Prior to last week, I’ve known my mom to cry only three times: at the funeral of each of her parents and on February 13, 2010 – the day she realized she’d been putting up with my dad for 50 years.

I kid!

Seriously, though – mom’s not a crier. She’s kind, hard-working, helpful, thoughtful, volunteers at a local food pantry, reads books, cooks and gardens. She is not technically savvy. She does not cry.

Last week, Best Buy made my mom cry.

Is it any wonder reports of their slow demise litter the inter webs?

Okay, technically the corporation didn’t make my mom cry. Trish did.

Just like Papa John’s racial troubles over the weekend, it wasn’t the fault of the entire company. In both cases, one rude idiot launched 1000 words (or more in Papa John’s case … 406 in mine).

Trish – in the Geek Squad – at the Champaign, Illinois location. I’m not redacting her last name to be polite. I just don’t know it. If I did, I’d include it, along with her home phone, address, social security number, PIN #, blood type and known allergies.

After years of good customer service with Geek Squad – and a very pleasant and apologetic follow-up from someone else after Poopyhead Trish brought my mom to tears – it only took one bad experience for mom to tell me and for me to tell you.

Appropriately, I’m delivering a talk on Tuesday to one of my client’s company meetings about what it takes to perform legendary customer service.

Guess what little anecdote I’m starting with to put them in the right frame of mind?

But, what my client may not yet know, is that legendary customer service has a whole lot more to do with the employer than the employees.

As Roy used to say, “A fish stinks from the head down.”

So, I’m devoting the next two weeks to customer service.

Day by day, I’m going to reveal the presentation sections – the stuff I’m including in the talk I’m giving Tuesday. A week from Friday – January 20th – I’ll make a video of the presentation available. If time permits, I’ll make up an eBook, too.

I’ll start by asking you who you think provides exemplary customer service? I asked my friends on Facebook, and I’ll share their answers tomorrow.

And I’ll finish by saying: Trish? if I find out where you live, I’m putting spiders in your air vents and snakes in your bed.

I’ve been getting Adrian Van Zelfden’s “Tidbits in Time” emails for several years. He’s a huge history buff and he enjoys a historical almanac to the point that he started sending out a monthly missive to share his celebration of what happened when. He started by sending it to his friends. None of that opt-in stuff, just a “hey, you might enjoy this as much as I do” kind of spirit. And, when you get an email, any email, from the smartest CPA/Lawyer around, what do you do? You open it and read it.

For his friends who also happen to own businesses, he started putting a section at the end “For Business Owners Only.”

The December issue had a 12-page, single-spaced PDF attached to it full of Adrian’s best Year-End advice to business owners. As I skimmed and scanned it, I knew that this was information that would be helpful to a lot of my readers, so I got Adrian to join me for conversation and this podcast is the result.

If you’d simply like to get to know Adrian, you could bail out after 15 minutes or so when we start to get our hands dirty in the numbers.

If you’d like a copy of his checklist, go to Adrian Van Zelfden’s Facebook Page, Tidbits in Time and click on the “Join My List” link in the left column. He’s also given me permission to send it out, so if you join my list you’ll also get a copy. A third option is to go to vanzelfden.com and shoot him an email. You’ll get a good sense of his dry humor if you google the latin phrase in the header of that page.

So…how good is he?

In 30 years of helping clients with taxes and going with them to countless IRS audits, he’s often walked out with the IRS owing his clients money. More importantly, he’s never lost a dime of his client’s money in an audit. That is, his record is perfect. He’s never had a worse outcome than having the IRS say, “Yep, this tax return is just fine. No changes.” Damn. That’s good.

I like doing interviews that get me a bit out of my comfort zone. Finances, taxes, government…you get the idea. For an example, if you haven’t listened to my interview with Pamela Yellen, you missed out on her surefire way to grow your cash without exposing yourself to risk. And now, I hope you enjoy Adrian and that you find his timely advice worthwhile as you seek to keep more of that hard-earned money for yourself while staying out of trouble with the IRS.

Well, maybe not smack around.  But it did involve shaking my finger and saying things like, “Stop it.”

