Are You In The Business Of Misery?
June 10, 2008
Did you ever meet a successful unhappy person? The two don’t really go hand in hand do they? You couldn’t really describe yourself as a success if you were constantly miserable.
Yet so many people set themselves up to be miserable, simply because they choose the type of business that they think will be successful as opposed to the right type of business for them. And believe me, making more money doesn’t make you happy when you’re doing something you don’t enjoy.
Trouble is - there’s plenty of people and books out there preaching the tale that you can’t build a successful business unless you systemize everything, concentrate on building the business and employ dozens of people. Often -they’ll quote people like Richard Branson, when the truth is - none of this advisors are, or ever will be anything like Richard Branson.
I believed a lot of this hype and bullshit for a while. But, I learned the hard way that there is no set way to run a business. If you’re a craftsperson or a painter and you love doing it, you’re liable to get little joy from employing other people to do it.
If the idea of having heaps of people working for you is terrifying, you might be far better off outsourcing and automating some of the workload instead.
If you hate working alone, becoming a freelancer may not be the best move for you.
What is important is that you do what is right for you. The sole business person who employs nobody, loves his work and lives a happy life is a far greater success than a multi-millionaire who has thousands of people working for him and is as miserable as sin.
Why do you think people believe that someone who achieves huge financial goals is successful? What does success mean to you? Do you get tired of people telling you that you need to do XYZ to build a successful business?
Just Do As I Say Don’t Do As I Do
June 9, 2008
God will take good care of you. Just do as I say don’t do as I do. Genesis 1991
Great song wasn’t it? And I bet the lyrics rang true for a lot of people. But you could apply them to lots of people, not just evangelists. One group that springs to mind are so called business advisors or coaches.
And yes, I have tried using business coaches before and I’m not saying they’re all bad. Just be careful if you’re going to employ the services of one. Here’s a few things to look out for and questions to ask:
1) Have they ever ran a business before, aside from their “business coaching” business?
2) What business - what was the name of it? Where were they based? How many people did they employ? (Important if you’re planning to employ people yourself)
3) Was it actually their business, or where they just the manager for someone else? This is important, as there’s a big difference.
4) Why did they give it up?
When you’re asking these questions, watch out for any evasiveness or plain bullshitting. You really don’t want to waste your money getting advice from someone who has no business experience at all. Anyone can set up a business coaching business, or any coaching business for that matter - just google “starting a coaching business” and you’ll see.
So what about franchises? There’s plenty of business coaching franchises out there.
Are they reputable? Well, I’ve had contact with a few and like most other franchises, the folks they recruit don’t generally need any business experience. But, their franchisees can help you to build your business using some cookie cutter formula.
Before you considered dropping thousands for the advice of one of these set-ups, try reading a couple of books instead. It’s far cheaper and you’ll get the same info.
Do I do business coaching? I’ve received a few emails asking this and I’m afraid I don’t and it’s not something I plan to do in the future. There is another Cath Lawson online who does offer business coaching. I don’t know anything about her and I’m sure she’s very nice - but she ain’t me.
So Does This Mean I Shouldn’t Bother Using A Coach? No, I’m sure there’s some great ones out there. And if you feel you would benefit - do consider using one. Just do your homework first.
4 Amazingly Stupid Ways To Lose Customers
June 6, 2008
Some companies lose customers through bad service, some through carelessness - eg they don’t bother to keep in touch with them. But some companies alienate perfectly happy customers through sheer stupidity. Here’s a few acts of stupidity you want to avoid at all costs:
Discriminating Against Customers From Particular Countries: One of the great things about the Internet is that we can shop worldwide without getting ripped off if we’re from a particular country. Or at least we could.
I’ve used both expedia.com and expedia.co.uk for quite a few years and I’ve always been happy with them. But this week, when I tried to visit expedia.com, a message popped up saying that folk from the UK would now be restricted to their UK site. And when you see the difference in price, you realise why. It costs several hundred pounds more to book the exact same “deals” on the UK site.
