
I’ve heard countless stories of individuals spending months trying this route and getting zero results or leads from it.
Don’t waste your time doing something that won’t get you results.
Instead, leverage the one thing that WILL provide you with warm job leads and proven results.
This one thing I’m talking about is LinkedIn.
The Power of LinkedIn for Your Job Search
Let’s break down why LinkedIn has helped thousands of job seeking professionals like yourself land the exact job they’ve always wanted (and during the most challenging economic times).
The LinkedIn Network.
This is the power of LinkedIn.  It’s not just about your direct connections, but your 2nd and 3rd degree connections and the entire 130 million person LinkedIn network.
You see, one of the reasons you haven’t landed your desired job is because you haven’t leveraged your network.
“Wait a minute Lewis... haven’t leveraged my network?  I’ve contacted all of my friends for months and still have no luck.  What do you mean by that?”
Maybe you have been asking all of your friends if they have any openings at the company they work for or if they can “pass your resume” along but you can’t rely on that alone.
You need to be more proactive and it starts with LinkedIn.
Your Online Brand
Currently 78% of respondents are using LinkedIn as their primary tool for recruiting.
That’s right; LinkedIn is a hub for finding qualified and trustworthy candidates.
This is much higher than any other social networking site or resume site online.
It’s simple.  You need to not only set up your profile on LinkedIn, you need to ensure that you build your brand on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn Branding 101
It’s not enough to just set up an account on LinkedIn.  There are 130 million professionals on the site ranging in every industry you can think of.
That may seem like a lot of competition, but really it’s not.  All you need to do is learn how to “market yourself on LinkedIn” and you will blow by your competitors.
A majority of the profiles on LinkedIn aren’t filled out completely, have boring information, and aren’t as enticing for recruiters as they could be.
Some even hurt the chances of getting a job as first impressions are lasting ones when it comes to a hiring decision.
First things first.  You need to complete your profile 100%.
Once you do this you can start with the rest of your LinkedIn marketing foundation.
The next thing you will want to do is add a video that automatically plays any time a recruiter lands on your profile.
This video will set you apart not just from your competitors, but from all of the other professionals on LinkedIn.  (See my profile for an example of how this video looks http://linkedin.com/in/lewishowes.)
Here’s what you should focus on in your video.  Tell people who you are, who you help, and how you help them.  
Make it one to two minutes long, and focus on a clear message that leads the recruiter to take an action to email you or call you to set up an interview.
Remember this... recruiters don’t want to hire someone who is “Currently Looking for a Job”... they want to hire someone who is already doing extremely well at another company or on their own.  
So don’t put anywhere in your headline or in your profile that you are “currently seeking employment” as everyone I talk to who has that in their profile never gets a job.  If they do get a job, it’s never the one of their dreams.
You need to showcase your talents on your profile; talk about your current work experience and the exact results you are producing for your business or the company you work for as recruiters want to find employers that produce massive results.
Another way to market yourself on LinkedIn and attract more job opportunities is to join targeted groups in your industry and answer related questions in the Answers section.
When looking to join targeted groups, first do a keyword search in the “Groups” tab, and find the groups that have that most members first to join.  This will give you greater exposure when interacting with members and decision makers inside the groups.
Second, search on the “Answers” tab for questions related to your expertise and industry.  There are individuals looking for industry specific answers on a daily basis, and they are looking to hire experts who can help with their business needs.
Become one of those experts!
Take Your Profile to the Next Level
There are a number of things you can do to optimize your profile to attract more recruiters and employers.  If you apply a few of these strategies in this email, then you are well on your way to getting the job you desire.

