Sign , sign everywhere a sign

Blocking out the scenery , breaking my mind– Tesla (the band not the car)

One of the first things I do in working with small businesses is look at their signage. I apply this simple rule ” if I Tom your detail oriented business consultant can’t see or understand fully you sign how can you expect your customers to see you?” The problem with signs I experience is two fold. First people put up signs but then forget they are there. Things like dirt , lights going out, cracks, some type of growth in front of your signs(trees or brush etc)

I can here you now Tom that’s not me. I can bet you it is. First do you keep your street facing sign lit 24 hours a day? You absolutely should!!!! The people passing by your business when you are not open are just as important as when you are. As a matter of fact I say it’s more important because everybody has their sign on when they are open. As your potential client I’d say that chaos of competition for my attention is insane. Like I stated at the top”break my mind” When you closed and maybe just maybe your potential client drives by and you sign is lit and your competition is not. Our eyes pick out signs so much better at night than during the day having your sign lit WELL is a no brainer.
If you tell me that lame excuse I don’t want my lights when I not open I’d go through the roof. I am very much like Steve Jobs when it come to my passion about the little details.If your were one of my privileged clients I’d say do you shut down website when your closed? then keep the damn lights on. Note I didn’t say keep your open sign on. Sooner or later one client of yours is going to say these magic words and this always happens” I was driving by late and I thought I’d stop in and check you out. Next I’m going to save you some money….

Thank you to all the people who believed in me I am expanding this blog

When I started this blog a few years ago the only thing I wanted it for was a place to store my business ideas so I could use them later. I did absolutely no promotion hell I didn’t even tell my own family it existed until I got to 10,000 hits. I found out that people are really looking for the business ideas that I had in always kept to myself. It’s been a humbling experience to say the least but now going to go out and live my dream of taking these ideas which I have gotten make emails and comments about in the global world instead of just my local one. The number one request that I have gotten in an email message from the readers of this site has been this “how do I apply your ideas to my business? ” I have given limited answers but I want to give more so I have started Impact Business Consultants (website announcement soon) which will allow me to take all my time and energy and focus it on your business. So before I could send you resources I thought would be best but because I didn’t have time to research your industry, business model, or sales and marketing efforts, etc I didn’t get to involved like I do with my local clients because they are paying the bills. I really never offered you my paid services because I was used to meeting my clients in person. However with the attention this blog has gotten very overwhelming. Now over 43,000 views have hit this blog something I never even dreamed of or really focused on. I offering you the same service and some even better than I do now but their will be a cost involved and I will be taking on just a few clients and no competitors in your industry– first come only one served. If you are interested in getting more of a hands on approach where I can guarantee my results please call me immediately at 302-757-0210 or email me at tom4change@gmail.com. I am going to offer my service at a reduced rate because I am looking for the tele or web-based business referrals.

Again I Humbly thank you .You believed in me and have pushed me to believe in myself . I am eternally grateful. 

 

P.S. I’ll be posting now more often so please keep being open and honest with these ideas the success of this blog depends on it

The Social web– how to use Facebook Twtter or MySpace to grow or KILL your business?

1st you NEED to realize that your business is complete different and should be treated as such then your personal pages. People put up profiles on social websites for a few reasons– get new friends, keep in touch with old friends or have a place to voice your thoughts and opinions among people they like and or trust. HOWEVER– Your business should only be on Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace for  ONE pure Goal– To make money !!!!

This is extremely important because many business owners are  running their personal and business profile the same way and it can ruin your business forever!

and you work this utilizing these methods

3  REASONS–and only 3– 1)To get people to spend more money when they buy (if they buy $10 use it for promos to get them to spend $12 next time) and  2) How to get them to buy what you have more often (if they buy once a month to get them to buy once every two or three weeks ) and lastly 3) how to get one customer to bring in more customers (what is going to cause one person to tell the people they trust or trust them that you exist and they support your business as well — growing a customers circle of influence to benefit you)

For you business realize this what you put on on the web is permanent one and you can NEVER retract it. It is called Caching of a webpage in which your browser saves every version of a website to see this use achive.org the home of Googles Wayback machine.  And what your thing as a funny , cool or neat idea or opinion your OTHER visitors might not  agree with and THEREFORE my chose to NOT use your business because they read such things even though you do. This is a HUGE point for those people that have never used your business in the past and are searching the web to determine IF they are going to use your business today. Think about how often you use review sites to purchase a product to see generally how people feel about it. Its great because they are people you don’t know and there for are mostly just speaking pure about their experience. PEOPLE ARE DOING THE EXACT SAME THING WITH YOUR BUSINESS .

