When did you last deliver

more than you promised?

…and threw in a “Thank You For The Opportunity!”?

This is indeed customer service coming in the back door and, hopefully, your answers to the questions above are: “Yes.” “Today!” and “Yes.” 

Like the family that prays and plays together stays together, the business with a consistent gratitude attitude wins a multitude of latitude from customers, prospects and the industries, professions and communities it serves.

“yeah, yeah, yeah!” you already know all that, and “so what?” you reply. Here’s what: succeeding in business today reduces itself to the simplest –and probably oldest– positive practice on Earth: GRATITUDE.

If you think otherwise, you are not a realist. If you and your people are so tangled up in CRM hardware, software, and underwear that you are missing the daily, hourly, opportunities to build and boost genuine customer service bases of operation, you are taking two steps backward to go one step forward. That isn’t going to cut the mustard in this economy.

Thanking people is not a complicated practice. Oh, and it’s free!

“Yeah, well my staff and I always say thank you to customers and it doesn’t do squat!” 

Hey, that’s a good start, but if you’re not seeing increased loyalty, repeat sales, and steady increases in revenues, you might want to take a closer look at HOW you and your people are saying thank you.

I walked into a failing grocery store this week and had checkers, baggers, shelf stockers, front door greeters and department managers falling all over themselves trying to make my celery purchase be the most memorable experience of my life. They did everything but drool with trying to make sure my celery was spectacular and that I truly had everything I wanted and needed from their store.

Yucht! Finger down my throat. A quick trip for the missing chicken salad ingredient and you’d have thought I was Justin Bieber’s father, or the inventor of Silly Bands. Here’s the deal. The overkill was obnoxious. It was insincere, and I didn’t appreciate being the target of some mismanaged customer service training program.

A pleasant smile and genuine thank you at the cash register would have been more than sufficient. Instead, I was ogled, called “Darlin'” got a 20-cent discount at checkout for having not bothered to bring my little marketing research discount tag, “awarded” a scratch-off ticket to win $1, and had someone actually offer to carry my celery to the car! 

Okay, they got me laughing, but I’m not going back there. 

Next, give a little thought to the idea that since anybody can be connected to anybody these days, it is essential that small businesses act neighborly but think globally.

Anyone is capable of giving or sending you business. That certainly includes your inner circles of family and friends, but it also extends outward to employees, suppliers and vendors, geographic and industry neighbors, service professionals you engage, and all the communities you serve.

In other words, do you say thank you every day to customers, but not employees? Do you thank sales reps for visiting you? Do you thank delivery people and public service people who visit or make regular or special calls on you? Do you thank people for complaining? (“Thank you for calling this issue to our attention. What can we do to make it right for you?” goes a very long way!)

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

God Bless America and God Bless America’s Troops.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

If your business works,

so does Twitter!

     Think of Twitter as one gigantic 24/7 trade or professional show and customer service center up in the sky!

     And start out by just plain dismissing all the “magic secrets” about how to use Twitter to build your business, because there are none.

     Just because social media may be a fairly new avenue for you to be dabbling in for your business, don’t be intimidated by all the crackpots!

     Never a day passes without at least a dozen solicitations attempting to sucker new users into a commitment to get new fans and followers, to learn the magic, the secrets, the steps, the bullets, the actions, the methods, the techniques, the 3 this, or the 7 that.

     If your business works, and you have a respectable reputation, and you know what you’re selling (believe it or not, not everybody does!), then simply use Twitter posts to make provocative, or engaging, or teaser-type billboard/headline-style statements, followed by the website page other Twitterers/Tweeters can click on to learn more.

     But you can’t stop there. . . not any more than you would avoid a courteous greeting up front, or make a sales pitch at a service counter or on a trade show floor, and then not listen to what the prospect or customer has to say, even dumb comments about the weather.

     Be social. This means stepping off your sales pedestal long enough to take notice of what others are posting on Twitter, and to make and post some pleasant response to those you might agree with, and that fit the business image you want to project. Be careful with humor, especially avoid jokes you wouldn’t comfortably share with pre-teens.

     This can include you doing an “RT” (for “Re-Tweet,” same as “repeat”) of other comments and/or quotes you particularly relate to —  no different that a prospect mentioning a name or place or thing or idea that’s on your personal list of favorites, and you commenting back, as you would in any conversation with a friend whose attention you value.

