September 2, 2010

Social Media’s Role in Branding

Before social media, branding was the buzzword of the marketing and advertising industry.  Like social media today – many in the “biz” were familiar with the term branding – but really didn’t “get” what it was really all about.  As a result a lot of “noise” has been made about branding which focuses upon the choice of colors, logo or other visual elements used in marketing.   But branding is so much more than just the visual packaging of your business or even your business name.  While the name and the visual elements are a way to quickly communicate the “core” or DNA of your business to consumers who don’t know you yet – your true BRAND is built through interaction with your customers.

I’ve always said that branding is not something you do to your business – but rather it’s something your customers do to your business.  Just as a calf does not control the hot metal which sears a symbol into it’s flesh – your company’s brand is controlled consumers.  This is why focusing upon the consumer and striving to meet their expectations is the foundation of branding.  Social media gives businesses a way to make that connection – to collect that information – and to actually see your business from the consumer’s point of view.

Peter Drucker was a self-described “social ecologist” whose insight helped to build some of the most successful companies in the world including General Electric, Coca-Cola, Citicorp, IBM, and Intel. Drucker attempted to unveil some of the “mystique” surrounding branding,

“Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.”

According to Drucker – the essence of branding is building trust and long term business profitability ultimately depends upon building trust with consumers.  Branding is all about building trust with consumers.   When consumers can trust you – they’re more likely to buy from you.  Social media provide the communication tools necessary to engage consumers and build that trust.

The process of building trust with consumers used to be as mysterious and abstract as quantum mechanics.   Companies had no way of knowing whether they had made a “connection” with consumers other than to watch for the cash register to tally up another sale.    Social media is providing revolutionary insight into this once obscure concept but  it’s increasing the importance of actively striving to build trust with consumers as well.

Filed Under: Building Trust with Blogs Tagged With: , , , ,
August 17, 2010

Blog posts and building trust with prospective customers

In Blogging, Authority and Trust I talk about how in order to gain access to a prospective customer’s emotional triggers you have to engender a level of “trust” with a prospective customer or client.   That level of trust begins as “trust” and can grow into “authority” with time.

In “Trusting your Gut“I shared the word picture which illustrates how the whole process of building trust works. Now I’d like to illustrate the role trust plays in social media marketing by sharing a recent person experience on how a single blog post – and the comments approved on the post – worked to build – and then destroy – the elements of trust needed to make a sale.

I was searching for software which would automate a task I perform in my business.  Since I’m going to be asking this piece of software to eliminate the need to hire an employee – I know it’s not going to be freeware.   I entered the keywords to describe the software into Google and -not surprisingly – one of the first results returned was a WordPress blog post.  In the post, the author asked his readers to share what software solutions they had used to solve the same problem I’m having.  The blog post had almost 60 comments by the time I arrived and I had high hopes that I would quickly and easily discover the software I needed.

At this point, my trust account balance with this blogger is low.  However, I’m willing to give this blog author the opportunity to earn my trust.  After all – his post is appearing first in Google, it appears he talks about issues affecting my business.

The post itself was basically fluff  – asking readers to submit the solutions they had found. I didn’t mind this – as a matter of fact, I was happy to see it.  It’s great to see how others are solving this apparently common problem.

The first few comments were apparently authentic- each of which acted like a deposit into the newly opened trust account.  Most of the authentic comments on the blog post fell along the lines of “I still use pen and paper to perform this task.”  UGH!  That’s what I’m doing now.

Notice that these are what I call the authentic responses because it was obvious that these were real readers with real businesses.    Unfortunately,  there were only about a dozen “authentic” responses – followed by about four dozen “inauthentic” responses.

There were several comments which looked authentic at first glance.  They included a photo gravatar combined with a first name – like “John” – followed by a comment which went along the lines of “we looked long and hard for an easy to use, intuitive software program to handle these tasks and were delighted to find [insert software name here].”  The comment then went on to describe the software’s benefits in glowing terms.

The problem with “John’s” comment and many others began with a simple hyperlink.  See, one way a reader “gauges” the authenticity of a comment is by following the hyperlinks in the comment.  In the case of these inauthentic “shill” comments,  when you clicked on the link to see if you could “trust” the glowing recommendation.  – surprise surprise -you would find the hyper linked went directly to the website selling the software program described in the comment.

