Shaping Your Product/Service

Customer feedback is probably one of the best ways to make your business successful. Think of it like this; through negative feedback, you can shape your product/service into something you know the market will love.

Most people think that bad feedback comes from people they have never even done business with, or with some of their ‘bad’ clients, so they decide to ignore it. This is, in fact, a complete myth; most of the negative feedback you will get will be from some of your most loyal customers. Not because they want to put you down; because they want to remain your best customers.

Think of it like this; ‘bad’ customers, if they encounter a problem of flaw with your product/service, they will simply move on to the next company who will solve this problem for them. Whereas for a loyal customer, they want to tell you about the problem, hoping that you will fix it and they can remain customers of yours.

Think of it like this; customer feedback is a free way to conduct market research. Your clients will tell you how they want their product/service. They will tell you about any problems they have; although you may have to prompt them to do so; perhaps through a quiz of survey.

Free Marketing

Well, who would say no to some free marketing? Quite a few businesses actually, so it seems! Customer feedback, when it is good, can be used in a multitude of ways, the obvious one being testimonials.

Every time you get some good feedback, you should ask the client if you can use it as a testimonial on your website, leaflets, sales letters; anything which you send to a prospective client. Likewise, when you get bad feedback, you should act upon it immediately, because it really will result in not only your product/service getting better, but perhaps some more business!

Think about it; if you had a problem with a company that you bought from, and you complained about the problem then it was solved, how much more likely would you be to talk about that than just receiving a product and there being absolutely no flaws to it?

Entrepreneurs have to wear many hats when a business is just starting. Many things need to be delegated to others in order for the business to run smoothly and there are a few things that you must do yourself. If you can create a habit of performing these 5 things every day, some for just a few minutes, then you will see your business grow right alongside your dreams:

1. Plan for the future a few minutes each day. Assume that your product has stopped selling all of a sudden. What direction will you take your company next? What new income stream can you add? This is a time for day dreaming and recording notes in preparation for the future. You don’t necessarily have to take action on these items, but you need to think about them daily in order to bring out the golden ideas.

2.  Develop or strengthen your business network. You need to join or create a business network where you can help others and they can help you back. This is a great place to get free customers through referrals and an excellent mentoring opportunity using the mastermind principle.

3. Work on closing a sale every single day. Whether you are doing this on-line, on the phone, through the mail, or face-to-face you need to be selling every day. Without the close of a sale there is no business. This is not something that you can delegate all the way. Even if you have a sales force you need to be out there looking for deals.

4. Work on your marketing in some aspect every day to get new customers. If your prospective customers don’t know about you they won’t buy from you. Work on getting your message out every day even if it is just for a few minutes.

5. Contact your current customers. Don’t ever forget about the people that have already purchased from you. These are your best customers. They already like what you have to sell and they don’t cost anything to acquire. Contact your current customers frequently, even if you are just saying hello. They need to know what you have to offer and they need to know you are still breathing. They won’t seek you out. You must go to them.

During the 2010 holiday season, many retail websites failed to meet the performance demands of consumers who expect web pages to download in two seconds or less – even during peak traffic periods.  End user abandonment rates rise 8% with an extra two seconds of wait time, meaning that slow websites can have a negative impact on revenues and profitability, as well as brand and consumer loyalty.

3 common mistakes shared by this year’s underperforming retailers:

1. load testing isn’t a priority
2. key stakeholders aren’t involved in the load testing process
3. load testing isn’t conducted from the end user’s perspective

4 common lessons from this year’s most successful retailers:

1. EARLY AND THOROUGH PLANNING IS CRITICAL TO YOUR ONLINE SUCCESS

Allocate the appropriate time and effort to execute an effective load test.  Such tests must take tinto consideration what pages, applications, customer segments and geographies need to deliver the best performance.  By tackling these problems first, you’ll design a more streamlined, strategic load test that identifies critical bottlenecks – and give your team ample time to address issues.

