Posts Tagged ‘Education’

Its one thing to quit your job to start your own business. It is another thing entirely to explain it to friends and family. Close family is okay, because they usually know you better and understand what you are going through. In my case, the job that I quit was in the family business (no, not mobsters), so there was obviously a lot of talking about it there. Recently, though, I have rubbed elbows with some more distant relatives and friends and got a chance to tell them what I am doing.

It can be an eye opening experience to tell people who care about you that you quit your job. This is especially true when their world-view involves getting a job and working hard at it all of their lives. What I have found is this; the more focused you are with your new business venture, the easier it is to tell your friends and relatives about it.

Early on, I would stumble around the question of what I am doing now to make money. I have goals, but I didn’t have great focus. When someone asked me what it is I do exactly, and I couldn’t answer them in a sentence or two, I realized that I didn’t have the kind of focus it was going to take to succeed in my own business.

Sometimes we exist in our own little bubbles. We have our close friends and family. Maybe they don’t understand what we are doing, but they have come to accept it. Then we have our online community. They are 100% behind us, but they aren’t asking for details and accountability. So, when you run into your wife’s uncle and he asks how you are going to make money with your new business, its time to swallow hard and hope you have a good answer.

Ideally, we would all start with a good answer. Tim Berry, who is someone I greatly admire, is always talking about having a plan. I agree with him. But the reality is, sometimes we end up working things out in the wild. Or at least I do. I sort of jump into things with both feet. For me, quiting my job and starting a business was just long overdue. I needed to be able to grow in ways that working in that business just wouldn’t allow me to grow. So I did something that no one in their right mind would advise anyone to do. I just went for it.

It was only after spending some time going for it that I started to realize I needed a focus. Questions from friends and relatives helped. You want to be able to sound good and make sense when you are telling someone how you plan to make money. If for no other reason than to get them to leave you alone. More than that, you want to know for yourself that you have a plan to make money.

So, for me, it was only after I went out on my own that a plan started to formulate. Now, when a relative asks about the job, I say that I have started my own business designing websites and doing online marketing for small business. I don’t mention this blog, I don’t mention all of the other projects I am involved with. I focus on the area that will make the most sense to them. It also happens to be the area that I can make a living at, right now.

In telling this to relatives, I realize too that this is the area that needs the most focus right now. Its funny how, when put under a little pressure, a plan will come together. I know that I struggle with planning. But when I am best at it is when I run into friction. If something I am doing now isn’t working, I tend to be able to jump in and plan out a fix. When I first started my business, telling others what I did wasn’t working. It was something vague, like I want to help small businesses be successful. Well, the pressure helped me define that and better explain it. Right now, my focus is to help small businesses be successful at attracting leads online. I do that by building web sites and online marketing campaigns.

Thank God for the friends and relatives who will burst the bubble we sometimes allow ourselves to live in, just by asking a few simple questions. Sometimes, they are questions we are afraid to ask ourselves. If you are in business, whether just starting yours or if you have been doing it for years, do you have anyone asking you uncomfortable questions?

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Hi, I am Bradford Shimp, and this is my story. I have recently started a new business, Broad River Creative, and I wanted to share my journey with you.

photo credit: OakleyOriginals

What makes online conversation marketing via blogs, social media, and the like such a success is that it spurs interaction. Interaction can lead to many things, most importantly sales. However, for all the talk of interaction and customers gladly spreading your story for you, there is another side to the coin. While there are the conversationalists out there that will quickly build relationships with your business if you meet their needs and exceed their expectations, there are also a whole lot of listeners out there.

Listeners are quiet folk. They don’t engage nearly as much. If they get on your forums, its probably to find a specific answer to a specific problem. They aren’t commenting on your blog. They aren’t responding to your tweets. Because you don’t see the interaction, it is easy to discount the listeners, or to question if they are even there. But these people are listening. They are being impacted by the content you put out. They are just as loyal as the conversationalists. Sure, they don’t write blog posts recommending your company to everyone in the world, but that’s because they don’t have blogs. They are probably recommending you quietly to a trusted friend who they know will benefit from your business.

