Seeds of Growth - ideas to help small business grow

Do you know what your customers are saying about you...you better!

Kevin Stevenson — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 06:45:51 -0600

Here is a powerful example of why customer feedback is so important to your business. Events like this happen everyday...are you making it easy for your customers to tell you what they think. Think of how "deadly" this word of mouth story could have been:

"A customer, Janet, recently gave us a feedback score of 0 and wrote a long story about the terrible haircut she received. She basically said she would never come back to Fantastic Sams. I sent her an apology e-mail and asked her to call me so I could apologize live, versus just e-mail. After a short phone call, she agreed to come back to the hair salon and let someone fix her haircut. I called the salon and arranged for her to call on her way in and ensure she had absolutely no wait when she arrived. I called her after her haircut and she was thrilled. She was amazed that I took the time to follow up with her again on the phone. . Janet also sent out 3 referrals through Promoterz. She also scheduled to come back to the salon to have her hair colored! I never would have known this woman was so upset without Promoterz. Think of all the people she would have told her story to. Now she is telling a new story...how great we are! Promoterz just saved my business thousands of dollars in potential lost revenue...thank you Promoterz!"

Scott Weintraub
Fantastic Sams
Owner
New Jersey
908.806.7272

Is this happening in your business?....are you sure? You have thousands of reasons to find out.

When you pass out a Promoterz bounce back card you automatically build an accurate customer list, increase repeat sales, increase referrals and prevent lost business. Pretty powerful little card. Learn more

Perfect opportunity for feedback...lost!

Kevin Stevenson — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:23:27 -0600

Last night, my family and I went to a "practice" dinner at a new, well known steakhouse in town..you'd all recognize it. My daughter works there, so last night was free to family and friends of employees of the steakhouse. Obviously, not a new concept, it makes a lot of sense. What didn't make sense to me, was that no one asked us how the experience went. Love the idea of having a dress rehearsal before you expose yourself to the masses, but why not take the opportunity to get real feedback and know how everyone did.

There was no feedback vehicle offered to the hundreds of people who had a FREE meal. If offered, I am sure 90% of the customers in attendance would have loved to give feedback. My meal would have cost me $72...I would have vacuumed the carpet if they asked me to do it. I would have gladly given them a "grade" on our overall experience.

The restaurant could have learned what they needed to fix before the big opening...But nothing. No comment card, no 800# on a receipt, no invitation for feedback card ...nothing. They have no idea how good or bad the experience was for the hundreds of people who attended. ...no idea. Huge opportunity lost. Customers are your company's greatest asset...what are they saying about your business? Don't miss the opportunity to find out.

More happy customers. More repeat sales. More referrals. Learn more

Refreshing...

Joe Free — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:02:06 -0600

Today, according to predictions, we will hit 112 degrees in Mesa, Arizona. The AC units are running, the kids are out of school, and the streets look like a ghost town. "Winter" is officially here. (you know that time when everyone stays indoors because of inclement weather?)

At this time of year the word "refreshing" is particularly meaningful. Whether it is a tall cool glass of lemonade or dip in a cool pool. Both bring relief from the ongoing stress of the heat.

It occurred to me recently that some people are "refreshing" as well. Just like the lemonade, they bring relief from the ongoing stress of making a business work.

These are people that just "get it". You know the ones? They seem to know what you know and you find yourself talking excitedly together and sharing ideas and experiences and just enjoying the conversation.

That's what happened when I met Adam Toren. We got together to discuss Promoterz, our online service that helps businesses give a megaphone to their happy customers, become aware of unhappy customers, and increase the happiness of all customers. As we talked it was as if we were partners working out how to help other businesses succeed. Turns out that is what Adam does.

Adam and his brother Matthew are serial entrepreneurs. Among the impressive list of their ventures is a website, YoungEntrepreneur.com. They initially created this site to help youth become entrepreneurs but over the years it has become more to mean those that are young or new at being an entrepreneur.

The site has tens of thousands of members actively participating in its forums (http://www.youngentrepreneur.com). They also have a "refreshing" blog (http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog) as well.

If you are a business owner sometimes what you need, besides more hours in every day, is just to be "refreshed" as you read of others shared experiences. Others who "get it". I guess it is a sort of therapy.

I enjoyed their "10 Mistakes People Make When Starting A Business" and an interview with an Ebay founder on persuing your passion. As you read you find yourself saying, yep, I remember how I learned that. But you also get reminded of things you might want to revisit and you feel more committed to succeeding.

In the end, just as you are refreshed and ready to go as you finish the last of the deliciously tart and cold lemonade, you will have some good ideas and the courage to succeed in this thing we call business.

If you are not regularly staying in touch with your customers someone else will. How do you stay in touch? Learn more

Legislating the Sun

Joe Free — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:17:26 -0600

I live in Arizona, in the "Valley of the Sun". This is the place where all winter we flaunt our clear blue skies, our spring training baseball, and the fact we can give our kids bikes for Christmas and they don't have to wait till April to use them. (Of course, from June to August we are all visiting family and friends in cooler climes...but I digress.)

Arizona doesn't legislate the sun. We don't participate in the daylight savings time nonsense. But most other places do which means in the summer we are at the same time as California and in the winter we are the same time as Utah.

The standard argument for daylight savings time was that it saved energy. You needed less lights, so you saved energy. It seemed obvious and everyone seemed to have bought off on it and now the nation happily believes they are doing their part in saving energy by participating in daylight savings.

But it seems that no one really looked at the data. USA Today had an article recently describing research done at the University of California in Santa Barbara that showed that daylight savings does save energy used for lighting but that it used even more energy on heating and cooling costs. So the net effect is participating in daylight savings actually uses more energy. Now this is not an article intended to start "digital fisticuffs" about daylight savings. But rather the interesting point that people and governments think they are saving energy when in fact they are expending more.

Does that happen in your business? Do you assume that your customers are happy with something you do or provide when in reality they don't like it? Remember back in the "continuous improvement" business craze of the 90s the phrase "In God we trust...all others bring data". That is still true. Get the data and know what you know.

"What you don't know might kill you" could also be "What you think you know could kill you". So the point is get some data, some fresh live real data of how your customer's feel. There are lots of ways to do that. I personally feel that Promoterz is a great way since it provides a way to continuously monitor the heartbeat of your company rather than just a twice a year "exam". But whatever you choose, do it. You will be surprised at what you learn from the ones that really know. Your competition will be doing it.

The growth of your business will be determined by what your customers say about it. Do you know what they are saying? Learn more

The Cannonball Business Plan

Dave Free — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:47:23 -0700

Remember that old Burt Reynold’s movie Cannonball Run? It was probably just my age but at the time I thought it was pretty cool--an illegal race across the country in some very nice cars. It turns out the Cannonball Run is not just fictional. Wired Magazine recently ran a story about a guy named Alex Roy whose passion has been to break the 32 hour and 7 minute record for a coast to coast drive.

This is of course completely illegal and let me clearly state that I am not encouraging participation in this kind of activity—though it sounds kinda fun. Having said that, I think we can learn something from their experience.

Their challenge was not unlike that of every small business owner—they needed to accomplish something complex with limited resources (Their limited resource was time. Most of us are limited by funds which of course limit our time). The "Driveplan" they created impressed me. On it they listed every key milestone, targeted time of arrival, potential hazards, weather forecasts etc. Because they had this plan and knew where they were supposed to be every moment, they could immediately tell if they were in trouble and if they needed to make adjustments—including backing out.

Now compare that to your business plan. When was the last time you took it out and checked where you are against it? If you are anything like me, your business plan was something you forced yourself to put together to raise funds. Once that task was done the document went in the drawer to gather dust. Maybe that is due to the way we write the things—all that useless wordiness (kind of like this post). What if we created business plans that looked more like Alex Roy’s driveplan? Imagine clear milestones, expected results, time required, potential hazards each step of the way. Seems like if we created something like that we'd be much more likely to use it and reach our destination.

Unhappy customers tell on average 22 other people. If you ticket price is $50 that is $1100 in revenue. How would you like to know before they tell 22 others? Learn more

The Speed of Trust

Dan Crites — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:49:54 -0700

I heard a little segment on NPR a few days ago about Steven M. R. Covey and his book "The Speed of Trust". The book has garnered praise from various prominent people and has evidently sold well, I, however, haven't read it yet. The little I heard from Mr. Covey sounded intriguing and rang of truth to me.

Is it possible to do anything of value without trust?

Trusting in the things we have learned allows us to do things. Organize, build, design, communicate, calculate. Trust in someone else allows us to combine skills and efforts toward a common goal. We put our trust in things like computer programs, a marketing message, a process. The more trust that exists the more confidently and quickly we get to our goal.

Take away trust and everything is hindered. Lack of trust breeds fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It produces delays as you investigate what you can't trust someone else for. It causes relationships to be strained and torn apart, teams to break up. Lack of trust keeps customers away from a business.

The lack of trust is poison to a business and trust makes everything good happen.

What do you do to build trust among your employees? Your partners? Your customers?

Mr. Covey has outlined 13 behaviors to help leaders create trust in their organizations, focusing on character and competency. Want your business to grow faster? Do things to increase trust throughout it.

The Happiest customers tell on average 8 other people. Who are your happiest customers? Promoterz knows. Learn more

Get Your Helmet Mounted Cueing System Now!

Dave Free — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:23:15 -0700

The F35 is an amazing jet. It can reach mach 1.6 and then stop in midair and hover while landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in rough seas. You can see it in action here . For more than 50 years the Air Force has provided its pilots with "head up" displays so that the pilots can monitor key indicators they need without taking their view off the horizon. I guess when you are going mach 1.6 and dealing with an enemy it is pretty important not to take your eyes off the horizon. The Air Force is now testing new technology to replace the head up display specifically for pilots of the F35. According to a recent post on CNET, the new system uses infrared to actually let the pilot look right through the floor of the aircraft. It also displays the feedback that pilots need no matter which direction they are looking. The company that is developing the new technology calls it a "Helmet Mounted Cueing System."

So your business is moving along pretty fast, wouldn't it be nice to have a Helmet Mounted Cueing System to help you make better decisions? What information would you want on your cueing system? I don't think you'd want to clutter it up with important but not critical information. For example, I don't think I'd want to wander around with a copy of my latest balance sheet always in front of my eyes. The current cash balance in the bank, on the other hand, might be very useful. I don't know about you, but sometimes every second counts in getting a deposit to clear before payroll starts hitting! How about some indicator of how your customers are feeling? After all, everything we do as business owners is (or should be) about making customers happy so that they will buy from us again and again and tell their friends. Seems like knowing what they are thinking about our business and what they really want from our business should influence every decision we make. What else would you add to your HMBICS (Helmet Mounted Business Information Cueing System--got to have an acronym if we want to get any government funding!)

If you're not quite ready to pull on the Star Wars helmet (your customers might turn and run), you might check out our sponsor product, Promoterz. Right now--without government funding--you can keep a pulse on how your customers feel about your business. There is no head up display, but your customers' comments will go directly to your email so you will always be in touch and better able to take your business to mach 1.6!

Unhappy customers tell on average 22 other people. If you ticket price is $50 that is $1100 in revenue. How would you like to know before they tell 22 others? Learn more

Upside Down Revisited

Dave Free — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:19:21 -0700

Some time ago I did a post about innovation including a few tricks to get your brain to see things differently. To date, that post Have you tried turning it upside down has been the most popular here on Seeds. It is not important that you know that, but I thought as long as I was writing about it, I might as well gloat a little...

Anyway, I saw a video recently that illustrates very powerfully the impact of turning things upside down. Watch the video and see what you think. Then go back and read the post and start looking for things you can turn upside down in your business.

More happy customers. More repeat sales. More referrals. Learn more

The Customer/Employee is always right

Joe Free — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:05:18 -0700

A recent BusinessWeek article describes India's HCL Technologies unique management ratings program. In essence, each manager is ranked in several areas by those that report to them. Lot's of companies do these "360" types of reviews, but what is different about HCL is that they publish the results on their intranet for the employees to see.

CEO Vineet Nayar was rated 3.6 out of 5 for how well he keeps projects running on schedule by 81 managers that rated him, and everybody at HCL knows it.

According to Nayar "In our day and age, it's the employee who sucks up to the boss. We are trying, as much as possible, to get the manager to suck up to the employee."

In addition they have an online complaint system where anyone can voice concern over a particular issue ranging from the air conditioning to bonuses. Each of these concerns becomes a "ticket". What is unique is that these tickets can be "cleared" only by the employees, not management.

Imagine applying that to your small business. Your company is the "manager" and your customers are the "employees". What if companies posted online for all customers to see how they are ranked. What if noted problems remained listed until the company deals with them and the customer removes them.

Employee retention rates have increased at HCL. How would you like to have your customer retention rates increased? Have you asked your customers to rate you and your business? They are the only ones that know how they feel about your business.

Reicheld discovered the customer question that seems to track with the future growth of a business "Would you recommend us to your friends and colleagues?" Our service, Promoterz, helps you ask them that question with the addition of "Please provide specific comments to help us understand the rating you have assigned". You will know how your customers feel and have actionable data you can use to improve.

Perhaps small businesses should include Nayar's words in their business plan "We will try, as much as possible, to get the company to suck up to the customer!"

Customers who feel that you are listening to them are more likely to recommend you to a friend. How do your customers know that you are listening? Learn more

The Power of Realtime Feedback for Your Business

Dave Free — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 10:30:26 -0600

When I get in a car my goal is typically to get from where I am to where I want to be as fast as safely possible. To do that, I primarily use one gauge on the dashboard: the speedometer. Sure every few days I have to pay attention to the gas gauge and, if the car doesn’t seem to be behaving as it should I glance at the other gauges but the majority of the time it is all about the speedometer. WIth my goal being to get to my destination as fast as possible I try to keep that speedometer at (or slightly above) the speed limit.

I rented a car the other day with a new feedback mechanism that completely changed the way I drive. The car was the Nissan Altima Hybrid. I don’t own the car ( the car I own is more of a truck—it has a V10 and can easily pull up the mountain into Flagstaff at 85 mph—but that’s a post for another day and perhaps a different blog). I ended up driving the Altima because the rental car company gave me a free upgrade. I drove it for 4 days in the bay area. The hybrid Altima is rated at 42 mpg. It’s got all kinds of high tech stuff under the hood that switches back and forth between and electric power and the combustion engine and delivers great efficiency. All that stuff is very cool and seemed to work very well, but the thing that saved the most gas for me was a new gauge they added to the dashboard. The gauge was a real time mpg indicator. It was cool. I could always see exactly what kind of mileage I was getting. If I pushed the pedal down to pass, the mpg indicator would drop down into the the 8 to 9 range. When I coasted down a hill it would shoot up to 80 to 90 mpg. I found if I kept it steady I could get to a nice cruising speed and still be getting over 40 mpg.

That one additional bit of information completely changed the way I, the proud owner of a V10, drove. Yes, I still wanted to get there as quick as I could but I found myself balancing that goal with the goal of maximizing my mileage. Now I know that each time I fill up I could do the little calculation and figure out what kind of mileage I got, but the fact is I don’t. Why? Because by that time, the decisions have already been made. I admit it, I am short sighted, but I have never filled my tank with gas, calculated my mileage and said, “Hmmm, I better drive slower.” On the other hand, the real time mgp gauge on the Altima had me driving slower—not always, but certainly more often,

How does that apply to your small business? What feedback mechanisms do you use to monitor the success of your business? Traditional accounting measures are like calculating your mpg after the fact. Everything is history. Sure it is a good number to know, but by the time you know it, it may be too late to influence the behaviors that need to be changed to improve it. Forward looking indicators like sales forecasts and other budgets are more like the speedometer, but even these indicators don’t give what you really need to run your business. What you really need to run your business (in conjunction with the other measures) is a realtime indicator of how your customers feel about your business. You need realtime customer feedback. You may think you know what your customers feel, want and need, but I can guarantee you that unless you are asking your customers and listening, what you think you know is wrong. I can also guarantee you that, just like the realtime mpg gauge changed my driving behavior, realtime customer feedback will change your behavior and the behavior of your staff for the better. Give it a try, you will never go back.

Anybody know where I can get an aftermarket mgp gauge for a V10?

You work hard to make sure your customers are happy. Don't waste happy customers. How easy is it for your customers to share with their friends? Learn more

Time to Pull a Few Heads?

Dave Free — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:25:09 -0600

I live in the arid southwestern region of the United States, Arizona, to be exact. I'm going on my third summer in my current home. The past two summers I have really struggled to keep my front lawn green. Yes, I have lawn. I know that some gravel and a few cacti would be more environmentally friendly, but a little patch of green lawn is more people friendly so I've kept it. Anyway, no matter what I did the sprinkler system for the front lawn never seemed to work right. The system uses little pop-up heads and they were constantly getting stuck, refusing to pop up and spray. Instead they would stay stuck in the down position, dribbling their water into a little puddle an d leaving the rest of the lawn to turn brown. I replaced many of them during the first two seasons thinking that they were just old and no longer worked. I also used my trimmer to shave the lawn directly around the heads thinking that maybe it was getting in the way. No good. The heads still refused to work.

This spring I decided to try a different tactic. It occurred to me that maybe the issue wasn't with the individual heads (they were all good heads) but with the overall system. More specifically, maybe I had too many heads resulting in not enough water pressure for the heads to perform correctly. I decided there would be no harm in testing that theory. I was ready to pull the whole system and start over with some different heads anyway. So I pulled 10 of the 23 heads. I pulled the heads and put a plug where they had been. I didn't move any of the remaining 13 around. I just strategically pulled 10 out of the midst of them. My lawn looks better than it has for the past 3 years! The remaining 13 heads all pop-up strong and have more than enough coverage to fill in for the 10 that are now in an old box in my garage.

What is the lesson for business? There are several, but I think the main one for entrepreneurs is to stay focused. There are a lot of opportunities out there--a lot of good opportunities--but being successful sometimes requires saying "no" even to good opportunities. So how is your focus? Too many sprinkler heads and not enough water pressure? Think about doing less--you could end up with a lot more green.

You work hard to make sure your customers are happy. Don't waste happy customers. How easy is it for your customers to share with their friends? Learn more

This Post Isn't Worth Reading

Dave Free — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:33:55 -0600

Interesting post on WorkPlayExperience about managing customer expectations to improve their experience. More specifically, lowering expectations so that customers end up being blown away. Whether you agree with the premise or not, the example used is must see material. A contestant on the British version of American Idol is a cell phone salesman that dreams of being an opera singer. You can see the judges rolling their eyes and then....

In our world of hyper-competition, keeping expectations low doesn't seem like an obvious strategy for success. Imagine the used car ad, "Come on down, but don't expect too much. Most of our cars are lemons." On the other hand, maybe something like that would be just unique and honest enough to bring them in! For more advice on lowering expectations check out Adam's post.

The Happiest customers tell on average 8 other people. Who are your happiest customers? Promoterz knows. Learn more

The Negative Impact of Word-of-Mouth

Dan Crites — Mon, 21 May 2007 18:23:06 -0600

I listened to a story on NPR this afternoon about the negative impact of bad word-of-mouth, you can listen to it here. Very scary. This is part one of a two part story by Wendy Kaufman, hopefully the second part will bring out the positive aspects from good word-of-mouth.

The basis for the article comes from research by the Wharton School of Business. They found that 1 out of 2 customers has a customer service problem when they shop. Worse is the fact that they then tell friends, family, and colleagues about it and embellish the story in the retelling. The overall result is that 1/2 of those that hear the bad news story won't shop at those places they heard about. Ouch! Those that improve on the situation certainly create a business advantage.

It goes to show the need for businesses to hear from their customers, the bad news as well as the good. Hearing the bad news you can make efforts to correct the situation so that bad embellished stories won't be spread. You even have the opportunity to turn a detractor into a promoter. You can also get to the root cause and fix it to reduce future bad experiences.

Promoterz is the hands-free, word-of-mouth marketing service that takes care of the details so you can focus on business. Learn more

Buzz is Better than Ads

Dave Free — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:35:58 -0700

Great article in BusinessWeek about Chipotle's success without traditional advertising. If you've never been to one, Chipotle's is a burrito place. They used to be owned by McDonald's but got spun out and went public in 2006. Since then their share price has tripled. They've experienced double-digit growth for nine straight years! Here is the kicker: they don't do traditional advertising.

Actually, they do a little traditional advertising. Some billboards (see image with this post) and radio, but they spend less than 1% of their revenue on advertising compared with 4% or more for McDonald's and Taco Bell.

According to Steven Ellis, the Chipotle founder and CEO, "Advertising is not believable." When he opened his first store in Denver he had no money for advertising so he decided to let his burritos do the talking and started giving them away free. They recently opened a location in midtown Manhattan and gave away 6,000 burritos. People stood in line for two hours. It cost $35,000 (about the cost of an ad in The New York Times) and they got 6,000 promoters plus a mention in BusinessWeek out of it. Not bad.

What are you doing to get your customers talking?

Do you remember your customers on their birthday? On their anniversary? Do you give special notice to recently acquired customers? Promoterz does. Learn more

A Cautionary Tale of Costumes

Dave Free — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 10:45:57 -0700

Got this from one of our Promoterz customers (thanks Mark). I apologize for the low quality on the picture, but what you would see if you could see it, is a guy in Subway attire handing a Subway sandwich to a guy dressed up as a Quiznos cup. In addition to the free lunch, the Subway guy handed the Quiznos guy a job application. Turns out the Quiznos cup guy would prefer to make sandwiches at Subway than a fool of himself at Quiznos so he's now working for Subway. Not sure how the picture got taken or the story made it into the paper, but I imagine the Subway guy had something to do with it.

Kudos to the Subway guy. When his competition sent "the cup" over to his end of the parking lot he didn't make irate phone calls to the competition or his lawyer, he took the guy a sandwich and turned it into a news event. Brilliant.

Customers who feel that you are listening to them are more likely to recommend you to a friend. How do your customers know that you are listening? Learn more