A Startup Guy

Going Out of Business courtesy of reinvented via Flickr

I remember several years ago reading an article reporting on the results of a study showing that consumers will put up with poor customer service almost as much as they will good customer service. I was appalled at that assertion. Why in the world would people put up with bad service? Surely good service wins the day every time. Turns out – no, it doesn’t.

After years of watching people in retail settings, I’ve discovered that they actually will put up with bad customer service. We’ve all seen restaurants with terrible service, but doing a booming business because they’re trendy. What people won’t put up with is inconsistent service. Good one time and bad the next will quickly lose you customers. Customers might deal with it for a short while, but not long.

I used to be a manager at a fast food restaurant. I remember once deciding that I wanted to deliver service so good for customers that they would want to tip our workers (voluntarily), just as they do at a full-service restaurant. For weeks I busted my tail, delivering great service at the counters and even going to table offering to get refills and take trays. People were impressed with the service, but I didn’t see them coming back more than usual. Now, I’m older and wiser and realize that what I was doing was terrible. I was probably inadvertantly hurting the restaurant. Why? Customers weren’t getting consistent service. They were used to a certain level of service, and I was confusing them with something different. Worse yet, a customer could come get great service from me one evening, then come that for lunch the next day and get mediocre service. They couldn’t know what to expect.

I still believe that good service is better and than bad service. All things being equal, I think good service wins the day. However, inconsistent service will kill your business faster than either.

Meeting New People is Fun!

Being shy, especially those of us who are painfully shy, is not conducive to business leadership. It holds legions of people back from achieving greater success. It’s also incredibly hard to overcome. In an article titled Bashful in Business, the Financial Times reports that there is evidence that this “social awwardness” can be overcome with practice. Evidence Sir Richard Branson, who admits to being shy, but has overcome to lead one of the largest brands on the globe. He’s everywhere, including on television.

I’m incredibly shy. Put me in a room full of people and I’ll usually clam up. I don’t know what to say or how to say it. When we’re going to a social function, my wife will usually look at me just before we arrive and say, “Now, you HAVE to talk tonight. People will think you just don’t like them.” That’s not the kind of personality you want running your company or even some department inside of it.

However, over the last several years I’ve finally started coming out of my shell. It’s tough. It’s emotionally draining. It’s also worth it. At each event I attend, I make it a point to meet new people and get myself embroiled in conversations. Inside I’m screaming, “Let me out of here!”, but at each event it gets a little easier. At last year’s BarCamp Nashville, I interacted with lots of people. I was a virtual freakin’ social butterfly compared to how I normally am.

Here are 8 things that have worked for me and may help you start to overcome your shyness:

1. Use online social networks as a way to get to know people you will be meeting at real-life social functions. (Beware! Many of us use services like Twitter to allow us to interact with others without having to meet them in person. Don’t fall in that trap!) Before I attend an event like PodCamp or BarCamp, I always check out who of my tweeple (Twitter people) will be there. Then I encourage them to say hello to me. Talking with people I know helps me to open up and prepare to talk with strangers.

2. Have some questions ready to ask people. I think many introverts are like me and our brains freeze when we enter a social situation. We can’t quickly come up with conversation topics or even simple chit-chat questions. So in my mind I’ve got a few points mapped out in case I panic and freeze. It’s usually simple stuff like, “What do you do for a living? What part of town do you live in? Are you married? Do you have kids? What are you favorite TV shows? What is your opinion of PHP vs. Ruby on Rails vs. ASP.NET?” (I threw the last one in to see if you were still awake!)

3. Find common ground. Use questions like the ones listed above to find a topic of common interest that you feel comfortable talking about. Once you get on a topic you’re knowledgeable about and comfortable with, conversation comes easier.

4. If the conversation begins to get awkward, end it gracefully. If the discussion starts to die and those awkward silences are coming back, don’t feel badly about breaking off the conversation to go do something else. “Hey! It was nice talking with you. I’m going to go scout out a place to plug in my laptop before the next session gets going.” Also, don’t take offense if someone else breaks off the conversation and moves on. They’re socializing and meeting new people too.

