I recently had converted my home form cable TV to satellite. I decided to go with the non-market leader responding to a promotion. I did not really have high expectations since I was really price shopping and was prepared to put up with a little inconvenience.

To my pleasant surpise, the intake process on the phone was smooth and very professional. The customer service rep did not try to over sell me. The service commitments and pricing was clearly outlined and the whole process went well.
On install day, a very competent installer (subcontractor) showed up at my door on time, in the rain and addressed all my niave questions about satellite television.
By contrast, about a year ago I tried the dominant market provider in the satellite TV market as part of a bundled deal with the local telephone company. The service never worked properly and after repeated visits by the service technician and failure to resolve the problems, I told the provider to remove the service. Service removal was soon followed by a series of harrassing calls form both the provider and the telephone company trying to hold me hostage to the service commitment. I repeatedly explained the problems to mulitple parties in both organizations without success and they still insisted that only after one week of service I was responsible for the early termination of service penalty. To add insult to injury, the telephone company impunned my personal credit for late payment of the penalty which I finally paid to end the matter.
The lesson to small business owners is simple. Good, fair and equitable treatment of customers builds loyalty, a customer franchise and the potential for referrals from customers who like what you do and how you do it.

Please let me know of good and not so good customer service situations that you have experienced as a consumer and how they affected your buying behavior.

Many of my clients wonder why they need a business plan at all. My stock answer is; If you don’t have a plan how do you know if you are where you want to be or not?
I generally suggest shorter plans are better and that depending on the use of the plan for borrowing, investors of just for operations purposes, the plans should contain the following elements:

1. Strong executive summary Most readers will read this and glance at the financials. So in the executive summary, tell the reader what you want them to know. What is the strategy? How will you sell? What is your unique value proposition and how will your prevent others from stealing it?
2. Three years if compelling financials You can not just have numbers on a page. There has to be a clear link to the marketing strategy in particular.
3. Sound marketing strategy As the business owner you must be prepared to communicate the so what about their business. What makes you better than the competition and how can you sustain your advantage and avoid replication? There needs to be a strong link between your strategy and the numbers in you plan.
4. Team The owner must also be prepared to convince the reader that they have the right team of players that can execute the strategy. Resumes and backgrounds are all critical to communicating how the team will support the business.

My blogs are rarely about what I do. They usually focus on small business problems and solutions but today I am making an exception.
I recently met with a local start up restaurant owners and provided them with many helpful suggestions to make the operation better and more profitable. I was rebuffed and told that they did not need any help and they were doing fine as they were.
Normally I would walk away and chalk it up to a bad experience but in this case it caused me to think about how blind people can be sometimes in not seeking professional help particularly with a new business. I wondered if they had any idea that over 50% of new businesses fail and many that make it five years or more, fail to ever become profitable.
So here is my plea. If you are a small business owner either new or have been at it awhile and you sometimes feel you could benefit from an outside point of view, seek out a professional small business advisor. The value will far outweigh whatever fees you pay and having outside help may not only make your business more successful, it may actually prevent a disaster from happening!

How easy is to just say thank you to customers after they buy from you? You would be surprized how powerful this is and yet many small business owners don’t do it.
Guerrilla Marketing teaches us that marketing to our existing customers is where we want to put approximately 60% of our time, money and energy. So, creating a program to pick up the phone the day after a sale is made and thanking the customer fits right in. How much does it cost? It cost virtually nothing except time.
What kind of impact does calling customers have? It’s a great way to make the customer feel good and to keep your company top of mind.
Please comment on this post!