HERE IS THE KILLER OF BUSINESS ON THE WEB YOU WILL never FIND OUT WHO OR WHAT IS CAUSING PEOPLE TO DECIDE NOT TO USE YOUR BUSINESS . SO LOOK AT YOUR REVIEWS, FEEDBACK AND POSTS VERY CAREFULLY EVERYDAY BECAUSE THEY ARE DICTATING THE REAL OPINIONS .

 

IF YOU WANT POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS TO CHOOSE YOUR BUSINESS OVER YOUR COMPETITION email me at tom4change@gmail.com and will show you how exactly drive the web, social media and review sites in your favor .

Growing fast is not nearly as important as growing strong

People always ask me for ideas that can grow their sales fast which is very easy for me. The problem is they get annoyed when I tell them to slow down and build great systems underneath the business before I build or while I build the sales. Here’s the thing everybody doesn’t realize to many sales can kill you your business faster than low sales because if the systems/ methods /structure you have in place can’t handle the growth. It will crush you and your customers will be very upset and probably leave . So I ask my clients “Do you  want to be here in five years or do you just want me to double your sales now?” If you interest in working with me be prepared with an answer I’m going to ask you as well.

13 Great reasons why Apple WILL be announcing the Verizon Iphone on Friday

What this company is doing to every industry is phenomenal and you will never see something this amazing again. I will be the happiest person on Friday because I will finally know when I getting my Verizon Iphone  after 3 VERY long years.  Why am I so sure? Apple history will teach you that at least since 2000 this company follows an really solid pattern and we are about be amazed again.

1. Apple has NEVER and will never hold a press conference to fix something they hold press conferences to astound your life. Apple is not Lebron James, Toyota or BP has everybody completely forgotten that when they invite the press it is to somehow figure out to positively alter the quality of your life when it comes to computers. Steve Jobs would never hold a press conference to fix issues there is no value there. So stop assuming this event is for an Antennea or any other issue. Apple have not stated what this is about at all which is really neat to me.

2. When have Apple given literally one day to announce and hold a press conference? I don’t think ever. They love the hype of people trying to guess at what they are going to do so this is against their character to hold it so fast and on a Friday not Tuesday (but thats further down the list) They doing it fast so there is no time for things to slip out.

3. There was a email sent to stores saying “its coming” and  “its going to be really big” and I think that email and this event are definitely connected and they didn’t have time to send out paper invites so that to me is the teaser. “Its” has only been the number one request all employees have  been getting at the store whicj is Verizon Iphone and “Really big” is giving 96 million or more  people access to your best selling product. I used to work in retail and we used the terms to describe Xmas “Really busy”or  “Really Big” means all vacation time is blacked out and there is lots of OT to be had. So it could mean all employees need to prepare for the massive influx of business. Estimates are over 3 million in a weekend which it double what brought all ATT and Apple servers to a halt a few weeks ago for preorders on the Iphone 4.

4. That email part two– Do you realize that the Apple stores have never been given a heads up before an event? I know these might not be connected but just stay with me on this one. Why? They don’t want anybody to say something to soon. Some retail employee announcing before Steve Jobs would definitely kill all the clout they have but they need to give them a warning without telling them the what and that has to be why the email showed up. Again they know that email would be scrutinized but they can’t pull this off without major support from the stores. My guess they will offer it through their own retail first this time (remember the fiasco of ATT’s approval process with the first Iphone) this is if he announces and releases immediately which is  a long shot

5. Do you realize that if you go back just two years in Apple history and overlapped the announcements with 2008 and 2010 the timeframes are almost identical.

