Customer Service & Personal Energy

Building Loyalty
The words "customer service" often bring to mind annoying phone conversations with someone who really doesn't care. When your business is offering service, keep in mind the four keys to customer service.

 1. Be Available

 2. Provide Accurate Information
 3. Develop a Partnership
 4. Offer Advice
The first two are commodities - they are expected. Being Available via "phone prompts" often serves the business more than the customer. Research has shown that when you have more than 3 choices, people get frustrated or quit. Three is optimal.

• If you are a doctor press 1.
• If you are patient press 2.
• Press 3 to return to the main menu.

When given two options and a return, people will happily drill down 5 or 6 levels. If your business does not provide 1 & 2, realize customers always demand these.

Developing expertise in 3 & 4 is where loyal and returning customers are grown. Building Partnerships means all employees learning to ask important questions of the customers while Offering Advice cements the partnership.

Offering Advice means more than saying "others who have purchased this package have also purchased _______." It might be as simple as a hotel saying "We are having a soccer tournament in town that weekend, and the room I've selected for you is away from those guests". Just letting the customer known of any eccentricities shows care and recognizes that each customer is an individual.

Help your staff understand that each customer is unique and occasionally you will have a person that you cannot help. Have advice for that person will also serve you and your staff well.

Copyright 2011 Linda Lucas Fayerweather
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
419-897-0528
linda@changinglanes.biz

Three Steps to Boosting Your Personal Energy That Will Also Boost Your Bottom Line

Your degree of personal energy is completely up to you because YOU are in control of your choices! That's hard to remember sometimes especially with the current level of stress most entrepreneurs experience. What follows are 3 steps you can take to jump-start your personal energy and improve your health, happiness and business bottom line.

Step #1 - Download the Personal Energy Barometer, print a copy and rate yourself for each spoke. Click here to go to my website at http://www.salescoachforwomenentrepreneurs.com/freetools.html to download the Personal Energy Barometer. Find your energy level for each spoke by reviewing the Emotion Perception Scale in the lower left to determine which emotion you feel when considering your energy for that particular spoke. Circle the number, on each spoke, that best represents how you feel right now.

Step #2 - Review your results. The goal is to be close to the bulb (far from the center). Analyze your results to discover which spokes represent your areas of lowest personal energy.

Step #3 - Choose two spokes where you'd like to improve your energy. For those two spokes, choose one thing that you could do each day that would boost your energy in that area. For example, if you have low personal energy in the spoke - Exercise - then you might decide to do stretching exercises every morning for 10 minutes when you first get up. Download the Daily Accountability Tracking Sheet found on the same page as the Personal Energy Barometer to help you stay on track.

When you maintain a high level of personal energy, physical (blue spokes), mental/emotional (green spokes) and spiritual (the fushia spokes), you will be able to adapt to the ebb and flow of life without it affecting your mental and emotional capabilities and outlook. This will bring more joy and abundance to your life.

Copyright 2011 Pat Altvater

http://www.salescoachforwomanentrepreneurs.com/
Partnering with women entrepreneurs to implement a sales process that brings them joy and increases their bottom line.

Are WE There Yet?

Are We There Yet?

"Hey Coach, I wrote a business plan, now what do I do with it?" That is a question I am asked often as the average business owner writes a plan to obtain funding and then like a tax return, hides this document in a drawer somewhere. A well crafted business plan will have an executive summary worthy of regular review. My own preference is a strategic plan or a succinct One Page Plan® that will give you, the owner, a view of what needs to be done to achieve the business's goals. When these are used and reviewed, they may even serve as a road map for the business in the owner's absence. You will also know when you arrive at your success!

An active business thriving for growth and profitability will want to know the next steps to success. Your plan will be relevant on a day to day basis, provide metrics to track the plan monthly and will answer these sustainability questions:

What are we building?
Why are we building it?
How will we build this business in our environment?
What results will we measure?
What work will be done?

Remember, you may believe as a business owner you are invincible but reality doesn't always happen according to your beliefs!

Copyright 2011 Linda Lucas Fayerweather
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
419-897-0528
linda@changinglanes.biz

Three Steps to Accountability
Making changes in routines and habits is hard for most people. We are creatures of our habits and many of our actions take place without much conscious effort or intention. Yet when we are attempting to achieve breakthrough revenue goals, we probably need to change something related to how we do business.

Committing to a stretch goal probably means we'll need to break some old habits, instill new behaviors and thought patterns that serve us, and muster the tenacity to maintain the awareness that it takes to take new actions consistently. That's the tough part! Here are three steps to make it easier for you:

1. Adopt a system of accountability - this works really well when implementing new behaviors to grow your business and increase your bottom line. Download a copy of my Daily Accountability Tracking Sheet here (http://www.salescoachforwomenentrepreneurs.com/freetools.html)

2. Each morning get into alignment with the new behaviors that you intend to take. That means, remind yourself of your WHY for attempting to breakthrough to new revenue numbers, remind yourself of the new actions that you plan to take that day (those actions that are on your Daily Accountability Tracking Sheet), and take a moment to feel how great it's going to be when you achieve the goals you've set.