     This is an important ingredient in making Twitter work — being yourself, and pretending you are in a real (instead of virtual) room facing the little (avatar) faces, sharing niceties. If some comment makes you choose to feel angry or upset or overly emotional or cocky or sarcastic or arrogant or pedantic or anything besides pleasant, choose to ignore it and move on to other comments.

     You will not win friends and influence sales by losing your cool or tossing your cookies or acting P.O.’d at some moronic statement.

     People “out there” need to see that you are approachable, easy, and friendly before they’ll pay you any serious attention by deciding to “follow” you (your posts) or to visit the web pages you include with your posts. This is, after all, SOCIAL media first. Those who see and read your comments will allow you the business focus as long as you behave like a good guest at their party. 

     Get yourself hooked up with a free “Tweet Deck” to gain a more useful perspective and to better accommodate your comments. Then take a couple of hours each day for a couple of days (spread out into time chunks is best) to follow the basic flow of people and comments and analyze them as a prospective market.

     Take notes.Pay attention to who’s who:  the rampaging political types, the religious fanatics, the nut cases, the teeny-boppers, the famous quote quoters, the too serious, the too frivolous, the sex-seekers, the weirdos. Get a fix on who you want to visit your webpage and start clicking on their “Follow” buttons. Many will reciprocate and be your followers.

     Decide early on if you want only a selective following or you want to play the numbers and amass big numbers (depends on what you’re selling).

     When you think you see a way to fit . . . fit! Twitter works for those who work at it.  

 # # #

Your FREE subscription: Posts RSS Feed

Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“Out of the mouths of babes

oft times come gems.”

–A present day reality from the Bible

When did you last ask a child in your life— your own or someone else’s — for an opinion on, observation of, or response to your three longest-standing business problems?

Why do you imagine business owners and managers rush to the judgment that children are incapable of contributing meaningful business solution thinking to chronic business problems? “Because,” you might offer, “children lack experience.” Well, this is certainly true. It’s more likely than not, however, that the solutions to nagging problems will not come from having been there and done that.

You don’t need an MBA or to be on the cusp of retirement in order to render a (generally most productive) simplistic approach to business problem-solving.

Like most things in life that adults tend to over-complicate, common sense typically dictates the best approach.

Children are literal fountains of uninhibited common sense.

I heard a radio commercial this week for a home-building company owned by a gentleman named Robert Pittie. The 12 year-old with me who heard the same message started laughing hysterically. It took me a few seconds to catch up because I was preoccupied driving, but when calm finally prevailed, I too near busted a gut as I figured out the lamebrain message (delivered of course with total sincerity):

“When you want a home that lasts,

call Pittie Full Construction Services.”

(Uh, I don’t think so.)

Mr. Pittie might have spared himself the embarrassment had he first tried the words on a child. Most of us, in fact, could probably benefit by the kinds of regular booster shots of childlike innocence, simplicity, and authenticity that routinely roll off the tongues of 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and 13 year-olds. They don’t pull punches. They tell it like it is.

Kids are not controlled by paychecks, promotions and compensation plans (though a little ice cream or some Silly Bands can make for worthy incentives). They are free-thinkers. They are joyful. The more you show them active listening by asking questions and withholding judgments — even taking notes — the more likely they are to spark a new idea or ignite a productive old one you forgot. 

Besides, when you force yourself to take the time out to spend these minutes together, you are reinforcing not only the relationship with this child (or group of children . . .  assuming you think you can handle a focus group discussion!), and you are building self-esteem.

And nothing in the universe bears the fruits of self-confidence and a successful life’s journey like helping a younster to feel good about him or herself. How to start: “Gweneth, can you help me out with something? My company is trying to figure out how to make better jewelry (vacuum cleaners/dogbones/bookkeeping services/customer relations . . . whatever), and you seem to have good ideas.”

To top it all off, you’ll find that just the exercise of having to explain what you do in simple terms and examples, can bring you the answers you’re looking for all by itself. Some small business owners who make presentations like this to neighborhood schools report they get as much value from the experience as the students.    

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

God Bless America and God Bless America’s Troops.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

The check’s in the

                         

mail. I’ll get back   

                              

to you Friday. 

                                                         

I’ll send you that

                                

update the minute

                           

it comes in. As soon

                                       

as we get an invoice.

                                                                  

When shipment

                                       

arrives. But I never  

                                                                        

got your note. Your

                               

email must have

                         

gotten lost in  

                            

Cyberspace. Oh,

                          

that?That was a

                     

“warning”?

