'Tis the season of customer retention

I have received more emails, newsletters and blog postings from all whom I have encountered during this very tough year of 2009.  That's ok, but doesn't float my enthusiasm boat. I think in tough times, personal touch means everything! So 'tis the season to GET PERSONAL!

Clients love to hear from their vendors, vendors love to hear from their clients.  Your personal touch means you care, you are ready to listen to them about what is going on in their lives and you both will walk away with a feeling of mutual gratitude.

Here is a reach and touch a customer tips for the season:

1. Make a list with phone numbers of all clients, however brief, that you did business with this year.
2. Make a list of all the vendors, with phone numbers, however brief, that you did business with this year.
3. Prepare a thank you statement that has at least three versions.  Ex: Hi I am calling to thank you for your business this year.  Hi, I am calling to thank you for being such a great vendor.  I so appreciated bringing the (insert product/service name) to (XYZ company).  Have a happy new year and a prosperous 2010!
4. Take one hour each morning until December 31st and CALL EVERY CLIENT and VENDOR. Use the prepared statement as a springboard for what you really say. 
5. Don't ask for anything - no referrals, no more business, no reminders.  Just a THANK YOU to them for having chosen your product or service.  Just a THANK YOU to those vendors that did a great job servicing your account.

You will be amazed at the reaction you will get and you will automatically rise to the top of visibility list.
Happy Holidays to all of you!

We control $4.3 Trillion in consumer spending!

The numbers are in and the facts are clear: Women control $4.3 TRILLION of the US Consumer spending. And WE WANT IT OUR WAY!!!

“The Rise of the Real Mom,” a white paper authored by Marissa Miley and Ann Mack and published by Advertising Age  took a good look at the mothers of today. They named it well as a Google search brought up 14Million searches for  'real mom'. I believe that the words will gallop into the lexicon of US English.

This is the most fascinating report as it covers the wide range of women aged 18 to 65. It identifies the percentage rise in education (YEAH) and the new expectations of the mothers who are also workers, careerists and fully in charge of their families.

A few facts:

Moms still do the majority of wet tasks (dishes, laundry, cleaning the bathrooms) while men stick to the dry jobs (driving children to school, making lunches, taking out the garbage).
Moms juggle far more in terms of activities than men
Have higher stress than men

Nice to have all this confirmed. I can assure that any wet task performed by men leave a bigger mess than when performed by women. So women know, “it’s just easier if I do it myself.”

VERY IMPORTANT FACT: Pragmatism and control rules the day!

To reach this real mom, marketers need not just to communicate that the
goods and services they offer are practical and convenient; they also need
to make real moms feel confident and in charge.

Let’s repeat that: practical and a sense of control! We are pressed for time, driving the kids to and fro (I clocked 100 miles one day), work, planning, homework, with little time left to breathe and think. The products today need to be easy to buy, pay for, receive and install!So in what categories do women exercise the practical and sense of control? Not surprisingly, it is vertical market specific.

Real Moms influence the buying decisions in these categories:

Personal Care 67%
Clothing 64%
Cosmetics 61%

Spouses and Partners have greater influence on buying decisions in these categories:

Electronics  45%
Cars 46%
Restaurants 42%


If you sell to women, how do you, as a business owner, sell to the ‘real moms’? Start with a look at your service or product and assess whether it appeals to this demographic. Next, how can you make it as easy as possible for real moms to buy from you? Third, look at your marketing materials and does it include the ideas of easy, practical and control?

With a few changes can you make the delivery of your product practical and easier to use? Can you do a bit of rewriting the marketing verbiage you have on your web site to reflect the concept of control, practicality, and time saving for your real mom client?

A quick personal experience to bring this info home: I wrote a twitter to promote my workbook on elevator pitches. It stated: Real moms: Easy, at your command, the ‘how to’ on creating an elevator pitch http://tinyurl.com/yfhess5

The results have been great!

Holiday is the time to listen.

"I am a shy person so I am more comfortable listening to others," so said by a speaker I recently heard at an awards show. 

