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Digg has been around for a few years now. It has the ability to send a lot of folks to your web site.

If someone likes a web page or a blog post, they can “Digg” it. This simply means a notification goes up on the Digg web site that one person likes that web page (blog post). If enough people “digg” that page, then it becomes more popular on Digg’s site and this could send people to your site. And those people may decide to “digg” your site and in turn this can produce an ever-increasing number of folks coming your way.

Digg has completely revamped its site. It has a very new look and it’s a long time coming. It also offers a multitude of new features. Some said it should’ve stayed pat, but I like the new look and the new ways of using it.

If you like this blog and you’d like to “digg” it, look on the right side of your screen and at the bottom of that sidebar there is a “Share/Save” button. Click on that button and you’ll see “Digg.” Give that a click and you’re on your way to learning how to use Digg.

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The following is an article I wrote a few years ago that was published in the sports section of The Tampa Tribune. After reading it recently, I saw how it also applies to business owners…

Fans express themselves in two very basic ways.

One is to support a winner and the other is to CREATE a winner.

Many fans will come out and support a winner. They’ll cheer madly, they’ll proudly wear the team merchandise, and they’ll boast to out-of-town friends how great their team is.

This article is about how you can play a part in creating a winner. You can support the home team when it wins or you can help create the home team into a winner. As a fan, you make a big difference.

Read more »

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All too often we observe people handling situations in life with a “me first” attitude:

“What’s in it for me?”

“How will I be benefited by this?”

“Will I make more money as a result of this?”

While it’s perfectly reasonable to want to know how we will personally benefit, it’s also important to consider the effects on the overall group that we are a part of (company, association, school, family, etc.).

Read more »

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To increase performance these days, some companies send their staff to motivational seminars.

These seminars can get good results, but if they are mainly “motivational”, we often see the effects wear off in days or weeks.

Some companies put their staff through training programs to help them handle the details of their post and to relate better to their customers. These can also be quite beneficial.

And some businesses use rewards programs to increase staff productivity. These have varied workability, some work splendidly, others are not so effective.

Read more »

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When the economy is in rough shape, a primary considerations of business owners is to “cut back.” Cut back on expenses, cut back on staff, cut back in any way they can.

I’m here to tell you one area you must not cut back on:

Promotion!

The key to doing well when the economy goes sour is to promote like crazy. I’m not telling you to spend every dime on promotion, but you must promote with an even greater intensity than before.

Go back and look at all of the promotional actions you took that were successful. Put back in every one that’s feasible.

Cutting back on promotion is never a good solution. When the economy weakens, it is even more vital that you ignore the impulse to reduce your promotional output.

I’ve written a number of posts that give easily affordable and very effective promotional ideas. Here are two of them:

Reciprocal marketing

Customer Evangelism

An article I wrote some time ago - Blame It On the Economy and Watch Your Profits Sink - has been featured on many sites around the net. I strongly recommend you giving that a read.

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This next video from Common Craft explains "social networking."

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I ran across a great site called Common Craft. They create short and very easy-to-understand videos on a variety of online subjects such as blogging, bookmarking, social networking, etc.

I decided not to re-invent the wheel and instead provide you with a few of these videos here. If you’d like to see everything Common Craft has, head on over to their site and check it out.

This video gives a great explanation of blogging. If you’re new to blogging or if you’d just like to see how a video slide show can explain what blogging is, here you go…

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When it comes to sports, I enjoy many of the things most spectators enjoy: the competition, the intensity, the passion to win, and of course watching extremely talented people do incredibly talented things.

But I also enjoy other key aspects of the game. I like to pay attention to the fine points of winning, the small details. What is very intriguing is watching how two or more players will work together to make something happen (score a basket, a goal, etc.).  For example, in sports like hockey, basketball and soccer, a great deal of importance is placed on the ability to PASS the ball (or puck). There are players who derive greater satisfaction from a precisely-delivered pass than from actually scoring. Seasoned basketball fans are awed by the combination of a fantastic pass culminating in a score. I certainly am.

A game is played to win. In order to win, individual players blend their skills and their actions with other players. Teams made up of JUST individuals, even those highly talented, often fail against teams composed of people who work hard on working together.

The next time you watch a well-played game, observe the degree of teamwork on both teams. Look for the subtle details and you’ll see some really exciting give-and-take that you might not ordinarily see.

The more a group of people works together as a team, the more that group gets done and the easier it is to get things done. This is true in sports and of course is true in the business world.

