Six Success Forces for Your Business

Our team created this post for another of our blogs.  It was such a big hit, I decided to share it here as well.

Success Forces, written by Joseph Sugarman back in the 80’s, is unfortunately out of print.  But if there is a way for you to get your hands on this book, you will greatly benefit from one of the most brilliant business minds of our time.  He achieved great success in the direct sales marketing business, selling millions of dollars worth of Blublocker Sunglasses, digital watches, and was even the pioneer of using the “800 number” to have customers call in to give their payment information.

Sugarman saw that every “force” he encountered in business could be learned from and utilized in a positive way.  Here are the main “forces” he pegged as key pillars in guiding his growth in business.

Always Be Honest  

Sugarman employed this principle by always telling the truth, no matter what embarrassing position he may be put in.  He explains that honesty is the best policy, even by acknowledging what might be the challenges of your particular product and finding a way to turn it into an opportunity.

Cherish Your Failures  

Failures are what most of us (especially in business) seem to avoid at all costs.  We see our successes as what we must focus on, so that we can repeat them.  However, Sugarman said in one of his talks that he was probably the one in the room who had failed the most.  He cherished his failures because he saw them as opportunities to create “success forces” for future possibilities.

Relish Your Problems  

Most of us look at problems as inconveniences or roadblocks keeping us from reaching the goals we desperately want to reach.  But Sugarman viewed them as opportunities to take a difficult situation and see what could be improved for the next time.  

Concentrate Your Powers  

Sugarman encourages you to focus on one particular aspect of your business that you need to improve.  The point is to not get sidetracked by other things that you need to improve on; otherwise, your attention is divided by too many things which ultimately prevent you from making any real change.  Focus on one aspect, one day at a time until you have mastered it.

Do It Differently 

This addresses the fact that many entrepreneurs are great at “copying” ideas from others, but Sugarman says that there will always be copycats.  The people you should be concerned about are those who are innovators, those who are taking steps to improve what is already a great product or service.  Be an innovator, he says; not a copycat.

Clean Your Desk  

Sugarman had an early experience of interviewing presidents of various companies his father did business with.  What stood out most to him was the fact that these companies were well organized at every level, but most importantly, it started from the president’s desk.  He admits that his own desk is messy and piled up all day long; but he adopted the discipline of cleaning off his desk at the end of every day and putting every item in its own place.  He even went as far as requiring his employees to do the same.  He recounts having had people write to him about this “force” saying that this one discipline changed their entire lives.

The last "success force" presents a challenge to all of us.  Whether you have a desk or area of your home, or even the desk top of your computer that you work from day in and day out, what would happen if you purposed to clean it at the end of your work day, every day for the next 30 days?  We'd love to hear the results of incorporating this simple discipline into your life.

You won't want to miss May Is National Bike Safety Month - How Will You Promote It? 

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Customer Service Ranks 7 On 101 Marketing Secrets from the Serial Entrepraneur

Amazing Customer Service and the Ultimate Question

What do the following companies have in common?  Apple Retail Stores, In 'n Out Hamburgers, Trader Joe's, Costco, GoDaddy, and Constant Contact?  Whether retail or services, online or brick and mortar, these companies are recognized by all who use them as having extraordinary customer service.  Oh, and significantly, they are all wildly successful and profitable right through the recession.  

In 30 years of writing business books, I have never included customer service in the list of the top 10 things that determine success or failure in a business.  And on deep reflection I would still not change my list. Good Enough customer service is, and probably always will, be good enough to keep a business going.  Even poor customer service will be forgiven by some consumers who otherwise find the location visible and convenient, or the product or service necessary.  I won't bother to name the companies we all know who are doing pretty well in spite of their horrible customer service.  

The conclusion I and others have reached is that there is a direct and clearly definable line that can be drawn between the level of customer service and the profitability of the company.  And this is true for manufacturers, lawyers, chimney sweeps, and bicycle shops.  

Companies like Allianz, Philips, Schwab, Vanguard, American Express, Progressive, Logitech, Dell, Symantec, Experian, Apple Retail, and PwC have turned to a method of measuring customer service and overall customer satisfaction that is based on a very popular book by Fred Reichheld titled The Ultimate Question:  Driving Good Profits and True Growth.  The book was based on a study published in the Harvard Business Review, "The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth," in 2003.

The study claimed, and the books published since have documented, that asking a single question of your customers can give you a true gauge of their experience with your company. They extrapolate this to bottom line results on growth and profits.  

The Question

The Net Promoter Score is obtained by asking your customers a single question on a 0 to 10 rating scale, where 10 is "extremely likely" and 0 is "not at all likely": "How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?" Customers answering the question are divided into three groups depending on their answers.  Promoters (9–10 rating), Passives (7–8 rating), and Detractors (0–6 rating).

To derive your score or NPS, the percentage of Detractors is then subtracted from the percentage of Promoters. NPS could possible be as low as -100 if nobody loves you, or as high as +100 where folks are wearing your Tshirts everywhere they go.  An NPS that is positive is felt to be good, and an NPS of +50 is excellent.  Costco has an NPS of +79.

