Casual Articles - Business

Can You Fire a Customer When you Work for Someone Else?
**** Have you ever been abused by a customer? Does your company have a policy clearly outlining how to handle the situation so you don't end up a punching bag? Discover a mind, body and spirit solution to managing this situation and maintaining your self-esteem. ****My customer service etiquette was tested this week. I was given the details of a man who wanted to speak to “someone in charge”. Unfortunately, the call centre representative passing on the message wasn't sure what it was about, only that he wanted to talk to someone about an email he received.When I called the customer he asked me if I had read the email. Of course, I had to clarify which of the thousands of emails sent to and from our company each day he was referring to

b>6. Failing to encourage others to pass it along

There is a wonderful piece of wisdom you should apply to viral marketing – “you have not because you ask not.” Does your viral marketing ask the reader to pass this along to others? This can be done in the resource box with something very simple like, “If you found this useful, please pass it onto others that might be helped by it too.”

If it is a viral article and you have also it published on your website, have a button or link on the page that says “Send to your friends.” While it is true the “Send to your friends” button won’t make it viral all by itself you never know which “friend” that

Master Archival Data Storage
You’ve seen it. Management operating on data overloads; stacks of printed data falling off the desk, overflowing the file cabinets, and running down the stairs of the office data storage rooms. What to do with the data? Critical information is lost. Knowledge that could be of great help to the general population is unavailable, growing moldy and dusty on some executive’s desk waiting for approval. Or worse, created in mega bundles of bits and lost in compound directories with the wrong label, stored for infinity in a malfunctioning system of neglect.Retrieval of hard copy data is simple; have a file with each client’s name, and their data goes in that hard copy file. Although, it’s been known to loose a file now and then. The files kept onli

1. Failing to understand how to make a marketing piece “viral”

Often people create what they call a viral marketing piece when it is nothing more than a brochure and an advertisement. It is way too self serving. It has no possibility of creating buzz. While there is no guaranteed formula for creating a viral marketing piece, there are many things you can do to increase its effectiveness and its viral nature.

2. Failing to make it interesting enough to pass along

Whether or not there are external incentives to encourage the viral spread, if you failed to make the article or e-book interesting enough with high quality content that is useful or entertaining, you couldn’t pay them enough to pass it along. If on the other hand it is very useful, high quality or entertaining, it will get passed along with or without any other incentives.

3. Failing to provide incentives to encourage people to pass your message along

While there are many successes where the sender was not rewarded for passing on viral information, it works better if you can provide an incentive. Provide an incentive that you don’t have to pay up front. Instead provide a success incentive. If the desired outcome is met then you give them money, commissions, discounts, extended memberships, additional MP3 recordings, more articles, more eBooks, etc. Whatever incentive you decide to use, make sure it is easy to sign up for and easy to collect.

4. Failing to provide an incentive for people to respond to your call to action

The way to sell with a viral marketing piece is to do so at the very end, in the conclusion, in the summary or in the resource box. It doesn’t need to be a hard pitch, just an offer for an ethical bribe that will move them to visit your website, call your 800 number or send an email to get whatever you are offering.

Experience has shown that the incentive should be related to your product or service. If you are a law firm, don’t offer a chance to win a Corvette or an iPod. Too many unqualified people will sign up and waste your time following up with them. Instead if you are a law firm specializing in Intellectual Property, offer a free e-book on “How you can increase the value of your company with patents and trademarks.”

5. Failing to effectively promote their viral campaigns

Because we’ve heard of some success stories where no promotion was needed, it is easy to fall into the trap that yours too will be one of those. I’m not sure what the statistics are but the vast majority of viral marketing requires promotion to make them successful.

6. Failing to encourage others to pass it along

Joint Ventures - Are You Monkeylike?
Psychologists put four monkeys into a cage. In the cage, they erected a pole with a platform on top of it. They put a huge bunch of tantalizing, ripe, yellow bananas on the platform. Soon the monkeys smelt the bananas and eagerly started to climb nimbly up the pole to get at them. Immediately, the psychologists started squirting the monkeys with strong jets of icy cold water from fire hoses. They did this every time the monkeys tried to get to the bananas, and, naturally, soon the monkeys gave up trying. They sat around getting hungry. Then the psychologists removed one of the monkeys and replaced him with a new monkey who had never experienced the wrath of the fire hoses. Soon the enticing aroma of bananas assailed nostrils and he started climbing

hat is useful or entertaining, you couldn’t pay them enough to pass it along. If on the other hand it is very useful, high quality or entertaining, it will get passed along with or without any other incentives.

3. Failing to provide incentives to encourage people to pass your message along

4. Failing to provide an incentive for people to respond to your call to action

5. Failing to effectively promote their viral campaigns

6. Failing to encourage others to pass it along

Printing Still The Best Way To Get Customers!
Today our choices are limitless to advertise. We can print a flyer, print an add in the paper, advertise on television, give out promotional products branded with your logo or message, place an add on the internet or email. Why is Print still the best?Let's start with an add in the paper. Exposure is good but the cost is high and it is a hit or miss opportunity. Today less and less people read the paper from end to end due to a lack of time and a greater resource for capturing important information. Blink and your costly add goes right into the garbage. Unless you’re willing to spend thousand for a full page color ads, you’re probably not spending your marketing dollar wisely.Email for a while was great. You could purchase a list and

MP3 recordings, more articles, more eBooks, etc. Whatever incentive you decide to use, make sure it is easy to sign up for and easy to collect.