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At the end of a sporting event, it’s absolutely clear who won and who lost. Records are often kept of the game that shows how everybody did. This guy got two hits and struck out once. This guy scored a goal and was involved in two penalties. This player had 18 points and 12 rebounds. I apologize if the sports terminology I’m using is not understandable to everyone, but the main point is this:

You can tell exactly what happened. There is really not much left to opinion.

In a business, one certain way to weaken your chances for expansion and success is to rely solely on opinion. When an employee comes up to the boss and tells her that “Bob isn’t really getting his job done” and the boss operates on that information, that is a recipe for disaster. Check out Bob’s area very carefully. He may be getting an awful lot done, but perhaps he stepped on a couple of people’s toes while doing so. If you manage a business on opinion alone, you can end up getting rid of productive staff and rewarding other staff who are not very productive.

What’s the best way to manage WITHOUT relying on opinion? Statistics. Figure out what each position should be producing and then measure that production with a statistic. At the end of every week (or whatever period of time is significant for your business) collect up these statistics. Post them so everyone can see them. And then manage the business on what people are ACTUALLY producing.

Give this a try.

If you’d like some help on managing your business on statistics, email me.

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I’m reading another very interesting book: Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force. The authors tell us something we’ve known for awhile, but perhaps haven’t really taken full advantage of:

“The marketing world has changed dramatically since the advent of the 21st century. Technology has leveled the playing field to make quality less of a competitive difference. …product and service levels have nearly evened out, as have price advantages. We’re drowning in a sea of media and information overload. In a world with so much choice, how do people make decisions? By relying on trusted friends, colleagues, or family members.”

The book goes on to show how various businesses of different sizes have expanded tremendously by the actions of their CUSTOMERS. Some of this we know of as “word-of-mouth.” But in some cases, it went far beyond word-of-mouth to a “customer evangelism.” In these cases, you have customers promoting the living daylights out of your business. They’ll do it a variety of ways, but they are so in love with what you do and how well you treat them, they take customer loyalty to the max.

Are your customers going out of their way to promote you and your business? If not, whatever time you spend helping this activity along is time very well spent.

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As I type this, I’m on hold with Delta Airlines. When I first called, I simply wanted to talk to one of their reps and get a couple of fast questions answered about my travel plans.

You’re given the option of speaking to a real person by saying the word “representative” into the phone, but before you can get to this person, you have to speak (slowly and clearly) where you’re flying from, where you’re flying to, what date of departure and what date of return. The machine mistakes my departure date for another month and comes back with they can’t book my flight because it’s not within the next 367 days (or some large figure like that). I try and try (by pushing “0″ and saying the word “representative”) and finally I’m moved on to a real person.

But not before waiting another 15-20 minutes.

Delta had the only non-stop flights for this trip I was considering, so I waited this out. If another airline had a non-stop flight, I definitely would not have waited it out and Delta would’ve lost a paid passenger.

All in all, I understand the big airlines need to cut costs. And of course having a machine (or a web site) handle their reservations saves them the expense of paying staff. And if most (or possibly all) of the airlines are using an automated system to deal with their most valuable commodity (their customers) then I can see how they would justify using it throughout. The logic goes from Delta execs: well, we’re not really going to lose customers because of automating our interaction with our customers because the other airlines are doing it too.

And maybe that logic works for the big airlines and large corporations. But do you really think so? Who wants to be handled by a robot that sometimes hears what you say but often does not correctly hear you.

The moral of this story is simple. The less you interact directly with your customers and the more you put answering machines, automated tellers, automated phone systems in place to deal with your public, the more likely you’ll see a percentage of your customer base erode away. You may think you can handle a much larger number of people with the automated approach and you may be right. But you may also be losing some quality customers who will not be eager to speak highly of your company and possibly just the opposite.

I do realize we’re moving ever closer to machines doing more and more of our work. But when you put them between your company and your customers, especially new customers, I think the downside is greater than most people can immediately observe.

If someone wants to speak to a real person at your company, I recommend highly you make it VERY, VERY EASY for them to do so. And FAST.

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Every so often, I like to spend an hour or so at my local Barnes and Nobles or Borders bookstore. I can be seen enjoying a mocha or caramel Frappacino while typing away at my laptop. As I come inside one fine afternoon, I see some papers flying around on the sidewalk just in front of the bookstore. I look to the right and there’s a trash can overflowing with trash. The tiniest bit of wind is blowing the trash off of the top and onto the sidewalk. Two other customers on their way inside notice the trash and are not all that thrilled with trash blowing around them while they enter the store.