Congratulations “John” – you garnered some weak link juice and lost the opportunity for me to even download a trial version of your software.

John and several others were obviously shill posting as a satisfied customers promoting their software solution via this blog post. This may be what some people call “social media marketing” but it’s really just spamming the comments of blog posts by posing as a satisfied customer.   It’s yet another example of a blunder in online reputation management – one that can’t be easily erased.

The moral of this story is that several software developers who tried to promote their products via shill comments lost the valuable opportunity to be “authentic” and showcase their software product to a prospective customer who was actively researching a purchase.

Instead of leveraging the power of a blog post with a #1 SERP on a valuable – albeit long tail – keyword term to capture high quality sales leads by leaving an authentic blog comment – a surprising number of software developers settled for a link with very little SEO value and absolutely no potential for real customer engagement.

This experience illustrates a lot of “blogging truths”….

  1. Leaving thoughtful comments on other blogs which add value to the conversation are a great way to get new readers for your blog.
  2. Finding blog posts which use powerful keyword phrases and leaving authentic comments is a great way to promote your product or services.
  3. Trying to “game” social media is a waste of time and energy.
  4. Trust which is quickly earned is fragile – and must be earned over time to fully develop into authority.

The best social media marketing practices begin by recognizing that social media is transparent.  Unfortunately it’s relatively easy to “stand out” from the crowd by simply being honest and telling the truth. In the blog post mentioned above, one software developer was “authentic” in his comment – sharing that he was the developer  and asking for input about his software from readers.

The web is big – and often you’ve got a limited opportunity to engage with a prospective customer.  Why would you waste it by lying and pretending to be someone you’re not?

Filed Under: Building Trust with Blogs Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
August 10, 2010

Trusting your gut….

While building trust and establishing authority is a difficult process to “quantify” and measure –  it’s one of the best reasons to launch a blog for your business.

Years ago, a close friend of mine entered into therapy with her husband to try to save their marriage of 10 years.  Her therapist initially diagnosed the “primary problem”  in their relationship as my friend’s lack of trust in her partner.  The therapist provided her with a powerful word picture which she shared with me.

The emotional trust word picture goes like this:  Trust is like a bank account – when you initially meet someone – the trust balance on the account is zero.  Over the course of time, you make deposits to the account.  Deposits can be small at first – like calling when you say you’re going to call or showing up on time when you have a lunch date.  However, just like money – small regular deposits can add up quickly to create a sizable balance in the trust account of a healthy relationship.

Withdrawals from the account in this word picture are made when one party asks the other to take a leap of faith.  For example, in my friend’s case – when her husband called and told her he was working late – he was making a withdrawal from her trust account with him.   My friend’s counselor painted this picture for her because he believed that she had not been properly “crediting” her husband’s trust “account” and as a result – she didn’t trust that he was indeed working late as he claimed.

Hindsight is always 20/20 – and it turned out that my friend’s “trust accounting system” had been spot on. Shortly after sharing this word picture with me, my friend’s husband announced he wanted a divorce and revealed that he had been involved with a co-worker for over a year.  My friend’s gut instincts about his late night work sessions had been right on target all along.

While the therapist missed the mark in the above situation (caused by believing the narcissistic lying sack of sh*t to whom my friend was soon freed from the bonds of not so holy matrimony) his word picture about how building trust works is right on the money and one that every business owner who is considering using social media marketing needs to keep in mind.

When a prospective customer finds your blog post,  the balance of their trust account with you is low.  You begin making “trust deposits” immediately with seemingly simple details like the theme you choose.  However, the best way to quickly build the balance in the trust account quickly is to provide access to LOTS of high quality and relevant information.

Which is why a blog with a hundred or so blog posts is a great trust building tool for your business.  When prospective customers discover the first blog post about your product or service – they can dig deeper and learn more by simply reading other blog posts you’ve written.  When you create blog posts from questions asked by potential customers via email – it’s a powerful way to build a library of informative business building blog posts.  While fellow bloggers – who are the ones most likely to leave comments on your blog posts –  may find your blog posts “redundant” – prospective customers who are finding your blog for the first time won’t see redundancy but rather lots of valuable information they need to know to make a decision about whether or not to give your products and/or services a try.