4. Failing to provide an incentive for people to respond to your call to action

5. Failing to effectively promote their viral campaigns

6. Failing to encourage others to pass it along

Using Answering Services for Your Business
Companies that specialize in taking and recording missed calls from the subscriber to the service are known as answering services. These services essentially perform the function of the basic telephone answering machine. Like an answering machine, answering services usually offer their customers the ability to record a voice message. This message plays to callers after a given number of rings. The service holds the voice message, and any recordings left by callers. The costumer can play back these messages and other recordings by using through a simple phone call and password log in.If you actively use a cell phone like most people these days, then a description like the one given above isn't necessary for you. Your messages are recorded by

law firm, don’t offer a chance to win a Corvette or an iPod. Too many unqualified people will sign up and waste your time following up with them. Instead if you are a law firm specializing in Intellectual Property, offer a free e-book on “How you can increase the value of your company with patents and trademarks.”

5. Failing to effectively promote their viral campaigns

6. Failing to encourage others to pass it along

Leading Change - I'm Feeling Better, Now that I've Given Up All Hope
"I'm feeling a lot better now that I've given up all hope."That humorous quote came from one of my lieutenant's. He was reporting on the morning change update by my boss. Our company had been working on change forever. Unfortunately, it was coming off like Alfred E. Newman once said, "Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything changed." We were burning cash and not a single thing was really happening.At the time we were working for Houston's other rocket, Compaq. We were changing a lot just by virtue of our growth. We were growing at about a 40% rate our first two years with the company so that alone was a blur. On top of that the head of operations was ‘driving change’ and the whole thing became a comical episode of m

b>6. Failing to encourage others to pass it along

7. Failing to send out anything less than a blockbuster success

While it would be nice to repeat viral marketing successes like Blair Witch, Hotmail, Purple Cow or ICQ those are rare occurrences. Just because your idea falls a bit short of phenomenal doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. Let’s say you shoot for exponential viral results and only obtain a moderate success, it is still a success. The fact you got free visitors to come to your site is great.

I love Michael Jordan’s quote when he attempted to go into baseball after his wildly successful basketball career. “I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying.” Even if you think it won’t blow away Blair Witch’s success, try it anyway.

8. Focusing on a single viral piece rather than a viral process

One thing I’ve noticed in my business career is that we tend to adopt the John Wayne syndrome, go big or go home. We give it ONE try and if it fails we go home. I don’t know of successful business people or successful marketing campaigns that take that approach. Instead of giving it this one shot and then not doing anything after that, create a process for creating, promoting, testing and measuring continual viral marketing efforts.

9. Failing to test and track the results

To be successful you need to experiment with different titles for the article or e-book; test different ethical bribes; try different promotional methods; approach different list owners. Find all of the elements that can be tested in your project, test various combinations and measure the results.

10. Not recognizing it is different from word-of-mouth marketing

I fell in love with word-of-mouth marketing early in my consulting career. After 10 years of consulting I analyzed every project I’d worked on, every client I’d worked for and wrote down the source. To my shock, 95% of all of them came from word-of-mouth. The good news was it was cheap (free). The bad news it was unpredictable and couldn’t be controlled on-demand like I needed.

Viral marketing is like word-of-mouth in that one person passes it on to another but typical word-of-mouth comes from one person asking the other if they know how to solve a problem. It is much more reactive than proactive. Viral marketing is proactive. A person who reads a viral article or e-book immediately thinks of 5, 10, 500 or even 1,000 people that should know about this and they send it via email or put it up on their website or post in on their blog. Viral isn’t one person coughing in another person’s face, it

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First of all, to catch the consumers' attention the advertisement should be unique, memorizing and the most important – direct! Unique advertisement is clear: an advertiser should use his/her creative mind to come out with something unusual and eye/ear-catching. Memorizing ads can be reached by the mix of sounds that can be identical in nature, phonological techniques, like rhythm, rhyme and other if you take radio- or television-advertisements.

Have you ever been asked to do something unethical by one of your prospects or clients? Have you ever been pressured by a supervisor, manager or owner at your business to do something unethical? Have you ever observed unethical behavior by a prospect or client? One must always ask – what price do I put on my ethics? How can one justify a compromise of their ethics? It is essential to have some good advice on how to reduce the chance of an improper request from a client or prospect and how to respond when actually approached by an unethical prospect or client. Your strategic thinking business coach offers the following advice.

Time and attendance systems are designed to assist organizations to effectively manage the working hours of employees. They are a paperless system used to collect the work time of employees electronically. The systems automate and simplify timekeeping and human resource management. Time and attendance systems effectively interact with any payroll system. The system allows employees to electronically submit leave letters. They are capable of operating on various platforms for different business rules. They are used in areas such as healthcare, financial services, transportation or distribution, retail management, government, manufacturing, and hospitality.

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