3 ways to improve business relationships over the holidays that will last for years
A) In a relationship. B) It’s complicated. How would your customers describe their relationship status with your business using those familiar Facebook terms? One of the cardinal principles or goals for businesses today, in both retail and B2B organizations, is to establish relationships between themselves and their customers (and employees, I might add). And, just as in our personal lives, the holidays are the ideal time to establish and deepen our relationships with the people whose lives we touch. The problem is that our business lives can become so harried over the holidays that we may inadvertently lose the personal touch. Low prices aren’t the be-all-end-all. Because the holidays bring relationships into sharp focus, here are three ways to move from “It’s complicated” to “In a relationship” when describing the status between your business and your customers. Storytelling. Do you blog or distribute an email newsletter? Take time off from your standard marketing approaches and simply share a personal story about why the holidays are important to you. Dig back into your childhood and talk about some meaningful events. The goal is to put a personal face on your business; it’s always there, but customers and clients don’t always “feel” it. Use some holiday storytelling to share your feelings about this special time of the year. People will relate to you. Personalize your service. As I said above, Christmas shopping and the holiday season in general aren’t just about low prices. People are busy and stressed out. Find ways to “go the extra mile” and provide services that help reduce your customers’ stress. I remember an afternoon of shopping once where a store offered a couple of big bags that allowed me to consolidate what seemed like a dozen smaller bags from other stores that I was toting around. It was a simple gesture, but it made life easier for me and it showed me that the sales associate who was checking me out actually took note of my personal situation and comfort. If you’re in a service industry, are there special services you can provide in December that make life better for your clients? A commercial cleaning service, for example, might consider that some clients will be throwing office parties. Could they provide a special pre-party cleaning service? Or how about contacting clients and asking if they have parties scheduled and would they like to reschedule their cleaning with that event in mind? Don’t forget your team. If your team isn’t receiving any holiday cheer, they won’t have any to pass along to your customers or clients. How can you help them balance the special demands this season puts on both their personal and professional lives? Special snacks in the lunchroom, bringing in a masseuse, closing early, personalized gifts, and other creative ideas will communicate the care you have for your team. December is always a special time of the year. Make it a special time in your business as...
read moreWill Alexa be your next employee of the month?
Did you hear the news about Amazon’s Alexa? The company is targeting businesses to adopt the popular voice-activated assistant. Frankly, I’m shocked that it’s taken this long – but I’m not surprised that Amazon was the first to come forward in this market. We have been discussing the business adoption of voice assistants like Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana for quite some time. (By the way, on the consumer side, these systems could pose a threat to small businesses, depending on how advertising is handled.) The big news with Amazon’s Alexa is that the company is creating a Business Platform along with several third-party app providers. Further, companies will be able to develop their own custom apps…which in Alexa lingo are called “skills.” We might soon see an Alexa business skill like this: “Alexa, start a conference call with the heads of marketing, finance, and operations.” As I mentioned above, all the major tech companies have an entry in the voice assistant category, however, with Alexa’s small price tag – the Echo Dot sells for $30 – it has gained more market penetration than the others. Over the recent holiday shopping weekend, the Echo Dot was the #1 selling product on Amazon…around the entire globe! We know that Amazon has done a great job enabling Alexa to do things like add items to a grocery list. It’s not a big jump from that skill to a skill like: “Alexa, order enough boxes to get our shipping department through the holiday season.” I’m sure that Amazon is dreaming of a world where Alexa has so many productivity-enhancing skills that there will be a device in every cubicle from sea to shining sea. I’m thrilled that Amazon has fired the opening volley in this category. We need some killer apps in the voice-assistant world to boost productivity. As you know, over the last decade or so, we’ve struggled to make any significant productivity improvements. Perhaps Alexa’s skills will lead the way....
read more7 reasons why investors won’t back your startup
No, no, no! Toddlers expect to hear that, but when you’re a grown adult with an idea for “the next big thing” and investor after investor tells you no, it’s not only painful, it can ruin your life plans. With my background in investing and knowing many in the field, let me give you a short list of red flags investors spot that cause them to usher you politely to the door. Your social media profile. If you’re a job applicant today you need to expect that your prospective employer will be looking you up on social media. Investors do the same thing. If you rant and rave on social media, or demonstrate other inappropriate or risky behavior, it will be a blot on your name when you start asking people for money. You’ve failed ugly in the past. All entrepreneurs have failures in their past, but a lot can be learned by how you handle failure. If you leave a trail of enraged employees, vendors, and investors in your wake, folks won’t want to sign on to your next project. Not only do you have to “know when to fold ’em,” you need to know how to fold ’em with integrity. Failing to articulate why you and not someone else. Investors hear a lot of pitches so unless they know you from a previous success, you’re just another face walking through the door. What special sauce do you have that the next guy with a similar idea lacks? It could be your experience, a potential patent, or anything else that makes you unique in the market. Not knowing how you’re going to get customers. The saying goes that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. Unfortunately, it just isn’t true. You need to know how you’re going to reach the people who want a better mousetrap – most of us are fine with our old mousetraps. Unrealistic expectations in sales and costs. It’s exciting to have a great business idea and that excitement often morphs into unrealistic expectations. Just like a home remodeling project, everything is going to cost more and take longer than planned. But unlike a home remodeling project, you have the added pressure of making sales and they will come in more slowly than expected. Be ready to demonstrate that you understand this and are presenting realistic projections. Not knowing what’s next. I wrote on this specific topic earlier. A successful chess player always sees several moves ahead. If you don’t know what the second phase of your company’s development is, there’s no reason for investors to back it. If you can’t chart a path forward, by definition your plan has no potential. Lack of management perspective. The world is full of idea people who want full control or final say. Investors are practical people – they need to know that individuals with strong management skills will be leading the way. Your excitement won’t fund the project. Before you go knocking on doors, try to put yourself in the investors’ position. Would you fund yourself? What are your negatives? It’s true to say that investors back people more than specific business ideas. If you can’t fix your negatives, it might be time to find a partner who...
read moreDiscover what happens when ‘Love It or List It’ collides with the small business world
What would the cable TV love child of CNBC’s The Profit and HGTV’s Love It or List It look like? I think it would look pretty much like A&E’s new program, Save It or Sell It. The new reality series features Robert Hirsch and Eric Casaburi. The pair visit struggling businesses whose ownership is torn between throwing in the towel and cashing out, and revitalizing their businesses. Along with being aired on A&E, you may find it on the History Channel and FYI. It debuted at 11 p.m. on Nov. 5, so it looks like the programming heads are taking a very cautious approach to their commitment. For casual viewers – and business owners interested in gleaning some tips from the two experts – I would recommend scouring your listings right now to find an episode. When I last checked, it looked like they were rebroadcasting their original episode a few more times. I’m not sure when (and if) new episodes will be released. I don’t know if the show will make it in the long run, but I need to say that it heartens me to see reality programming that revolves around businesses, both large and small. I say this for two reasons: In scripted TV shows and movies, businesses are typically portrayed as the villain; shows like Save It or Sell It, The Profit, and Undercover Boss show the human and community-building sides of business. With business failures outnumbering business startups in recent years, we need more inspiring stories about people who are willing to pursue their ideas. We need to rekindle the entrepreneurship spark. Casaburi mixed his passion for fitness with his entrepreneurial spirit to found Retro Fitness back in 2004. The chain of fitness clubs now does $150 million in yearly revenue. Hirsch was in on the first dot-com boom, founded Adventure Central, and has a portfolio of seven companies that span direct-response marketing and technology. Show your support and get a few tips along the way: Check your local listings! ...
read moreNew study blasts common SEO beliefs out of the water
How do you answer these questions: Are you packing your blogs with keywords or painstakingly trying to get your percentage of keywords exactly right? Are you trying to make sure that the first sentence of your articles contains your keyword? Are you plugging your keyword into your headlines? If you answer “yes” to one or more of those questions, you’re in good company. Expert copywriters have been employing keywords in those ways for as long as the goal of search engine optimization (SEO) has been on the scene. However, experts can be wrong. The evolution of search Most of you understand that Google and the other search engines are constantly refining their algorithms. This has transformed the way search engines use our “on-page” keyword usage in rankings. Let’s roll back the clock to the early days of SEO to illustrate this point. In the beginning (hey, there’s a catchy phrase!), websites could essentially trick search engines into thinking their pages were relevant to keyword searches by “stuffing” keywords into the content of their pages. Sometimes they would even do this with tiny type at the bottom of pages that contained hundreds of keywords. Eventually search engines figured this out. Google realized that most of these pages were garbage and pushed them to the bottom of search results. This process of search engine algorithm refinement has continued and for a long time, SEO-focused copywriters have felt that a keyword “density” of something like 3-5 percent would be best for ranking on search page results. For a while now, Google has been saying that it doesn’t use keyword density, yet many in SEO don’t completely trust Google when it makes that claim. However, a very thorough study by SEM Rush seems to prove that keyword density – and even specific keyword usage – has very little impact on how well pages perform within search results. As you can see from the graph above, if we give the most important ranking factor – number of direct website visits – a value of 100, the keyword-related on-page SEO strategies only rank a six apiece. This is not to say that high ranking pages didn’t include keywords; what SEM Rush found is that this usage has virtually no impact on how those pages ranked. The right way to write Businesses – both big and small – are now using long-tail keywords in their SEO because the competition for the short keywords is so intense, it’s almost impossible to achieve a high search engine page ranking (SERP). If that describes your situation, you don’t have to worry about exactly matching your long-tail keyword throughout your content. SEM Rush confirmed something Google has been telling us for quite some time now: “(If) you plan to rank by long tails, having an exact-match keyword in your on-page SEO elements is not crucial. In fact, it is more important to diversify the semantic core of your text (emphasis mine) and make it relevant to the target keyword rather than copying it.” In other words, talking about your subject (keyword) and explaining it in a variety of ways using plain language is your best strategy. Imagine you’re trying to teach something to someone and that person isn’t getting it immediately – you try explaining it from a different point...
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