I head inside and find the Information Desk to report this matter to the staff. There are three staff there at this time. I mention the problem and the first response comes from one of the guys: “It’s not our problem. The complex handles it.” A few seconds later, one of the other staff says: “No way our problem!”

I look at both of them to see if they are kidding me. They aren’t.

Yes, I understand “THE COMPLEX” is responsible for taking care of the trash just outside of the bookstore. I get that. But when two staff tell me (both fairly assertively) that it’s NOT their problem that trash is blowing around right at the entrance to their establishment, they are essentially telling me that it’s not their problem if customers are presented with an immediately negative experience just as they enter the bookstore.

If you’re thinking that this incident wouldn’t even have made it into Customer Service 101, you’re right. This is just simple common sense. People have two choices in this town: Barnes and Nobles and Borders. They are very similar bookstores, with slightly different “rewards” programs and different brands of coffee in their cafes. With all things pretty equal, some people just may not like to have trash flying around on their way into a store.

To be completely fair, one of the staff did also say: “I guess I could go out there and pick up the trash.” So, let me go and check. Hmm. The trash can is still overflowing.

Okay, here’s the bottom line on this: If this was a store with the owner on the premises, and I had made it known to the owner that trash was flying around the entrance to his store, he very well might be upset that “THE COMPLEX” wasn’t doing their job, but he also would’ve said to me: “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll take care of it.” And he most likely would’ve taken care of it in five minutes or less.

The difference? One response displays a missing “care factor” and the other response includes caring what people are experiencing, REGARDLESS OF WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IT IS.

What IS the responsibility of everyone working in a business is HOW the business is perceived and doing whatever can be done to improve the experience of every prospect and customer. When that level of care is present throughout a business, all kinds of good things happen.

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You scratch my back. I’ll scratch yours. A time-honored philosophy that very definitely applies to marketing your business.

If you’re a retailer, place some brochures on your check-out counter for other retailers. They of course will have your brochures on their check-out counter. Or maybe you have a bulletin board for this kind of thing.

If you send out monthly invoices, include a promotional piece for another business that you would like to send your clients to. You’ve arranged with this business to do the same with their monthly billings.

Then there’s simple word-of-mouth. If a customer comes to you and needs a product or service that you do not offer, tell them to go see “so and so” and ask them to tell “so and so” that YOU sent them their way. Whether you have a reciprocal relationship formally in place here is not necessarily crucial. Doing this enough times should and often does bring new business to you.

An example of this came to me today via email. A blog that reviews other blogs sent me a link to their site in which they wrote a nice review for one of my blogs. I was asked to link back to them and after looking at other reviews on their blog, I agreed.

Helping others out isn’t just a morally correct thing to do, it makes very good marketing sense.

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Tags: Marketing, reciprocal marketing, retail marketing

It seems I forgot to pick up a couple of shirts at a local dry cleaner. I still had the claim checks, though they seemed like they might be from a few months back. So I headed over and presented my two claim checks. The lady behind the counter told me my claim checks were NOT from their dry cleaner. Another lady working off to the side looked at the claim checks and assured me, “these are NOT our claim checks.”

I went home and threw the claim checks away, but noticed the number 9066 on one of them. This was last week.

Yesterday, there’s a message on my home answering machine: “We’ve been doing some inventory and there’s a shirt here from you. We’ve had it for quite awhile. Come on in and get it. The number is 9066.”

I now realize I’ve thrown away the other claim check and I didn’t know its number. So I call and explain that I was in last week with THE claim check that corresponded with the message left on my machine. That I was a bit upset because I had come by with that same claim check and was told it was NOT one of theirs. And that I had another claim check and now that was thrown away.

Her response floored me: “We just don’t keep the same claim checks for very long. Do you know how long it would take to find one item on our rack of clothes? We have every right to throw a shirt away after 30 days.”

After a barrage of how they knew what they’re doing and my coming by and presenting THEIR claim check didn’t mean anything to her, I concluded I was lucky that one of my shirts was found and that I needed to end the call and move on.

And we all know the outcome to this story: I’ll be looking elsewhere to take my dry cleaning business. They lose a few bucks next week when I don’t bring in my next order, but over the span of a few years considerably more.

How much does effort does it take to drum up a bit of good manners? Sometimes the make and break of a lost customer or a client that doesn’t come on board is simply that: good manners.

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Tags: Good manners