You only offer ONE COMPANY EXPERIENCE for your clients and customers.

There is no shipping department.  There is no sales team.  There is no service department.  There is only a store!  From the customer’s perspective, there is ONE and ONLY ONE store.

If a restaurant patron has a problem with the table or the silverware or the food, it is up to every restaurant employee to make sure that patron is satisfied.

Are you thinking about how your employees are treating your customers?  Your better be thinking about it!

Have you trained, either directly or indirectly, your employees to “pass the buck?”  Are there financial incentives in place that encourage the wrong employee behaviors?  In other words, do your employees make more money in their paychecks by “passing the buck” on to other employees?

Remember that what we tolerate, we teach.  Even worse, your employee compensation structure may be encouraging employee behaviors that harm your customers’ buying experiences.  If your customer is not 100% satisfied, there is an opportunity for your competitor to take business away from you.  Your competitor does not have to be perfect.  Your competitor just has to be better than you are.

So, in summary, your customer needs to have a satisfying experience when dealing with your employees.  If your employees are projecting your internal operational shortcomings onto your customers, then the buying experience is less than 100% satisfactory.  And that is all the opportunity your competitors require to make your customers their customers.

Check out Part I and II of this topic.

I recently read Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port.  It’s a good read.  In fact, it’s a very good read.  I’ll probably buy the next book he writes.  There is already a follow-up book, but I’m not certain that it is all that different from Book Yourself Solid.

Book Yourself Solid is about generating more business for professionals, service providers and related businesses.  I’ve followed the lessons taught in Book Yourself Solid myself for some time.  Although there’s nothing revolutionary in this book, this author describes these tools and techniques in a clear and easy-to-follow method.  It’s worth buying and reading.

I then went to Book Yourself Solid website, as the book repeatedly encourages.  That was a little disappointing.  The website is one big sales pitch for other companies, books, services, authors, etc.  I felt constantly under pressure to buy something, which is the exact opposite feeling and atmosphere that the book teaches you to create in your customers.  That was ironic but still disappointing.

All in all, I recommend the book Book Yourself Solid but not the website.   There are other web-resources listed in the book.  Those other resources are worth exploring, but don’t bother going to the Book Yourself Solid website itself.  Stick to reading the book.

You think we’ve got it bad here in the United States?  You think the recession feels like the end of life as we know it?  Do you think this is as bad as it can get?

Hogwash!

We’ve got it made in the USA!

Hard work and intelligence go a long, long way in this country.  This is truly, absolutely and without doubt THE land of opportunity.  Unfortunately, it’s also the land of complainers and whiners.  We’re spoiled.  We have an extremely high standard of living, ready credit (even now!), free primary education, tons of governmental services, social safety nets, and opportunities every where.  Yet, most of what you hear these days is doom and gloom.

I just got back from the Caribbean, Panama and Costa Rice.  I can tell you from personal observation that we are very, very lucky to be in the USA.  The fine folks living in Central America do not have the infrastructure, markets, education, credit or opportunities we enjoy here in the USA.   It’s not even a comparison!

Yet, all I hear these days is how bad things are, and how people are suffering.  We’re suffering?  Really?  Tell that to 90% of the World’s people.  THEY are suffering.  WE are just feeling sorry for ourselves.  I know people have lost jobs and income in this country, but we have it GREAT here compared to what the rest of the World has to endure.

If you want to end the recession, then GET MOVING.  Stop waiting for Congress (which helped to screw this up in the first place!) to solve our problems.  If you own your own business, grow it faster.  Hire more workers.  Order more materials and parts.  If you manage business operations, get better at it.  Do something to make your operations better and better and better.  Get better every day, and your business will grow.  You’ll have to hire more workers.  You’ll create more jobs.  And, you’ll make more profits.

If we all stop listening to the bad news, the media will stop reporting it.  So, turn off the TV and stop reading Yahoo’s news on line.  Instead, get busy!

92% of us are employed.   Interest rates are still incredibly low.  Credit is hard to find, but you can still find credit or credit substitutes.  Try building strategic partnerships and alliances in lieu of financing.  Consider trades and exchanges with other businesses.  Talk to your customers, clients, vendors, suppliers, employees and even your competitors.  You never know where you’ll find opportunities. . .  especially if you’re not looking.

So, stop worrying.  Stop complaining.  And start making it happen.  The sooner we all get busy, the sooner the recession will end.

Two weeks ago, I was sitting on a beach, looking out across crystal clear blue Caribbean waters with the sun about three hours from setting.  That’s when I noticed this pelican fishing.  Pelicans are large birds, so it takes some effort to lift off, clear the ocean’s surface and fly nearly straight up 50 feet or so.

