Joe Abraham

What happened to client service?

// August 23rd, 2010 // View Comments // Next Gen. Entrepreneurship, Small business

Maybe last week was just a weird week – I certainly hope that’s all it was. I had two (count em’ 2) really horrible experiences with small business owners (or their employees). Interestingly enough, they both happened within the automotive industry.

The first was with a mechanic shop where our vehicle was in for some repairs. I’ll make a long story as short as possible because chances are, you’ve heard (or experienced) this before. The mechanic (who happened to be the son of the owner) was friendly, informative and courteous during the sales process. He took the time to explain all his findings and confirm that his diagnosis of the problem was spot on.

We authorized the work. He completed the work. Unfortunately, while he was test driving the car after completing the work, there was a complication in the engine and the car simply shut off. I remember getting his desperate call apologizing for the mishap and promising that he would make everything right – on his dime. (So far so good right?).

Well, he must have received a tongue lashing from his dad (the owner) or something but a few days into trying to repair the issue, he contacted me with the classic “can you come down to the shop so we can talk?” angle. The father-son combo went on to inform me that even though the engine blew up during the test drive (and after the son had worked on it), that the actual culprit was a pre-existing condition that had “nothing to do with him“. As a result, even though they could do the work, they would want to be paid for the parts and labor. The son actually got irate and told me I was “asking for too much” when I simply asked them to follow through on their commitment to make things right.

How would you have responded in that situation? What happened to the cornerstones of small business – words like integrity and client service?

Next real-life story. This one was our fault for not checking the firm out before going there. Had we done some checking first, we would have found that it was a real bottom-feeder group.

My business partner called on a Saturday morning and suggested we go for a ride to an exotic car dealership in Rolling Meadows, IL to scope out his next toy. Given that it is very hard for me to say no to playing with high-performance cars, I obliged. The story of our experience is documented on yelp. (You can read about it by clicking here).

However, here’s my bottom line. It’s not like the automotive industry is booming right now. Why then, would owners of companies in this industry not be hyper-sensitive to ensuring their clients are treated with over-the-top service and integrity? In both cases, even though the offending party was not the business owner themselves, the responsibility falls squarely on the entrepreneur/owner for having allowed that to happen within their brand.

I would go so far as to say that in both my experiences, the problem was at the entrepreneur/owner level. Both owners allowed sub-standard people to work for them.

However, I know from personal experience that a majority of entrepreneurs do not think like the owners of these two companies. Yet, the risk still remains that employees (including family members) could tarnish a brand based on personal choices the employees made on a daily basis.

If you own a company where someone other than yourself is dealing with clients/customers, take the time this month to audit your customer experience. Here are some practical things to do:

1) Go “undercover” and talk directly to the last 25 prospects who didn’t do business with your company. Ask them why. If the culprit points to an employee issue, deal with is swiftly and decisively. (Unemployment is still at 9+% – there are some amazingly qualified people looking for good work).
2) Talk to 10 past clients who did not repurchase. Evaluate if your team is the cause of that.
3) This is the BIG one. Check online (twitter, fb, yelp etc) to see what people are saying about your business. Reach out directly to those who left unhappy and talk to them. Was is a human resource issue? If so, fix it pronto.

There was a time when businesses could treat prospects and customers like garbage and not pay the consequences. Another round of advertising always led to fresh blood and new customers. A few ruffled feathers were part of the business journey. In the days to come, social media will crush businesses that continue to play that old-school game.

I just want to encourage you to do an audit and make sure you don’t fall into the category with the two automotive businesses I interacted with this week. Your company’s future depends on it.

Going Tribal in Small Business. Why and How

// January 7th, 2010 // View Comments // Small business

You’ve probably heard the whole concept of building tribes by Seth Godin.

It is a concept that is sweeping across business (with real results) very fast. It is here to stay.

But how do you go about implementing this strategy in your small business?

Here are some simple steps.

1) Join some tribes first: It is disingenuous to say the least if you want people to follow you when you are not following someone else. So find 4 or 5 thought leaders and follow them yourself.

Yes, you the CEO, must be a follower too!

Here are a handful of people I follow…
– Social Media: Shama Kabani (@shama)
– Sales Strategy – Tom Hopkins (@TomHopkinsSales)
– Legal – Dana Shultz (@danashultz)
– Conservative Politics – Glen Beck (@GlenBeck)

So pick the categories that are most important to you and find someone to follow.

