Jacob S. Paulsen.com

In 2006 I read Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service and it changed forever the way I think of quality customer service. I’ve been reflecting recently on some real life examples of customer service. Here they are:

Disney has traditionally set a standard for good customer service. On Cyber Monday we ordered a toy from the Disney website in order to take advantage of the special deals and free shipping. When it arrived in the mail it seemed a little beat up. There were dings and scratches in the paint. All around it just didn’t look brand new. We emailed Disney requesting an exchange or refund. They told us to donate the toy to a local charity and informed us they had shipped us out another one.

Zappos.com recently came through for some of my relatives. After ordering an expensive set of knives one arrived in the mail damages. Zappos sent a replacement over night. After discovering that the same set of knives was almost $300 cheaper on a different website, Zappos agreed to credit the difference back despite not having any policy in place requiring them to do so.

We recently called on a local company to clear our carpets before our family came for Christmas. We found the company, called Oxi-Fresh, in a direct mail advertisement. They were cheap and cleaned two rooms for $120. The technician was friendly and professional. After the carpet started to dry we noticed some spots that hadn’t come out. We have two young children and a dog and we just felt disappointed that the carpets weren’t cleaner than they were. A few weeks later my wife was asked to take an online survey about the carpet cleaning and she mentioned that we had not been satisfied with the results. After about a week we received a phone call and were asked if they could come back out and clean the carpets again at no extra cost. The second round went much better and the carpets looked spotless. We are now raving fans of Oxi-Fresh carpet cleaners.

No matter what type of business you are in or what your capacity may be; good customer service is in everyone’s job description. Sometimes the best way to win a life long customer is to go the extra mile to take care of the customers who have the negative experiences. You may have a lot of competitors with the same product but you can always set yourself apart with your outstanding customer service!

If you recently started a blog or have a website you may be looking for creative ways to generate revenue. As I considered all the various ways to make money online I was able to boil it down to just three generic methods. As you review the concepts and some of the specific examples, consider how you can execute all these opportunities to maximize your own websites and blogs.

1. Sold Content. Every website provides some level of content to its visitors. This may include video, text, images, etc. Anyone who sells a product and believes that your website visitors are among their target market, may consider paying you to introduce that product. Here are some of the more common types of content that you can sell from your website.
1. Reviews. In some cases this may involve your client submitting exact copy for you to publish or they may rely on you to write a high quality review based on your true experience with their product. Generally this means you will receive a complimentary product above and beyond the investment you secure to produce the review.
2. Email Blasts. If you have an email list of your website visitors you can sell email blasts to that list. Generally these are priced by the number of sends and clients will be interested in your average delivery rate, open ratios, and ctr.
3. Social Media Mentions. More and more often advertisers are willing to pay for your social media endorsement or mention. Awhile back I reviewed SponsoredTweets, but there are many different ad networks and direct advertisers who are interested in this type of publicity.
2. Sold Advertising. These are the traditional advertising options you notice on other websites.
1. Banners. Banners offer advertisers a great way to brand their business while driving web traffic. Generally advertising buy a number of impressions, clicks, or actions.
2. Rich Media. This could include various video integration options, or other media above and beyond traditional banners. The benefits tend to be similar to banner advertising but offer more opportunities for engaging with customers and getting out a message.
3. In Text Links. In text links are gaining in popularity. Advertisers can select existing text on a page or post of your site and pay you to hyperlink that text string to their site. They may also pay you to add a new text link in a page, post, or in your footer. Advertisers like in text links because they don’t tend to annoy web visitors as much, they drive direct traffic, and they help in search engine optimization efforts. Generally these are sold at a fixed price per time period or by the click.
3. Sold Products
1. E-Commerce. This is relatively straight forward. If you have a product you can sell it online. The quickest product to turn a profit on is an information product. It requires no production since buyers download it and thus your profit margin is higher. You can also become a retailer for a wholesale product. Many wholesalers will even drop ship the product directly to your buyer. This makes you the perfect middle man, just taking your margin and processing the sale.

