Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Do You Talk a Big Game?

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fc,220x200,white.u2Kanye West announced at the VMA’s that he’s running for President in 2020. Nothing would make me happier than to watch that go down. What are the odds Kanye will run for president in 2020? Probably higher than the odds he’ll still be married to Kim Kardashian. (PS: their 2nd kid will OBVIOUSLY be named South right?) And it got me thinking:

How often do we as a business owner talk a big game, and never deliver?

Don’t claim to do stuff you know you’ll never do. It’s a broken promise and doesn’t make me confident in your business. The questions isn’t “wow this will be a great election in 2020 to watch” but “do you really think he’ll follow through?” All too often people drop the ball or things don’t work out:

  • “Welcome back to my MONTHLY newsletter” that I only get once
  • You announce a new product and then never follow up again about it
  • Your budget doesn’t allow you to fly all your friends to Paris for the weekend as promised

My friend Jack Smith just sent out a newsletter and shared his 4 big goals for the end of the year – and they’re BIG (the dude is competing in an Ironman!) What Jack did was set his intentions and goals for the rest of year and share it. And THAT is a great idea. As a small business owner, we should all do more sharing of our goals.

How about this: Instead of talking a big game, ACTUALLY DO IT. YES it’s important to share your goals and state them out loud. But how about instead of telling me what you’re doing, tell me your goals. Let me support you and encourage you along the way. Will I be texting Jack to check in with him to see how his crazy crossfit routine is going? Of course! (err, that’s my GOAL!)

I’d much rather support your goals and dreams and ambitions than end up frustrated that you told me you were doing something and you never follow through. Build your team, build your community, get the support you need!

What Systems Are You Missing?

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spiderman reward system - genius
Reward systems worked as a kid, and they can work now too!

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about getting SYSTEMS into place. The hardest part about running a small business is being consistent because you’re doing all the things. I got an email this morning from a friend that they need a strategy and system for their newsletters. I had a conversation last week with a speaker who needs to put follow up systems in place so that those warm leads in the room get followed up with before they are on to the next speaker pitch.

I wrote about this in my newsletter this month too. You need systems in place to be successful. Why isn’t your business growing? Because you got busy and forgot to circle back. One quick follow up isn’t going to do the trick, it takes at least 4 interactions to get the sale and often time closer to 10-12.

What Systems are you Lacking? 

  • A monthly schedule for your newsletter so you know when it’s going out
  • A template for your follow up email so it’s ready to go before your big speech
  • A social media schedule so you aren’t wasting time online (unless you want to!)
  • Blog categories & schedules so you know what you’re going to write about each week (yes week!)
  • A professionally done video instead of doing demo webinars every week

What do you need to do to get these systems in place?

  • If you need to talk it through, that’s what I’m here for
  • If you have a virtual assistant who can manage it, add it to their list
  • Assign 1 blog post a month to 4 employees – BOOM
  • Outsource inside your team
  • Outsource outside your team
  • Leave the things you don’t like to those who do like it (God Bless Accountants!)

Stop talking about it. Get your systems in place.

No, You DON’T Understand

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no you don't understandI was listening to The Nerdist podcast this weekend, Chris Hardwick had Jen Kirkman on and they were talking about customer service. Evidently Jen Kirkman LOVES customer service as much as I love good follow up. They had a great conversation about customer service with some great points, take a listen if you’re in customer service. There were a few points worth repeating…

Here’s the deal – you don’t always know how someone feels, so don’t lie. Hardwick mentioned how he had a device malfunction and then break and he was being charged for it by his service provider. When he called to get it taken care of the customer service rep said “oh man, I totally understand, I’ve been there.” Really? Please don’t lie.

Good customer service is about being a real person. YES relate to the customer, but don’t make something up. “Wow, I’ve never heard that one before” is OK to say – “let’s find a manager and get this figured out because I know none of these questions I’m supposed to ask you are going to do anything and will only make you angrier.” WHY don’t companies empower their employees to do this?

No one says anything nice about Comcast, except my dad. He believes he’s found the secret – he goes to the store. He walks in, he gets helped faster than if he was on the phone, AND the real human in front of him is always competent and has the power to fix any issues he’s having. This has happened ZERO times for me on the phone with Comcast. WHY?

Your front desk admin, your call center, your help desk team: Give them the power to be a real person, to acknowledge and be honest when they don’t have the answer. Don’t put me on hold for 10 minutes while you Google the solution, I did that you idiot. Tell me you need to research it and when it’s figured out you’ll call me back. (And obviously then call me back!). Educate and train your team so that they do have the answer, and they can help and really think instead of just following a script that leads to angry customers.