What Smartphones Say About Their Users - eMarketer

What Smartphones Say About Their Users - eMarketer

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

	The New Technique that Tripled My Sales By Ryan Deiss
	We have embarked on a new era in marketing.  Hundreds of ground-breaking marketing strategies are now available at our disposal and one thing is for sure: traditional marketing techniques of the past have been surpassed by bigger and better things. Recently, one of these new techniques tripled my sales overnight.  I didn't add any new traffic, write any new copy or build a fancy website. In fact, I worked way less than that to make way more money. What did I do?  I turned my long-form sales letter into a new and improved Video Sales Letter .  You see, the days of the high converting long-form sales letters are on their way out. You know the letters I am referring to...the ones that were, not too long ago, the hottest way to sell your products and services online.  Basically, it took about three to four weeks to write these personalized sales letters, translating to a huge amount of time, money, and energy. But today there is something better - the new video sales letter.  And, no matter how accurate, friendly and professional your long-form sales letter is, with the new video sales letter format, you can expect to have a much more dramatic increase in traffic and sales. Using video online is not new. Video is used in product tutorials, testimonials and sales presentations. So, it is no surprise that it has now evolved to be used as a way to sell, too. Video appeals to your senses.  When you watch a video, you don't just fix your eyes and ears on it.  You engage your emotions, too.  Watch a funny video and naturally you feel elated.  Watch a video about losing something or someone important and you feel sad or may even shed a tear. It's powerful and moving to everyone who watches it. Video evokes emotion! And consumers are crazy about these videos, too. How can YOU use video sales letters to make more money online?   Start creating them to promote your products and and services online instead of using long-form sales letters.  You'll not only see a huge increase in your conversion rates, there will be many other benefits as well.  For example: 1.  Writing Video Sales Letters saves you time and money. Writing long-form sales copy can be a serious pain.  Believe me on this, I know. I've written my fair share of them.  It's time-consuming and tedious and you often have to shed serious marketing dollars for it! But, outlining and recording a VSL is easier and faster than writing traditionaly sales letters. It saves you a lot of time and resources in creation, composition, formatting and editing. When you're a one-man show, this efficiency is pure gold! 2.   Video Sales Letters are perceived as CONTENT. Whn most people see a long-form sales letter they immediately scroll to the bottom to look at the price. If they like it, they will scroll back through the copy. But, if the price isn't right, they almost always will immediately leave the page.  Their buying decision is almost entirely dependent on price, before they even hear how great your product is! People react differently to the video sales letter.  These videos are still so relatively new in a lot of markets and people are programmed to assume videos are there to offer content (thanks to Youtube). This means that users will automatically engage with your sales message. 3. With Video Sales Letters, YOU control the sales process. In contrast to long-form sales letter, video sales letters allow you to control the order of events.  You are able dictate the exact experience your viewer will have, and in what order.  No skipping down the page and missing great tidbits of information about your product. Here's a tip: Set your video to have no controls. This way, your viewer doesn't have the option to skip to the end of the video to see the price. The more control you have, the higher the conversion you'll see. Here are some things to keep in mind when creating your video sales letter. 1. KISS (Keep it Short and Simple) Describe your benefits as precise and as specific as possible. Give only the basic facts and pay close attention to your testimonials. Remember, the emotional aspect of your VSL is critical. It helps to call people to action. Illustrate how your product works by using vivid but simple examples. 2. Target Your Customers Do not generalize when it comes to your prospects. Pay attention to their specific demographics. This includes their age, gender, status, location, education, financial state, buying power, as well as needs and expectations.  Try to ensure that your video addresses each of these things. 3. Be Exciting Avoid using too many still photos, boring graphs and charts. Remember, factual data like titles and numbers are better perceived in a static form. Instead, take advantage of the video itself. Use it to encourage, influence and move your viewers by using stories and words. In short, excite them. 4. Divide Your Long Story Into Several Snippets To keep your listeners attention, break up long stories within your video into snippets throughout the entire piece. Insert the snippets near the headline, testimonials and product description sections, and after the "call to action."  5. Think Outside Of The Box You don't have to stick with the rules in creating your Video Sales Letter. You can be creative and experimental. Video Sales Letters have styles that you can tweak and fine-tune. The key here is to make your Video Sales Letter unique, catchy and newsworthy. An interesting Video Sales Letter amazes and engages a viewer. Video Sales Letters are pretty easy and simple to make.  Most of the tools that you need to create them are available for free.  Creating the video is as simple as reading a PowerPoint presentation loudly and clearly and recording your voice with a microphone.  If you are not happy with your own voice, you can even have someone narrate it for you. Just capture it all with the screen capture software and that is it!  Nothing else.  Most of the time there is no editing needed. Whether you are a first-timer or an experienced martketer, try to keep everything short and simple. Plan ahead and use your imagination.  If you follow the simple steps mentioned above I can assure you, your Video Sales Letter will be a great new addition to your business.

The Customer-Employee Challenge

By Robert Ringer

For many years, I felt a moral obligation to inform business owners whenever I thought they had a personnel or customer-service problem on their hands. I say moral obligation, because I have always been grateful to customers — or anyone, for that matter — who have taken the time to clue me in on any aspect of my business which they felt was not up to par.

I use the past tense here because, sadly, I rarely volunteer my observations anymore. The inherent urge to be of help to a fellow entrepreneur or business owner still resides within me. The problem, however, is that too many business owners have demonstrated that they are neither interested in, nor serious about, receiving such feedback.

A few years ago, I was doing business with a public relations firm that assigned a seemingly intelligent young lady (“Ms. Snit”) to my account. Subsequent events showed that she had it all — negligence, laziness, incompetence, and a huge chip on her shoulder. Her purported job was public relations, but her entitlement mentality caused her to focus on her technical “duties” rather than on pleasing her company’s customers.

After enduring one abysmal experience after another with her, I finally decided to go to the trouble of writing a letter to the CEO of the company, a letter in which I detailed Ms. Snit’s myriad deficiencies and belligerent attitude. I subsequently spoke to him on the phone and emphasized that I would prefer he handle the matter in a general sort of way in order to avoid hard feelings. I specifically requested that he leave my name out of his discussion with her, given that I have an aversion to meat axes.

I suggested that he simply point out some areas of weakness where he felt Ms. Snit needed some improvement. He assured me that he wouldn’t even mention my name and that he would handle things “gingerly.” I guess we had differing definitions of the word gingerly, because he not only told her straight out what I had said about her, he actually showed her my letter!