I read a blog this morning from Smart Briefs on Small Business and it caused me to think about some of the HR exposures I see with clients:
1. Exposure to Litigation Have you ever let employee work overtime and give them compensatory time off instead of pay? If so, you have legal exposure to a law suit from the employee and the State. Another common example is holding an employee meeting or training off the time clock. Again, like it or not you have created a legal threat.
The point of this is we can unknowingly create legal human resource risks to our businesses.
2. Benefit regulations not being followed Did you know in the State of Massachusetts, for example that if you employ eleven or more people full time, you are required to supply some form of health insurance and that you are required to pay 30% of the premium? Another common error is forgetting to notify former employees of their rights to buy health insurance under COBRA.
3. Multiple HR policies Many clients I work with either have an outdated ‘Employee Handbook’ or do not have one at all. The obvious problem is that without up to date documentation what are the rules and how can you possibly enforce them? Informal practices tend to proliferate over time in most organizations and create unknowingly conflict and again potential legal exposure.
4. Record Errors In many micro- businesses the human resources function is relegated to the owner or at best the office manager. If someone is not versed in HR policy and regulation error will occur. All employers in many states are required to maintain personnel records. Frequently documents are missing or the files do not exist at all. When disputes or challenges occur, there is no paper trail.
5. No one minding the store Depending on the size of the business, the HR function may not be staffed and may be someone’s part time job. This is risky because there are so many compliance issues required by both State and the Federal Governments concerning employment. There are Professional Employment Organizations or PEOs that exist solely to serve smaller companies where they can not afford to have a dedicated HR person. These manage compliance, benefits and can assist in hiring and firing issues as required for a fee.

Please comment on your experience in managing HR issues

I am asked all the time by small business owners to evaluate their marketing efforts and make recommendations. Everyone is intrigued by guerrilla marketing because they have heard is can be less expensive than traditional marketing approaches.
What is frequently misunderstoord is that in order to save money on marketing you have to roll up your sleaves and do some work.
Here are five things that micro busiesses need to do in order to be successful with their guerrilla marketing programs:
1. Be Creative Creativity is what guerrilla marketing is all about. Using out of the box ideas to get your message out is part of the appeal. Examples include placing business cards everywhere other businesses will let you display them. ( supermarkets, car washes, oil change outlets, cafes) A second idea might be parking your car down the street from your business with a yard sign on the windshield promoting your business.
2. Commitment If you going to spend less you have to be committed to getting out there and putting your marketing pieces wherever you can as well as checking back regularly to make sure someone didn’t throw them away.
You also have to be dedicated to mixing things up, trying new ideas and being regular about your marketing.
3. Avoid Procrastination Procrastination is guerrilla marketings biggest enemy. Putting things off results in marketing programs not being executed in a timely or consistant manner and then results follow accordingly.
4. Repetition Repeating marketing programs that work on a regular basis keeps results coming in and keeps your name top of mind.
5. Using the Marketing Calendar If you know what programs you are commited to and when they need to be in the market then being constantly in the market and avoiding not doing what you set out to do become easier to manage. If you know you are going to have a problem staying on tract, hire a professional coach to keep you accountable.

I recently became aware of a situation where a business owner was seemingly questioning a billing issue in an email. The message suggested that the owner was disputing the charge and rather than pick up the phone, the vendor fell into the trap of defending his position via email.
As it turns out that the business owner did have feelings about the charge but had every intention of paying the bill. The vendor, on the other hand thinking the worst, suggested to the owner that maybe they should settle the dispute in court.
And the morale of the story is?Don’t leave important issues to emails. Phone or better yet face to face communication is better and subject to less misinterpretation.
Result?
The small business owner and the vendor who had a long standing relationship ended up parting ways for no good reason all because of misinterpreted written communication.
So what to do?
The take away from this situation is simple and two fold:
1. Do not use email when one to one phone or in person communication is available.
2. Wait a suitable period of time before responding to seemingly bad news. It is very possible that the first read on a message may not be the right interpretation. Give it some time before engaging the other person.
Sounds simple enough but you would be surprised how often this kind of error costs business people. Let me know if you have had such an experience with email and how you solved the problem. Please offer your comments.