Next – I’ll share a customer’s eye view of the whole “trust building” process and demonstrate how a blog post can serve as a powerful trust building tool.

Filed Under: Building Trust with Blogs Tagged With: , , , , ,
August 3, 2010

Blogging, Authority and Trust

Dale Carnegie once said,  “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”

It’s commonly accepted that people buy products and services based on emotional triggers.  Only after the emotional trigger has been pulled will consumers then try to use “logic” to justify the purchase.  That’s why – when you’re writing copy with the intention of “selling” something – you first try to pull the emotional “trigger” and then provide “evidence” to justify the purchase.

In order to gain access to those emotional buttons – it’s essential that the marketing materials engender a level of “trust” with a prospective customer or client.  Sometimes – in the case of minor sales – this level of trust can be achieved quite easily – a professional site design or a BBB label for example.  However, in the case of a major sale – the type of sale that any independent service professional is making –  achieving that level of trust can only be achieved by providing lots and lots of “evidence”.

One of the reasons blogs are powerful business building tools is that they offer quick, easy and lasting communication.   One of the most potent uses of a blog is creating authority.  In that post, I defined authority as trust + power… the power to motivate people to take action.

Adam Singer writes in his blog post Influence, Trust And Authority

Trust is a gray area to measure using quantitative metrics.  Measuring an idea as subjective and nuanced as trust is difficult because you can never escape the simple fact that trust is relative.  Someone may have a personal blog with only 20 readers, but those 20 readers soak in every word and trust the author deeply, taking any calls to action suggested and studying each word carefully.  That person may be more trusted by their small, but loyal following than far more popular bloggers with greater numbers.

In his example, Adam is showcasing a common scenario in the world of business blogging where a “small time” blogger has engendered a high degree of “authority” with a relatively small audience.

In the post “Trust is not Transitive”  I wrote about how it takes quite a while to build trust and how trust is not easily transferred from one person to another.  While Andy Beards’ readers trusted him – they weren’t ready to instantly “trust” some of his recommended resources.  Andy had achieved a level of “trust” with his extensive blogging audience – and when he used his blog to sell his products and services – his audience was responsive.  However, when Andy began recommending other resources – his readers did not respond.  Andy had achieved “trust” with his readers – but hadn’t reached “authority” status with his readers.

Building a level of trust that is transitive is what I refer to as “authority” – the ability to recommend products and/or services beyond your control and have your audience act upon your recommendation.

Cath Lawson demonstrates just such “authority” in her post about making money online by selling what you know.  In her post, she not only promotes her own ebook  Write an Ebook in 7 Days – but she also promotes the ebooks of other authors as well. In our whole “trust vs authority” example – Cath’s post will effectively “sell” her ebook to readers with whom she has established a certain level of trust.  Meanwhile, Cath’s post will sell the ebooks of other authors to readers with whom she has established authority.

That’s an important distinction which  the “get rich quick with blogging and promoting affiliate links” gurus frequently overlook.

In order to sell the products and services of others with your blog, you need to establish a level of trust known as authority.

Eric Holmlund has clearly demonstrate the power of how powerful blogging authority can be in his post “Am I liable for this – you be the judge“. Eric shares an email he received from a reader who hired a copywriter – Nicolas Cole – based upon Eric’s recommendation in an earlier blog post.  Long story short – the copywriter didn’t deliver and the reader was asking Eric for a refund, because after all – he wouldn’t have hired Nicolas had Eric not recommended him on his blog.

When I first saw the post  – it had over 700 comments.   Forty eight hours later, that number had grown to over 900 and when the dust settled the number of comments had grown to over 1000.   Imagine having hundreds of prospective clients gathering in one place to debate whether or not someone who recommended your services should offer a refund because you didn’t deliver.  Talk about an online reputation nightmare in the making!