It all had to do with what I’ve written posts about in the past: giving your employees the authority to grow your business.

I was in a meeting with the client, who owns three retail stores in a large city.  During our afternoon meeting with the management team, I inquired as to how the employee authority program we set up is going.

One of the managers brought up a situation in the store she manages, discussing a family who shops there regularly.  The family has a unique situation in that the father recently returned from service in Afghanistan, where he was injured and is now undergoing extensive rehabilitation.

“The family is really great,” the manager told me.  “I really admire the mom, keeping it all together.  Some days she looks so frazzled.  We thought maybe we could do something for them, so I came up with the idea of a gift certificate to a nice restaurant so that she wouldn’t have to cook for one night.”

“Great idea,” I replied.  “So, how did it go?”

“We didn’t do it.”

“You didn’t do it?  Why not?”

At this point, the manager innocently glanced over at the boss.  “Well, we talked about it and asked Mr. BossMan what he thought.  He didn’t really care for the idea, so we didn’t do it.”

Here is where the finger shaking started.

An employee authority program will NEVER work unless the employee has complete authority.

Have a great idea to make a customer feel good?  Does it fit within the monthly budget prescribed for customer feel-good marketing?  DO IT.

Don’t think it to death.  And above all, DON’T ASK THE BOSS FOR PERMISSION.

JUST. DO. IT.

It is the BossMan’s responsibility to “cut the cord” with management and staff on customer satisfaction marketing.  Any boss worth his/her weight has to constantly drill employees on how great they are, and how much trust there is to do the right thing for customers.

This is a marketing idea that costs little and can be budgeted using marketing dollars.  It requires little from BossMan other than reminding employees that they have the authority to solve problems or make a customer’s day a little happier.

You see employee authority programs in use all around you.  Starbucks.  Zappo’s.  Ritz Carlton Hotels. Yes, they’re big companies.  How do you think they got that way?

Seriously.  Think about it.  THEN DO IT.

How did I get so much revenue from a number that was disconnected? The number came from a business that had been around for many years before it closed.  The owner retired and could not sell it. This phone number had ads in several current and past phone books. There were also stickers all over the area with their phone numbers on them. That equipment would eventually need service or replacement. We hoped they would contact us through the old number and they did.

There are many reasons to acquire disconnected phone numbers, the biggest one is the potential access to thousands of customers that were serviced by the old company. You pick up access to these customers for a fraction of what you would have to spend advertising for them. Even if the homeowners moved, the stickers on the equipment stayed with the house.  Some people kept old invoices and refrigerator magnets for years. They all had the old company’s phone number on them.

Many times we mistakenly think our customers know everything we do, but this is not usually the case. Most people will never know a business is closed until they need their services again. After you reactivate a disconnected phone number, just pick up where the old business left off. Make sure your call takers are scripted on how to handle calls that come in from old business. If handled correctly, customers won’t be too concerned about the change as long as you take care of their needs.

Finding disconnected phone numbers is easy. All it takes is a little finger exercise. Take out a phone book and call all the numbers in your category as well as any related categories. Make sure you call from an unknown or blocked number. You don’t want your competition to know you are calling them.

Use a tracking sheet to record how they answered. Think of this process not only as marketing, but as research. You want to know how professionally they answered their phone. Did it go to a machine or answering service? Do their people answer your call and take control, or do they appear not to care? Is there a busy signal, or no answering machine? You may be surprised at what you find out by doing this exercise.

When you do find a disconnected number, you want to convert that number to your business. Here are some steps to do that.

1-      Call the phone company to see if you can get that number immediately. Some phone companies won’t give you the number until after it has been disconnected for 6 months to a year. Find out the exact date that it is available and mark it on your marketing calendar. Make sure you call early on that day to get the number.

2-      If you can find the former owner, offer him some money to have the phone company release the number to you earlier. Consider offering him some money for his old customer records also.

3-      Sometimes the phone number is connected to a huge ad in the phone book that wasn’t paid for. Offer the phone company a small percentage of the cost of the ad if they give you the number (20-30%). If you don’t get results from one phone employee, talk to another. Some employees don’t have the authority to make that decision. Any money is better than no money.