I’m sure that I’ve missed an angle or idea that you may be able to implement. Hopefully this gives you a generic outline that will spark some new ideas to make money from your websites!

Klout recently published a list of the top 10 most influential retailers this holiday season. Consider that in order to be influential these retailers must engage customers in conversation. I imagine that this is a significant customer service channel for most of these businesses but its also a revenue generator. They ask customers what is left on their Christmas gift list and offer coupon codes and specials.

Top Ten Retailers:

1. Amazon.com: Klout score of 82
2. Victoria’s Secret: Klout score of 75
3. jcpenney: Klout score of 75
4. Sports Authority: Klout score of 74
5. Walgreens: Klout score of 73
6. HSN: Klout score of 72
7. ThinkGeek: Klout score of 72
8. BestBuy: Klout score of 72
9. Target: Klout score of 72
10. Macys: Klout score of 71

Source: http://corp.klout.com/blog/2011/12/the-10-most-influential-retailers/

Google has launched www.howtogomo.com to help users understand the key components in launching a mobile website. There are a lot of helpful resources you can read to help you understand why and how you can go mobile. My favorite feature is the mobile simulator. Unless you develop smartphone apps, most of us have never had access to a system that allows us to see what any given website looks like on a smartphone. Because this is a Google website, you will see how your site appears on Android but generally speaking you can assume that the site would load in the same format etc on iPhones and other smartphones.

When I first visited the site I was in Firefox (not generally my browser of choice) and none of the links were working for me. I switched to Chrome and the site took off! I went right to the “Test Your Site” link or “GoMoMeter” as it is being called. I input my site jacobspaulsen.com and waited while it generated a demo image of how my site appears. After answering a few questions about the site it gave me a score and some interesting data about loading speed.

I downloaded the full report and it had some advice on how to design a mobile site. Very little of the information seemed to be specific to my site but the content was good just the same.

HowToGoMo.com also features a directory of industry reputable mobile designers to help companies and individuals build and design a high quality mobile site. For agencies there is some good information about how you can direct your clients.

This is a strong step for Google to emphasize the importance of the upcoming mobile changes we are going to see in the next several years. M-Commerce is the future and small businesses everyone need to get on the bandwagon!

At my organization we are planning a new year workshop to help the sales team plan for 2012. Its important to help your team and your department focus on whats important. No matter how many books you have read or how many seminars you have been to; we all need reminders and time to “sharpen the saw.”

The outline below is an adaptation of Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as it may apply to media sales. Use this outline and adapt it for your industry and business.

Habit 1: Be Proactive: Principles of Personal Vision

1. The first step in creating strong income is pro-activity.
2. Create a lifestyle that helps you meet new leads. Make calling on new leads a top priority.
3. Identifying potential conflicts or issues that will slow you down and addressing them with potential solutions to management.
4. Take accountability for your results. You are the factor of your success or failure.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Leadership

1. Deciding early on what your objectives are. What do you truly wish to accomplish in your job?
2. Creating a mission statement that reflects your goals as a sales professional.
3. Beginning each event, activity, or meeting knowing what you want to get out of it.
4. Foreseeing possible problems with retention, discouragement, accounting, traffic, etc.
5. Taking the proper steps to prepare to be an effective sales person and marketing consultant.

Habit 3: Put First Things First: Principles of Personal Management

1. Understanding the four quadrants of effective production and knowing how to apply that to our business. Focusing on Revenue Producing Activities!
2. Creating habits of time management and effective planning.
3. Reserving time for all your roles in life, so as not to neglect anything.
4. Setting time aside each week for Prospecting, Service, and Production, and Education/Training.