However, beyond what was happening to Nicolas Cole’s online reputation – notice how the reader hired Nicolas and paid him over $1300 to write copy based solely upon Eric’s recommendation .  Whether you think Eric was liable or not – the reader obviously felt enough of a connection with Eric to act upon his recommendation without further research. This is an clear illustration of the power of authority. Eric built a such a connection with a virtual stranger powerful enough that when he recommended a copywriter – the reader hired him and paid him over a thousand dollars to retain his services.

You don’t build that kind of a connection with strangers in a few blog posts.  It takes time and it takes consistency.  Eric has been blogging regularly since 2006 and this particular recommendation was from a post dated October 2009 which Eric then went back and revised.

Creating authority with your business blog does NOT happen in the matter of a few posts but it does happen.  It begins by creating a level of trust with your readers – and then slowly but surely progresses to a level of authority.  By the way, that kind of trust is only created when you overcome your business fear of sharing.

Only when you’ve created trust with your readers will they open themselves up enough to allow you to pull the emotional triggers which encourage them to purchase your products or services.   If your marketing efforts are falling flat – it’s time to take a good hard look at whether you’re doing what it takes to establish trust with your target audience.

Filed Under: Building Trust with Blogs Tagged With: , , , ,
February 23, 2010

Creating Authority with Your Business Blog

I’ve talked a lot about how your business blog can be used to build trust with prospective clients – especially if you’re in the business of “selling your knowledge.”  However, there’s another term which is emerging which may be an even more compelling reason to begin blogging for your business.

That term is AUTHORITY and it’s becoming a buzz word in the world of business blogging because business blogging is a powerful and effective tool you can use to establish your authority.

Authority is powerful stuff.  According to Dictionary.com, one of the definitions of authority reads:

“right to respect or acceptance of one’s word, command, thought, etc.; commanding influence: the authority of a parent; the authority of a great writer.”

Think of authority as the natural next step in the whole “trust building” process.

Authority =  trust + power… the power to motivate people to take action.

There have been lots of behavioral studies surrounding the power of authority.  One of the most cited works on obedience to authority is the Yale study conducted by Stanley Milgram.  In the study, inspired by the trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, Milgram sought to answer the deeply troubling question of whether authority could cause a person to contradict their deeply held beliefs.

In the study – volunteers were recruited and told they were part of an experiment which tested memory and learning in different situations.  The “administrator” was dressed in a lab coat and armed only with a clip board. and  the “student” was actually an actor.  The true subject of the study was the volunteer – who was assigned the role of “teacher” in the experiment.   The volunteer was instructed  to administer increasing electric shocks to the “student”.  The results of the experiment were sobering to say the least… 26 of the 40 volunteers went on to administer the maximum (fatal) voltage three times, despite the student’s pleas for mercy and apparent impending death.   Only one participant refused to administer shocks to the student.

That’s the power of authority.

In the study – the stage for the administrator’s authority was planned carefully.  The administrator was dressed in a lab coat and given a clipboard.    In later subsequent studies, it appears the “uniform” is an important control in creating the appearance of authority.  While the uniform in the original experiment was a lab coat and clipboard, subsequent experiments and a few well known scams have used police uniforms to create the authority required to quickly gain the trust needed to influence people to act in ways they would not without the misuse of the  power of authority.

Blogs are the “uniform” of authority on the web

So if you’ve been wondering what all the “fuss” is over business blogging – it’s this:  Business blogs are great tools for building authority.  Bloggers in every niche are constantly being cited regularly as “reliable sources” by various media outlets.  Search is a tool used by journalists worldwide – and blogs are very search engine friendly.

Which is why – blogs are quickly becoming the “uniform” of authority on the web.

However, it’s important to remember that trust – and the resulting authority – are not earned quickly nor easily.  The newly minted police officer who abuses the privileges his uniform imparts is quickly dismissed from the police force.  The same is true of your business blog.

Blogging authority does not come from a single blog post.  It doesn’t even come from a dozen or so blog posts.  In many cases, it comes from literally HUNDREDS of blog posts on a specific subject.

The path to authority begins with building a foundation of trust.  You gain the trust of your blog readers by providing lots and lots of quality content.  You answer the questions your readers are struggling to answer with your blog posts.  You give behind the scenes “glimpses” of how you solve problems.  You demonstrate your expertise time and time again through your blog posts.

Lather – rinse – repeat.