The pelican slowly drifted in flight a few yards, searching for fish just below the surface, 50 feet in the air, and then the pelican folded in its wings to its sides, and would dive straight down to the ocean.  It torpedoed into the water, using its beak to stab at and capture a meal of fresh fish.

Amazing.  I watched that bird for nearly an hour.  It must have made 15 dives while I was watching.

What in the World does this story have to do with business?

You need to be “pelican like” in your business operations.  I know, I know. . .  we’re in a recession.  You have to watch cash flow.  You can’t afford to make mistakes.   Blah, blah, blah.

What was your excuse when we weren’t in a recession?  Frankly, you can’t afford NOT to take risks.

Too many businesses are too passive in exploring growth opportunities or bettering existing operations.  In a recession or in good times, you’ve got to be calculating, smart and aggressive.  Sometimes, you’ve got to go for it, just like a pelican diving for a meal!

You can be smart and aggressive.  You can take calculated risks.  Sometimes, a pelican dives but misses the fish.   Sometimes, businesses take chances that don’t work out well.  However, doing the same thing over and over without innovation, calculated risk taking and determination leads to slow deaths, for pelicans and businesses both.

Virtually every successful entrepreneur had several failures before their first success.  Then again, successful entrepreneurs understand the art of being “pelican like.”

What are you doing this week to catch more fish?

I am a huge fan of visuals!  I’m talking about concepts and ideas presented in a visual format of some type.

Why?

Because we are visual creatures.  Most people learn faster and better by seeing it first.  Then, after they can “see” the concept, we are more likely to grasp/understand the details and nuances that are best explained through words in sentences, paragraphs, articles or books.

I believe in visuals in my teaching.  I use charts, graphs, diagrams, etc. when I coach, counsel, lecture or teach.  I even use role playing, chair positioning, etc. as a way for my clients to learn and remember the lessons I teach them.  Years ago, I bought a book called “The Great Big Book of Process Visuals (or Give Me a Double Axis Chart And I Can Rule the World)” by one of my learning mentors, Alan Weiss, Ph.D.  I don’t use all the visuals in Doctor Weiss’ book, but I did learn a great deal from reading and studying it.  Mostly, I learned that I need to use visuals as often as possible to help my clients learn faster, learn better and retain more of that learning.

Here’s a great example of a visual from John Janash, of Ducttape Marketing:

Can you imagine trying to teach this concept by words alone?  Better yet, can you imagine that your listener would better understand the words alone?

I think not.  I think this chart shows and reveals and teaches a great deal about marketing, without any explanation at all.

However, I’m a lawyer by training.  And lawyers love to use lots of words.  So, I am going to dedicate several blog posts to exploring the concepts presented in this chart.  Until then, take 5 to 45 minutes simply to read and read again this chart.  Consider how it was outlined and structured.  Consider the color scheme.  What do the words mean to you?  Are there other words you’d use instead.  What is missing?  What is unnecessary?

Most importantly, what does this chart make you think about when considering your company or organization?

How can you use visuals to educate clients or customers?

How can visuals help you in management?

On the subject of what’s missing, read this:  http://www.roundpeg.biz/2009/03/marketing-organization-chart-revisited/.

SPECIAL THANKS TO LORRAINE BALL.  I got this chart from Lorraine Ball at Round Peg.  I follow Lorraine on Twitter and through my blog reader, and you should too!

There is a battle developing between bloggers and traditional print newspapers.  The battle is over content, and copyright law is at the heart of the dispute.  And, I believe that the battle is likely to spread from newspapers to other on-line content providers.

Is this a serious matter for bloggers?

Yes.  There have already been lawsuits filed against bloggers over content.  So, it’s important for bloggers to understand what this new trend is, and how to guard against claims and lawsuits.  I believe in prevention over the cure.  That means that I am first a “teacher” of the law to my clients.  If I can empower my clients with information and knowledge about the law and the legal consequences of their decisions, then they are more likely to make the right business and legal decisions in the future, even when I’m not around to help them.  Knowledge leads to wisdom, right?  So, the more knowledge you have, the wiser your decisions will be.

Plus, who wants to pay their lawyer to review each blog before its posted?

Why a battle now?

Increasingly, newspapers are seeing their markets evaporate as fewer and fewer people read the daily paper.  Subscriptions nationwide have been falling for years, and the trend seems to be increasing in pace.  Just in the past few months, we have witnessed dozens of newspapers stop printing second or weekend editions, or close their doors altogether.  Many newspapers are consolidating sections.    Here’s some of the carnage:

Rocky Mountain News-          shut down

The Journal Register Company-   bankruptcy

Philadelphia Enquirer-     bankruptcy

Chicago Tribune-    bankruptcy

Minneapolis Star Tribune-      bankruptcy

San Francisco Chronicle–    near death

Seattle Post-Intelligencer-    online-only publication

Gannett, owner of USA Today-   dividends slashed

The New York Times-   dividends slashed

Cincinnati Post-    dead

New York Sun-   dead

So, as a result, two things seem to be happening in the newspaper world:

#1-   Some newspapers are becoming non-profit, public interest entities.  Examples of this are ProPublica (“investigative journalism in the public interest”) and MinnPost.com.  ProPublica is funded by the Sandler Foundation and other trusts, while MinnPost.com gets funds from certain trusts, the wealthy and foundations.

