Category: Customer Service

First Person: Why Networking is Essential to Building a Business

12/5/2014

by Lyn Lomasi, Staff Writer

When building a business, there are many things to keep in mind in order to keep it afloat. One of the best pieces of business advice I received when starting my own business was to network. This is true for all businesses, but it's especially helpful for small businesses.

Networking with business peers provides essential knowledge

Others in your field can share important facts and advice with you. Even if you keep up with the latest business news, others will have other helpful experiences and insight. You may not always do things the way that person recommends, but sharing opinions, advice, and experiences with each other can teach you all valuable lessons.

Industry clients can help you satisfy your own clients

Talking to those who seek the services or products you provide can help you gain insights into dealing with your own clients. Of course, you will discuss things with your own clients. But networking with others, whether they become clients or not, can give you a different perspective. They may also help you come up with innovative new ideas.

Network with your audience to keep them satisfied

I am a journalist, which means that I need to keep readers happy. I also own several websites. Much of what I do revolves around content, be it creation, editing, publishing, and even mentoring. It's highly important that I keep up with what my audience is interested in. If I don't know what they want, I could easily lose that audience. Another website or article is just a click away from mine. For this reason, I like to keep an open dialogue with my audience. I will network through social sites and answer questions wherever my work is displayed. I consider my readers to be my friends. This is one thing I have done from the beginning just for the enjoyment. But I quickly learned it was also good business practice.

Where can you network with everyone?

There are many possibilities when it comes to networking. You can join organizations especially geared toward your business. There are also focus groups (online and off), business forums, and seminars. Online forums are a great way to discuss ideas, network with customers, and clients, and even find training materials. Social venues, such as facebook and Twitter can be invaluable. They can allow the space to network with clients, gain clients, network with peers, and even offer customer service. For those leery of adding just anyone to their facebook friends, you don't have to. Set up a public facebook page for business purposes. There are many possibilities. Where you network is not as important as keeping it up and having a variety of sources.

The recommendation to expand networking came near the beginning of my career as a journalist. I firmly believe it is a large reason for many of my successes thus far. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there and share things with peers, audience, clients, and customers. When you open up to them, they will be willing to open up to you as well. Everyone has something to teach someone else about every business and networking makes that possible.

*I originally published this via Yahoo Contributor Network

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Managing Late or Missed Deadlines when More Are Ahead

12/5/2014

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Tips from an Overachiever

by Lyn Lomasi, Staff Writer

Are you worried about being late turning in writing assignments? Have you missed some deadlines, but still have more work ahead? All is not lost. This is the kind of experience I don't like to admit to. But hopefully my past mistakes will help someone else manage late or missed deadlines with more writing on the horizon.

Apologize and Explain but Don't Overdo it

Your client may need an apology and explanation for your tardiness. I say 'may' because some clients are more relaxed than others and would rather you just get it done without explanations. But if you don't know how your client will react or you know they are expecting the writing, they need an explanation. Don't tell them your whole sob story. A simple explanation that outlines why you were late and when they can expect the work is good enough. Some may not even want a why, but a definitive date they can count on is pertinent.

Don't Panic

When you have a pile of wok due in a short time - or worse, past due, it is very easy to panic. But doing so could reduce your productivity. Instead of panicking about the late or missed deadlines, just relax and enjoy the writing as you would normally. Forcing it might show in your work. Many clients would rather have late work that is exactly what they wanted than on-time work that looks like a 5 year old produced it. If you simply cannot produce a quality product on time, don't panic. Explain and then relax and get it done.

Prioritize Immediate Tasks

Look through your work and decide which assignments could be held off and which need to be done right away. When figuring this out, consider what each client is using the assignments for as well as how they will feel about the tardiness. If the client absolutely needs them right away and will not be happy without them, those need to come first. It's not good to have any late assignments, but if you find yourself in this position, know the wants and needs of your clients and prioritize immediate tasks based on that.

Turn in Close Deadlines Before Certain Late Assignments

If you have deadlines very close and you also have late assignments, write the articles on deadline first if possible. This helps ensure you will not also be late for those assignments. Better to be late for only a few articles than add several more. It's easy to get in a pattern of being late when you write for a living because more and more work keeps coming in.

Make an Action Plan

If you are habitually turning assignments in late, either you have unavoidable life issues or you just need to rework the schedule - possibly both. As a mom of multiple children, I often have things come up that keep me from my work. This is one of the major reasons I decided to freelance for a living. I love writing and I can be at home with my kids and make money. But of course, as a mom, the kids must always come first. This can sometimes be bad for business. Therefore, each time it starts to look like things aren't working, I must make an action plan. This may mean reorganizing the schedule, but it also may mean recommending another writer to certain clients. It's important to realize the point at which you just cannot handle anymore work.

Break as Needed

You can't work 24 hours. OK, yes, it's possible. Sadly, I speak from experience. I've done it - more than once. But it's not wise and I would never recommend it. In fact, on one of such binges, I once published a private message as an article that I could not delete myself. Very bad idea. The message was not anything special or revealing and the issue was resolved by staff of that particular venue, but it was embarrassing and unnecessary. Had I gotten some rest, it likely would not have happened at all. Take breaks when you're tired, no matter how many deadlines are in front of you. No deadline is worth risking your health over. Clients will appreciate the quality work that comes from you being well-rested.

*I originally published this via Yahoo Contributor Network

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Rude Customers Turned Around

11/20/2014

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by Lyn Lomasi, Staff Writer

If any of you have worked in retail or other forms of customer service, you know just how rude we humans can truly be. Having held several of such positions since I was old enough to do so, I've had many, many frustrated customers over time. Time and again, my best strategy has always been to basically kill them with kindness. I'm naturally a nice person (most of the time), so it works for everyone involved. Besides, people aren't always actually being rude. It may just seem that way. Maybe there's an issue or maybe they had a bad day and you can help change that.

“Please don't scan that in self check. Here, let me scan it for you.”

If a cashier says that to you, that should be an indication that it isn't going to work. One customer didn't heed such advice from me on one occasion and proceeded to get rude. He was attempting to scan a heavy bag of concrete on the self check machine. We didn't allow those at this store, as it was common for the bags to break in process and ruin the machine or get all over the customer.

The fact that I was manning 4 self check machines, as well as my own register, yet still offered to help him should have been an indication that he needed me to do it. I nicely attempted to come scan it for him with my handheld scanner. However, he insisted on doing it anyway. Lo and behold, the bag of concrete broke across the machine, causing us to have to call for an expensive repair. Even so, I politely ran and grabbed him another bag of concrete, scanned it myself, and sent him on his way.

Sometimes you just have to let people figure things out for themselves. He was pretty polite after that and upon return visits always chose my line and never scanned his own concrete again. Sometimes what can be perceived as rude may just be a preference of independence or someone having a bad day.

Speak another language, eh? No problem.

One busy day, while working customers quickly through my line, I heard two women speaking in French. No problem with that part. However, what they were doing was speaking in French to cover up the fact that they were making fun of one of my co-workers, who happened to be an extremely nice lady.

She hadn't done anything wrong to them. They simply didn't like her looks, as well as a few other superficial things. Now, some people might get upset, but instead I chose to to give the same excellent service I always do – but in French. I wasn't rude, nor did I say anything at all about their rude behavior. I simply killed them with kindness.

The expressions on their faces were great when I started speaking in French and they were shocked as I completed the entire transaction that way. I doubt they were expecting that. The next time they came in the store, they were extremely friendly to both myself and the co-worker they were so rude to before. Imagine that.

I have many more stories like these, as I've worked in customer service since I was a teenager. But maybe I'll save some of the others to tell you about another day.

*I originally published a version of this on another network (no longer published there).

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SEO Over-Optimization - How Much SEO is Enough?

10/2/2014

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by R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner ofIntent-sive Nature & theBrand Shamans network

Free image for SEO or web marketing blog

We've all heard about how you can over-optimize for the almighty search engines in the name of SEO. How much SEO is enough? Some people have said that you really can't optimize too much for search engines. As it turns out, too much SEO is bad for your SEO.

Many people won't even touch optimizing for search engines. Oftentimes, this is from a fear of putting a bunch of content out there which doesn't get a lot of traffic or any leads that convert. Some people feel it’s too stressful to consistently put out useful content. Many people start and give up after a bit if it goes nowhere. So, you want to have some SEO. But, it is possible to go too far.

Believe it or not, you have to consider the possibility of taking on far too much traffic or leads. In fact, it's possible to over-commit to a content strategy. Even if the leads flow in like honey, that new traffic doesn’t always actually help your business. How can that be? Consider the following example.

Biting Off More Than You Can Chew!

One of the worst case scenarios of biting off more than one can chew in SEO is something that a LinkedIn connection of mine once shared. It's an interesting story of how one CEO cut ties with an SEO firm and decided to do the SEO himself instead. Interestingly enough, he did wonderfully on his own and website traffic boomed. So did the amount of incoming leads. However, he became so addicted to his success that the rest of his business suffered as a result.

His company’s customer service badly declined because of the lack of ability to handle all of the incoming traffic. In response, he took down about 150 pages off of his website. This action cut the amount of incoming leads in half. After rededicating himself and his company to customer service, so they could actually focus more effectively on the leads they received, they righted the ship.

So, you have to put customer service before bringing in new business. You need to pick your clients carefully, and you’re your leads are potential and actual customers, and not to be treated as commodities. These are all fantastic points, and so you should not let this article discourage you from doing SEO at all. You should just take into consideration the fact that you can go way overboard.

So, I decided to create the ABC's of How to Avoid SEO Over-Optimization: Authenticity, Being Ready, and Customer Service.

Authenticity

The number one thing to consider about Search Engine Optimization is being authentic. Don't simply post a ton of content to make you sound like the best thing in the whole world. It's important to be personal and aim to make one-on-one connections with people is far more effective.

You don't want to go out there with an SEO campaign that makes you sound like you're just trying to rank for keywords and come up number one on Google. Chances are with this strategy that you'll turn off some of the people you're looking for. Most of the leads you may end up with could be mostly unqualified and are just pinging your site out of simple curiosity. Not all organic search traffic is created equal.

When it comes to SEO over-optimization, Google and other search engines could penalize your website quite harshly for overusing keyword phrases that don't flow naturally. You need to create authentic content, first and foremost, before anything else. You also want to show personality and style in your writing, on top of giving some useful tidbits of information.

Good SEO might help you get visitors. But people are far more willing to actually engage with your content and contact you if you offered them some piece of useful information. Searchers really like when they can find an answer to a question that they were researching the answer for and found you. They also want to feel like it was a real person giving them that information in a friendly and straightforward manner.

Being Ready

This goes back to the point of leads being customers, not commodities. While obviously you want that conversion rate to be high, it's very, very possible to become overzealous and take on far more than you can chew. It's easy to become too focused on the raw number of leads from SEO versus the number of visitors to a given page. If you find yourself getting a ton of leads, you have to be sure you can qualify them and convert them into sales without taking away too much from your current customers.

While being aggressive with content can be OK if you know you're ready to take on the new business, you have to be 100% certain that you're ready for a potential barrage of leads. In some cases, you may be able to grow with it. But you may not be ready to nurture 1,000 incoming leads. It takes time to be able to serve the 5 or 10 percent or so of those that are qualified, while also serving your existing customer base as well as you have in the past.

Take it slowly and be sure you're only getting the most qualified leads that you possibly can. In any case, be ready to take on new business at all times. You never know just what piece of content will serve you hundreds or even thousands of potential new customers.

It's also important to understand that with ranking highly on search engines through SEO, you'll get noticeably more spam. You need to be ready to accept that just because you have a high conversion rate on the web stat side of things, that it's the real customers that you get giving you the real value. In the end it's who you connect with that matters. Good content marketers and SEO specialists will tell you that, not just that you're all set ranking 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on Google for high-volume searches.

Customer Service

Every business is in the customer service business, and it is true today more than ever. This actually works hand-in-hand with Being Ready. If you spend all of your time chasing down new leads, chances are that could alienate some of your existing customers if they feel that their loyalty to you is less important than your incoming traffic. That's what happened to that law firm in the article mentioned earlier. If customer service begins to suffer, you have to consider why that is.

You have to be ready and able to handle what leads you get while still giving your current customer base the same attention that they expect and deserve. Of course, there are considerations that you can make to hire extra help if the need arises. But as with anything, you can get carried away. I'm glad that CEO learned from his mistakes, even if it was unfortunately the hard way.

The best kind of content to create is content that is not only aimed at new prospects, but also created for your current customer base. Your current customers are quite a valuable resource for content. It's actually a great idea to ask your customers what questions they would like answered. Chances are people looking for your services will want those same answers, and you'll possibly get more sales out of your current customers, or generate referrals from offering those answers.

Providing offers at the end of blog posts is fine, as long as you don't make them only for new customers. It's fine to have offers on your website, but also make an offer that can work for anyone. This way if an offer is being used, it means those using it had to find out about it on your website, meaning your content is being read and is effective.

Takeaways

It's important to put out great content on a regular basis, but be authentic and be wary of going overboard. If you're careful with your keyword strategy and focus only on your ideal customers and what they're looking for, chances are you'll be okay. Just don't go looking for exposure simply for the sake of exposure. You may get it, and it might be overwhelming in a good way.

As with anything, moderate your content and schedule it out. Definitely don't overdo your SEO, either. While this might spike your website traffic in the short term, it will hurt you more than it will help your future lead generation from your site.

While spikes in growth do happen, if you're going to encourage it, be authentic. If you get a barrage of leads and you can't provide top-notch customer service, then take a step back for a moment and consider your options. The worst thing is to get lots of growth and then panic and cut out a huge chunk of your content. While it can help you rebound, if you were getting all that traffic, you need to consider simply how to manage that great content better.

Here's something for CEO’s and marketing managers out there to consider: it's not often a bad idea to let someone else handle your SEO work for you. Focus on your customers first. After all, that's the whole point of search engine optimization, making new and loyal customers. Make sure you're ready for them. Whatever you do, make sure whoever helps you understands the difference between creating great SEO content and simply doing SEO just for the hope of high search rankings.

If you need copywriting for SEO and/or SEO editing for your blog or website, see what the Brand Shamans can do for you today!

Image credit:www.seofreelancer.pt

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First Person: Why Networking is Essential to Building a Business

Managing Late or Missed Deadlines when More Are Ahead

Tips from an Overachiever

Rude Customers Turned Around

SEO Over-Optimization - How Much SEO is Enough?

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