3. In the evening, review how you did compared to your commitments on the tracking sheet. This step is not meant to make you feel bad, but is to help you learn about yourself and figure out what you could do differently if you didn't take the actions, and to celebrate the baby steps along the way to your goal, if you did.

You can use this process for any behavior changes you desire to make. It's an easy way to help you consciously incorporate the new behaviors you desire, on a daily basis, until they become your new habits.

Copyright 2011 Pat Altvater
http://www.salescoachforwomenentrepreneurs.com/
http://www.pataltvaterandassociates.com/
Partnering with women entrepreneurs to implement a sales process that brings them joy and increases their bottom line!

I've Really 'gotta' Have It!

Sometimes, we business owners are lured by the siren call of a new piece of equipment, or tool, or maybe even a new employee. Even when it is wonderful, there will be a learning curve for anything.


For example, my ITouch has become ill, I really want an IPhone to replace it as my cell phone which is a smart phone has gotten pretty stupid over time. Knowing my frustration with learning new technology, summer, will be the best time to purchase and learn this new device. But before I even buy, since this will be a business asset, here are the questions I ask myself when thinking about a new asset or major purchase.

1) Will it increase sales?
2) Will it increase my personal productivity?
3) Will it work with my current operating system?
4) Will it do more than one thing?

If I can't answer YES to at least one, I bid the idea goodbye. But the more Yes answers, the more likely it will be an investment worth purchasing.

Now, before I say "charge it", I want to know the answers to these, too.
1) How long will the payback be on the total costs to previous costs?
2) What are the other costs associated with this - think data plan, other software. Think about the total cost of ownership over the life of the asset.
3) Is this new device updatable? A printer I once purchased ended up "not being" updatable to Windows 7 and I'd only owned the MFC printer for 7 months!

Time spent thinking before buying is something my Dad taught me - worked for him and works for businesses, too.

Quick Tips

Salvage the Negative Employee!
Is negativity their nature? Some people are perpetually negative. If it is infecting your business, you need to help them realize it is their choice to change. If they are not negative by nature, help them take responsibility for solving influences affecting them. Otherwise they may need to choose a new job.

Remember, if you don't ask -- you won't get!
Sales people who qualify their prospects in advance of not actually speaking to them ("Oh, I'm not going to call him because he'll never buy.") lose the opportunity for many profitable sales. Don't be the judge, let your prospect be the one to say no....or yes!

Great Vacations are PLANNED
You know your business needs a future plan, but you still wonder if it will make a difference. Well, remember your last vacation that was great? You probably spent time planning and saving for it. Imagine how your business could look 6 months from now if you took the same care and time to plan. The plan will help identify the barriers and opportunities waiting for you! Call Coach Linda for a 30-minute complimentary coaching session to get your plan moving!

The Fools of April

Surviving April Fools
April 1st has come and gone and maybe you had some fun with April Fool's jokes. I like to read The Onion and the April 1st issue is usually very good. But jokes and rumors can be very damaging in the work environment. Here are some tips to keep you out of the rumor limelight.

-Avoid gossip, listening or passing.
-Seek to cultivate office and business relationships that are positive. Being polite means just that - treating others like we want to be treated.
-Check your demeanor. The way we dress, hold our body, and our facial expressions all say a lot. This doesn't mean we need to have no reactions, just make sure they match our intent.
-Get to know others; what makes them tick and what ticks them off.
-Be observant and use what we learn to maximize our relationships with others
-Be social but aware of social events. What we say at the baseball game to colleagues will get back to the office.
-Check your temper. Being professional and diplomatic may take practice, but in the end it will serve us well. There is a difference between being angry and losing our temper!

Working with others will mean that feathers get ruffled, feelings get hurt and people will be disappointed. Accepting that this will happen may help all of us keep April Fools day as the only day we behave foolishly.

Second Quarter Tips
The Truth is Out There
Rumors can be devastating, often just annoying. My inbox sometimes gets overloaded with email petitions; virus alerts and scares about lost children. Some have been very convincing but before I forward any, I always check out the rumor mill at http://www.snopes.com/  by typing in some keywords. This reference site for urban legends is a well-researched non-profit business. So the next time you get one of those guilt-loaded emails - check it out first!

Changing Employees-Change Passwords
When employees change, it is a good time to change passwords on computers and files. Best idea-change all the passwords, not just the exiting employee's. Doing this as a habit will maintain integrity of current and past employees while protecting critical data and information.

Time is all we have
Two percent of America's gross domestic product - about $97 billion - is "frittered away" by workers tinkering with their computers, messing around with typefaces, and endlessly polishing charts, graphs and other things. Focus on what is important and minimize tasks that are time-wasters. Find an oasis of sanity through common sense efficiencies.