                                                                                                                             

     You’ve heard it all, right? Maybe you’ve even said some of it yourself. But when your intentions are genuine and sincere, nothing can be more frustrating than hearing a pile of excuses . . . from a customer, a prospect, a supplier, an investor, an employee, a boss.

     So, what’s the magic answer? It’s somewhere within yourself. You may not be able to control the attitudes that give birth to replies like these, but you can control your own attitude. You, in fact, are the only one who can.

     And by controlling your own response to the excuses you hear, you are cultivating an opportunity for yourself to set a true leadership example. By setting an example, you:  

A) Keep your emotions out of the fray and

B) May actually influence the offender to re-visit her or his initial behavior or verbal representation of it, and reconsider a better, more productive, higher integrity avenue.

     Perhaps you’re not Henry Ford or Bill Gates or Mary Kay, and the idea of changing the world is not on your breakfast plate, but — as a small business owner or manager or entrepreneur — you are in an extraordinarily unique position to make a difference for yourself, for your family, and for those you work with, simply by choosing to respond instead of react.

Besides, if you never react,

you can never over-react!

     People offer excuses to cover their own feelings of inadequacy. Most of the time, you can probably count on excuses being not so much intentionally dishonorable as a shortcoming of the person who’s offering them up in the self-esteem category. Some people who feel they can’t get positive recognition will opt instead for negative recognition because it’s at least some recognition.

     Humans crave recognition. And some recognition always beats indifference.

The opposite of love is not hate.

It’s indifference!

     When you hear excuses, appreciate the insecurities behind them. When it’s possible to overlook them, do it and then make a point of offering (genuine) appreciation for instances of getting a job done without a presentation of reasons why it didn’t get done.

     Offer more encouragement than you might usually provide. Be kinder than you might usually be (because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle). Appreciate differences in perso0nalities and behaviors and help others to grasp the choosing behavior idea through your examples.

     Excuses are a way of life, but they are not always intentional or dishonorable. When you give the benefit of doubt to others, you may get bit in the butt a few times, but you’ll be serving the important purpose of minimizing anxieties and demonstrating productive leadership traits most of the time.

     The captain who keeps an even keel and balanced ship through stormy seas marks every journey with success.

 302.933.0116    Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

God Bless America and America’s Troops.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Not getting quality

from consultants?

  This may be why…

     Right off the top, if it’s not a life-or-death surgical, ocean oil leak, or rocket science need to fill, stop with the panic attacks about finding a consultant with industry-specific experience.

     What you need is to find a consultant who can get the job done. Period.

• Give me a guy, for example, who sells railroad cars full of French fries and I’ll teach him what I need him to know about representing my fine linens products (or my precision computer parts, or my insurance policies). And he’ll do better at it than a fine linens (or microchip) manufacturing (or insurance) expert.
• As another example, show me someone who maintains an efficient warehouse operation, and I’ll show her how to manage a shipping schedule better than the head of any trucking company.

     Why? Because sales and organizational skills are lot harder, more time-consuming, and more expensive to teach than the ins and outs of your business.

     Learning how you manufacture and package and sell your products and services is easy. Learning how to think and act like a sales or traffic management pro is not easy because it’s often an issue of attitude.

When you’re outsourcing projects and looking for consultants who can get the job done, don’t be making yourself crazy trying to find someone who has extensive experience in your industry or profession.

     Look instead for someone who has extensive experience in her or his consulting specialty. A good solid marketing person or writer or web designer or trainer or coach, for instance, doesn’t need to have ANY expertise in your specific business or professional practice in order to help you produce a significant difference in sales, sales leads, CRM, or staff development.

The same principles and dynamics that work for selling hot dogs also work for selling precision parts, accounting and legal services, heart transplant specialists, or (aaah, entrepreneurship!) “Silly Bands.”

     The art and insight of writing an effective news release, advertising campaign, or website, doesn’t change in the slightest.

     The target markets change; the media selections change; the technical details change. But benefits are still what need to be emphasized.

     All products and services are purchased because an emotional buying motive is triggered — not because a laundry list of rational features has been presented. Skilled marketing consultants know how to plan and create and activate emotional buying motive triggers that get results.

     Your job is to teach them your business, be a sounding board for their recommendations, and help bring about action.