That’s how you “earn”the uniform of authority via blogging on the web.  It doesn’t happen overnight – but it does happen – one authority building business blog post at a time

Filed Under: Building Trust with Blogs Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
November 5, 2008

Buyer Beware: Be an Informed Consumer

The customer SHOULD be king -but sometimes, some businesses tend to treat you like a dog!

I created the 8 Week Power Blog Launch  because after 6 months of blogging, my clients would come back to me with various questions about what else they needed to be doing to make their blogs successful.

Because my clients are not “web savvy”, a significant part the course is education about web basics.   While I don’t guarantee that you’ll become instantly “web savvy”, when you finish the course you will have the basics you need to become an informed consumer on the web!

One of the things it teaches you to do is to “spy” on what’s going on behind the scenes  which in the context of building your blog, is ESSENTIAL information.  However, it’s can also serve as a sort of “truth detector” when used to evaluate the claims of various “success” gurus.

It made my day when I got an email from an 8 Week Power Blog Launch user:

“I was in talks with an SEO expert who wanted to work on my blog.  However, when I used the “secret spy tools” you shared in the course, I didn’t like what I saw.  This information alone was worth the price of the course.”

YEAH!!!

Quite honestly, those stories are ALMOST as good as the stories of phenomenal traffic growth from using the program.  One of those stories is Sara Healy.  Sarah is one of my blog clients who was the first in line to grab a copy of the program.

When Sara started the 8 Week Power Blog Launch program, I didn’t grab a screen shot of her Alexa ranking.  However, as I was composing this post,  I went in to check and see what progress  she had made over the past 3 weeks.  Here’s what I saw:

Her blog has seen a 939% increase in reach and has moved up over 4.1 Million positions in the past three months.  (Most of this has happened in the past month as she’s been working the steps of the course.)

I want to be QUICK to point out that this jump is the result of Sara’s hard work!  She’s a wonderful writer and has a gift for communicating effectively.  The course  didn’t provide any “magic”, it just provided the education she needed to make her blog a rising star!

I use these tools ALL the time in my journey about the web.  The other day, I followed a link to a product that claims to be very similar to the 8 Week Power Blog Launch product.   It was one of the dozens of “Make Easy Money Blogging” products available online and like a good Internet Marketer it is being sold via a long one page sales page site which features:

  • a picture of the “author” working on his a laptop under a palm tree by the beach
  • a photo of his collection of rare antique sports cars parked in front of a mansion
  • a “screenshot” of his earnings
  • a long LIST of testimonials.

Now, since his product PROMISES  A Ton Of Free Traffic (copied and pasted from his sales page -explaining the font and color), I decided to check on the blogs which he lists as “testimonials” for his “secret system”.  (Remember, his system is effortless so there’s no reason WHY the testimonials wouldn’t have blogs with amazing Alexa rankings!)

The first thing I notice is that several of the “testimonial” sites are not blogs but simply single page websites selling their own info products.  The few that are actual blogs are not doing well by ANY stretch of the imagination when it comes to traffic.

What was this guy THINKING?   Doesn’t he know how EASY it is to copy the URL and visit the site?

So much for A Ton Of Free Traffic without any effort on your part.

With that said, while the  8 Week Power Blog Launch program is not HARD, it does require an investment of time and effort on your part.

If Sara had purchased the program and then done nothing – well, then her blog would still be sitting in the dark corners of the unexplored areas of the web.  Instead she’s working through the program and as a result has increased traffic to her blog – and she’s not even to the “blog promotion” part of the course!

One of the “tools” I recommend you use in the course is the Firefox plug-SEO Quake.  You have to be using Firefox as your web browser to use it – but you should be using Firefox anyhow!  Install it and it will change the way you view the web!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , ,
October 19, 2008

The Name of the Game is Trust

Lately, I’ve been talking a LOT about the importance of TRUST as an essential element of your marketing efforts.  Here’s a word picture to help you “visualize” how the whole “trust building” process works.

Think of trust like you would a bank account.  When you first meet someone, the balance of the “trust” account is zero.  Then, as you interact with this other person, deposits are being made into the trust account.  To borrow from Tom Volkar’s blog – when you honor your agreements, explicit AND implicit, you’re making deposits into the trust account. When you don’t honor those commitments,  you are debiting the trust account.