Habit 4: Think Win/Win: Principles of Interpersonal Leadership

1. Commit yourself to Win/Win or no deal. Agree to sell clients who you need as clients and who need your stations.
2. You must listen first. Discover who the client is and what problems they have in their business. Look for the solutions in your stations.
3. Each part of the media buying experience has to be a new win. Show the client how accounting, production, and reporting is a win for them.
4. Train the client to respect your time and learn to respect theirs.
5. Understand how to create win win situations with other departments in the company.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

1. Seek to understand the situation of each client. Find out what they want out of the advertising and what has brought them far enough to listen to you.
2. Practice active listening skills. Truly listen to your clients and your team members to best understand their desires.
3. Continue building a relationship with your clients to develop trust and credibility through listening to, and understanding them.
4. Only when the client trusts you and believes you understand them, and have their best interests in mind, will they follow you.

Habit 6: Synergize Principles of Creative Communication

1. Create environments of synergy with traffic, production, promotion, and accounting.
2. Practice habits 4 & 5 in making synergistic moments happen.
3. Synergize with each client individually to get full buy in.
4. Seek out potential synergistic activities, such as creative meetings, brainstorming sessions, etc.
5. Understand the unique abilities/responsibilities that each of our departments have, and think of how best to utilize them.
6. Seek out the very best training in the industry and in your company from the top leaders.

Habit 7 Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

1. Set aside Monthly, Weekly, and Daily planning and evaluation sessions.
2. Renew your commitments and covenants in all aspects of life through sincere evaluation.
3. Evaluate the best and less effective practices that you have been using in prospecting, retaining, and up selling your clients.
4. Review this and other handouts and notes that will increase your effectiveness in prospecting, retaining, and up selling your clients.

In my series of Internet Basics videos by Google I wanted to introduce the topic of Google Webmaster Tools and Google XML sitemaps.

When you first build a site you need to submit it to Google so that it can be indexed. Google can more easily index your site if you have a sitemap. Since the recording of this video several years ago, Google has created a robust and helpful dashboard of tools called Google Webmaster Tools. Check it out.

I have always enjoyed the consumer experience that Apture brought to the visitors on my websites. You have probably had some engagement with Apture without ever noticing it. Apture was a system designed to give sure users more information about keywords or links in a popup window. This served to help the user get the information they need quickly and it kept them on the page longer or in some cases kept them on the site when they might have left otherwise.

Now, I have received an email from Apture informing me that they have been aquired by Google. Here is a copy of the email.

Hi there,

We’re writing to let you know that Apture has been acquired by Google.

Since day one, we’ve been working on getting the Apture experience into as much of the web as possible. While we’re proud of having helped thousands of publishers enhance their websites, we think now is the best time to expand our efforts by joining Google’s Chrome team to help build the next generation user experience directly into the web.

On December 20 we will discontinue Apture’s product and services. When this happens, users will no longer be able to highlight and search terms with Apture on your web pages. Your website will continue to work as normal even after our service is suspended; however, you are free to remove the Apture script code from your site as well.

We want to thank you personally for your support and positive feedback over the years, and we hope you’ll stay tuned for some amazing new Chrome experiences coming your way.

You can view the announcement here on our homepage, or check the FAQ below.

Sincerely,

The Apture Team

FAQ:

When Apture’s service is discontinued, will that break my website or cause problems for users?

Nope, your pages will continue to load normally, but users will no longer be able to highlight and look up terms using Apture.

What will happen to data Apture has collected from my websites?

All data from your website has been deleted.

What will happen to Apture AutoEnhance links and Hotspots after Apture’s service is discontinued?

After December 20th, Apture Hotspots will no longer appear on your website and all AutoEnhance links will appear as regular links.

I find myself more often than not using my website as a resource to answer questions for my clients. 90% of the time when a client asks me something about internet marketing, I can find the answer in an article I’ve already written and just send them the link. For this reason, I’m going to publish a few articles in the next few days that contain the most common “straight from Google” tutorial videos.