     You can follow the advice of headhunters and placement services and counselors and job trainers all you want, and puppy-dog behind every leader in your industry or profession, but I’ll put my money on you finding the best outsource consulting service teams and individuals based on your own instincts and your own judge of character and chemistry. It got you here. It works.

Trust yourself.

     The minute you’re able to find people who can fill the role(s) you have in mind, who have a track-record of success in many diverse fields, don’t hesitate to engage her/him/them simply because you think your candy company is so unique that only someone who is a candy business expert can appreciate you and your business enough to do justice to it. A sweet idea, but unrealistic. 

Informed fresh perspectives don’t

    come from clones or ostriches.    

 www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. God Bless America and America’s Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

The face of your business

is second only to the guts!

The first person(s) to encounter your business visitors, customers, clients, patients, prospects, sales reps, suppliers and vendors, delivery people, and solicitors in person and on the phone is(are) “the face of your business.”

Exercise caution in not underestimating the value of this position. It comes second only to your own and the operational guts of your business. However genuine each individual projects him or herself in that role directly equates with what outsiders will think of you and your business. Gum-chewing, short-skirted bimbettes may not always be in your best-image interests. ;<)

You get only one chance at a first impression and one chance with each encounter after that to maintain it, so why nickle and dime your selection, placement, and nurturing process for anyone who will serve as your business face?

If yours is a start-up or home-based business, that individual could be you, or your spouse or other relative.

Most of what follows still applies.

Many business owners and managers find it hard to avoid the temptation to tangle up business face job responsibilities with cost-cutting leftovers from someone else’s task pile. Multi-tasking is useful, but be careful about keeping the workload balanced. Being the face of the business is a primary responsibility that requires an authentic and engaging personality as criteria one.

For some of the same kinds of match-up reasons that –for example– MacDonald’s prefers farmers for franchisees (because of their regimented approach to seasonality and discipline in maintaining consistency) — or that many popular restaurants prefer actors and actors for food-service people because they have a stage presence which typically renders them less inhibited, more outgoing and more entertaining (which can make the difference in upgrade meal and beverage orders, and customer add-ons as well).

Recruiting  process questions to keep

on your front burner and to be able to

answer affirmatively and assertively:

• Does this person have an inherent interest in other people?
• Does this person appear to withhold judgment of others?
• Is this person engaging without being overbearing?
• Is his or her tone of voice consistently calm, pleasant, and respectful?
• Any evidence of this person being patronizing or condescending?
• Has this person a natural instinct to be helpful? (Subtly dropping something near him or her gives you a scenario to assess)
• Does this person’s host or hostess skills transcend turmoil situations? (Creating one during an interview will provide some clue)
• Can this person stay on track with time schedules? (Ask candidates to sort out some typical priorities)
• Does the person you’re considering evidence a good memory for names, faces, and voices? (Are visit #1 intros remembered on visit #2?)
• Does he/she offer to find help that can’t be immediately provided?
• Is the candidate gracious and polite under fire? (This may be hard to determine without considerable contrivance)
• Do you think the person you’re considering will readily acknowledge those waiting in line or on the phone and report delays?

Selecting candidates who excel at these personal skills is almost always a “best bet” situation because business-related skills can be taught, and human interaction skills usually cannot. In other words, changing some one’s knowledge base is easier than changing some one’s personality. For the face of your business, be less caught up in the resume and more focused on the person. Others will be.

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

God Bless America and America’s Troops.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

A job half done

is half UN-done

     Like the proverbial half-full or half-empty glass debate, businesses and business projects are often left UN-done. When this happens, the entities can usually be expected to unravel completely or take a giant step toward miserable failure.

     Seldom do we see an enterprise or project be abandoned before maturity (except for examples in, for instance, the new home construction market and associated trades, where government incompetencies ushered in a full housing market collapse), and still make a difference at any personal, industry, or market level.

Q.

     What can you do to instill a stronger sense of stick-to-it-iveness in yourself and in your people, or your outsourced project managers?

A.

     Start with yourself! What you do others will follow. The best way to ensure that you finish what you start is to plan your approach and monitor your progress. Something as simple as keeping a nightly, just-before-you-leave-work Attack List (Hint: chunks of tasks work light years better than itemizing full-scale tasks) of things you need to do the next morning.

     When the list is done (and whatever doesn’t make it to the paper or task program screen before 3 minutes is up, isn’t generally worth remembering!), prioritize items with number rankings or multiple asterisks, and proceed in that order, making notations of other unexpected items that surface and perhaps even renumbering everything.