You do this all the time with friends, family and other people you come into contact with during the course of your daily life – including the “entities” with which you do business!

In the case of your trust relationship with business “entities”, when it comes time for real MONEY to change hands,  when it’s time to write the the check for legal tender, you’ll make a quick mental check of the balance of the “trust” account.    Unfortunately, there’s not a way to “log in to” the trust account to check the balance.   When you’re trying to establish with a new client, you’ll know you haven’t accumulated enough “trust” in the account if you ask for the sale and the potential client “balks”.

This is the word picture in my mind as I read a recent post over at David Airey’s blog.  In his post,  A Conversation About Spec Work“, David shares a somewhat heated exchange between a prospective client and a designer over working on spec.  In case you didn’t know, the BANE of a graphic artist’s existence – SPEC WORK!  (If you don’t get why a graphic artist might be upset over the prospect of working for “free”, check out Jacob Cass’ post, Why logo design does not cost $5.00)

All I could see in the exchange was a battle of two individuals whose trust accounts were empty when the trust checks were presented for payment.

Jacob makes a point in the comments section of David’s post where he points out that you don’t expect your dentist to work on spec.  (OUCH!  That illustration really “hit home” with me thanks to my little “dental drama” of late and the ensuing anti-word of mouth marketing campaign.)

However, Jacob is only partially correct.  While it’s true that ESTABLISHED dentists don’t offer to work on spec, it’s a different story for new dentist.

When you see an incredibly low cost initial appointment advertised by a dentist, it’s actually another version of working on spec.  While the dentist IS charging a small fee, the advertised price that doesn’t BEGIN to cover the variable costs associated with the exam let alone the fixed costs of running the practice!  If that’s not working on spec, I don’t know what is!

Working on spec is nothing new to anyone who is in the business of selling “nothing but air“.  Service based businesses usually have to do a LOT of spec work in the beginning!  Chiropractors, attorneys, coaches and consultants are just a few of the other professionals who are selling their expertise who must establish a significant level of trust with their potential clients.  I personally created a LOT of web sites in the beginning for minimal cost to build my practice.

However, as the service professional continues to build trust with an ever expanding circle of clients – then the need for spec work decreases.  Not only do you begin to get client referrals, but you can also share client testimonials to help build trust.

David Airey has openly credited his blog with building his business from a local business to one with an international scope.  David’s blog is acting as a GREAT vehicle for building trust with potential clients.

Not only can you feature client testimonials on your blog, but you can also share your expertise freely – which has the effect of making HUGE deposits in your trust account with your blog’s readers.

Building your service based business is a catch 22 type of deal.  In order to gain the trust of potential clients you have to have testimonials/referrals which you can’t get until you get clients!!!

That’s the reason for working on spec.  However, the good news is that  blogs are GREAT for building trust with prospective clients.  They can help you to build trust for your service based business.

Filed Under: Blog, Building Trust with Blogs, Testimonials Build Trust Tagged With: , , ,
August 18, 2008

Working in a No Trust Zone

We’re living in an age that is quickly becoming a “No Trust” zone. If you do business on the web, you should be especially concerned by antics occurring on the national stage which are serving to erode trust.

My family, like many others, has Olympic fever. However, you don’t have to be following the games to watch the degradation of trust that is occurring on the international stage.

I’ve written before about the importance of transparency in the world of Web 2.0. The law of transparency applies to every entity whether it’s a business, a country or an individual.

Building trustWeb 2.0 can be great when you’re authentically providing valuable goods, services and information. On the other hand, it can be your worst enemy when you’ve got something to hide.

Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose, especially in these days of Web 2.0 which could be called the “No Trust” Zone.   When trust is abused, it scars us and makes us less vulnerable and less willing to trust.

The problem is, when you’re doing business via the web, you’ve got a HUGE obstacle to overcome in that often you don’t meet your customers and clients face to face. For the throng of people who may visit your website, they have to TRUST that you are who you say you are. They have to TRUST that you can do what you say you can do.

