This is also true in business today. Business owners should not only be looking to be the first to answer their customers’  questions and solve their problems, but they should also strive to  solve the problem before it happens. What can really set your business apart is to be a “customer-centric” business — one who is figuring out a customer’s concern before the customer even has a chance to experience it. Changing the way you focus on solving customers’ concerns is what sets business owners up for success.
In business and life on the Internet you have to be one of the students that raises your hand first. You have to be there first to let that customer know you care and want to solve any problem they have. You want them to go “WOW” to your response — not only in the uniqueness of that response but also in its timeliness and accuracy.  If you give the wrong answer (or no answer at all!), you might as well be paying your competitors’ marketing expenses. It’s literally like advertising for your competitor when you drop the ball. The teacher always called on someone else if you got the answer wrong, and so will your customer. You just missed your opportunity, now the next student or business gets to step-up and when they get it right, they also get YOUR customer!

From the beginning,  you want to be a customer-centric business — making decisions based on what is best for the customer, not what is best for you.

You want to create a space that allows for the minute someone goes online and asks a question, knowing you have the answer. You want to be the business that has the solution to their problem. In order to do that, speed is an issue. Timeliness and responsiveness are all factors that grab customers’ attention. You hardly ever see the news highlighting how great a company handled a complaint. It is, however, great news when a company falters and we get to see how dissatisfied someone is and how frustrated they are when a company doesn’t solve a problem (think about the recent news coverage about Netflix, for example).

Accuracy: depending on the industry that you’re working in, think about how accurate your answer is when solving the original problem. Do you show your work so that the customer can understand why you got to the answer that you got?

Being able to understand your customer and to walk in their shoes is the greatest skill on which you could focus. Learning that skill means becoming objective enough to see your business from an outsider’s view, and the customer’s view. What is the customer’s experience with your business? When you can see customers’ experiences, you can objectively make decisions about changes that can enhance their experience. The majority of businesses make decisions based on employee and owner satisfaction.  I propose that as the owner, it’s your job to make the experience easy, positive and entertaining. You want the customer to want to return to you for future business. You want them to choose you over the competition because you make it easy for them. This is where the true strategy comes into play — thinking about how you set your business up so it is easy for the customer. Their experience should be pleasant and easy and entertaining wouldn’t hurt.  Think about this, rather than focusing on “how can I make my day better as a business owner,”  ask yourself, “how can I improve my customers experience when doing business with me?”

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be thinking about how to work less and make more money — that’s working smarter.Business owners need to step back and rethink their process from the customers point of view.   A better question to start from would be, “How can I make doing business with me the most entertaining, fun, easy process for my customer that I can provide?”

If you lead with that question,  you’re going to make decisions based on your customer and the service you and your employees give them. You can and should always implement new processes that will make it easier for your company and your employees to serve the customer, but it needs to be a customer centric philosophy that leads your business.

Related articles

• The 10 Commandments of Customer Support (hubspot.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Men and women think differently. Most people would agree, we’ve known they were from different planets,(Mars and Venus), for years. Men don’t ruminate as much as women do, but they should. How that plays out in business can be seen in various ways. I believe this is true but I don’t think it’s a sex thing, it’s just easier to generalize. Women ruminate more than men meaning they do more forward thinking and reflection. Many of the key reasons I get brought into work with people is to help them strategize and help them think forwardly about an issue.    Men typically do not ruminate about problems. When you give a man a choice to make, he makes a decision and is done with it. That decision is sometimes good and sometimes bad but he doesn’t think about for a long time he, “shoots from the hip.” As opposed to women who will ruminate about an issue and will typically process a lot of factors that will influence the final outcome because they start at the end of the process, work their way backwards and then forward again to the proposed outcome.Women are used to juggling multiple faucets of their lives and are quite adept at doing so.

My own definition of a metro-sexual male is one who is learning these skills that were once perceived as female skills however have already become very valuable skills in the work force. It isn’t about personal grooming it’s about being able to view relationships and have a high EQ (emotional quotient). Men who are aware, that building and maintaining strong relationships is a key part of business, are far ahead of their counterparts who don’t focus on relationships. Relationships in the work force are the key to success. This is why when someone asks me what I do I explain, “I’m a business relationship coach.”

Women ruminate more and that can give them an advantage in business. Women are also used to ruminating about relationships. Men are used to saying, “Are we good?” If the answer is yes the matter is done. Women will take the time to listen to how the other person feels about the situation and process it thus actually getting to a place of being good. You need to figure out what your client needs. Do they need to be able to put this behind them and actually be done with it. Or do they need to process the issue to get to a point where the issue is truly at rest for them. That is one of the key points that allows for an advantage in business.

Coaching has done so well in the business and corportate world because it is at is core a process of forward thinking about a specific goal and how to define and reach it. It is the act of ruminating on a specific issue to deal with the situation.