This video entitled “How Search Works” reviews search engine basics. Matt Cutts, who is featured in the video has become a bit of a Google celebrity. He is my favorite person on Google Plus

Its the time of year when I start thinking about my goals for the upcoming year. In 2011 I set a goal to read 50 new books and I’m on track to hit my goal. I’ve learned that this goal has caused me to rush through books and get much less from the content than I otherwise would. In looking forward into 2012 I wanted to set a goal to get much more value from far fewer books.

As it will be the year 2012 and there are 12 months in the year it seemed fitting to me to reach exactly 12 books, one each month. As I spent the last two weeks contemplating how I would get absolute maximum value from 12 books, two things occured to me. First that my best strategy would be to start/join a book group that would all read the same books together. This allows for great discussion and insight which increases growth dramatically. The second thing that occured to me is that the best leader of such a book group would be the authors of each of the books we read.

In order to convince significant authors to take the time (without any compensation) to guide a month long discussion about their book I realized that we would need a significant enough group of people in the book club so as to offer the author high exposure and potential for book sells. Thus the goal was refined to find 12,000 other people to read 12 books with me, being lead by the author of each of the 12 books.

I spent last week talking to key friends of mine who I know share my passion for reading business and personal development books. They helped me refine the plans and strategies and they helped me make the first contact with some great authors who have awesome books that we would like to read.

So far we have two great authors committed, including Bruce H Jackson the author of “Finding Your Flow;” and Erik Qualman the author of “Socialnomics” who is realeasing a new book next month.

If you want to change your life in 2012 you need to get involved. If you don’t want to pass on the amazing opportunity to be lead in 12 book discussions by the authors themselves you need to get involved. Visit www.12booksin2012.com and sign up now. Spread the word. Remember that the level of value that each of us will recieve as part of the book group will depend both on the total amount of discussion and the leadership and genius of each author. In other words, SPREAD THE WORD! Utilize Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your email and more to tell everyone you know about this once in a lifetime opportunity!

If you have direct contact with or access to authors whom you feel would have a lot to offer to our group please don’t hesitate to contact me!

Jacob S Paulsen

When it comes to a networking event I’m as guilty as anyone else. My day is busy and when I go to a mid-day luncheon or other type of event, I just want to go to my table, sit down, and check emails on my phone until its over. I recently felt the sting of guilt when I was at an event considering the opportunities that I’ve missed and the wasted investment of myself or my employers when I’ve attended such functions. I have been searching the internet looking for the best tips and insights from experts and today I’d like to summarize what I have gleaned. Please don’t hesitate to share additional insights or tips in the comments below.

Preparing for your next Networking Event:

• Stock up on business cards and make sure they are accessible in a shirt pocket or hand bag.
• Make sure that you have a pen handy. You may need to write down contact information of a newly made contact who is without a business card. You may also want to take notes from the presentation.
• Make yourself identifiable as a member of your group or company. Perhaps there is a tie, lapel pin, embroidered shirt, etc that will help identify you as a member of your organization. Wear your name tag when provided with one.

During the Networking Event:

•  Avoid gravitating toward people that you know. Often current acquaintances can be helpful in introducing you to someone new but it will help you remember why you are there if you avoid seeking out those people in the beginning.
• Approach people who are alone or in smaller groups. Someone standing by themselves is much easier to approach and they will be grateful for someone to talk to. If you do approach people in groups wait to be invited before entering the conversation
• Focus on making a few high quality contacts rather than trying to gather as many business cards as you can.
• When conversing make eye contact and practice real listening. Try to learn more about the other person and avoid talking about yourself and your company.
• The best place for networking is near the main door or the food. Avoid approaching people who are moving toward an exit.

Following the Networking Event:

• Write on the back of your acquired business cards to indicate where you met that person. Also write any specific details about them that may help you recall who they are.
• Seek out your newly made contacts on LinkedIn and, when appropriate, on Facebook and Twitter as well.
• Within 48 hours send a short email to let them know you were grateful to meet them. Include your contact information in the email in case they have misplaced your business card.