A short time later, I called Ms. Snit to inquire about an unrelated matter, whereupon she went into a tirade about how I had “defamed” her. In rare form, she demonstrated an uncanny knack for coming up with four-letter words that I didn’t even know existed.

Needless to say, from that point on she went out of her way to make things difficult for me. Worse, having been allowed to get away with her outrageous behavior, it was a green light for her to continue to treat her company’s most valued assets (its customers) with glaring contempt.

About a year later, I hired an audio/video company to do some extensive work for me, and dealt primarily with the vice president of new business development. Notwithstanding his impressive title, he never once delivered work when he promised it to me. Worse, he was unresponsive to an extreme.

I finally got so fed up with the bad service I was getting that I thought I should let the owner know about it. Since he had been the one to personally solicit my business, I knew he would be concerned about the lack of follow-through on the part of one of his top people. Here again I emphasized to him that he should handle the problem gingerly since we were only about half way through my project and I had a lot of money invested in it.

Apparently, once again, there was a wide disparity between our definitions of “gingerly.” Wham! Immediately after the owner of the company talked to him, the vice president of new business development called to let me know, in very harsh terms, that he didn’t appreciate my “going behind his back” to complain to his boss. I didn’t bother to remind him that on numerous occasions I had expressed my dissatisfaction directly to him, but it seemed not to have had any effect. Needless to say, working through the remainder of the project was a very uncomfortable undertaking for me.

Advice: If you’re a business owner, when a customer does you a favor by pointing out that one of your employees is not doing his job properly, don’t make the mistake of creating an employee-versus-customer battle. Be grateful to the customer, thank him for taking the time and trouble to tell you about his dissatisfaction, then approach the employee gingerly.
Meaning, tactfully point out the area or areas where you feel he needs improvement, but leave the specific customer out of it. Why? For at least two reasons.

First, because you can count on the employee’s having his own version of the story, and that version is almost certain to cast him as an innocent victim. Which means you then have a customer-employee debacle on your hands.

Second, if you intend to have an ongoing relationship with the customer, the offending employee is likely to act in ways that will drive him away from you by exacting retribution for his “tattling” on him.

I believe that one of the reasons so many employers make this mistake is that they tend to be naive. By and large, anyone ambitious enough to go into business for himself is usually conscientious, competent, reliable, hardworking, and customer-oriented. Where the naivety comes into play is that such business owners also tend to assume, at least subconsciously, that their employees possess the same traits.

And, fortunately, many employees do — at least the ones who are focused on getting ahead in life. However, the employees who treat customers disrespectfully are most likely to be the same employees who excel at kissing up to their bosses.

How do some employees manage to get away with this kind of charade throughout their careers? Sadly, I believe the egos of many business owners simply can’t resist the gushy verbiage of professional sycophants on their payroll. It makes them feel secure to know they are surrounded by a cadre of pit bulls who make great theater of protecting their bosses.

In fact, many bosses are addicted to the fabricated adulation of their employees. The unspoken understanding is that in exchange for treating the boss as if he were the Pope, they can count on him to stand up for the guys and gals on “his team” at all costs.

All of which sounds very noble, except for the reality that it’s simply not good business. An owner cannot serve his customers effectively if he is focused on not offending his employees.

I want to emphasize that making certain your employees are treating your customers with tender loving care does not prevent you from being respectful and loyal to those same employees. But your relationship with an employee should be based on how well he treats your most precious asset — your customers — rather than how well he treats you.

The corollary to this is that if you happen to be an employee, you should skip the sycophantism and focus your efforts on pleasing your company’s customers. You’ll get ahead much more quickly by having customers tell your boss how great you are rather than by your continually telling the boss how great he is.

Finally, if you’re an independent entrepreneur, everything is in your lap, because you are both the employee and the employer. Without customers, you have nothing. Treat them like the valuable assets they are. The only rigid policy you should have is that the customer must be satisfied at all costs.

In fact, you should look at every customer complaint as an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with that customer. I’ve done this a thousand times in my career by not only apologizing and thanking the customer for letting me know about his dissatisfaction, but also by doing something special for him.

Almost without fail, it results in having a more loyal customer than one who has never registered a complaint. In other words, view a customer’s complaint as an opportunity rather than a problem.

One last piece of advice that I feel is critical: Don’t ask customers to fill out evaluation forms unless you, personally, are prepared to read them. On at least two occasions that I can think of, I was about to fill out one of those “tell us how we’re doing” forms, because I thought the owner of the company would appreciate knowing that someone in his organization was not performing up to par.

The problem? In both cases, the form was to be returned to the very person I was having a problem with! As I said, many business owners are very naive.

If you own a business — or plan to own one some day — never make this mistake. If having your customers evaluate your products and services is really important to you, make sure that customer evaluation forms are sent directly to you. Otherwise, you’re tempting the employee who reads the forms to shred the ones that don’t please him.