5. Invite people to contact you later. “If I don’t see you again before you leave today, be sure to shoot me an e-mail and we can talk some more.” If you like the person you’re talking with, always encourage them to contact you later to help build a relationship. The point is to foster social interaction and meet new people. I have a tendency to feel like no one’s really going to want to talk to me later, they have more engaging people to talk with, so I wouldn’t offer my business card or give them my e-mail address and invite a follow up. Turns out, that tendency is wrong.

6. Find a wingman. It sounds a bit silly, but this can work. Find someone who is better at socializing who will hang out with you for a while at the social event. They can help break the ice and keep conversations going. It needs to be someone who understands that you’re shy and need some social guidance. However, you cannot talk only to this person and ignore everyone else. That won’t get you anywhere. You also need to participate in all conversations. Don’t just stand there and let your wingman do all of the talking. Be willing to break away from them after a while and fly on your own.

7. Take baby steps. You’re not going to be a social butterfly your first time out. Keep your expectations realistic, but be willing to push your boundaries. As you get more comfortable, push your boundaries further. It’s the only way to grow.

8. Take time to decompress when it’s over. “Being on” is tough on most people. It’s exhausting for those of us who are incredibly shy. When the event is over, make sure you get some quiet time to recover, even if it’s just on the drive home.

Overcoming shyness, introversion, social awkwardness, bashfulness or whatever you call it takes a lot of work, but it can be done. And the rewards can be great. Don’t let it hold you back in business (or life)!

Do you have tips on overcoming shyness? Leave them in the comment section.

About 3 months ago, my buddy Dave Delaney ran a poll asking if people found Twitter auto-direct messages (DMs) annoying. (Auto-DMs are automatic direct messages sent to someone who follows you – usually through a service like SocialToo.) At the time of the poll, I didn’t get too many of these and answered no. I’m the kind of guy who gives people the benefit of the doubt, if I can. I assumed most of the auto-DMs were from well-meaning folks and tried to take them in the spirit I imagined they were given. What a difference 3 months can make.

Today, I get at least a dozen auto-DMs a day. Many days, I get way more than that. The problem is that more than half aren’t much better than spam. “Thanks for the follow. Check out my website to find great deals on SEO!” Here’s the thing about Twitter, it’s all about relationships. Even when you don’t know the people you’re following, or who follow you, very well, it’s still about developing relationships. Auto-DM spam is no better than e-mail spam or cold call sales pitches you get in the middle of dinner. It’s people trying to make you check out their products that you probably don’t want, weren’t looking for and didn’t ask about.

In moderation, a direct message thanking me for following you could be nice. However, there are just too many now for them to make an impact now anyway.  If you want to get my attention, find something more creative and original. Better yet, engage me on Twitter. Build a relationship. Find out if I even care about your “Make Cash in 2 Minutes a Day” package before shoving it in my face.

And to Dave Delaney, change my vote there to a No please, will ya, bro? Thanks, man!

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Sometimes, the cost of savings is too high.

Recessions are tough. They’re not fun to live through, and I’ve endured several. But what really stinks is business people frequently make things worse than they have to be. We panic and give in to fear and that causes smart business folks to make soem really dumb moves. We scale back on marketing, even if our business isn’t suffering, “just in case.” We make cuts that damage customer service and product quality. I saw some of these situations play out with someone I know just in the past couple of weeks.

I’ve got a friend who sells a product to local businesses. He’s great at what he does and his service is phenomenal and he treats his customers like gold. I’ve frequently seen him do incredibly fast product deliveries (much quicker than a customer should ever expect) and eat extra rush or production charges in order to over-deliver to his clients. So it was with shock that I saw a couple of his long-time customers ditch him in favor of an untried vendor in order to save rediculously small amounts of money. In one case, it was a penny. A PENNY! In another case it was to save a couple hundred dollars on an order that was tens of thousands of dollars. That means that customer went with a vendor they don’t know (whose quality they don’t know) in order to save half of a percent. What’s worse, both could have gotten a better deal from their trusted vendor had they just told him what price they needed to beat for him to keep the business.