     Take that task list to task with a see-through marker every time a listed item gets done; that allows you to review what’s been accomplished, what’s been interrupted, and what needs more attention. 

     This is not as trying experience as you might imagine if you accept the likelihood that you will be interrupted and disrupted, and account for that inevitability by keeping your mind flexible enough to accept alternative routes and options on the fly.

     Yes, this is an entrepreneurial instinct, but anyone can make it work. It requires only that you keep open-minded. Easy? Yes, but for that to happen, you need to agree with yourself to suspend all judgments.

     Suspending judgments, prejudices, biases, is essential because these will otherwise get in the way of your progress. And of course if you don’t finish projects and communications and tasks, how can you expect those who report to you to do that?

     LBE (Leadership By Example) counts even more than transparency if there must be a choice for where to apply your energy. Transparency keeps your team bolstered, motivated, and challenged under all circumstances, but without you setting daily examples, it will be difficult at best to even approach the point of operating your business with complete openness.

     So, it’s . . . 

1. Open your mind
2. Set examples for others to follow
3. As more work gets done, completed and on schedule, begin moving your business to be more transparent. Note the implication of the words, “begin moving” which means taking it step at a time (instead of all at once), which is usually the best way to approach any business situation.

 www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. God Bless America and our troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

Two Simple Examples:

“Do!” vs. “Say!” and

“How?” vs. “Why?”

     I’ll never forget the lesson I learned many years ago as a young college professor when I tried using a Gestalt Therapy “Empty Chair Role-Playing” technique with a disgruntled student in a business career development classroom.

     I used the wrong word. The angry student nearly injured at least two or three other students because I said “do” instead of “say.” 

     Facing an empty wooden chair I placed in front of him, I draped my jacket over the back and asked Tony, who was extremely annoyed with his boss, what he would do if his boss was in that jacket sitting in that chair facing him right now.

     Tony strode defiantly toward the empty chair, picked it up and flung it full force over the six rows of floor-divers and ducking heads, smashing it to smithereens against the back wall. Lucky for him (and for me) that no one was hurt.

     You’re the boss, right? Ask any employee WHY she or he was late to work or an appointment or meeting. What’s the response? Ask WHY some operational function broke down or WHY your best customer account had been gradually cutting back their orders while increasing competitive purchases. What are the responses you get?

     The word, “Why?” is a request for reasons. It is a set up for anyone to respond with excuses. Asking “Why?” will never solve a problem.

     The most current example of how this word mix-up fails, comes from a befuddled White House asking why the catastrophic Philadelphia train derailment happened, instead of taking a genuine leadership position and asking “HOW?” . . . “HOW can we fix it?” would certainly have been a better approach and accomplished more. Corrective actions speak louder than analytical investigations. 

     Yes, of course there’s a bit more to this last example. It would seem to most businesspeople rather inconceivable that anything as potentially disastrous as a derailment by a government-run railroad that resulted in at least 7 deaths and hundreds of injuries could be ignored for half a day, and even then, still be preoccupied with where to place blame instead of how to solve the problem.

     So, yes, timing is a critical ingredient in word choice, but difficulties often start and end with the exact words selected and used. Before you might jump to conclusions about some issue in your workspace, you may want to respond prudently instead of react in ways that simply make the situation worse.

     Pause long enough before speaking to consider how the recipient(s) might perceive the words you choose, as well as the integrity of your timing.

     These examples and this discussion are not far-fetched by any means. Imagine such vast differences (as between “do” and “say” or “how?” and “why?”) in word choices you use — or overlook or let slide —  in your advertising, marketing, promotion, public relations, customer service, sales presentation.

     Was it your grandfather who said “think first and speak second”?

   # # #

931,854,0474       Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. 

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Please excuse me

for not looking up,

but I am listening

carefully… BULL!

It’s the unconscious “game” we all play every day and most vehemently protest when we’re caught red-handed.

Some who recognize the fallibility of its practice at least have the courtesy to acknowledge the shortcoming at the same time that they practice it in your face. Others just play dumb when you call them at it.

Don’t let employees pretend they’re listening to you while they’re reading or writing or surfing the Net or watching TV, or –and here’s the biggy–  driving a car! It’s been proven conclusively time and again that the human mind simply cannot concentrate fully on two things at the exact same time. If the answer to your question, “Are you driving right now?” is “Yes,” set a call-back time and hang up!

Yes, concentration can alternate rapidly, but there are no double-barrel brainwave tunnels that facilitate thought process focus on more than one item, idea, situation, person or place at any given split second. 

You can’t do 2 things at the same time!

So what does this mean if you own and/or manage a business or part of a business? It means when there’s important information to share, you need to flat-out tell distracted employees — like many assertive classroom teachers tell students — that you will wait to speak until you have their full attention.

By the same token, you need to return the behavior by facing the person who’s serving as a news source to you. (No, not network TV news anchors; most of them deserve less attention than a bad car commercial)

It means you need to teach others around you — by example. It means you need to subtly demonstrate (preferably without making an issue of it) that good back and forth eye contact (not staring or glaring) enormously improves the accuracy of communication and also reinforces self-esteem.

It means you could do no greater service to the elimination of errors by consistently paraphrasing (repeating in your own words what you understand others to be saying, as a way to check accuracy points with them). “Do I understand you correctly to mean __________?” is a highly effective verbal tool for that.

It means that both you and the information source will benefit enormously in pursuing common goals and thought processes by asking for diagrams and examples.

Ask the speaker to stop or slow down until you can take notes. Not only will this force a more careful explanation, and help prevent errors, it’s also a flattering and ego-boosting technique.

Sure this all takes more time. Of course it’s more effort. But the results will launch your rocket quicker, safer, and more productively than those who trip over themselves rushing to light a fuse that may not even be connected.

 Just ask yourself if you want the job done right the first time. If the answer is yes, take the extra time and effort to communicate the who, what, when, where, why, and how.    

302.933.0116    Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. 

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Does your marketing

Snap, Crackle and Pop?

     Do the words you’re using for your marketing pieces and programs toss off enough zing and sizzle to get through the clutter?

     Are you using the right words in the right ways? In other words, HOW you say what you say is at least as important as WHAT you say!

     Canadian educator/philosopher/futurist Marshall McLuhan, considered the first father and leading prophet of the electronic age, taunted us 50 years ago with his proclamation “The Medium is the Message!” Certainly there is no greater proof of that today than the Internet. Considering how visual the medium is, it’s astonishing that words stand alone as king of Internet sales.

     Or do they?

     If your homepage is still using lame old words like “Welcome to” and “Now introducing” and “Announcing” and “Therefore” and “However,” your Internet efforts are not king of much worth talking about; you might need to chat with some teenagers.

     You definitely need to throw down your walker and start listening to what the world’s most successful marketers are saying: NOTHING RUNS LIKE A DEERE and I’M LOVIN’ IT are about as close to self-talk back-pats as you’ll find.

     Take this YES/NO Test . . .

• What are your marketing messages all about? Are they busily pounding chest with repetitive references that use THE 6 KILLER WORDS: I/me/my/us/we/our?  (Instead of focusing on “you” and “your”?) ___YES ___NO
• Do your ads, brochures, web pages, on-hold phone messages, news releases and direct mail beat the drums with braggadocio about “how great we are”? ___YES ___NO 
• Is the message emphasis on how much we can do for you, why / how we earn our reputation, how reliable (trustworthy / attentive / respectful / courteous) our exceptionally trained and experienced professional people are? ___YES ___NO

     If you answered “YES” to any of the above, your website and the rest of your marketing program are positively not working for you in a way that’s even close to achieving your potential. In fact, they are likely to be working against you!

     Unfortunately for most business owners, this whole world of promotional text and copywriting, website content, branding, slogans, jingles, public relations news releases, mission and vision statements, ebooks and feature articles, might as well be the makings of another Harry Potter book . . . Cauldrons of Text Turmoil perhaps? 

     So what’s the answer? How can you give your business a “Snap, Crackle, Pop” dose of Rice Krispies to make more of what you already have, and to keep costs within reason? Start with using AIDAS as your yardstick. Do your marketing words attract Attention? Do they create Interest? Stimulate Desire? Bring about Action? Deliver Satisfaction?

     Where are they weakest? Now you have the groundwork for maximizing the creative development time and energy of an experienced, qualified business writer. Spell out what you need, and agree to terms. This is MUCH smarter than hiring and giving free rein to a marketing, PR or ad agency/group who will feed you many unnecessary and expensive steps to (maybe) get to the same ends.

     The medium IS the message. Don’t let service providers run you around in circles to discover the truth of it!

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  302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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