2. BOTH MARKETING AND IT MUST BE CONSIDERED IN THE PLAN

First define what constitutes acceptable performance and conduct the tests based on those parameters.  Marketing staff should be involved so they can share information on anticipated sales and growth projections in order for the load test to be scaled properly.  IT staff must communicate the capabilities and limitations of the environment (how heavy loads will impact the customer experience given the realities of the current infrastructure.)

3. PROTECT YOUR CUSTOMERS FROM POOR THIRD-PARTY PERFORMANCE

Most sites today are a combination of elements served by an average of eight external hosts.  Elements include: shopping carts, ratings and reviews, analytics and more.  Any one of these services performing under par will slow down your entire web page.  Your testing team needs to test all third parties providing features and functionalities to your site.  If a third-party service fails to scale under load, your brand and business results will be affected – not theirs.

4.  GEOGRAPHY, BROWSERS AND DEVICES…INCLUDE THEM ALL

Get direct perspective into the customer experience under various load sizes across the most common usage scenarios and key geographies.  For example, are the majority of your customers Internet Exploer or Firefox users?  Which mobile devices do you receive the most traffic from?  Your end user in developed geographic regions generally expect the same high level of performance regardless of their usage scenarios.  Therefore, your test plan needs to cover the most prevalent scenarios.

Don’t just survive this holiday season, THRIVE.  Plan early.  There’s no better time than the present to consider how the four lessons outlined here can improve on the work you did last year as you prepare to make the most of thise year’s peak shopping season.

As the owner of your company you are responsible for casting the vision of your company and then communicating that vision to your employees. Without a leader who develops and communicates a vision for the company, employees will wander about their day jobs aimlessly.

Your mission is to transfer your passion to your employees through the communication of your vision. Here are three tips to communicate your vision:

1. Are We Moving Toward Our Vision?

As the owner of your business, you are responsible for moving your company toward its vision, but you don’t need to keep it a secret. Update your employees often on the company’s progress in moving toward its vision. If you can show your employees how their work creates positive results for the company they are more likely to continue working hard.

2. What Are We Doing to Accomplish Our Vision?

As an entrepreneur you have a vision of where you want your business to go. It may be a small vision, but at the very least you should have some purpose to your day-to-day activities. As a leader you must constantly proclaim your vision for the business to your employees, and ensure that your employees understand how their daily work helps to accomplish that vision.

3. What Can We Do To Continue to Move Toward Our Vision?

Not only do you need to show your employees how their work contributes to the progress of the company, but you need to empower your employees to help identify new ways to improve the business moving forward. If everyone in the business understands what their goal is and how it fits into a bigger vision they will be more likely to suggest innovative ways to improve the business.

Ultimately, as a business owner you hold an incredible amount of power when it comes to encouraging and motivating your employees. Your leadership should be centered around your vision and helping your employees realize their role in accomplishing that vision.

Marketing used to be a one-way street. Companies would push their advertising message to the masses and hope it stuck. Nowadays social networking websites have opened the door for consumers to respond to the marketing messages with their own voice. Twitter is one of the channels where consumers have become particularly vocal about their loved (or hated) brands and businesses. Many old school marketers and companies think it’s a cool medium but will have no effect on their bottom line. Wrong. The research shows that social media channels like Twitter can have a heavy impact on a business’ performance. Here are some tips to get started on Twitter.

Step 1: Listen to Existing Conversation

The first thing you should do is listen. Make your way to the Twitter Search Engine and see who’s talking about your business. Is the conversation positive? Is there an opportunity to engage your customers? The answer should be “yes.” If you run a search and nobody is talking about your business or brand, not to worry. That probably just means they are waiting for you arrive. You can start by surveying how your competition is using Twitter to work with their customers.

Step 2: Engage Your Customer Base

Here’s the fun part. You’ve taken the plunge and made an account for your business on Twitter. It’s time to engage your customers. Let’s examine case studies from successful brands to illustrate how Twitter is being used as an effective tool.

Customer Service: @GoDaddy is a great example of how a company helps customers on Twitter. By 2012, people won’t even want to call your help desk anymore; they will much rather get on their smartphone and send you a Tweet. Times are changing.