The quiet ones can be a hard group to connect with. If you are doing all of the right things online, but not seeing the results spring up like you wish they would, be sure to not throw in the towel too soon. The listeners outnumber the talkers, in my opinion. If you just stop blogging because you aren’t getting comments or seeing sales, you might be leaving some people out in the cold. If you have visitors to your blog, you should keep blogging. If you don’t have visitors, you should invest some time and money in education so you can be a better business blogger, but that is another story.

While you won’t get the kind of gratifying interaction on a regular basis out of the quiet ones that you will get out of the talkers, you will get great value. You get that value by consistently providing value. The listeners are the steady force behind your online efforts. They will subscribe to your newsletter and actually read it. They will attend your webinars. They will buy your products.

Chances are that they will also help you spread the word. The difference is, they won’t do it on their own, at least not on a large scale. That isn’t because they don’t love your product, its because they aren’t talkers. They do not have platforms of their own. But don’t give up on them. Connect with your regular loyal listeners and buyers. Draw them out. You can probably get some pretty amazing testimonials from them. When they send you a referral, it will likely be a dead-on qualified lead. You’ll take one of these a year over countless unqualified visits to your site or hundreds of spam followers on Twitter. The quiet ones make up in value what they don’t deliver in amount of interaction.

You’re job is to not give up on them. Keep writing your blog. Keep posting your best insights on Twitter. Keep talking, and they will keep listening. While your words won’t always trigger a response that you will see, you are planting seeds. And if you ever do find yourself in a conversation with a quiet one, you will be amazed at the depth and value there. Listeners are learners and doers. They have an important place in your online conversation marketing plans. Don’t leave them out by stopping your end of the conversation.

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Bradford Shimp helps small businesses develop online marketing plans at BroadRiverCreative.com.

If you have an idea that you are sitting on because you just don’t know if it will work, or how you can make it work, stop. Don’t sit on good ideas. Either do something with it, or give it away to someone how will do something with it.

The Dreamer

If you are an individual who wants to create a business, and you already have an idea, there is only one thing to do. Try. You may not have a clue how to succeed, but what can you learn from doing nothing? The experience of failing is far more instructive and useful then that of sitting.

Sure, maybe you are preparing. Read books, blogs, the horoscope for all I care. I believe in all of that (well, not horoscopes). But at some point, you just need to get out there and try. Otherwise, you will just have theory and no place to apply it.

Don’t be afraid of failure. Instead, fear doing nothing. If you have a passion, pursue it. You’ll pick up all the education you need along the way. And if you find that, indeed, you aren’t cut out to run your own business, then at least you will know.

The Owner

If you already own a business, your idea may take you in a different direction. It may not just stretch you, but your entire business. Its funny, but the person who took a risk and then was successful to start a business often has a harder time taking more risks on new ideas. Thats because its not just a job. There’s payroll, debt, and responsibility up the wazoo.

I don’t advocate just changing the direction of your company overnight. If your new idea has nothing to do with your current business, you need to either find a partner who can do much of the heavy lifting, or, if it really ignites your passion, either sell or systematize your current business enough to run without you.

But don’t let these hurdles stop you from trying. Many of your ideas will be related to your current business, but will take it in a new direction. Try them out. They’ll work or they won’t. You won’t improve your business without trying. One of those ideas could be a game-changer. But you won’t know until you have risked failing with it.

Get Your Education

So stop wasting good ideas by doing nothing with them. Push them, even if just a little. Learn if they are viable, if you can sustain your passion, and if you can succeed. Theory doesn’t help you here, just application. So get out and risk something. You’ll be amazed at what you can learn just from trying.

Bradford Shimp also helps small businesses succeed at BroadRiverCreative.com.

photo credit: Rich Anderson

Have you ever had a sale that just went bad? These are usually horrendous moments that leave you in a state of shock. You really do always try your best for each customer. Sometimes, though, you just mess up, or some part of your process is off. In some cases, its not your fault at all, but it is always your problem.

There are any number of things that can go wrong with a sale. Perhaps the customer expectations were out of whack. Product quality could be the cause. Sometimes, you just screw up and don’t deliver on all of your promises. And yes, once in awhile, you get “THAT customer.”

Misplaced Expectations

Expectations between customer and vendor are very often out of whack. Usually, there is enough grace to compensate for this. Once in awhile, though, things get so off center that it becomes a very real problem.