Webster defines ruminating as

:to go over in the mind repeatedly and often casually or slowly

: to engage in contemplation

One of roles as a coach is to facilitate the rumination process. This is a skill just like any other that needs to be focused on and can improve over time. If you’d like help improving your skill set around focusing on and improving relationships then feel free to contact me.

As far back as I can remember being truthful and honest and seeking to always be truthful and honest has been a family value driven mostly by my Mother and events in her life that created a desire…

I’m working on a story that is very personal to my family (especially my Mother) and I want to get permission and give respect to those involved before publishing. If you want to be notified of when it’s published feel free to leave a comment and I’ll follow-up with you.

Honesty is a choice that leads to integrity.

Related articles

• Honesty (socyberty.com)
• Radical Honesty (funfactsfiction.wordpress.com)

Image by deanmeyersnet via FlickrHBreaking down the process of creating your social media strategy will make it more:

Here is how you can create a social media strategy which will be:

• Accessible
• Manageable
• Sustainable

1) Setting Goals for Social Media.

To set goals you first have to decide what you want to accomplish. The reality is unless you decide what your goals and objectives are up front then your not going to have any idea if your are actually moving in the right direction or not. Goal setting is important in the beginning stages of the process.
Ultimately what is it your wanting to achieve?
What measurements will show that you are achieving that goal?
What do you want to accomplish with your social media campaign? Be SMART- Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time based.

2) Research/Education.

I end up doing a lot of education with my clients about the research that others have done. And then sometimes we have to do some research about the specific niche market that their business resides in. I help them understand social media from their perspective and guide them about where they want to focus their attention and why. Most of the work has been done by large corporations with large budgets that can hire someone full time to do their social media for them. This is good and bad.

The good part is they are spending lots of money and making lots of mistakes to help find what works and what is effective so you get some benefits from the process as well.

The bad is that sometimes it’s hard to translate what a large corporation is  doing in terms that are manageable on a small scale.

How can you as a small business owner benefit from all the work that is already happening?
What blogs pertain to your product or service? How can you engage with the conversation that is already happening?
How can you make sure your customers find you when they have the problem you solve?
How do you, or how will you listen to conversations pertinent to your business?
Who is your target audience?

3) Integration.

Create an online list of contacts and content- Having your contact list on line will allow you to utilize various applications and software solutions to integrate your plan once you develop it. So incorporating the process of putting this online has to be thought about from the beginning.
What are you currently using to capture information about people?
How will you remember this person who your talking too in 6 months?
It is my opinion that you should have a foundation which should be your website. From there all your social media should extend out but also anchor back too. Decide what tools you need to utilize to access your various social media sites and help you communicate your message to your followers. There are constant shifts in what is popular and how you use different sites. Find someone who stays on top of what and how you can use each tool or social site.

4)Build and nurture Relationships.

One key factor in business is having a strong relationship with your customers. Join in on the conversation to develop relationship with people who discuss your industry in social media. If you don’t engage then no one knows your even there. Ask a question, share a thought. Try to think in terms of being of service and helping people out. If you know something that someone else doesn’t share it with them. Gives them a reason to believe in you and what your selling.
Strengthen Relationships. If you want customers to like you more then you have to show them some respect. You can do that by participating in conversations in a respectful way. Sharing and helping others which will in turn benefit you because you become someone who isn’t just out for themselves. How many relationships do you value and maintain when the other person or business is only after their own benefit without any thought toward helping you?

5) Collect data for Analysis.

Analyze it and decide how to improve what your doing. Utilize  things that can help you collect data or tools that collect it for you. Set up auto generated reports because most small business owners forget to generate reports for themselves on a regular basis.  Let the tools work for you.

Related articles

• Why you need a social media expert (thecontentlab.icrossing.com)
• @ is the Universal Sign of Engagement (briansolis.com)

This month at your local Kansas City International Coach Federation Chapter Heartland Coaches Association is guest Speaker is Kelly Tyler.

Master the Art of NOT Multitasking!

While the rest of the world is trying to convince us to multitask,

Kelly advises audiences to worry less about fitting more in and more about living All-In.

Whew — What a relief!

In this program, Kelly will cover:

The latest research about how the brain works – take the pressure off yourself!

How to release the guilt of feeling like you’re not doing enough.

5 strategies to stop the madness of multitasking.

How to let others win the competition of the overbooked, overworked, and overwhelmed!

Kelly is an award-winning speaker, published author, consultant, coach, and trainer.
She knows the challenges professional coaches face and how
the temptation to over-do it actually damages coaching relationships.
She will customize the topic for us as coaches, so we can apply it immediately.

Time: 12:00-2:00 (lunch included)

Ottawa University-Greater Kansas City
4370 West 109th Street, Suite 200
Overland Park, Kansas, 66211