Here are a couple of issues with this situation. First, the customers are almost certainly responding to fear and perhaps sheer panic. People making buying decisions at companies start to get worried in recessionary times that they may be seen as expendible and they start looking for ways to cut costs… at any cost. However, if you have a great relationship with a vendor you can trust, that’s business gold right there. Dependable vendors who love you are not easy to find. Ones willing to move heaven and earth to deliver to you are worth a fortune. Dumping them over pennies or fractions of a percent in savings is just plain stupid. This guy I know has already saved these companies thousands by not passing on extra fees he incurred trying to keep them happy. Now they’re going to dump him for a few cents without even a word. Sad.

I’ve seen on multiple occasions where a buyer, thinking they’re getting a better deal from an untried vendor, dumps their reliable vendor. Then they get let down by the new vendor. Suddenly, they’re in a panic for product. They’ve burned their bridges with their old reliable vendor and they can’t get the product they need, at the quality they need, quickly enough. Suddenly, this buyer is looking inept and expendable to his company. Trying to play games has landed them exactly where they didn’t want to be.

Find vendors you can trust. If  you have to pay a little more for them, they’re worth it. Be loyal to them and they can help you make it through tough economic times. Treat them as expendable and you may find yourself out in the cold.

It may surprise some people, but even seemingly small things can affect how people see your business. A good example I see often is FedEx. At least once every other month, I see a FedEx delivery truck being towed off for repair. Alternately, I don’t recall ever seeing a UPS truck being towed. Guess which service I perceive as being more reliable? If I went back and compared delivery reliability for all of the packages I’ve shipped using both services over the years, they are probably fairly comparable. But I can’t get that towed truck image and the impression it makes on me.

What small things in your company are sending the wrong messsage to your customers?

Drew McLellan at The Marketing Minute blog made a great analogy about how the impact of his text (SMS) communications with his daughter is inverse to the amount of content he sends.:

If I really want an answer to a specific question or really want her to hear me about something, I use a single sentence.  Then, I get her full attention.Drew McLellan, The Marketing Minute, Dec 2008

Then he equated that impact to the impact businesses have on their customers when they keep their communications succinct.

You should check out his post.

Here’s a funny irony. I believe technology is forcing businesses to come full circle with regards to service and interaction with the customer. Way back when, the way to address prospects and customers was generally on a one-to-one basis. You had to interact with people individually to sell them your products and then again for any follow-up customer service. Technological revolutions began changing that system so that we could address more people at a time. Newspapers would let you tell groups of readers about your products through ads. Then radio let you address larger audiences, then TV came along and you could reach millions. Cable TV let you reach audiences internationally and e-mail and the Internet let you do for pennies what used to cost dollars. Automated phone systems let you receive and route the increasing number of incoming calls without having to hire a bank of receptionists. Fax blasts and e-mail newsletters let you address tons of people at the press of a few buttons. Amazing!

But something has happened. These same technological wonders have enabled massive fracturing of your audience. No longer can you run your TV ad during the CBS News and reach 10s of millions of viewers. TV networks are ecstatic to pull in 6-8 million viewers now. More than a third of US households with a TV have digital cable, meaning they have hundreds of channels to choose from. You’ve got to be selective about where your ad dollars go to gain the most effect.

Fax blasts? They just end up in the trash. E-mail newsletters? Gone are the days when you could just add filler materials around your ads. You have to invest in time (and people) to really put together good information or readers will simply delete or unsubscribe you. That takes more team members.

Automated phone systems have become so convoluted and frustrating that many companies are abandoning them and going back to good old human receptionists to answer the phones. The Internet may draw in lots of visitors to your website, but these days, they expect personal treatment when you respond to them. And online social media services like Twiiter are all the rage in reaching out to customers, but they also require a highly personalized interaction.

So, it seems we’ve gone from one-to-one interactions through one-to-many (broadcast) and now we’re heading back to more one-to-one interactions. Have you noticed the same thing?

Oh, yeah, one more quick question. Are you interacting personally with your customers or are you just pushing information to the masses in hopes of making a connection?

Bonus: Here’s a link to David Armano’s post which got me thinking about this. Thanks, David. If you don’t read his blog, start now.

Despite a virtual flood of blogs on the Internet, there are a lot of businesses that still don’t have a blog. Is that good or bad? The answer is an unmitigated YES!