When the customer expects one thing, but gets something else entirely, he can become very unhappy with you. The first thing you need to do, in any situation where the customer is unhappy, is to appease. See if you can’t make it right. Hopefully you can.

Whether or not you can make it right, you need to evaluate what went wrong in the first place. If expectations where not in line, then it is usually a communication error. Look through your marketing material, talk to your sales person, and look at your notes. Are you bringing a consistent message to each customer? Sometimes the customer mishears things or misinterprets. But the blame for misplaced expectations can usually be placed squarely on your shoulders.

Going forward, you should have a clearer message and consistent training on that message. You should also have standards and procedures for everyone in your business to follow. One of these procedures should be to have a comprehensive and clear contract that lays out all of the expectations for the customer. This will not solve all problems, but it will sure help in lining up your customers expectations with what you actually plan to deliver.

Oh, and if the expectation was not met simply because you failed to deliver on your promises, you need to fix that pronto!

Product Quality

What happens when you deliver a sub-par product? Well, if you do it consistently, you will soon be out of business. But it can happen to anyone, especially if you source your product from a vendor. Lets say that you wholesale colorful socks to small retail stores. You get a bad shipment, but don’t notice. When you sell those socks to your customer, you can be sure that they notice. They call and tell you that your socks have holes in them.

Your response on bad product is very telling. First of all, it doesn’t matter if you think it was your fault, because it is your fault. You are the one who needs to fix it right away with your customers. Don’t wait for your vendor to do something, you can worry about that later. Never pass the blame.

Once you fix the immediate problem, you need to figure out why it occurred and what to do to make sure it never occurs again. Perhaps you need to start checking the product you buy. Maybe you need to have a long talk with your vendor about their quality control. Switching vendors is an option too. Of course, if you make the product yourself, you must go over every part of the process with a fine tooth comb and put procedures and controls in place so that it never happens again.

Forgotten Promises

When you make a promise but don’t keep it, you can expect your customer to get mad. The best way to avoid forgetting anything on a sale is to write it all down in one place, such as a contract. The second thing you can do is to create policies and procedures that have you giving the same service over and over again. They say practice makes perfect.

Take some time to evaluate why you are making extra promises to a customer. Do you feel you need to in order to get the sale? Are you letting the customer bully you around into a half-hearted promise? You need to be the one to decide what you will and will not do. Promises made on the fly are the hardest to keep.

THAT Customer

Okay, so once in awhile you just get stuck with “THAT customer.” These are the complainers, the nit-pickers, the life-suckers. Before we get too excited bashing this type of customer, let me tell you a couple of things. First of all, they are rare. Not every customer complaint you get is from this type of customer. You can’t write off complaints, either, even if they come from a known complainer. Second, you still need to deal with this customer and try to make them happy, at least through the end of the sale. Sometimes, you will actually succeed and turn one of these tough customers into a really good customer. Not usually, but it has been known to happen.

What do you do with the complaints from “THAT customer?” Well, you need to take them with a grain of salt, but still investigate. If they say that someone was rude to them on the phone, talk to that someone. Maybe the person was egged into being rude, but from a business standpoint, there is never any reason to be rude to any customer. This wouldn’t be the time for a reprimand, however. Rather, it will be a good training experience for your employee.

Having a nit-picky customer who is very vocal about all of your faults can be a pain. However, they can be a blessing in disguise, as well. They force you to get all of your ducks in a row and run a professional operation. Unless they just have a grudge against you, you can usually shut these customers up by becoming more professional and handling all of their concerns.

Bad Sales Can Make You Better

Every bad sale is an opportunity to become a better business. When you make a mistake with a customer, you get a black eye in their mind. If you fix the mistake and go out of your way to make it right, that black eye turns into a white hat. Most customers will realize that you are human. If you fix it fast and personally, they will realize that you care.

You need to treat every bad sale as a learning opportunity for you and your employees. Become better. Put things in place to make sure the same mistakes are not repeated over and over again.

It is also very important to accept the blame for the problem. It is never the vendor’s fault or the employee’s fault. It always comes back to you.

With a little effort, you can turn one bad experience into an opportunity to improve. The more you improve, the better you will be!

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp.