Blog and Web Copy

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Employee Engagement

I can write communications policies, newsletters, letters and feedback programs for your employee engagement programs.
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Branding

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Archive for Customer Engagement

The lifeblood of a business is sales.  Proven sales and marketing techniques are as valid today for the small business owner as they were before the social media revolution.  They will attract customers and fill your piggy bank.  I learned this the hard way.

Proven sales techniques will attract customers and fill your piggy bank

I reluctantly became an outside salesperson some 30 years ago during the recession in the early 80’s.  I was out of work, almost broke, new house and daughter, stay at home wife, etc.  My resumes went unanswered.  Eventually I secured a starting sales position with a top publicly held company.  I went through a professional in-home sales training course, highlighted by a trip to New York City.

Instructors told attendees to ensure that both husband and wife were present and sitting around a comfortable table in their home.  We would then make a carefully orchestrated  presentation.  They also emphasized handling every known objection.  This would lead to a one-time sales close.  Balderdash!

I already knew that selling is not a one-way street. One of the best ways to establish two-way communications with customers and potential clients is by asking open-ended questions that don’t allow a mere yes or no response.  Let your prospect or customer do most of the talking.  Listen, observe and learn.  They will tell you what they are interested in.

In that entry-level sales job, I dealt with educated people in a higher income bracket.  They could easily see through the high-pressure smoke screen.  I analyzed the situation and applied the above methods.  I asked questions and met with one or both spouses where they wished, applied low pressure consultative sales tactics, came back a second time, etc.  In short, I did whatever I needed to make them feel comfortable with the product and this most often led to a sale.  I diverged from the normal routine and had a successful sales career spanning almost three decades.

Nowadays, you can begin the conversation with prospects on the web by starting a blog, an e-mail campaign, newsletter service, series of videos or other suitable vehicles to communicate your company’s news and information.  Become known as an expert in your field, the go-to person.  In all these communications, request and promptly reply to feedback.

Combine these with innovative marketing techniques that separate you from your competition.  Run contests or offer prizes.  When I owned a retail store, we promoted a student discount for customers who achieved a specific grade point average during a grading period.  This generated free publicity from all the high schools in our area!

As I wrote in my blog earlier this year “Superior Customer Service,” reducing customer stress as well as promoting customer service will succeed over cutting price and high-pressure tactics every day of the week.

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Michael Yublosky, MBA, is a successful self taught do-it-yourself Web master and E-Marketer.  He combines 30+ years of professional consultative sales experience with sales and marketing management, training, coaching/mentoring. Michael shares his knowledge with similarly minded small business owners and managers as well as self-employed entrepreneurs through classes and seminars. His free tips and down loadable PDF files can be viewed at DIY Web E-Marketing.

The latest edition of Business Week carried a story about how Amdocs, a $3 billion company that provides software and services for most of the world’s leading service providers, including AT&T, Sprint Nextel and Vodafone, developed hundreds of innovative ideas at a sort of company boot camp.  This is employee engagement at its best — when a company involves employees in creating the products and services that will move the company forward.  Hundreds of employees applied for the 75 spots, with participants selected on the basis of creativity, originality, and diversity, according to the article.

Ideas can come from anywhere

This is the second camp organized by the company’s chief scientist Tal Givoly, so you can imagine that in anticipation of another opportunity to be part of the action, employees were gearing up long before the event to compete for a spot.  Ideas can come from anywhere.  So savvy companies will look for internal drivers of innovation as well as tapping external experts.  “The first day consisted solely of a variety of wacky, mind-expanding activities,” said Paul Sloane, the facilitator and author of the Business Week article.  The “wacky” is what’s important.  Too often companies will establish criteria before letting the ideas fly.  When participants in such creative sessions are told the budget in advance it sucks the air out of room.  Even the wackiest idea may have a gold nugget waiting to be plumbed.

To read how Amdocs sorted through the ideas to get to their gold nuggets,  go to the Business Week article:  “Inside a Corporate Innovation Camp.”  Amdocs also started a blog earlier this year to engage customers as well as employees.  Smart.

Many chain stores are beginning to tailor their products to the local marketplace.  It’s called “localization.”  Macy’s calls its program “My Macy’s.”  Best Buy calls its program “customer centricity.”  An excellent report on localization by the consulting firm Kurt Salmon & Associates demonstrates that catering to local tastes and needs really pays off.

Home Depot could use a saw

So why is this important to me?  I live in Manhattan (the one in New York) and, as everyone keeps telling us, we’re different from other folks.  People outside the city can’t grasp that most of us don’t have cars, for example, and that we rely on public transportation.  We also rely on our supers and handymen who we value much more than, say, our doctors.  You can always get a new doctor but you’re stuck with the staff you have.  (I’m not complaining – I have a great super).

That’s why my trip to Home Depot this afternoon was so dissatisfying.   I went in to purchase a 2-inch wide piece of baseboard and several tubes of white painters caulking.  They had both, but the baseboard comes in 10-foot lengths.  When I asked the salesman if he could saw it in half so that I could get it home, he replied, “We only do that in stores outside of Manhattan.”  Really?  People outside of Manhattan have cars and big SUVs to throw their things in the back.  Ever try getting on a bus at rush hour with a baseboard almost twice as tall as you are, or in a taxi, if you can find one?  Not easy.

So I walked home, whacking awnings and signs and barely avoiding paddling some pedestrians’ behinds.  I know my local hardware store will saw something for you, because I’ve bought shelving from them that that needed to be sized.

So, next time you go to Home Depot, don’t forget to bring your own saw.  And the next time I need something, I’ll just practice “localization” and go to my local hardware store.

Comments (0)

FYI, this isn’t going to be a lofty discussion about the meaning of words or a list of reasons why nobody is watching your video on YouTube or listening to your super duper podcast.

All aboard!

I’m referring to the messages in public places like the platform of a New York City subway car, where it is impossible to hear messages broadcast about the N train skipping the stop at 34th Street due to a sick passenger, or the waiting area of the air-train to Newark International Airport, where you can’t hear about service disruptions.  Yet these unintelligible messages are critical for travelers.

I was stuck on the platform of the shuttle train to Newark Airport (departing every three minutes, right on their website).  We waited — and waited.  A lone agent began shouting about the cause of the delay but only those in her immediate vicinity could hear her.  Why on earth wasn’t she equipped with a microphone?  There are portable amplification systems.  You know the old story, we can fly someone to the moon, but….. When she got around to my little group, we learned there was a mechanical problem of some kind.  We were instructed to board the arriving train but, then, because of this problem, disembark at the next station for another train to the terminals.  Off we went and when the doors opened again, there was another young woman shouting something unintelligible and gesturing wildly.  ”Don’t get off!!” we finally understood her to mean.  So, we didn’t and continued on our way.

You may hate using a microphone, but your audience will love it

Now we can hear you!

The point of this minor diatribe is that your message doesn’t exist if your listeners can’t hear you.  How many times have you been at a program when the speaker started off, “I hate using a microphone — I can speak loudly enough to so that everyone can hear me.”  Not me in the back row, lady.

If you’re making a speech, be sure to test the sound system in advance.   Can your voice — and words — be heard and understood throughout the room?  Or are you speaking too close to the microphone so that the sound is ear splitting? (this happened to me last week)

And, if you are running Newark Airport, when are you going to supply your agents at the air-train with amplification systems to they don’t have to scream at people who can’t hear them anyway?  And let’s not forget to figure out a better system in subway stations so we won’t be surprised to learn that the local train is running on the express track.  Come on, the subway system is over 100 years old.  Haven’t you figured it out yet, Mr./Ms. Metropolitan Transportation Authority?

Thank you.

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