Smart Marketing

CRM - The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Customer Service

Providing outstanding customer relationship management (CRM) is at the heart of great marketing. If you want your customer relationship management to be its very best, try modeling those companies that lead the CRM pack.

To that end, the CRM Lowdown blog has posted its list of the 10 Best (and Worst) Companies for Customer Service. Check out the list and offer your comments.

If it's time to address your company's customer service,  read the chapter of my book Stand Out from the Crowd called  "The Keys to Delivering World Class Service".

Marketing your small business - An interview with Barbara Winter

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Barbara Winter, a leading authority on self-employment. In addition to being a constant inspiration to me (I attended one of her workshops years ago and this was a big motivator for me to start my own marketing consulting practice), she is a very clear thinker on how to market your company. Check out her books MAKING A LIVING WITHOUT A JOB and JUMPSTART YOUR ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT, and also her self-employment newsletter Winning Ways. Here’s what she had to say on the subject of marketing…

As a leading authority on self-employment, and author of the blockbuster book MAKING A LIVING WITHOUT A JOB, what advice about marketing would you give an entrepreneur?

Many people who want to live the joyfully jobless life are stopped before they start because marketing seems so daunting. And, likewise, many people who start their own business don’t do so because they love marketing. Either way, making peace with this important aspect of being an entrepreneur is critical if you’re going to build anything solid.

So I begin by explaining that self-bossers should never, never, never try to sell something they don’t love themselves. I quote Banana Republic founder Mel Zeigler’s admonition to, “Only start a business you would be the first customer for.” That’s sound advice.

The second thing an entrepreneur needs to give thoughtful attention to is who their ideal customer. Then, they can put their energy into connecting with those folks. I have a friend who is a humorist who does programs on humor as a stress management tool. After a recent engagement with a stoic audience, she came away saying, “I’ve decided I don’t want to speak to any more groups where I have to spend the first 30 minutes explaining why humor matters.” That echoes my own motto which is Work with the Willing.

What are the most common mistakes self-employed people make about their marketing? How can others avoid making these mistakes?

One big mistake is spending too much money on things that don’t matter—or produce results. A small business isn’t just a miniature corporation and shouldn’t look or feel like one. Yet I see startups spending huge amounts on expensive brochures and Web sites before they’ve made their first sale. I suspect that some of this is an attempt to create an image—and compensate for self-doubt. It makes more sense to focus on building self-confidence.

 

Sometimes people just getting started are embarrassed about their smallness or lack of a track record and go to great lengths to conceal that. I think that’s a big mistake. I think they need to flaunt their smallness. The difference between working with a small business and a big one, I like to point out, is the difference between working with a dinosaur and a jaguar. Get clear about the advantages you have to offer as a small business and don’t be afraid to point them out.

I just finished a consulting project with a very large company and I was reminded of this all over again. As a small business, I can move quickly, don’t have to wait for approvals, etc. While that autonomy might make some potential clients nervous, I’d focus on working with folks who appreciate the kind of service that a small business can deliver.

If entrepreneurs address these issues, what can they reasonably expect to have happen?

Not only will their own confidence in their marketing abilities increase (and more sales will follow), but they’ll also come to see that marketing is just another opportunity to exercise their creativity. That’s when it starts to be exciting and surprisingly fun. If you treat it that way, are willing to experiment, eliminate things that don’t work and keep adding things that do, it’s as creative as inventing a product or writing a software program. And that, to me, is the essence of being an entrepreneur.

In your opinion, who are (were) the best marketers of all time and why?

I’m a huge fan of Sir Richard Branson who fascinates me on several levels. Like many successful entrepreneurs, he didn’t start out to be one: he just wanted to change the world. Once he realized that business could be a vehicle for doing that, he was enormously creative in building Virgin into a recognizable brand. He also has always used conventional advertising, along with lots of free publicity, to build his far-flung businesses.

At the moment, I am totally in love the with brilliant ad campaign for iMac computers. I also admire Ben & Jerry’s creative approach to marketing in their early days. Even though Ben & Jerry’s is now a big company, many of their franchise holders have continued the tradition of fun.

While I know there are many Marketing Legends, I pay the most attention to those who use their imaginations more and their pocketbooks less.

 

Barbara Winter is a Las Vegas-based self-employment advocate who travels throughout the

US and UK conducting seminars on inspired entrepreneurship. In addition to being the author of MAKING A LIVING WITHOUT A JOB and JUMPSTART YOUR ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT, she is the publisher of Winning Ways, the longest-running self-employment newsletter in the country. An enthusiastic world traveler and lifelong learner, she is currently learning to be an inspired grandmother.