#2-  For-profit newspapers are trying to generate revenue on-line. 

And that’s where you come in, my fellow bloggers.

The for-profit on-line papers cannot charge readers for content, if bloggers are copying, re-posting or re-blogging meaningful parts of the newspaper’s articles, especially original stories/works generated by a single paper.  Readers won’t pay the papers for the same content you’re giving away for free.

EXAMPLE OF ONE LAWSUIT-     Silicon Alley Insider, a business blog, got sued for quoting 25% of Peggy Noonan’s article in a February issue of the Wall Street Journal.  And get this, Silicon Alley Insider even gave credit to and referenced Dow Jones, which publishes the WSJ.

Amazing, right?  You’d think that the WSJ would appreciate the free marketing.

The reality is that newspapers are nervous, and nervous companies do stupid things.  Take the music recording industry, for example.  Those geniuses started suing individual music lovers for on-line music sharing.  There was virtually no attempt to be creative in preserving their market share or generating other income streams.  Rather, they elected to sue their client-base and sought huge punitive damages awards.

Today, we are starting to see the same knee-jerk, reactionary approach from print newspapers.  I fully expect the trend to escalate.  So should you.

This blog entry is getting too long.  So, I’ll follow up on this soon.  In a future blog, I’ll explore the arguments on both sides.  This concerns federal copyright law and a concept known as “fair use.”  I’ll explore copyright rules and the “fair use” defense, and I’ll try to help you understand how this new trend might impact your “scraping,” copy-paste practices , and re-blogging.

For now, please recognize that you can’t fight City Hall, and you can’t fight Dow Jones either.  Most bloggers are too small to wage a legal battle with a large newspaper, even if the paper is slowing dying.  So, start to develop the mindset that you’re going to have to exercise more caution than you did before reading this blog; review your policies and procedures for re-blogging content; and develop ways to minimize the risk of drawing fire from an angry source you quote or paraphrase.  It may be that you’ll have to start getting permission in advance to re-blog meaningful amounts of someone else’s content.  You might have to change several things you do now.  For now, just start thinking about this topic.

Keep reading.  More to come.

The White House will provide billions of dollars in federal lending aid for small business owners. 

Finally!

The effort will be announced Monday and reportedly will include $730 million from the stimulus plan that will go to reduce small-business lending fees and increase the government’s guarantee on some Small Business Administration (SBA) loans to 90 percent. The government will also try to boost bank liquidity with more than $10 billion for the secondary credit market.

President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will announce the new efforts Monday.  The US Chamber of Commerce supports the new efforts.

With income taxes set to rise significantly on small business owners in 2011, small businesses need all the help they can get.  Small businesses in need of capital are hurting, even though it is the small business community that creates most of the jobs and stimulus in our economy.  Republicans have lobbied the White House hard in recent weeks to shift more of the stimulus plan money away from big projects and large institutions and toward small businesses.

The amount of SBA guaranteed loans has dropped in the past year from $20 billion to just $10 billion.  That is clear evidence that credit available for small business development is much harder to find today.

When details of the plan are announced Monday, I’ll add another blog post to comment and explain.

If you’re serious about saving, growing or starting a business, branding is vital.  Protecting that brand is equally important.  That’s why you should attend this class.

Let me introduce you to Kyle Lacy.  Kyle is a social media mastermind, truly.  Check him out at www.getbrandswag.com or www.kylelacy.com

My law firm does a lot of trademark work for our clients.  We trademark company names, product names, service marks, tag lines, etc.  We also develop strategies to protect names and logo’s

Kyle Lacy develops marketing strategies that utilize great branding.  

Together, we are going to teach how to develop a brand strategy and then legally protect it.

March 10, 2009 ,  12:00 – 2:00 P.M.         8604 Allisonville Rd. Suite 300, Indianapolis, 46250

$25.00  TUITION FEE

EMAIL KYLE OR ME IF YOU’RE INTERESTED.

I don’t like to “copy and paste” content from other business thinkers into my blog.  I do borrow, meld, mix and reshape ideas I learn from other people, but try to add some original thought in everything I write and say.

Here’s a rare exception.

If you care about small business or our economy, you have to read this blog post by Dennis Romero on Entrepreneur.com-

Entrepreneurs Not Feeling Stimulated