Being a Resource: @WholeFoods has a great social media strategy. The supermarket brand is often Tweeting recipes from their blog. Of course, the products mentioned are usually purchased at Whole Foods so they are helping themselves make money.

General Conversation: @JetBlue loves talking to their customers just like a friend would. You’ll notice there timeline is full of conversation with regular users and the occasional customer service. An example of a solid relationship building strategy.

Contests and Engagement: @DIRECTV asks questions and gives away prizes to their followers. They are another example of a company that has mastered engagement on Twitter.

Step 3: Monetize your Followers

Social media can have an effect on your bottom line. Everything mentioned in the “Step 2″ section will indirectly result in more revenue for a company. Customer service and engagement keeps a positive image in the mind of the consumer which ripples outward to their peers. The brand automatically grows. One of the biggest obstacles is building your original set of followers. Nobody pays attention when you have a few followers and everybody pays attention when you have a big following. There are 2 ways to building your account: the most obvious is the organic growth that takes tons of hard work. On the flip side,  many respectable companies and individuals give themselves a jump start and simply buy Twitter followers. Buying followers is a legitimate method of giving a boost.

However you choose to build your initial following the important takeaway is that Twitter can have an effect on your revenue. Use it as a tool to your advantage. Twitter has been used to lead entire revolutions in the Middle East – why wouldn’t it be a potent tool to grow your business?

Do you hate how unproductive team meetings can be?  Here’s what you should be doing during the week.

HOLD WEEKLY TEAM MEETINGS

Every Monday morning, have a meeting with your team to figure out the ONE thing you could do to increase revenue.  Then determine an exact timeframe it has to be implemented (think of 24 hours as your goal here.)  And every Friday have another meeting to discuss and review results.

MONDAYS

• discuss one problem that is causing your revenue or profit not to be as high as it could be
• come up with all the possible solutions that can be implemented in a day or two
• select the most popular solution and one that your team is confident with
• assign team members to implement the solution so it gets up within a day

FRIDAYS

• find out if your solution caused the outcome the team was expecting
• if it did, think about what you want to discuss during the next Monday meeting
• if not, go through why the results weren’t favorable and what everyone learned

The goal of the weekly meetings is to get your team on board to making the business more money in a way that allows everyone to see results.

Don’t be a fan of micromanaging. (Avoid this by hiring people smarter than you are)

MAKE EVERYONE ACCOUNTABLE

Don’t micromanage, but do track progress.

• have team members list out what they are currently working on.  This way, everyone is familiar with what others are working on..including the boss.
• if someone isn’t working, the other team members can easily track inefficiencies

One of the best ways to make your customers loyal to your business is to create a bond with them.  Whether it’s being transparent, telling your story, or simply caring for your customers, you need to connect with them.

CONNECT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

• blog about your life story or why you became an entrepreneur in the first place and respond to every comment
• when it comes to Twitter, respond to almost every question asked of you
• go above and beyond at times – help customers implement your software for free when you typically charge a set up fee

The key to connection is to not just care about your business, but more imporantly care for the people using your products or services.

If you aren’t a fan of cold calling our using other similar tactics to increase sales, try other ways to educate the market.

DON’T CHASE YOUR CUSTOMERS, LET THEM COME TO YOU

• set up your company blog – keep the design simple and focus on making the content easily accessible and readable
• don’t just blog on your company and the product or services you offer – provide information that will benefit your potential customers
• build up your Twitter and Facebook accounts and promote your blog there
• respond to comments – no one likes being ignored.  It’s a great way to get people to come back and want to check out what your company has to offer without you telling them to do so.

Every business has a weakness.  Instead of worrying about your weaknesses and trying to hide them, focus on turning them into strengths.

TURN YOUR COMPANY’S WEAKNESSES INTO STRENGTHS

• it will take you time to figure our how to turn your weaknesses into strengths, but it’s possible. 
• be creative
• every time you find you weren’t able to convince a customer to go with your company, ask them what you could have done to win their business

You have to keep things simple, life is already complicated.  Don’t try to make your company look cool by using the geekiest terminology out there.