Note: I am not following 15 social media gurus. That is a waste of time and the recipe for tons of confusion. I am trusting Shama as an expert to stay on top of her game and keep me updated on everything going on in her space. I’d recommend you do the same with each of your experts.

2) Get your team involved: The key to small business success is personal growth across the entire employee base. It is no longer good enough for just managers and executives to grow. To be competitive in this insane market, your entire team must be dedicated to learning and improvement.

So institute a policy of “going tribal” across the organization….and make it fun!

Let employees pick areas they are most excited about. I don’t care if it is underwater basket-weaving. Everyone needs to find 4-5 things they are passionate about. They need to find thought leaders in that space and follow them.

Part of making things fun could include allowing people to present their latest learnings in a rotation at team or staff meetings. It lets your staff build their presentation/speaking muscle. It helps their peers learn something new and it builds team dynamics.

3) Study the patterns of the thought leaders you and your company are following: Hey why reinvent the wheel? Keep things simple. Duplicate success.

Ask yourself what the thought leaders are talking about. How often are they doing it? Are they pitching their service or feeding you content? Who else is following them? Is there a pattern you can learn from the best?

As you start to pick up the trends of the thought leaders you follow, sit down with your team and do this next step.

4) Build your tribe platform: Here’s the question you and the team need to answer…

If you were going to build a tribe, what area would it be in?

Another way to ask the question is this. What is your (or your company’s) area of expertise and is there something about it that people want to engage on?

If you are a restaurant owner, what do your customers want to know about food? Ask them, they’ll tell you. Maybe they’ll want quick fix recipes and maybe they’ll want interesting new ingredient combinations to try at home. I don’t know. But if you ask em, they’ll tell you.

Here’s what they DON’T want. They DON’T want you twittering out special offers and discount coupons 5 times a day. That is not thought leadership, that is selling.

If you are a financial planner, what area of the huge “finance” world can you build a content niche around? I know your hands may be tied with regulations from your broker/dealer, but ask your clients what area of finance they most want to learn about. Then feed them that information.

If you are a real estate agent, stop posting your latest listings and sales on facebook and twitter. Start giving your followers real-life information, trends and latest developments in the market WITHOUT the sales pitch.

Listen, if you become a thought leader, people will contact you when they are ready for your product or service. You don’t have to keep reminding them every 60 minutes that this is a “buyers market” and that you are “ready to work for them” them with “great service”. STOP THAT!

NOTE: If you need to, do some google keyword searches to find out what people are searching about in your market. That will help confirm or modify the direction you have chosen.

5) Deploy: Set up your basic social media infrastructure (Blog-facebook page-twitter account-youtube channel) and start posting the content you know people want. Be patient. It will take a while for people to start to find and follow you. However, if you stay consistent, you will build a following.

Those followers will tell others and continue to build a bigger following. You can throw some gasoline on the fire by promoting your platform locally through advertising, on other blogs, or by engaging in the conversation taking place in various online groups and communities.

Phew! that’s a lot of stuff for a blog post so I’ll stop now. There’s plenty more where this came from so if you want me to dig deeper, just let me know where. Use the comment box below to do that.

But get out there and do something!

Your fan

Thrive In The New Digital Eco-System

// October 20th, 2009 // View Comments // Small business

I was reading through a business plan the other day. It was sent to us from a budding entrepreneur in the UK. He was looking for some tips and guidance on the market opportunity and “fund-ability” of his plan. In the business plan, he referred to the online marketplace as “The Digital Eco-System”.

The online marketplace…an eco-system? I asked myself.

I thought about that term a bit more…and then it dawned on me.

This cat is absolutely right.

The new realm of marketing is less about what I have to say about myself and my business and has much more to do with what OTHERS have to say about me and my business. (Please let that soak in if that’s the first time you’ve been introduced to this concept).

Think about it…

It used to be that I could write long-copy sales letters, buy in-your-face yellow page ads, promise great service, make structure and function claims about my product/service, create attractive ads and so on.

It didn’t really matter if the product/service was effective or not. If you were a savvy marketer and networker, you’d make money.

But today, the game has changed. I can’t think of the last thing I bought where I didn’t first check with google, yahoo, facebook and a few hundred past customers (reviews).