This is a foolish move on Expedia’s part. Telling your customers that they can’t use your main site because you want to charge them more is the same as telling them you want to rip them off. After all, Expedia.com were happy enough to take my money when the pound was weak against the dollar. And most people are going to do what I did - check out Orbitz instead, discover that flights are a whole lot cheaper and become an ex Expedia customer.
Spying On Customers:
I don’t know if you’ve experienced this before, but many companies now have the capability of knowing what potential customers have been browsing before they visit their site. And some of them have a little pop up box allowing you to speak to an advisor who knows all about: “INSERT PRODUCT NAME YOU’VE BEEN BROWSING HERE.”
I’m guessing most people will be highly offended by this. I certainly was when it happened to me. Why on earth would anyone want to buy something from a company who spies on them?
The Good Old Promotional Code: Have you ever been in the middle of purchasing something online before, when you notice a box saying, “Insert Promotional Code Here”?
Lots of companies do this, which is great, as we all like a nice discount. But what a customer sees when they see that little box is that someone else is getting the same product for less money. And most of them will go off and try to find a promotional code. Trouble is, they might also find some better codes offered by one of your competitors whilst their browsing. Be smart, if your going to offer codes like this that are available to everyone, offer a link to them on your website. Or your customer might just leave and not come back at all.
It’s A Good Deal But You Can’t Have It: Few things are more irritating than the words, “Offer Not Available To Exisiting Customers.” Banks are notorious for coming up with this type of thing. And even if it was a deal you weren’t interested in taking advantage of, it’s still annoying, because basically the company is saying that they don’t give a toss about their regular customers.
Have you came across these acts of stupidity online that lose customers online? Did you continue with your purchase? Can you think of anymore idiotic online practises you’ve seen that would put you off buying?
Don’t Preach To The Wrong Audience
June 4, 2008
The Internet can be like a jungle for businesses. If you screw up, someone will probably blog about it, review it, or write in a forum. Now unless you’ve done something completely insane, a bad review probably won’t kill your business. But the way you respond just might.
When someone writes a horrendous review of your business, or posts in a discussion forum that your product sucks, its easy to get defensive - especially if the review was unwarranted. The trouble is, your response could deter thousands of readers from using your business.
I research travel a lot, for a couple of websites I own and also for my own personal needs. And lately, I’ve noticed a few people screwing up online because they don’t respond to criticism properly. Here’s a couple of things you don’t ever want to do:
Anonymous Commenting: If someone writes negative stuff about your business, never ever make an anonymous comment. It will just make things worse for you.
Recently, I read an article on a low cost airline that had a reputation for long delays and completely cancelling flights at the last minute. The airline really made things worse for themselves when they commented anonymously on the article. They were not apologetic at all and they were extremely rude to several commenters.
It was obvious to most readers that people from the airline were posting anonymously because they knew too much - they mentioned particular planes, flights etc.
The airline had a great opportunity to admit that they’d had problems and explain how they’d improved things. But instead, they showed that they didn’t give a toss about the customers they’d let down.
Attacking Customers: I read a series of bad reviews on one hotel on trip advisor. The owner responded to every single one, by attacking and criticising the writer of the review.
This was a huge mistake because everyone who read his comments could see that if they had a bad stay with the hotel, he simply wasn’t prepared to put things right.
So Should You Just Ignore Negative Comments Completely? This is even worse than responding defensively, because it makes it look as though you don’t give a toss what your customers think about you. It’s always best to respond to negative comments by apologising for any problems, explaining what you’re doing to improve things and inviting the commenter to email you.
How do you feel when you see a business responding negatively to customer complaints on the Internet? Would it put you off using that particular company? Have you ever used a product or service based on Internet reviews? Was the review accurate? Do you think companies posting fake and misleading reviews of their own product should be legally punished?
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