While large companies can compile these statistics in very sophisticated ways, the most likely way for you to get this information from your customers would be through an email survey.  The survey would likely include two to three additional questions, but no more that that.  

Now What?

You do the survey and find out that you are -20, or you don't even need a survey for that purpose. You've seen your reviews on Yelp.  What is the next step.  Let me take a page from another of those excellent companies mentioned above: In 'n Out.

For years I've been using In 'n Out Hamburgers as my primary resource for best-of-class business practices.  I can't help but share a recent story I heard due to a family member being on the front lines.  

The story takes place at a location and city that shall be anonymous to protect the guilty.  Three employees were fired on the same day due to customer service issues.  One received a customer complaint for smirking at a customer.  I suppose that might be similar to rolling the eyes.  This employee had received two other customer complaints over SEVEN months.  Keep in mind that a typical newcomer to the In 'n Out business might deal with 30 visitors per hour.  Would you have fired this person after three customer complaints out of 21,000 encounters?

Probably not, but then you probably wouldn't send someone home for being consistently $30 off on the cash or for showing up late or failing to call if late or not coming in.  The first and most critical thing you can do to improve the quality of your customer service is to expect and demand quality customer service, and to reward those who provide it, and dismiss those who don't.  

Costco and In 'n Out are known in their neighborhoods for paying more than the other retailers in the area.  They also have a more rigorous interview process to gain employment.  Since they pay more, they have far more people to choose from.  They also provide incentives to their employees who recommend great people ($50 if the new employee is still employed after 90 days).

These minor changes in the way you do business are not that hard.  But the difference could be dramatic in terms of your take home, your ability to go on vacation while trusting the store to your people, and your ultimate value to both your customers and the employees you have properly trained.

Here are the specific dares for today:

• Make a decision to improve your Yelp and Google+ ratings by one full star during 2015.
• Hold a company meeting to announce the goal and brainstorm on how to achieve it.
• Fire anyone who isn't giving great customer service. 
• All new hires should be made with customer service as a major criteria.
• Hold weekly meetings for a while to discuss progress on the goal.
• Review any new Yelp or Google+ reviews, negative and positive with the staff.
• Pay bonuses based on employees name being positively mentioned in reviews. 
• Make sure you are the best in the building at customer service.

Ten Reasons for Using YouTube for Local Small Business Internet Marketing

Yelp.com and CitySearch both maintain that having a YouTube video on their listing for your company doubles the likelihood that the visitor to your listing will take some kind of action. What their claim leaves out is that a poorly created video will not produce those kinds of results and might have a negative effect. On the other hand, there are dozens of other good reasons to create one of more YouTube videos for your local small business other than its effect on Yelp.com.

2. Not every business, but most, will generate more customer calls and decisions to shop if the client has a reason to trust you. The written word is good at this, because folks tend to trust what has been made permanent on paper or screen. But you can really increase trust by allowing your customers to hear and see your personal passion about your products and services through a video.

3. The internet is hungry for information. If your YouTube video has information that your client base is seeking, they will find the video to get that information.

4. YouTube has a search function. If you do a good job of Titling your video, creating a good description, and providing relevant keywords in the title, description, and tags, your potential customers will find you through the search mechanism on YouTube. They may also find you because you are related to other searches they do and videos they watch.

5. YouTube videos show up on Google Searches and other similar search engines. It is not uncommon for a thoughtfully keyworded YouTube Video to show up higher than your $5000 website.

6. By adding YouTube videos to your Google Maps Local Business Center listing, MerchantCircle listing, Yelp.com and others, you improve your ranking on those local search engines, and that helps to improve the ranking of your website.

7. You can add your YouTube video to your website as a URL link, like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-0VIHJCRk, or as an embed (see below). By putting the video on your website, you generate far more chances of it being seen. This is where you can really build trust and increase reasons for your customer to shop with you.

8. You can add your YouTube video to your blog, your facebook, you can Tweet about it, and you can socially bookmark the original video, the article on your blog, and the facebook entry. All of these increase the chances of the video being seen, and also benefit your activities on these other web tools.

9. Daily Motion and other video depositories similar to YouTube may pick up your video and add it to their listings. But if you don't want to wait and see if they do so, you can upload the same video to each one, or you can use an aggregator to put the video up on numerous of these sites all at once.

10. A single YouTube video that we did for a client for less than $300 resulted in the sale of a $6000 bicycle. This is just one of many such examples. The best part is that the YouTube video is listed on page one of a Google search for Specialized Transition and is going to still be selling bicycles for this client a year from now.

You can create your own YouTube video. But I caution you that it needs to be thoughtfully created, edited, superscripted, titled, keyworded, described, and uploaded. Please take a look of one we did recently for an apartment management company on this page. We can do a video like this for you for $300. If you are not located within driving distance of our headquarters, you may need to send us some raw footage or we can work from pictures and create a slide show with voice over.

Give us a call. We can dramatically impact your business with a single YouTube Video