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Casual Articles - The Reality of Customer Service in America and Best Efforts in Franchising, We Can Do Better
Two years ago, I was struggling to make a living and my business was failing. The bills were piling up, and I started to think that it was time to find a job. I will never forget the moment when the light bulb went on in my head and I understood what was wrong.My business doubled that year, and has more than doubled over the past year. How did I do it?If you are serious about doubling your business in 2006, read on. I want to share with you the basic concepts that have helped my business explode since those dark days two years ago.I still remember the conversation that changed my thinking and my business. I was talking to a sales person who was trying to sell me something for my business and he said to me “the sales person who is the most successful is not the one who closes the sale now, but the one who closes the sale in 3 months, or 6 months, or 1 year.”He was talking about the concept of database management. Whether you like it or not, if you are in business, you are a sales person. So this leads to the first essential thing you must do right now in order to double your business in 2006:Build a Database
One, which started out quite small with a story of perseverance and hard work. The founder I had met personally about five years back at an International Franchise Association Meeting in 1997. Also had been top of the food chain literally in many Franchise Surveys in highly read magazines on Entrepreneurship. Apparently the owner of this franchise must not have been screened properly. With a Bumper Sticker which said; “live better, work uni
A freight forwarding best practice charter will be signed in Paris this June committing the signatories to sustainable logistics methods. This is part of the new freight forwarding programme that Paris has been developing over the last five years. The city wants to develop its logistics services and use cleaner ways of transporting freight.The underlying aim of the programme is to both improve the environmental impact of freight forwarding whilst at the same time meeting the needs of the freight forwarding industry.The programme was deemed necessary owing to the amount of pollution produced by freight forwarding. Freight forwarding has been shown to be the cause of over 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions.As a result of the programme, by next year vehicles that cause a lot of pollution and are over a certain size will only be able to operate within certain hours. Within three years, certain vehicles will be prohibited altogether and night time deliveries will have to conform to noise regulations.In addition to this, the issue of parking in the city will also be addressed. Freight forwarders will have to un
Everyone thought he was rich? The customers and employees of the shop, I could tell by their gawking of the vehicle. He did not attempt to play down that observation, careful to glance at his Rolex watch and hit the alarm and walk with a tint of arrogance. Everyone was staring at his Lexus with all the bells and whistles. A Lexus built in Japan, and part of the reason for displaced autoworkers and auto parts manufactures in America, not to mention the closing of the plant in the next city. It was five minutes to closing, he drives up and I drive up. He cuts me off so I could not get into the parking space while I was initiating my final turn. So I backed up and found another one. Apparently he had come just before closing like me to get a sandwich. Then I see him get into the cash register. Then I realized he was the owner of the place. And go behind a wall to I assume get the money out of the safe too. He comes back and shoves the money into his pocket. Maybe to deposit or take out the cash or to make sure the employee did not take it? Then he puts the cash in one pocket and the checks in one of those zipper bags and ignores me, I being a customer now in front of the register, he glances at his watch and asks “Can I help you?” Not as if what would you like to order, but “Why are you here?” I said yes I would like the “King Club Combo” (Name Changed not to convict a very worthy franchise chain and one of my favorite franchise systems).
One, which started out quite small with a story of perseverance and hard work. The founder I had met personally about five years back at an International Franchise Association Meeting in 1997. Also had been top of the food chain literally in many Franchise Surveys in highly read magazines on Entrepreneurship. Apparently the owner of this franchise must not have been screened properly. With a Bumper Sticker which said; “live better, work unio
I shop therefore I am? As Ireland's largest shopping centre opened in Dundrum and consumer spending rocketed across the country, 2005 was a year in which our love affair with brands showed little signs of abating.Whilst H&M, House of Fraser, Harvey Nichols and Starbucks arrived to great fanfare, proving in the early months at least that absence does make the purse and wallet grow fonder, there was little to suggest that our familiarity with traditional home-grown retailers was breeding anything other than a continued willingness to spend, spend, spend (along with contempt for the worried soundings from economic commentators who suggested that our splurging may be just about to spiral out of control).In the midst of this extended retail love-in, it was easy to forget that, more and more, the great Irish romance is in property, and a few Irish brand giants, including the likes of Superquinn and Jurys Ballsbridge, were sweet-talked by buyers who seemed to place greater value on the property bank they had collected than on any goodwill they had built up over many years of trading.Goodwill was severely rat
One, which started out quite small with a story of perseverance and hard work. The founder I had met personally about five years back at an International Franchise Association Meeting in 1997. Also had been top of the food chain literally in many Franchise Surveys in highly read magazines on Entrepreneurship. Apparently the owner of this franchise must not have been screened properly. With a Bumper Sticker which said; “live better, work uni