What insight! What a great clue to working with people.  I have to admit that I get bored very easily talking all the time about my business. Listening to others becomes a pleasurable event when I calm down and open up to what they are saying. I get a sense of what is going on in their lives beyond what their words.  This helps me help them.


And if I know anything about the human being is that everyone wants to be heard deeply and sincerely. 

Here are few hints and tips on listening to all others this holiday season. 

How to Listen Well

• maintain eye contact;
  
  
• don't interrupt the speaker;
  
  
• sit still; stand comfortably to you don't weave or move too much; 
  
  
• nod your head; keep you hand still;
  
  
• lean toward the speaker; not too close as too imply intimacy, but enough to hear them clearly
  
  
• ask appropriate questions when the speaker has finished.

Barriers to Listening


Things that may get in the way of listening.

• bias or prejudice; do you like this person or not?
  
  
• language differences or accents;
  
  
• noise;
  
  
• worry, fear, or anger, boredom; 
  
  
• a different agenda for attending the event; 

So I ask you, "What is your challenge when listening to others?"

Google trends and more trends

Mary Ellen Bates is a superb librarian, and Bates Info Tip has transferred her skills of classifying information to the internet.  I received this from her and am using the tools provided by Google below.

Google has been doing some interesting things with its analyses of what people are while they are on the web. Google Trends, which was rolled out in 2006, lets you see how frequently words or phrases were search for in Google, over time. You can even compare the relative frequency of two different words or phrases. I was curious about how people referred to the H1N1 flu, and when the shift occurred from calling it “swine flu”. I typed in the two phrases, swine flu and H1N1, separated by a comma. [“swine flu”, h1n1] According to the search results, it wasn’t until October that most people shifted over to referring to the flu strain as H1N1. I can also see search trends in specific countries and in specific cities and states or provinces.

Google’s latest analysis tool is Google Trends for Websites. You provide one or more URLs; for each web site, Google displays the number of daily unique visitors, the countries or states/provinces they came from, other web sites that they have also visited, and terms they have also searched for. Just as Google Domestic Trends went beyond search queries to compare financial trends to its information, Google Trends for Websites extends its reach and analyzes information on web traffic from a number of outside sources.

Google Trends for Websites only works for fairly high-traffic sites, but can be a useful tool for seeing the relative popularity of web sites, and for getting ideas on alternative search queries on a topic.
Companies can use this as a quick way to see how their web traffic compares to those of its competitors, as well as to see what search words were being used to find them. See, for example, the difference in traffic by geographic location and over time for NBC, CBS and ABC.

Use this tool well to help you increase your keywords to direct traffic to you web site.  Also good information to use to see what your competition is doing.

Dude, your clothes!

"Dude, Your PJ's are on the bathroom floor," I remind my husband as he has one foot out the door.

 "What clothes?" he says, frustrated at being stopped 2 seconds away from a clean getaway. "What am I supposed to do with them," he asks.

"Geez I don't know." I reply calmly,  "How about roasting them for dinner?"

Hubby laughs and begrudgingly picks up his clothes and stuffs them onto the shelf.  At least they are off the floor.  I walk into the kitchen and now am aware why he gave in so quickly.  The sink is full of dishes from last night!  AHHHHHH!!!!!!!

A few months ago, I sat the family down and let them know that they needed to step up and participate in the running of the  house.  Laundry, setting the table, making dinner, cleaning up, etc. were tasks that everyone could do.  I cannot (and really don't want) to do it all!

I  created a grid of tasks and days of the week.  Each family member stepped up and signed up for jobs they wanted to do.  We would move them around every so many weeks so as not to get bored.  Hubby signed up for doing the dishes and  D#2 was to get herself up and ready for school by herself.

D#2 was rousted from her bed the next morning by an alarm clock we had set in her room. She walked to the kitchen and sat down, "Mom, I didn't think we were starting this morning!"  And she promptly fell asleep at the table.

Her sister woke her up and says, "Hurry up.  And make your own breakfast and lunch.  I've been doing it since I was ten and you are 13.  So get with it!"

D#2 started slowly, but made her own breakfast and lunch and wandered off to get dressed. 

Ahhh peer pressure.  I forgot to put that on the gird.