4-      Train your call takers on how to properly convert the calls from the old business.

5-      Treat these new customers like gold and that should take away most of the concerns they have.

If someone already has an old number and they are not the competition, offer to buy the number from them and pay all their costs to change the numbers. Ask them how many calls they get a week looking for the old business. This information should help you know how much to pay for the number.

If they don’t want to sell the number, ask them if they would refer the calls to you. Tell them you will pay a referral fee. Your highly trained call takers should be able to keep track of all referrals.

We used to go through this exercise every 1-3 months. Acquiring a discontinued phone number reduced our overall lead cost and was worth the effort. Consider doing it yourself the first time before passing it off to an employee. Personally listening to the phone answering of your competitors may offer some insights into your own phone practices. Now, let your fingers do the walking.

I am currently working on a business plan with my client, Tony. I have permission from him to share this story. As we were working on the business plan, we started to reminisce about how we became friends. I remember it well.  I had just opened a new recording studio.  One week later, Tony moved in next door to open a new small engine repair shop. My Grammy award winning partner was less than thrilled about the idea of someone revving up lawn mowers while he was recording hit songs. Fortunately, Tony closes his business at 5:00pm, which coincidentally happens to be about the same time most of my musician friends are rolling out of bed.  End of that conflict.

Tony is a great guy; he never forgets your name. The moment you meet him you feel like you’re his best friend. When you come to his shop, he drops whatever he’s doing to quickly greet you at your vehicle.  Tony loves his new business. His friendly nature quickly increased the workload. More work kept coming in. Like most optimistic business people, Tony felt he could handle anything. Bring it on. He continued to work harder and harder doing all the repairs while running the business.

As the months passed, Tony became buried in work. He started to fall behind on a lot of the different business tasks he was responsible for. He had to wear too many hats. In less than a year, his business wasn’t fun anymore.  Physically and mentally exhausted, he was ready to throw in the towel. Tony felt defeated and started to make simple mistakes. His phenomenal memory and friendly nature made it easy for people to forgive him, but he couldn’t rely on that for too long.  This is not what he thought owning a business was supposed to be like.

Being a great guy doesn’t qualify you to run a business. If Tony didn’t learn how to run his business soon, he would be in serious trouble. He recognized he needed help. One day he approached me in a panic and asked for help to figure out what to do.

I jumped right in. I talked to him about business planning and the positive effects it would have on his business. He would have to start seriously thinking about things like sales, marketing, budgets, and schedules. He would need systems and procedures put in place to operate his business more effectively. I promised him that if he did these things, his life would get better and his business would soon be profitable. Tony stopped me there and moaned, “that all sounds great, but could you show me how I can pay my rent next month?” It was then I realized Tony didn’t need a business plan, he needed a survival plan!

Tony wasn’t worried about the future; he was worried about the present. If he couldn’t improve his present situation, there wouldn’t be any future. His problem wasn’t caused by dwindling sales in an ongoing recession, but by not having a plan in place to handle the business he already had. For the survival plan to work, we would have to do a massive amount of triage.

Merriam-Webster defines triage as (paraphrased): the sorting and allocation of treatment to patients of battle or disaster according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors.

Tony’s business was going to need triage and I was going to be chief medical officer. We had to look at all the problems in the business operation. Triage requires quick decisions, and time is critical. To reduce the risks of causalities, we had to rank all the problems in order of their importance and worth. All available resources would have to be allocated correctly. This was a battle for the health of his business.

Business owners like Tony can easily work themselves into a box. The more ineffective the busy work he did, the smaller the box got. He started to feel trapped as the walls closed in on every side. The weight of the box itself was taking him down and his view became so dark that he could see no way out. He became blinded to doing simple tasks that would have relieved a lot of the pressure.

I have a friend who works in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. I asked him to tell me the secret to helping his clients. He told me that he has to get inside his patient’s mind and see the world the way they see it. Once he understands the world from their perspective, he could lead them out into present day reality.