KISS – KEEP IT SIMPLE, SILLY

• make sure a five year old can understand what you are doing
• the best way to figure out how to make things easier for your customer base is to survey them
• run A/B tests to see which versions of your website or product are working better for your customer
• people don’t need bells and whistles.  They need simple products or services that solve problems.

Don’t fret if you’re currently not an experienced entrepreneur.  It doesn’t mean you can’t create big business.  Try some of the six tactics listed above.  Let me know what you think as I, myself, am still learning new things everyday and can still learn more from others like you.  If you have any ideas on how to supercharge your business, feel free to share and leave a comment.

Many of you want your site to look as nice as possible and are more than willing to add all the bells and whistles to make it stand out to your customer base.  While this is a noble approach, it can end up costing you plenty in lost sales.  Many of your buyers will find special effects on a website cute the first time they visit, but often become quite annoyed with them on subsequent visites.

Depending on how special effects are used on your site, they can make it look unprofessional at worst and extremely hard to navigate in the best case scenario.  Many of the “cool” features will cause pages to crash unless the visitor has the latest version of Java or some sort of plug in.  Even if the site doesn’t necessarily crash, it could end up taking forever to load.  And we all know that most customers who have to wait for a site to load, will click the back button in the blink of an eye.  I certainly do.

You might have created a flash movie that you believe will be an absolutely fantastic value-add on your homepage.  Perhaps its a great introduction to a product you offer.  Think about this.  What if your visitor doesn’t have the latest flash player?  You’re only going ot irritate the visitor because they will either be unhappy they have to visit another site to download an update or that their system doesn’t support that type of file.  Why put your site in this position?  you spend plenty to get visitors to your site; don’t chase them away by making it difficult for them to view your site.

There are 5 bells and whistles I wouldn’t recommend for any site.  Keep it simple and you’ll find that your conversion rates will skyrocket.

1. SOUND FILES THAT START UP WHEN A VISITOR ARRIVES AT YOUR SITE

Talk about unprofessional!  What if your customers’ speakers are turned all the way up?  You’ll be sure to annoy them as you blast them out of their chair!

2. jAVASCRIPT FUNCTIONS THAT LOAD MINI-WINDOWS ON A PAGE

Cute and often intriguing, they can crash your visitors’ computers.

3. jAVA FUNCTIONS THAT LOAD AN ADDITIONAL APPLICATION INTO THE WEB PAGE

This seems to only serve to slow down the load time.

4. POP-OUT MENUS THAT COVER PART OF THE SCREEN WITH A NEW WINDOW

This can be very confusing and cumbersome for those that aren’t that tech savvy.

5. ANIMATED GRAPHICS OR LARGE GRAPHICS

Again, just unnecessary.  Keep it simple.

Some of you may think that the “cool” factor overrides all of the issues that can be associated with these things.  It may be “cool” for your web designer and website owner, but it’s far from “cool” to your visitors.  not only are many of these things a hassle for your visitors, having a homepage tha tis made up of only Javascript, a video or music can also hurt your business when it comes to being found by search engines.  Keep things simple and you’ll be far better off in many aspects.

One effective (and very affordable might I add) marketing tool you can offer is a heartfelt testimonial from a pleased customer.  Why?  Think of it this way.  If you go ahead and tell the world how amazing you are, your business is, etc. few people will believe it.  But, if someone else raves about you or your business, it’s a whole different ball game.  Here are a few suggestions that will help you get testimonials from your customers.

1. ASK FOR ONE

Understand that even the happiest of customers will rarely send unsolicited praise directly to you.  So if you want a testimonial – you’ll have to ask for one.  Personally call or email your best clients to request a testimonial.  If your client pool is larger, conduct an open-ended survey or hold a “biggest fan” contest to collect testimonials.

2. CAPTURE “OFF-THE-CUFF” REMARKS

Usually, the most positive feedback from customers happens on the fly.  The next time one of your customers tells you something great about your product or service, ask this golden question, “Can I quote you on that?”  Next, write up their quote, email it over for their review and approval and viola!  You’ve got a great and instant testimonial to showcase.

3. THE POWER OF PICTURES

Whenever possible, ask your customers for a picture that can accompany their testimonal.  Even better yet, ask for a video testimonial.  you can share these videos on your website, YouTube station page and in emails or e-newsletters.  Whether professionally produced or taken with a Flip camera, video testimonials go a long way in establishing trust with prospects.

4. SEEK NEUTRAL GROUND

Your website visitors will take everything on your company’s site with a grain of salt, but a testimonial posted on a 3rd-party site can be incredibly powerful.  Encourage your customers to send praises via Twitter, Facebook, blog entries or forum comments.  In order to feature such comments on your company’s site, add a live Twitter feed to your homepage or link ot blogs and other places where customers have left favorable comments.

The holidays are an important time of year for marketers, who are looking to boost profits and find more customers. In this crucial season, you need to be attentive to insights from previous holidays and apply that information to your marketing strategy. Here we offer some industry wide statistics and facts to help prepare you for the winter months ahead, along with some tips on how to create lasting holiday marketing success.

The Facts

Seventy-Nine percent of consumers say they looked at or read the direct-marketing pieces that arrived in their mailbox.

Nearly half of all purchases from catalogs take place in November and December.

A typical consumer receives 25 pieces of mail per week and is likely to take action on 9.5 percent of it.

People continue to rely on traditional sources such as print pieces for Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday sales. In addition, they peruse printed catalogs for common products and check the mailbox for coupons.

Direct mail is alive and well. In fact, according to published results from the United States Postal Service (USPS®) and the DMA, direct mail is not dead. In fact, it’s still effective, with an ROI of $12.53 for every dollar invested.27 Furthermore; direct-mail spending is projected to grow 105.8 percent to $47.8 billion this year, driven by acquisition mail increases.

The Tips

To drive early sales, prominently highlight crucial dates — such as sale cutoffs and the final day for free shipping — with images and bold fonts.

Don’t lose out on the customer engagement activities and revenue gains that direct mail offers. Most companies are getting lifts in response rates from the combined powers of online and traditional channels such as direct mail.

Get to your potential customers ahead of schedule — and before your competitors do.

If you’ve been an entrepreneur for a handful of years, you might think you have everything figured out when it comes to your employees.  Right?  Sadly, you may not.   Don’t get me wrong, by now you know what you’re doing and how to best run your business.  But just like your first day as an entrepreneur,  you may still be making some mistakes.  They may not be the same rookie mistakes as you’ve made before, but rather are bigger mistakes.  Here are two to avoid when it comes to your employees – which are an extionsion of yourself, your brand and your business.

Business Mistake #1: Good Talent Costs A Pretty Penny

If you’re a believer in hiring low wage employees and training them to get whatever kind of work you need done is the route to take, please think again.  The problem with hiring that way is that you’ll spend the majority of your time micromanaging your employees instead of focusing on growing your business.  Think about hiring people who are smarter than you are – and compensating them very well so that they’ll never leave.  When you are a new business owner, this may be a tough concept to grasp.  If you hire smart employees, not only will they do good work, but you won’t have to train or micromanage them as much. Plus the odds are that they’ll stick around with you for a very long time if you treat them right.

Business Mistake #2: Don’t Be Too Generous

Sometimes business owners can be a bit too generous with co-workers.  When you give into everything they may ask for, they show gratitude.  Often times, that quickly fades and employees start expecting things from you – regularly.  Look at it this way.  You have to work hard to earn your money.  Your employees should too.  If someone wants a new laptop or desk, don’t just give it to them.  Instead ask why they deserve the new laptop or desk.  You could very well be suprised by what you can get your emplyees to do by making them earn the things they want.  The best part about operating that way, is that it will give your employees a sense of accomplishment.

The takeaway:  Mistakes will be made.  There’s nothing wrong with making them as long as you learn from them.  In other words, don’t be afraid to fall – get right back up and prevent the same mistake from happening again.  All entrepreneurs make mistakes.  What seperates great ones fromt he pack, is that the great ones learn and move on.