Most businesses, if not all, could benefit from a blog. It’s a great way to communicate with the outside world, establish yourself as an expert on your subject matter and build a community. However, there are hurdles to implementing a good blog. You need to have time to write and to engage your visitors. You also need to have something to say. That sounds easier than it really is. If you post 3-6 times a week, that’s 150-300 posts in a year. It’s easy to start running out of things to say after a year or two. You need to be passionate about your subject matter and honest in what you’re writing.

So, what if you own a business, but you don’t want to blog. Is it OK to have someone else blog for you? Absolutely, under certain conditions. Anyone officially blogging for your company needs to be honest about who they are and why they’re blogging. Never let your PR folks blog in your name or, for that matter, let anyone blog as someone they’re not. Readers WILL find out and it will bust any credibility you have. One thing that’s worked well for many are team blogs. For instance, my friend Nicholas Holland has his team blog for his company centre{source}. Among the cool things about team blogs are: no one person has to write all the time; readers get to experience different ideas and writing styles from different people; and customers and prospects get a good chance to get familiar with your team. It can be very personalizing.

Does your business have a blog? What has it done for you?

Do you not have a blog? Why not?

Leave a comment and share with us.

P.S. These same principles apply for other social media such as Twitter, YouTube, Jaiku, Plurk and Facebook.

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Image by danielbroche via Flickr

It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to dream up a product, produce it, unleash it on an unsuspecting public and then pray like crazy that someone buys. Here are a couple of alternatives where you can test public interest in your product before you go to great expense of mass producing it.

Timothy Ferris, in his book 4 Hour Work Week, suggests listing your product on an auction on eBay. See if you can generate some interest in buying your product. Then cancel the auction just before it ends. The benefit of this method is people are actually laying their money on the table for your product. They vote for it with their wallet. Personally, I have a moral problem with this method. Offering something for sale when you don’t intend on completing the sale just seems wrong to me. It’s too reminiscent of Lucy pulling the football when Charlie Brown tries to kick it. I do admit that I tried this method once, just as an experiment. However, I actually had a product in hand that I could send people if they were truly interested in it. It was an e-book, so the cost to produce was minimal.

Another option is to use ad systems like Google AdWords to advertise your product and see if anyone shows an interest in buying by following the link. Once you’ve directed them to your site, you can take them to a page that notes that your product is not yet ready to ship and you’ll be happy to notify them once it is. The benefit to this method is that people who go to the trouble of following the link to your site are more likely genuinely interested in buying than your college room mate or your mom, which is many entrepreneurs’ focus group.

That brings us to the most common form of product testing, asking family and friends. “Hey, I’ve got this idea for a….” “Oh, yeah. I’d buy that.” “Thanks, mom.” This method is easy and cheap, therefore its the default for many startup. It’s also the least effective.

Basically, the effectiveness of judging if someone will be willing to shell out their hard earned money for your new product is inverse to the time, money and effort you have to put into testing your product’s desirability.

Do you have any other good ways to test product ideas? Add a comment below and share.

Image via Wikipedia

I work with a major corporation on their intranet, building out pieces they need and helping to keep the information updated. Today, I found myself, once again, in a meeting where people were trying to decide what to put on a new page they’d had me build. Now, first of all I’m a bit biased when I say the meeting was a general waste of time. I HATE meetings. They’re sometimes necessary, but not usually. And this company LOVES meetings. Not sure what to have for lunch? Let’s call a meeting! (I exaggerate, but not by much.)

However, today’s meeting was especially silly. I’d been asked to put up an intranet page, but they had no real clue what they wanted on it. Then, we had to have a whole meeting, disrupting 5 peoples’ work process, in order to figure out what to say on this page. It reminds me of people who demand the government do something to alleviate their problem, but really have no idea what they want. What generally happens is they end up disliking the solution because it wasn’t well thought out. Many times, it wasn’t even necessary.

I’m an advocate of saying what you mean in your business and saying it passionately. I don’t like wimpy corporate-speak or watered down sales pitches. Tell me what you want and a good reason why I should care. If you are saying something simply because you think you should say something, usually you’re wrong. Sometimes, silence is golden.

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