Recently, as I was corresponding with my editor, the issue of trust came up. This is not the same editor I used to edit my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results, so this new editor hasn’t had the opportunity to earn my undying trust. He made an innocent comment which, little did he know, set off a multitude of alarms for me.

Fortunately, I was able to communicate with him WHY his comment had set me off. Last year, I hired a virtual assistant. I had spoken with her repeatedly as she did work for one of my clients. Long story short, I signed a contract to pay her $700 per month for a minimum of three months. I gave her a project immediately to which she claimed she was anxious and able to do. In the end, she didn’t have the skills she claimed she had. I ended up paying $2100 for something I could have created in 10 hours because she possessed neither time management skills nor the technical skills to complete the project. (Did I mention that when she finally delivered the product, it was such a mess I couldn’t use it!) She refused to refund my money and instead offered her future services. I haven’t heard from her since.

Ken McCarthy once wrote words of wisdom to which I still cling. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “9 out of 10 independent contractors don’t know what they’re doing.” He followed this statement with a story of how he hired a gentleman to create a video for him. The gentleman’s website showed an image of the man holding a high end video camera. That was enough to sell Ken on giving the guy a try. Unfortunately, when the guy showed up to the shoot, it was painfully obvious that posing with the camera was all the guy had done.

Which is why Ken recommends that you “try out” new contractors on unimportant contracts before you give them the assignment of creating something important to your business.

You’re living and working in a No Trust Zone. Your marketing, your blog, your advertising must ALL focus on a single goal: to build trust with your clients or customers. You build trust slowly, through communication. That’s why I adore blogs as marketing tools for independent service providers. A blog allows you to build trust with potential clients and customers because quite honestly, it’s hard to “fake” expertise over the course of a hundred or more posts.

Are you viewing your blog as a trust building vehicle? Do you see evidence of client’s lack of trust? How do you build trust with your potential clients and customers?

Filed Under: Blog, Word Press Blogs Tagged With: , , , ,
July 14, 2008

Do You Measure Customer Service By Satisfaction or by Complaints?

communication

When it comes to business, measuring is an integral part of success. While measuring sales, marketing even web visitors is common, many businesses fail to recognize the need to measure customers service… and with good reason.

Measuring customer service is hard and quite honestly, most businesses are not created with customer service as part of their business DNA.

Customer service as part of a company’s DNA is the absolute best description of what it takes to truly deliver on the customer service front… and it’s so not mine. That phrase totally belongs to Ben Yaskovitz. It’s in Tip #4 of his latest blog post Using Great Customer Service as a Differentiator.

What an elegant, descriptive way to describe the perfect delivery of exceptional customer service.

Ben goes on to tell of his own customer service testimonials from his start up Standout Jobs.

Exceptional customer service has earned him not only testimonials but also new sign ups for the service. Obviously customer service is part of the Standout Jobs DNA.

This really contrasts with my own experience with another start up. However, a more recent and horrible tale is tole by Marketing Pilgrim Andy Beal who writes a tale of customer service gone bad with his blog post Office Depot Joins the Reputation Deadpool.

In a nutshell, Office Depot put out some ATTRACTIVE bait to capture a new customer by offering a great limited time offer of a special low-low price on a Toshiba Laptop. That’s the way it works. A a business, you entice a customer to try your product or service with an offer that is too good to resist. Office Depot even sweetened the already sweet deal by offering next day shipping. You can’t build a successful business on profit margins this thin, but it’s necessary to win new customers.

Then, as you fulfill the order, you amaze the customer. You meet or exceed their expectations with the hope of winning that customer as a steady customer for life… or at least, the next few years.

In Andy’s case, Office Depot was trying to woo him away from his “steady” office superstore, Staples. At the very least Andy expects flowers, a nice dinner and a movie. Poetry, a moonlight gondola ride and ridiculously expensive champagne would have sealed Staple’s fate as soon to be “used to be”. Instead, Andy was stood up and then sent a bill for flowers he never saw and a dinner he never ate. Andy’s devotion to Staples has grown ten fold as a result of the experience. Meanwhile, Office Depot’s brand is being drug through the streets after being tarred and feathered.

Obviously customer service is NOT part of Office Depot’s DNA.