For me to help Tony, I needed to see his perspective on the business. If I correctly understood his world view, I could safely lead him in the right direction; this would save a lot of critical time. I believe a lot of times we prescribe a cure for someone before we understand their view of the problem. We will tell people what they need to do to run a marathon, but if they don’t know how to take their next step, running even a block would seem impossible.

For you to do effective triage:

1-Recognize you are in over your head and cannot solve the problems by yourself.

2-Ask for help from someone who can solve problems.

3-Take time to accurately assess each problem.

4-Prioritize all the tasks to be done.

5-Use all of your available resources to speed up the process.

6-Have faith that your problems can be fixed.

7-Start to fix the problems one at a time.

8-Put systems and procedures in place to make sure you don’t have these same problems in the future.

Times up. In the next article, I will explain the steps we took to gain some sanity in Tony’s life. Tune in next time to….As The Business World Turns. Episode 2, Tony sees the light!

Do you like the idea of supporting local businesses?

Is that like asking a politician if he’s for more jobs and against crime?

But … and it’s an awfully big but … your locally-owned business has got to meet me MORE than halfway. Sorry if that seems unfair. Heck, it is unfair.

Get over it.

One local restaurant urges folks to get on board to help them beat the chains. “Chains are bad. We are good.” That sorta thing.

To wit:

• Twice before the holidays, I called for delivery and was greeted with ‘hello?’
• Both times, it sounded kind of like I was bothering them by trying to offer them money.
• I asked if I was, indeed, calling the restaurant. Both times, I was greeted with a self-righteous, “yeah.”
• The second time, I was abruptly cut off twice when asking simple questions.
• Neither time did the phone person say ‘thank you’ or ‘good bye.’ Each time, they simply hung up.

Help you beat the chains? Help yourself.

<insert Superfriends transition sounder> Meanwhile …

One of those nasty chains – Target – answered the phone over the holidays at not one, but two different stores in two different towns by nicely saying,

“Hello, this is Target. What can I help you find today?”

That’s right. A real, live, human being person answered. No automated phone tree. Also no hangups or entitled, snippy, self-righteousness.

Target obviously had a system in place. How exactly was that evil? That’s like calling kittens evil.

Your locally-owned business has got to meet me more than halfway.

Or you’ll lose.

It’s not a temporary inconvenience. It’s the new reality of your business, and you best embrace it and – more importantly – develop chain-like, repeatable systems to do it better.

Remember, in this age and day, whether you deliver an exceptionally good or bad experience, social media will only accelerate the inevitable.

And spare me your righteous indignation.

There’s too often a chip on the local shoulder that teeters into defeatist whining. If certain local merchants mustered all that whine-energy and channeled it instead toward improving the customer experience, they’d have much less about which to whine.

I want to celebrate our independents. I really do. I’m sure you feel the same way to one degree or another. Help me, please.

‘Thank you.’

I remember looking for work when I was young. The work may have not been romantic or prestigious, but it gave me money. Money allowed me freedom at an early age. Freedom to do the things I wanted to and buy the things my parents wouldn’t get me. I delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, worked on farms, shoveled snow, painted, and many other things. I did whatever I could do to have cash in my pocket.  When someone said they needed something done, I said I could do it. If I didn’t know how to do the job, I found someone to teach me. Some of these jobs turned into full time companies with employees.

How did I get these jobs? I went out knocking on doors. I made phone calls. I talked with whoever would listen. I never gave up. I wanted money, and I was going to find a way to get it. I simply found a need and filled it. There will always be people who need things done for them.  To find out what they need, ask some questions: What chores or service do they need done?  Are you willing to pay me to do them? When would they like them done? Ask these 3 questions long enough and you will be busy.

There are many types of services you could provide at little or no start up costs. Babysitting, pet walking, house sitting, and cleaning are some services. Maybe start a shopping service for people that do not have the time to shop or are unable to do it themselves. Help people sell things on Ebay or Craigslist. Look at doing lawn care, maintenance, message delivery, or vehicle detailing. Any one of these part time activities could easily become a full time business. These full time businesses can provide you with greater security and more enjoyment than you might get working somewhere else.