• A system to remember your presentation so you don’t have to read your notes • A technique that helps you take a project, see the big picture, focus on the key areas and understand all the inter-connections • A means of making note taking from journals, books, e-articles, quicker, more logical, better organised • A method for brainstorming that presents ideas logically structured • An approach to time management, enabling you to focus on your priorities, make efficiencies How would you like to spend just 10 minutes learning a new skill that will help you in all of the above areas? In the last year, Mind Mapping has given me all of these rewards and truly revolutionised my approach to knowledge, learning and business. Read on for an introduction to using Mind Mapping in business.So what an earth is a Mind Map? Well this is a superb example of how valuable the art of Mind mapping actually is; words cannot adequately express the essence of a Mind Map. The best way to explain is to look at one. Click on the example at the end of the article. And for those who like the words as well as the graphics, I would describe a Mind M
One, which started out quite small with a story of perseverance and hard work. The founder I had met personally about five years back at an International Franchise Association Meeting in 1997. Also had been top of the food chain literally in many Franchise Surveys in highly read magazines on Entrepreneurship. Apparently the owner of this franchise must not have been screened properly. With a Bumper Sticker which said; “live better, work uni
Meet the new boss -- you.If you're like most of us, you hate your boss even if they're a nice person. At heart we're still rebellious kids with "oppositional defiant disorder" who don't want any surrogate mothers or fathers.And just as most people do eventually become mothers and fathers of their own children, to get rich as a techie you must get over your own rebelliousness and learn to at least be open to becoming the boss over other people.I know it can be hard. I myself have seen at least four people who decided to take voluntary demotions and go from supervisor back to technical jobs.But let's face it -- management is the most common and obvious way for techies to step up the career ladder to greater money and achievement.I have a friend who has a cousin who is a bigshot at Sun Microsystems, the creators of the Java computer language. She told me once that he makes $600,000 a year. "I don't know what he does, but he's very good at it."I can guarantee you, he does a lot more than "code in peace."Bill Gates is not the richest computer programmer in the world because he's the greatest programmer in the world. H
One, which started out quite small with a story of perseverance and hard work. The founder I had met personally about five years back at an International Franchise Association Meeting in 1997. Also had been top of the food chain literally in many Franchise Surveys in highly read magazines on Entrepreneurship. Apparently the owner of this franchise must not have been screened properly. With a Bumper Sticker which said; “live better, work uni
When we were young children, our parents were the most powerful figures in the universe.When a parent talked, we listened. Or at least we were supposed to.Parents are a bridge between generations. Parents are supposed to hand down valuable teachings and cultural guidance.Unfortunately, most parents don’t teach their children the language of business. Most parents don’t even know about the “Language of Success.”How could they know? Their parents didn’t teach them, and it certainly isn’t taught in our schools.When it comes to effective communication, the training our parents were equipped to give us may have actually put up a roadblock to business success.Let me explain.There are three rules of communication that we were taught by our parents. In any language, these three rules contain the same cultural message. They are intended to keep a child out of harm’s way and/or out of the hair of grownups.Here are the three rules:Rule 1. Never speak to strangers. Rule 2. Don’t speak unless spoken to. Rule 3. You should be seen and not heard.Isn’t this what you were told?These rules wou
One, which started out quite small with a story of perseverance and hard work. The founder I had met personally about five years back at an International Franchise Association Meeting in 1997. Also had been top of the food chain literally in many Franchise Surveys in highly read magazines on Entrepreneurship. Apparently the owner of this franchise must not have been screened properly. With a Bumper Sticker which said; “live better, work union” he had obviously been laid off by probably the same auto plant nearby and probably all the things he hated and cursed as an employee he in fact was now the epitome of that former nemesis of the over paid corporate exec, except without the high paycheck. The treatment of employees was literally non-existent, not good or bad, as if the employees were irrelevant, and his look at me as if I was irrelevant which in the scheme of his over all business I probably was. He looked up and said, we are closed. I said “Oh, but it is five minutes to closing still?” He said “well, I guess we can take your order? But how are you paying?” I said by cash or ATM card? He said “Well, we can do the ATM transaction, but not the cash I have closed out the register unless you have exact change?” I was a little taken a back but hungry. So we did the ATM credit card swipe and I ask him how business was? He said I cannot get any “God Damn employees worth a crap?”
Hmm, I said. Again thinking well, you just told your employee who you pushed aside that they sucked, by your cursing, but did not want to get into it, all I wanted is my sandwich. Then a lady pops in to and asks are you “Mark?” He said Yah, why do you want to know? She, said well my boys are in the ‘such and such group’ and we were wondering if you have a gift certificate you can donate to our Event on ‘such and such’ date….for the ‘such and such’ group….which will help your business and will be attended by many ‘so in so’ potential customers for your sandwich shop…. Yet, he probably did not even listen to a word she said.
Meanwhile my sandwich was almost ready being slopped together as the employee probably did not care after being told in a round about way that she was a “God Damn” employee, not worth a damn? I was a little upset, but the sloppy sandwich was not so important, I want
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