I recently experienced a problem with a small business where the owner made an error in judgement surrounding owning up to an obligation of the business. The individual tried to push the responsibility for his mistake to others and when it backfired, he became angry. Why is this important?
Mistakes are made everyday
Unfortunately, mistakes are made every day. After all we are human and fallible. How we handle mistakes is what is important.
Customers may receive the brunt
In a small business when an owner plays the blame game with an employee the result can have negative consequences through out the company. The worst case scenario is that the customer receives less than a positive experience from the disgruntled employee who was wrongly blamed for the owner’s transgression.
How to avoid negativism
As a business owner, be humble.
Don’t let success in business build ego to the point you can’t admit you can make errors in judgement. If you do fall into the trap of blaming someone else for your mistake, fix it. People will forgive and move on if you stand up for your own bad judgement.
Remember the mud runs down hill
If negativism persists in the organization and customers experience bad service which can be bad for your business.

Please comment. I am interested in knowing if you have had abad experience in judgement and how you dealt with it.

Working with a fair number of one and two person businesses the question of how can I market effectively almost always comes up.
1.Money or should I say the lack of it tops my list. I am always told we have little or nothing to spend to promote the business. What can you do?
2.Commitment . If you don’t have money to spend on advertising and promotion there are ways to promote which include writing articles and blogs, getting published in newspapers, public speaking and networking to mention a few. All require commitment by the company to be successful.
3.Consistancy. Being inconsistant in the execution of marketing programs is the kiss of death in terms or results. Doing promotion when you feel like it or not making it a priority is always a failed strategy. If you can’t afford to pay soemone to execute marketing programms for you then you must commit as the owner to devote the time necessary to get them in the market on a regular basis.
4.Procrastination Look we all get lazy once in awhile and put things off, but when you own a business and you wear all the hats, you must avoid putting things off. Again, no effort to get your marketing into the market translates into no results!
5.Plan Without a plan marketing is like throwing stuff at the wall and trying to see what sticks. Key to any good marketing plan is a statement of what customer needs the company can uniquely solve and what is the strategy to communicate value to both existing and prospective clients.
I invite your comments:

Tips for working smarter outside of the traditional office environment

(ARA) – For many professionals, life in a cubicle is a thing of the past. Going into work could very well mean taking a stroll down the hall to your home office or heading to the coffee shop down the street. Employers are even moving past the cube-and-office model, and instead incorporating more common areas and ad-hoc spaces that promote collaboration and flexibility.

Today’s technology allows employees to jump into a teleconference from anywhere at a moment’s notice from wherever they may be, and access work documents from anywhere they can find an Internet connection. Those working from home can be responding to emails and organizing their schedules while those heading into the office might be stuck in traffic.

Companies – and those who are self-employed – are figuring out how working smarter through technology can benefit both employees and bottom lines. But for those who are used to working in a traditional office environment, there are a few things you can do to make sure you are working at peak efficiency in your flexible work environment. Mobile working experts from Plantronics, which offers a variety of products to help people adapt to this new way of working, offer these tips:

* Integrate your communications system. While every cubicle is usually outfitted with an office phone, it isn’t necessarily needed in your home office anymore. With Skype, Microsoft Lync and other tools that allow you to use your computer as a phone, you can operate everything you need from one device – not to mention save on long-distance charges or cellphone usage. Plantronics offers a number of mobile headsets that provide superior audio quality that can be run through your phone and computer at the same time – all while keeping your hands free to pull up anything you might need on your computer while you chat.

* Establish a work space. While working from home might allow you the flexibility to pick your children up from school, you may also have to find ways to deal with distractions from home. Finding a place in your house where you can work without being distracted during the hours you’ve set for yourself can help ensure that you’re as productive as ever.

* Set hours. If you’re not heading into the office, the line between work and your personal life can be a little more easily blurred. Working with your employer to establish when you’ll be available cannot only prevent you from overworking yourself, but also allow you to be more productive during the time you’ve dedicated to work.

* Embrace mobile capabilities. If you have a day full of visits with clients, you don’t have to give up on accomplishing other tasks. Working with your employer to set up the ability to access your files through your mobile device or computer will allow you to work from anywhere, so you don’t need to head back home or to the office between appointments.