There are many ways to market your service for little money. Don’t give in to conventional thinking.  You could email your friends and relatives. Tell them what you are doing. Ask if they know of anyone who could use your services. Put an ad in Craigslist. Do not write the ordinary ad, write a great ad! Print cards and fliers on your computer. Hand them out or paste them on bulletin boards around town. Knock on doors. The main thing is to be committed to getting the word out and doing whatever it takes to succeed.

Consider providing these services to businesses as well as homeowners. People are hungry for great service. Providing exceptional service is a key ingredient that will get you repeat customers as well as referrals. There is a lot of competition in giving lousy service, but little or no competition in giving great service.

I have been helping businesses and individuals find work for years. The process is not really that hard.  If you have never done anything like this before, start on a part time basis and see if it is something you want to do. Get creative and get going.

Action steps.
-Find a service people want and are willing to pay for.
-Make an action plan and commit to it.
-Acquire the tools necessary to complete the service.
-Market your service to acquire customers.
-Deliver the service.
-Collect the money.
-Ask for referrals.
-Repeat the process.

If you are willing to do the hard things that most people are unwilling to do, you will be successful. I wish you well. Now if I can only get my teenagers off the computer long enough to do it.

Steve Sorenson is a Wizard of Ads partner living in Hawaii. You may contact him at stevesorenson@wizardofads.com

An article from Brandchanel.com

It all started with a phone call Jack Dorsey received from a friend, a small business owner frustrated because he couldn’t easily accept a credit card payment from a customer. Dorsey is not one to let opportunities pass him by. The co-founder of Twitter and two colleagues came up with a prototype for a mobile phone-based payment system.

Yesterday Dorsey unveiled “Square” — via a tweet, of course. Square is just that, a really small plastic square that plugs into the headphone jack of an iPhone. Swipe a credit card through the device and the payment information is transmitted via an iPhone application. The product is now in beta; applications are expected to be available for the new Droid and Blackberry phones by early 2010.

The brilliance of Square is that it can work on any mobile device via an application, but no information is stored on the device. That’s all done through a “person-to-person” payment system Dorsey designed from the ground up.

Dorsey tells GigaOM’s Om Malik that Square is intended to be a service both to merchants and consumers. In fact, any consumer can become a merchant, since “Square owners are authenticated and attached to a bank account, much like PayPal.” Dorsey offers the example of a Craigslist transaction: A buyer arrives to purchase a couch that may cost a few hundred dollars. Instead of the buyer carrying cash, he can pay the seller with a credit card through Square.

Om Malik sees Square as a potential game-changer in a world that increasingly depends on non-cash transactions:

The marriage of computing and connectivity without the shackles of being tethered to a location is one of the biggest disruptive forces of modern times. It is (and will continue) to redefine business models, for decades. Square is simply riding these waves.”

Apparently others agree: Dorsey reportedly already has lined up investors  who are putting $10 million into the San Francisco start-up. In this economy, that’s something to tweet about.

Separately, the measurement company will announce in the coming weeks a timeline for tracking Web video viewing that will ultimately help media companies and agencies see viewing behavior between the TV and Web more clearly.

The end game would be monetizing Web viewing of TV more effectively as Nielsen prepares to develop a new model for C3, or commercial ratings, that would include shows watched online. The idea of tracking consumers’ media habits on TV and online is referred to as single-source measurement. Nielsen already tracks Web viewing, as do ComScore and other players, via separate services that are not associated with its TV sample.

Nielsen held a meeting with clients in October to hear their thoughts on where Nielsen ought to be putting its efforts in terms of tracking single-source Web usage. The overwhelming feedback was that Nielsen move faster.

While the August 2010 target date might be slightly later than some cable entertainment channels had hoped for, since their peak viewing occurs in June, it is still a radical improvement on the previous timeline of year’s end. The company will begin adding to the existing 375 TV and PC homes on December 23 and has drafted extra staff in order to meet the more aggressive timeline.

The meters work by requiring panelists to log in so that their every Web move can be attributed to a single individual. The meters will also have the ability to recognize Nielsen’s audio codes.

“It is an estimate but we expect to [track] 20,000 people and 7,500 households and they would account for 12,000 computers,” said Sara Erichson, president of Media Cleint Services North America, in an interview.