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Properly Placing the Blame

07.30.2014 by Elizabeth // Leave a Comment

MjAxMy1iZTk3ZDZhOTMxMTVkZWNhI have a client who I am having a heck of a time with their Google+ page. Somehow two pages were setup, one is a page, one is a brand, and the client has no idea what the login is for one of them, and G+ isn’t helping me to identify it. I’m SUPER frustrated and trying my best to figure it out and not just blame “stupid google+” for the issue. And, I’m also hoping my client doesn’t blame me for this issue. It’s wasting a lot of time and money and mostly I just want to throw it out the window. SUPER Frustrating.

Yesterday I got a voicemail from a healthcare provider I recently visited. The appointment wasn’t great, and now I’m trying to submit the information to my insurance to get the claim paid to me, since this provider doesn’t bill directly. The voicemail I received was “I just spent a half hour trying to get through to them, and they want this private information I don’t want you to have, and I am so frustrated I might as well just pay you myself so this all goes away.”

So that was SUPER professional, mature and makes me want to hire this person again…Sure it’s not their fault my insurance wants what they want, and it’s OK by me if they don’t want to work directly with the insurance provider. but if you’re in the healthcare industry, you need to either deal with it, or figure out another solution.

It’s always going to be easier to blame someone else to keep up appearances and make yourself look good to your client. And sometimes it really isn’t your fault and making sure the client knows you did all you can is important. But, more often than not, you look like you’re making up excuses when you place the blame on someone else. I hired you to do a job, do it, or tell me you can’t do it up front and we’ll figure out someone who can do it.

 

Categories // Branding, Lessons Learned, Management, Sales

7 Ways to Get More People to Open Your Newsletter

07.24.2014 by Elizabeth // Leave a Comment

I have written and reviewed two different newsletters for clients this morning. The first one ended up being a LONG newsletter with all sorts of content. The second client I was reviewing their newsletter from last week and the numbers were down a bit (still great for the industry, but not for where they’ve been). So, it got me thinking, how do you get more eyes on your newsletter?

  1. PRIZES! Please, you know you’ll open aimgresn email when there’s free stuff inside! Sure it’s a 15 minute call, or a white paper download, but hey, FREE is a very good price.
  2. Teaser Line- You know that very top teaser line you always forget about so it says “Use this area to offer a short preview of your email’s content.” USE IT! Tease something, tell people what’s in store. It’s like a sub-head for your newsletter title…
  3. Have a Title! My newsletter always says “Yellow Dog News” but then it says “3 Ways to…” and it’s always that simple. Tease folks with your headlines. Fun tip- write your headline last, you have the content and now go find that nugget of fun that will entice folks to read your newsletter!
  4. Post to Social Media – Make sure that your newsletter is shared on social media. EVERYWHERE, early and often. Personal, professional, share it away please! I may not subscribe to your newsletter because I don’t really know you, but if we’ve been chatting on twitter and you tweet your newsletter, I may just check it out, and if it’s not horrible, I’ll probably subscribe too!
  5. Make it SHORTER– You’re trying too hard with your newsletter. You have so many ideas and so much content that the giant block of text is intimidating. Instead, keep it shorter. Lead me to blog posts on your site, just mention a few things. If you have a monthly newsletter (ahem, that’s your hint…) then save stuff for next month.
  6. Pictures– 2 things you always get in a Yellow Dog Newsletter- “3 things” and a picture of Hank. No one likes to look at an email filled with text. It’s like reading someones report from college. Dude, add some images. (this goes for blog posts- add images)
  7. Easter Eggs – You know, fun teasers throughout the newsletter that when people click it makes them laugh and realize what a nerd you are.

You know, most of this works for your blog too…

Categories // Lessons Learned, Newsletter

Done is Better than Perfect

07.22.2014 by Elizabeth // Leave a Comment

IMG_7046One of the most satisfying activities as a dog mom is to take my car to Pink Elephant and get all(ish) the yellow lab hair vacuumed out and have a clean car to drive (for 10 minutes until I pick up Hank from daycare). I love Pink Elephant- and the less frequently I go, the harder it is to get the dead bugs off the rear view mirrors, or to suck that dog hair out of the carpet in the back.

So, it was fun to show up to Pink Elephant today and see a woman with a laundry list of issues she was having with her clean car not being clean enough. Here’s the deal woman: stop bitching. Bring your car in more often, stop being disgusting in your car, and it’ll be fine. And, sometimes, your car has to go through the car wash twice to get all the crap off.

Why am I bragging about getting my car washed when it’s been on your to do list for months? And how does this relate to sales and marketing and being a small business owner?

Done is better than perfect. You can always go back and change the content on that web page. Just get the website up and running. Send out the damn newsletter, everyone has the occasional typo, and you can add that content you think would be PERFECT to the next newsletter (or a blog post). Go to that networking event, don’t worry if you don’t have business cards yet or your elevator pitch isn’t exactly what you want yet. If you want to sell a product or service but don’t have it finalized yet, that’s fine, sell the product/service and when people start asking for it, you’ll figure it out.

Just Do It. Stop Worrying. Done is Better than Perfect.

Categories // Lessons Learned, Management

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Yellow Dog Consulting is a sales and marketing firm located in Hillsboro, Oregon with clients around the world. We work with small business owners who love what they do, but the sales and marketing part of their job sucks their will to live.

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