6. There have been ONLY two announcements in July (not June) in recent Apple history this is the 2nd.  What was the first? July 11 2008 –the App store you know that little thing that has over 1 Billion transactions in just 2 years was the first.

7.Why is this so Fast? PART 2 because verizon Management is under a gag order from Steve Jobs and they are not about to make the same mistake twice so they can’t tell their employees until Steve’s announcement. Remember the less people that know the better

8. How did Steve get these agreement(s) in place without anybody figuring it out? He used the Ipad and meetings with media companies mixed with telecom too. Remember how it was rumored that they were meeting with Verizon  and Sprint for the Ipad but then they announced ATT to everybody’s dismay and anger? That was the plan all along.

9 Why the heck did they chose Friday and not the normal Tuesday? Instant Gratification, speed and sales.  What if they did a announcement with an available immediately people would be standing in line immediately. I will. Weekend are the best time to release the product people shop most. Again they have to do this fast before somebody like me pieces the whole thing together

10 How they will use Friday to get Tuesday? Again go back 2 years July 2008 and Steve used the Earnings release as a way to highlight the brand new  revolutionary app store 10 million apps downloaded in 4 days and 1 million 3g Iphones sold  first weekend Believe you me when I say if Apple can do something to announce a brand new product or category for tuesdays call he will even though its not in the previous quarter but in the current one

11. Breaking the exclusivity –How did both sides break up and nobody heard about it ? Steve traded the Ipad exclusivity for time. The Ipad was never a part of the original agreement  and Steve gave it to ATT not because of the rates but 3 reasons–1 He gave them  IPAD first  them in exchange to amend the original agreement without penalty by say I’ll give you this for income if we agree to shorten the term    2 Always test a new product on what you know if has issues there are less variables 3 It works in Apple’s favor to have one way to get a new release and not 4 networks that way he builds desire among those who won’t or can’t get it. He probably tier the IPAD 3 g and WIFI for two dates not for manufacturing as much as being able to separate profitability for each company easier. Why was it in the middle of two huge releases? Does you “exclusive partner” change their DATA rates drastically for the Ipad and iphone and in the same week raise their early termination fee. It’s little like they took those intial Ipad customers and screwed everybody after them  over. You can ague the Iphone 4 release was the reason why but losing exclusivity has a much bigger impact on your bottom line (ask Sprint and Samsung)

12 Why would ATT give up the exclusivity before the term is up? They can’t handle the bandwidth, Steve already insured existing customers don’t run for the exits by getting probrably over 2 million of them back to ATT for the next two years by announce Iphone 4 on the existing network before opening it up to other vendors(Apple needs this as well cause it reduces Churn)

13 Steve loves being able to shock people into what they LEAST expect or don’t expect at all. That radically grow the companies market share Examples moving to Intel chips, the iphone announcement, the app store and developer models, I ad and finally the Non ATT Iphone. Rememer when everybody expected the original iphone to be 3 different devices NOBODY thought it would be one and Now everybodys expecting a minor hardware fix and they are going to get a MAJOR dose of Freedom.

PS Don’t worry he will fix the antenna issue but will be small time compared to what he has in store

How to stand out from your from your competition this holiday season

1. Open after dinner on Thanksgiving like have a 9 to  midnight sale. Think about all those shoppers waiting for the next morning why not help them avoid some crowds, get things off the list, and most of all give them a great reason to get them off the off the couch.

2.offer Free delivery and gift wrapping  (within reason)

3. start a list completion service during the last two weeks call you favorite customers and see if there is anything you can help them find then call your friends hopefully other business owners to help them complete their shopping. Customers will love you because you doing something they couldn’t and never expected to get help with from you. Your building goodwill among other businesses by giving them free business they never expected at the peak time. You couldn’t meet the need anyway so you never lost a dime. I guarantee the other business owner and the customer will be going out of their way to help you out when it gets slow like Jan 2010 and isn’t that what we all need to build our pipeline of new sales after the rush is over.

4.Ask yourself the question during ALL slow periods — What can I do to provide my customers the greatest value and deliver it in a way they would never expect?

5.Remember that great service ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS beats lowest price because with our uncertain economy  everybody has low price but isn’t their service getting worse? Make sure ALL employees have excellent customer service skills I mean way above others.

6 Send out hand written thank you letters just because you care and nobody else is.

7.Differetiate, differentiate, oh yeah differentiate make sure you customer KNOW you not like the competition your a hell of a lot better.

8. Don’t believe the old lowest price wins adage –then why is Apple making a killing? Simple they deliver a better product in a greater way at a higher price

9. find ways to up-sell and cross sell all customers to maximize profits

10. If you need any help with the above –email me at tom4change@gmail.com

the Next big thing in business — Advertising revolution

Marketing and advertising is going thru the biggest changes right now you just don’t see it yet.  Within every failure there is a greater opportunity that rises from the ashes. Right now there many failures that are happening as our world transitions from a physical world into a purely virtual one. we have literally destroyed the value of many of the products that we used to own are now a completely invisible medium. your going from a world where you used to touch and feel things in order to understand their value to a world that is going to completely become dependent on how companies communicate to us why and how things will be valuable. Think about that because it is by far the most mind blowing thing I have  ever written in this blog. You used to judge the value of things by their physical medium and look at this list of the things where  you used to literally “judge a book by its cover” but can’t anymore, CD’s books, newspapers, balancing your checkbook, faxes, hand written letters, waiting AT HOME for a phone call or walking through a shopping mall. Now how are you going to judge the value of things because you are not personally invested? The less involved and invested you are the more dependent you become on the world around you to show you what the value of things are. You want proof –the housing crisis. This is crazy but the whole entire thing was predicated upon changing your belief of what your house was actually worth. Up until that point the value of your home was based on what you could afford with your paycheck but at some point we stopped believing in living in our housing and value of  a lifetime of memories it become a tool of which we could just make incredible money fast. All of the sudden we went around and started looking at looking at how much money we could be making and here is the key we somehow bought into the belief that housing prices were going to continue to accelerate like an Ebay auction. The whole time our income never double but our cost of our houses did and we believed that somehow we were going to be able to afford it. We trusted  what everybody around us was doing and saying we stopped trusting ourselves and what we could afford. So we learned our lesson hopefully but it still brought to the surface a much bigger truth that our lives are going to become more and more or new ways of perceiving value. True value is built on trust and since we learned a huge lesson in who we can’t trust the opportunity  NOW is in learning who we can. The new business model will be based on TRUST since being able to touch is no longer the medium we can judge products on. FOCUS on building TRUST in your communication. Thats why Apple has Microsoft scared. APPLE is based on one thing TRUST of the customer by delivering products that do one thing they ALWAYS work better then you expect.

Getting customers to act on what you say… NOW!!!!

What is the one thing that all people have in common in communication?   Often times we NEVER think of HOW we want to say something we only think of WHAT we want to say. However as business owners we are all in competition for what we want to say to our customers. We all want to say that we have the best service, lowest prices, best quality, or fastest delivery. However everybody says those things but very few deliver and when others don’t deliver it loses it’s magic. Sure you have never tried to use power words just to get a potential clients attention however others have and it cheapen the value of what you are trying to deliver on. One of the things that I like to say is that “you don’t need a degree to start a business”. When I say that to my own clients they know that there are thousands of people that are are trying to make a buck no matter what the cost or implications to your market share. These people are no where near the high caliber of  business owners that you are. You have to realize that in the end you may end up getting the customer after they have ruined their chances( you know those horror stories customers tell about the last guy I went to). HOWEVER they have done major damage in your customers willingness or desire to believe the words that you say because of their actions.

So you have to find more ingeneous ways to communicate your potential and true value to them in ways that those bottom feeders would never be able to understand. don’t try and use the same devalued words find ways to put yourself at a higher level

Let me give you so monumental examples of business that have used this

Fastest Delivery— 30 minutes or your pizza is free {domino’s}

Storage on a MP3— 1000 songs in your pocket–{Apple}

Convenience-We do it just a little bit better WAWA–{Wawa}

The Most amazing Customer Appreciation event EVER!!!

As I was driving home on Sunday night from my brothers I had the most incredible experience. I live right outside Boston in Concord Mass (Henry David Thoreau) and I stopped to take a walk through the town. It is one of the most beautiful places regardless but I love walking the streets at night much like Mr. Thoreau did to sort out my thoughts in complete peace and silence. Tonight when I got my car expecting silence I heard what I though was music in the distance. I thought I was hearing things I followed but it anyway a block and half away I hear this crisp voice that was covering music of the sixties. The closer I got the more I found that it wasn’t just one person was a whole gallery jammed to the hilt with several people. I look and see that this is a customer appreciation event. Here was an great singer literally jamming out with this stores customers. Now considering that they are closed on Sundays it was probably  an invitation only for the best customers. Now the crazy part everybody there was following right along, dancing, singing and hitting the tambourine. I snuck by and stood the next store over in absolute amazement at how much fun everybody was having. This wasn’t a customer appreciation event this was much more this was life celebration with friends that happen to be customers. I walked across the street completely blown away and I just enjoyed the moment. The next event will really bring home the magnitude of this.  

There were two young women walking past this gallery a  just like I was and they stopped in the doorway just to see what was going on they literally got pulled in. The people inside invited them to be a part of this party. They couldn’t  just sit back and watch they were completely jamming, singing, and dancing just like everybody else. Nobody that was part of this experience will forget Montague Gallery 10 Walden Street Concord Ma. They sell fine art sculptures go to www.montaguegallery.com The Do you think that everybody will taking about how it was on of the most unique events they have ever been to? Do you think that little event will drive more sales? Absolutely it will. Turning a customer appreciation event into a life celebration event that is PRICELESS in building customer loyalty I guarantee it.

Imagine customer loyalty like this

Did you know that every 4 out of 5 Apple customers that own one Apple computer will ONLY buy an apple as their next? As I wrote in about yesterdays post–It what you do after the customer owns your product that makes the most difference. Apple does EVERYTHING I mean EVERYTHING right after the sale. They love your problems so much  that the center focus in EVERY store is the genius bar. They have monitor devoted to the next appoint that everybody that is shopping sees. There is no other store that I have EVER been in that doesn’t do whatever it can to separate out its complaints FROM the people wanting to buy stuff. The reasoning is simple they don’t want to run the risk of ones persons negative emotions creating doubt in the mind of a shopper that wants to give them money. So talk about doing things from the customer point of view. Answer one question please!!! WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU EVER PUT ALL THE CHALLENGES AT THE CENTER OF EVERYBODYS ATTENTION — SO THAT IF YOU SCREWED UP OR DIDN’T GIVE A CUSTOMER WHAT THEY EXPECTED ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY IN THE WHOLE STORE WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT? This move in any other business would be suicide.

 

So here is the real question– “How in the world do they  do it?” Those people that are at that genius bar are being treated better then everybody else in that store.

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW YOU BUILD MASSIVE CUSTOMER LOYALTY–FOCUS ON WHAT HAPPENS after THE CUSTOMER OWNS YOUR PRODUCTS. You can do these same exact methods to build your business. Just write me and I will show you how. 

Its like apple went to a Lamborghini dealership and modeled how to treat your customers after that. If you have ever been to the genius bar you know what I mean. It the place where people tend to hang out. If you ask me its not a genius bar because of the people behind it. NOPE (even though they are amazing) Rather it is the people in front of it. WHAT ARE YOU NUTS Tom? NOPE. By far the best and greatest tool they have to build loyalty they never use– customers issues. True Customer Loyalty is built on how you treat your FAILURES not your successes.

How many customers have you lost in the last year?

This is a question that focuses one the harder facts in business but shouldn’t be avoided out of fear. Actually this tough question has the enormous potential of really growing your business once again. It stems from that quote” you don’t know what you got till its gone”. You need to find out what your attrition rate is.If you are adding new customers to your business but not looking at the ones you are losing and more importantly the reasons why they are leaving then its like catching fish in a boat that has a leak in it (it does you no good cause you will still drown.)

The first part of this inventory is looking at how big that leak is and then determining what it will take to fix it. Find out what percentage of customers are leaving is crucial to putting programs in place to find out what you are doing wrong in their eyes so you can make your business stronger. There are only a few reasons why they left and often times the fix is so simple it will amaze you. #1 reason they don’t feel they have a need for your product or service anymore. In this case all you need to do is follow up with them and show them they are still important to you and how they can still use you business to their advantage in their life. It’s strange how the only thing that businesses FAIL to do is follow up with existing customers to find out what is it going to take for them to purchase another product or a second time . All you need to do is create an AUTOMATIC process for you business to do this. If you write to me at tom4change@gmail.com I can show you exactly how to do this to get the best return of customers possible. 

How much is it REALLY Worth? A guide for SERVICES pricing PART 1

I have many clients that all the time undercut their value to give customers great pricing. Unfortunately it completely BACKFIRES on them and here is why. The job you do is directly tied to your price. Customer can’t see a service so they HAVE NOTHING to compare it against except itself. What I mean is this — if a customer has had the same service done in the past then they will judge your price and quality against that. However that being said if they have never needed a service like you offer in the past (and the majority of the time they haven’t) them they have nothing to compare it to. They can’t SEE the product before you complete the work they can only see the problem or challenge that they need to be solved. So they are really trying to your compare price against the RESULTS that you will produce for them.  The old FEAR about “you get what you pay for” is definitely true in the service sector your clients are scared that you are not going to be able to solve their problem to their satisfaction AND they will have to pay for your services. 

So when you undercut your price it direct correlates in their mind to the quality and your ability to deliver. Customers do not shop around for services the way they do for products because they do not understand what it will take to resolve their challenge (that’s why they are calling you). So NEVER EVER say to the customer you are the cheapest . What you perceive as helping them out actually does the opposite it provokes fear. This is why you may find customers don’t end up choosing you. So what do you do?

First of all spend more time with your customers understanding how much solving this problem is worth(more on this in future parts). Show them how you can solve their problem a little better then they expect(fear reducer). Guarantee your RESULTS (not enough service people do) it builds serious confidence in your potential customers in your ability because you are TAKING the risk(fear) away from them. Then OVER DELIVER and ask for referrals when they feel that you have.

 

Promotional Tip#1 — How use your top seller to get a new product the attention it DESERVES

I just was trying to help a small business owner market a brand new product so people would try it. Now this a product that once they try it once they can decide from there but we thought they would like it. So what I suggested was simple– launch the new product but to take away some of the risk tell the customer that you’ll discount the top seller if they try it. I am going to add here that over 50% of all the customers purchased the top product so the people would be purchasing the top product regardless. This way if they were willing to try something new they could have it at a lower price.

In this case it worked with great success because once people tried the new product they loved it almost as much as the old one. The idea was to generate interest to see if the customer would like it as much as we thought they would or not. The key here is that we were able to speed up the feedback by discounting the favorite product. Now they have two top sellers that don’t compete with each other directly but actually complement each other so now customers come in an ask for BOTH products.

It’s like getting 2 sales for the price of 1.

Giving meaningful gifts to your employees to show your appreciation of their hard work

I’m sure that you would agree the the two most important things in your business are your employees and customers. You know the great ones are rare and hard to find and only after you lost one do you see the impact they created to overall well being of your company. So finding ways to show them how much you value what they contribute to your success as a small business owner is of extremely high importance. If your one of my regular readers you probably have read my other post on customer value so here is the other part of the equation. If you haven’t read my primer on understanding my view points it is here.

I wanted to save this post because this is the time of year most SBO’s are looking for gift giving ideas for the most important people in their business or professional life. Finding unique and powerful way to show employee how much you value them can truly create less employee turnover and a more positive work environment than you may realize until it happens. This is truly something that giving once in the right ways can last you for the rest of the year … and next year. The power to make a difference in someones life with just a small but well thought out token is something that may last for their lifetime you never know. However it has to be WELL THOUGHT OUT _-not expensive to gain full effect. Most employers give bonuses and I say when they see the benefit to this way they wouldn’t never give a bonus again as a way to show employees you care. Why? it’s only money and it will be forgotten about two minutes after its spent so shelf life is a week max. I show you reasons/thoughts, others examples and a simple way to create your own way of starting to give thought–fully. Don’t get me wrong employees should definitely get bonuses but not a way to say thank you but rather as pay for the work they accomplished. The two should NEVER be confused with each other.

So getting back to the gifts– the personal the better shows how much you are really paying attention to them. Try your best to give memories not things. What I mean by that is anybody can get you something off a list so your goal is to be powerful and unique. You want the memory of the experience to last for the next 180 days at least. However if you do have to pick a present get them something that nobody else would think to get them. For example you notice that once every two weeks your co worker goes to the same place for lunch because they like it get them a gift certificate for two lunches at least. You save them money and they be thinking while eating those lunches.

Now for the great gifts the memories. Find favorite activities of hobbies that your employees have. Or sometimes if you find other things they are passionate about. Then give them the experience as a gift. So let me give you an example –I found out that one of my employees favorite baseball player was Tony Gwynn how ironic the same as mine. So I found out when the Padres where in Philadelphia playing the Phillies then I got us field seats. Now for the great part the surprise. When I scheduled I overstaffed he thought it was because of a big shipment coming in. When he showed up I handed him a Padres cap and said lets go needless to say he was blown away. One afternoon that YEARS later we still reminisce about.

Now he was a good employee before but afterwards if their was anything I needed he volunteered –I didn’t even have to ask. I can honestly tell you that $100 gift made and saved me a couple thousand. Now that’s not what I had in mind but after it happened I realize the magnitude of my gratitude combined with my thoughtful gift giving. When ever I do it the benefits FAR outweigh the cost. Whenever I need something my employees want to help me out because they know how much I care, how much of an impact they have and that I’m willing to sacrifice to show them that.

So the lesson is this give with your values and heart instead of just with your money and your company will grow in ways you can never imagine.

AS always if you need any ideas for your employees PLEASE email me — Tom Titlow Jr @ Tom4change@gmail.com

Little things that make the biggest difference

Many business owners are so close to every part of their business because  they are responsible it ALL of it.  What I do most often as their consultant is I show them the impact that the little things have on the bottom line that they never noticed.Unfortunately those negative little things absolutely destroy businesses. Listen businesses don’t fail because somebody stopped trying  just the opposite is true. Most business fail because they are trying to hard in the wrong direction. So many time I teach business owners how the little things they do make more of a fundamental difference than the huge things. I show them how specific actions or intangible assets are the things that create long term success. For the most part the physical aspects of any business don’tmmake nearly as much of a difference as the things that you can’t see.

An biggest of them all is attitude (yourself, your employees and your customers) and it surprises me how many people in businesses think that it doesn’t matter. They think people don’t care or notice attitude. Everyday you wear you attitude on your sleeve and there is not a single person that doesn’t notice it. Like in the earlier post on colors and judgements, your attitude you have is how people judge you what you do, think, say and in your case if they will do business with you or not.

The reason I’m bringing this up is I was doing some shopping tonight myself.  It astounded me how many salespeople at the mall (one of the most successful in the country) had either bad attitudes or apathy(they just didn’t care about the customer). I began to wonder how we got to a place where we accept this as customers. The experiences I witnessed other people having some where scary and downright disrespectful. Then I watch CNBC and see retailers are having tough quarters and cutting 4th quarter forecasts. Do this people (CEO and board members ETC) actually go to their store and look at the product they are putting out? By that I mean the sales person on the floor that argues with a customer or is on their cellphone with a friend(yes I saw both tonight)? There are customers that those employees don’t realize that are making judgment about their WHOLE company based on that ONE person. GREAT attitudes are free if you make sure you hire them in the first place.

S o I want to leave you with this question for all of you and your employees that will create a minefield of gold where these other people see only losses.

What have I done today to give my customers OUTSTANDING service?