Kelly over at Maxiumum Customer Experience writes:

Your customers are skeptical. There are customers who want you to provide delight, and then there’s this lady. Depending on your industry, there may be thousands lined up behind her. At this point she’s not looking for delight. She’ll take a discount or some other special offer, but what I heard in her voice says it’s not what she’s looking for.

She wants to know somebody at this company cares.

BRAVO Kelly!!! That’s a hit the nail square on the head kind of observation!!!

Does anyone at your company care?

Trust me, if there isn’t anyone who cares, it’s going to show. It’s surprising how a truly sympathetic ear can take the edge off of the burning rage that builds when you feel you’ve been reduced to a number.

How do you measure customer service?

Leadership Tools offers these as ways to measure customer service quality.

  • Customer Attrition Ratio = number of customers leaving / total number of customers (for the same time period) – the higher the ratio, the less likely it is that your company is consistently delivering quality customer service.
  • Sales Growth – your reputation precedes you. If people are still buying from you, and referring others, chances are they are happy with the service and they are loyal to your organization.
  • Customer Survey Results – directly asking customers to rate the service level they receive is by far the best way to measure service quality.
  • Customer Complaints – be thankful for each complaint that comes to your attention. You can only provide a thoughtful response to customer issues once you are made aware of the issue. When customer’s complain they represent not just their issue, but perhaps an issue that is affecting others.

However, it’s all for naught if customer service isn’t part of your company’s DNA. It’s cool to care about your customers. Pass it on!

Filed Under: Blog, Building Trust with Blogs, Web Based Horror Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
June 27, 2008

Blogs…Credibility…Trust

Blogs are a GREAT way to build credibility and trust with your prospective customers/clients. If you’re selling e-books or copy paper, building credibility isn’t important. However, if you’re selling something of substance such as your time and expertise, then building credibility is the most important “marketing” you can engage in.

The thing is, the reason blogs are such a GREAT way to build credibility and trust is that it’s hard to fake expertise over the course of a hundred or so posts because when you blog, you reveal yourself.

This morning, I saw on my iGoogle that the RSS feed that the blog of an author I respect and admire had been updated after several weeks of inactivity. I had heard great things about this guy and even though I don’t know him personally, he already had a substantial balance build up by reputation in his “trust account” with me.

When I discovered he had a blog, I subscribed to the RSS immediately. However, his posting to his blog is spotty and his posts didn’t seem to have much “body”. However, he’s got a nice trust balance with me, so every time he posts, I’m there. I’m reading but I’m definitely not commenting. After all, what could I do to add to a conversation with someone of HIS caliber?

He began with the tired blogging excuse “I’ve been busy.” OK.. I’ll buy that. After all, he’s already got my respect and trust. However, he then launches into the tired MMO (make money online) tactic of “look how rich I am.” He writes about how he’s property shopping for a 2nd home and he’s posting links to lavish builder’s sites in a warm climate.

OOPS! His trust account balance just went to zero in my book.

In today’s post, at the bottom, I saw an offer for a product -a product which I would have bought… had there been ANY trust left in the account.

Contrast that to my experience with Monika Mundell who maintains the The Writers Manifesto.

I stumbled upon Monika’s blog and subscribed to the RSS feed. I began reading her posts and after a while, began to comment. I’m not a freelance writer, but I am interested in honing my writing skills and her posts were instructional and well written. Then, I saw Monika begin posting on another blog to which I subscribe. She is writing great posts like Make Money with Freelance Writing but the interesting thing is, while it’s still “her writing” she has successfully assumed the “voice” of this established blog.

NICE!!!

I’m swamped yet I have a new project I’m nurturing so I hired Monika to write the articles for me. We connected via email and a few days later VIOLA… I have 8 great articles ready to go, even though the past two days have been “no shower” days for me! She did an INCREDIBLE job. It’s like I wrote them (after reading all her posts and following all of her “rules”)… but I didn’t – she did.

I’ve been watching Monika blog for a while now and by watching her, I could tell she was walking the walk. However, in just a few months of subscribing to the “highly hyped” writer’s blog, I can see he’s all talk and no walk.

Blogs are a great way to establish credibility and trust… even when you aren’t aware that people are watching!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , ,