Johannes Gutenberg has been described as an engineer, a scholar, and an entrepreneur. I believe it was those three driving characteristics that fueled his desire to create something that was unique, brilliant in design and that added value to his community.
The revolutionary creation of movable type provided the method by which a mass communication would take place. Scholars argue that it was the Gutenberg’s press that ushered in the Renaissance era, an era that at the core was a cultural shift and a resurgence of learning. Had Gutenberg created the original Wordpress?
Interesting enough is the fact that the single letters were assembled in a rectangular box and then placed in what some historians believe was a press influenced by the wine presses in the German region where Gutenberg lived.
Without trying to make too much of a correlation to the communication era we are living in now and the communication revolution of the 14th century, is it possible that we might be in a Gutenberg moment? Over the last 500 hundred years, we have gone from a one-to-one form of communication to a one-to-many form of distribution of information to now a mass-to-mass distribution of information driven by individuals.
Have we stumbled upon this moment not realizing the significance? Have we, by adding 140 characters to tiny rectangles linking to world changing events, unknowingly participated in a cultural shift once again? Have we rearranged the letters and symbols in such a way that a new mobile type has dawned?
Speaking from my own experience, I would have to answer, yes! I have been engulfed by this social wave and experienced the passion of learning new things based on the timeless categories of relationships, life, and purpose.
Every day I find new blogs, updates on Facebook, tweets on Twitter, pictures on Flickr and videos on YouTube all making unique expressions, some beautiful in design and each adding value to a global community.
In the business model of 2000, the goal was to gain more customers, assign them a customer number and watch them walk through the customer life cycle. With the rules of free enterprise changing rapidly, assigning customer numbers isn’t going to get your business into the business 2010 era.
Social Media is changing everything. In my previous article “Breadcrumbs to Business Growth,” I outlined the digital media journey of local coffee house Tuscan Sun Coffee. Typing in the keywords “Tuscan Sun Coffee Tallahassee” into Google search, I was able to see what the web said about that business. (The little hamsters upstairs should start running a little faster from here on out.)
Let’s look at Social Media from a different angle. Say I am a Public Relations Manager for a local business that is trying to keep up with the times and I regularly do a Google search of the name of my business. Google has been indexing the “status updates” on various Social Media sites for some time now. If someone has a good or bad experience related to their visit to my business and they “tweet” or “status update” about that experience, it will show up on a Google search. If they name my business specifically, their comment will be a clickable link. (You might want to Google search your business right now and look through every page just in case.)
Remember the “Comment Card” box? Imagine your comment cards being posted on the web. Would that be a good thing or not? How would you handle a less than satisfactory experience if someone completed a comment card and dropped it in the box? You should treat a Social Media comment with the same level of attention as you would a card dropped in the little black box labeled “Comments.”
Many national companies are listening to what the avatars (a small icon representing the user profile of a given social media) are saying. I have read article after article of companies like Blackberry, Target, and Starbucks replying to comments left on Facebook and/or Twitter from people who had a negative experience with their product or service. Often, the solution to the problem turns a negative complaint into a loyal fan telling their “friends” and “followers” about how the company redeemed its reputation. The digital voice of a loyal avatar is the new word of mouth.
Here’s the point: 1000 loyal avatars equals 10,000 tribe members (a new kind of customer number)!
What if your business doesn’t listen to the “tweets” and/or “status updates?” I guess you better get a bigger comment card box so that you will have something to pack up your desk with when they decide to bring in the new PR director who understands Social Media and why status updates matter.
By the way, did you ever think to do a search on your competitor to see what people are saying about them? If they are smart, they already did one on your business and are thinking creatively on how to capitalize on your area of weakness.
Seth Godin argues the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so.Brilliant! If you haven’t bought Seth Godin’s book Tribes, go to Amazon now and get it!
With the talks of cutbacks and budget reductions, now more than ever is the time to invest in the people and businesses that have been your loyal clients from the start. Even with the latest edition of Microsoft Outlook, it is very challenging to maintain quality ongoing relationships with your clients on an enterprise level. If you or your sales, service or support staff is tied down to working out of a shared database on a network in a PC environment, you are missing huge opportunities.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools have made fantastic leaps in scalability and have become significantly more user friendly. Without having to sacrifice the comfort of working in a Microsoft environment, many CRMs have the functionality to integrate with Outlook and Word. Software CRMs that are installed on local machines are now being challenged by on-demand web-based CRMs making mobility affordable. Open source CRMs are gaining fast ground to rival “In the Box” vendors because of flexibility and complete customization to fit the way you do business.
4 Mistakes When Considering a CRM System:
• Wrong End of the Binoculars – The goal of your CRM system should be to raise the profitability of revenues: Lowering the cost of customer acquisition, increasing customer lifetime value, and reducing waste in sales, marketing, support and service delivery. Focusing primarily on the cost, rather than the business impact can leave you paralyzed in indecision.
• Goal Overloads – Better to have a very small number of goals for the system, each with a clear owner, metric of success and deadline. Every CRM goal should be prioritized with no ties. After you’ve registered some quick wins that demonstrate results and get users committed to the CRM system, add the next one or two goals as you build the system out incrementally.
• Using NASA Measurements – What proportion of your current business is represented in the CRM database, and how often are users accessing the customer relationship information? The first order of business is user adoption: How quickly and deeply are they using the system? The second order of business is the value of the orders flowing through the system per month.
• Roman World Domination – The warning signs of Caesar/Nero Expectations include: Infrequent project milestones; large, complex, monolithic project deliverables; little consideration of political or change-management issues; or overstated requirements, particularly for scope of system integration or historical data.
Here is a simple quiz to help you have the best perspective going into finding the right CRM:
What would be the net effect to the bottom line if your sales staff could close one percent of the deals they lost last year?
Who would benefit the most if you could reduce the prospect to client funnel by seven days?
What result would you see if your business reallocated 10 percent of its advertising dollars to speak directly to clients who have already bought from you and have confidence in your business, compared to trying to convince total strangers to buy from you?
Would your customer support cost increase or decrease if you could handle each customer issue with one less phone call?
If you are looking for more information on CRMs, here is a list of bloggers who are passionate about CRM:
In difficult economic times, the reaction of many businesses is to panic. Rather than cutting, dropping, and/or eliminating your product lines or services, think about how you can enhance them.
Examples of this line of thinking:
1. Enhance your purpose; rethink how you define it
2. Enhance your prospects; rethink where you find them
3. Enhance your public profile; rethink how you think of others
4. Enhance your business alliances; rethink how you slice up the pie
5. Enhance your client relationships; rethink how you talk with them
6. Enhance your services; rethink where you provide them
7. Enhance your tools; rethink what you create with them
8. Enhance your market; rethink the channels of revenue
9. Enhance your digital space; rethink how people use it
Before you toss one of the essentials of your business, give the most creative people in your organization a shot at rethinking the who, what, where, when and how. If you are about completely give up, bail out, or kick to the curb one of your products or services, go to the most positive, energetic person in the building (maybe the mail guy/girl) and ask them to pull out their 64 pack of Crayola Crayons and scribble as far outside the lines as they want.
When they are done, take off the glasses of the status quo and look closely at what they have come up with. You might be surprised at how they see value in what you were about to hit the delete button on!
If you would like to ask questions but would rather keep them confidential please indicate “Just between you and me” in your comment and I will keep your questions confidential. I have had several people contact me and I value your comments, thanks for keeping the conversation going!
Are you lying? Lying about the fact that despite the conditions of the market, your business will make it using old methods, technologies, or traditions? Maybe your boss is ignoring the need for change and you know it, but you can’t stomach telling her. Maybe your clients or customers are telling you over and over that they aren’t happy, but the cost to retool is too high. When we ignore the signs of change all around us, we are lying to ourselves that we aren’t in desperate need of innovation.
One of my favorite shows on network TV is Fox’s Lie to Me with Tim Roth. The premise of the show is based on the science of observations of micro facial expressions that are made when someone is lying. I find it absolutely fascinating that tiny muscles in one’s face can give away that someone might be hiding something. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, yet you can’t see it because you look at your face every day. Maybe you are choosing to ignore the obvious; maybe it’s time to look in the mirror to gain a different perspective. The reality is that when we look in the mirror, we only see what we want to see.
Where can you find a good mirror? Mirrors come in all shapes and sizes: Mounted on the wall; compact; stand alone; two-way; square; oval. Mirrors are tools of observation. Here’s a few mirrors utilized by proactive businesses:
- Internal Reports – Internal reports generated from your daily transactions can be helpful in pinpointing areas in need of attention or where new opportunities are forming. (Google Analytics is a fantastic web reporting tool for your website if you don’t have one already.) Most of us have tons of reports, we just don’t know how to pull out the useful data within them.
- Internal Survey Groups – Take a non-management member from each section, team, or department in your organization and assign the group a topic/question to observe over a given period (Nine weeks is a good benchmark). Allow your team members to meet once a week to discuss how their department process affects the selected topic/question. Assign a facilitator to each group to keep the group on target. At the end of the allotted time, have the group present their findings to a panel comprised of all levels of management/ownership. The results will surprise you!
- Client Feedback Forms – These can take many forms such as printed comment cards or electronic emails generated after specific transactions or interactions. The faster the feedback is received, the opportunity to make adjustments or corrections can be made. Delegate someone to follow through with each comment or feedback. A well constructed feedback process is essential!
- Secret Shoppers – Many restaurants and retail shops hire people to evaluate their staff and facilities, but this format can be modeled for any professional field as well. Craigslist is a good resource to find secret shoppers. Another way to secret shop is to secret shop the competition. Through emails, or phone calls, or walk-through visits, have one of your staff visit the competition and evaluate the same area or department they work in. How they are treated by someone in their own field can be very enlightening. Have them report back to their section about their experience.
- Business Consultants – If your business doesn’t have the staff resources to complete the ideas listed above, a Business Consultant is an excellent option. Assign them the task of gathering together all of the pieces of your puzzle. As an outsider looking in, business consultants have a unique perspective and are trained to observe, analyze, and to give honest feedback on your products, processes, and people. Empower them to be the facilitator or catalyst for change that you want to make.
Try This: Print this blog entry out and take it to one of your staff and have them read it aloud. Watch their face as they read it. See anything that jumps out at you? Are you in the business of observation?