How about you?

So there IS a digital eco-system that I must rely on in order to attract, convert and retain customers. Consumers like you and me are bypassing the traditional advertising and relying on the bigger eco-system of feedback to help us decide who wins and who doesn’t.

WHAT IS THE NEW DIGITAL ECO-SYSTEM?

The New Digital Eco-System is the rapidly expanding online environment made up of search engines, social media, peer advocacy and customer reviews. It is a living, breathing entity in and of itself and it grows more sophisticated and detailed every day. It is an environment in which businesses will either thrive, stagnate or meet their ultimate demise.

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SMALL BUSINESS?

Well, as recently as a couple of years ago, you could be a small business owner and do just fine without actively participating in this Digital Eco-System. You could simply say “We’re not playing that game. That’s a game for techies and young people.”

All you had to do was pay a graphic designer to build a brochure-type website with the typical “who we are, what we do, how to reach us” model. And Voila! You were done.

Then you simply added your website URL to your business cards, yellow page ads, coupon mailers and other advertising. Amazingly enough, the phone rang.

COOL, that worked!

But an alarming trend has begun over the past 18 months or so and it is yet to reach it’s full crescendo.

The phone isn’t ringing as much as it used to. The advertising still costs just as much. You’re still attending all the same networking events. You’re executing your 2008-09 marketing plan to a “T”.

But the marketing plan is not working as well as it used to.

WELCOME TO THE NEW DIGITAL ECO-SYSTEM WHERE YOU MUST ENGAGE AND ACTIVELY WORK THE SYSTEM TO THRIVE IN IT.

As a small business owner you must understand that the rules of marketing have changed…forever.

SO HOW IS YOUR SMALL BUSINESS DOING WITH THE TRANSITION?

This is a wake up call to small business to do what needs to be done to thrive in this new digital eco-system.

Here are the 7 keys I have found that transform small businesses from the “old school” marketing ways to the Next Generation edition.

1. Dominate online search in your category (yes it is possible – get started now).

2. Maximize social media – Use an expert. (Don’t think that setting up a twitter account and facebook page gets the job done).

3. Leverage peer advocacy – Stop expecting those incestuous business card swap events to build your business. Those programs worked in the 80’s. They don’t any more. A healthy eco-system is made up of organisms that live symbiotically together. That means more than just handing someone a stack of your business cards and expecting the phone to ring. It means “advocating” on others behalf and having your fans “advocating” for you.

4. Reposition your brand – If you are a financial planner who thinks their target audience is *anyone with 100k to invest*, you are going to lose (big time) in this new world. Define your target audience better than that and market to that niche group. Ask yourself this question “Who is the person AND situation for which my product/service is ALWAYS the BEST choice?” That is your target audience. Dump the rest. You’ll get a much better ROI and get rich in the process.

5. Optimize or rebuild your business development engine – Take an intense look at how you are going to find prospects and convert them to customers, clients and evangelists using the new tools of the digital eco-system.

6. Build a communication matrix – Identify all the groups of people you communicate with (prospects, customers, loyal clients, vendors etc) and design a communication strategy for each group individually. Stop sending the same “newsletter” to everyone in your database. That again, is 1980’s marketing. It doesn’t work anymore. It just makes the post office rich(er). Segment your marketplace, identify their needs and communicate to them the way they want to be communicated with.

7. Get tribal and accountable…company-wide – If you are not following at least 5 experts in 5 different fields of interest, you’re gonna lose in the digital eco-system. If every one of your employees (yes, even those on the factory floor) are not following experts in their field, your company will lose in the digital eco-system. Gone are the days of attending a seminar or trade show here and there. Business is moving at such a rapid pace, that unless you are plugged into experts who keep you on the leading edge of what is going on, you’ll get left behind. Find some tribes to join and then get your entire staff to join tribes of their own. Create accountability around it. Let a different staff member present their latest learnings at each staff meeting. It’s mission critical to your long term success.

The digital eco-system is kinda like the amazonian eco-system. There are organisms of every shape and size working hard to thrive. Some work symbiotically together, others work alone. Some are parasitic – they take more than they give. Some are predators, others become prey.

Where will your business fit in the digital eco-system?
Also, if you’re reading this article and can think of other tips for small businesses to take advantage of this changing marketplace. Make sure to let me know.

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