Successful Blog

Turning Customers Into Advocates

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John Caplan, founder and CEO of OpenSky.com, shares his tips on how leveraging the web’s social tools to build a community around your brand and engage directly with shoppers can grow your business.  

As an entrepreneur, I know how important it is to build a community of people around your business.  As a business owner who is passionate about growing emerging businesses, getting your business online to leverage distribution and build relationships is an essential tool. 
 
At OpenSky, we strive to empower emerging brands to grow their businesses by engaging consumers.  We make sure to communicate and constantly listen to the concerns, questions and feedback from our merchants and our members, which helps us build a platform that works for people we serve.
 
Leveraging the web’s social tools to build a community around your brand by engaging and communicating directly with your shoppers can grow your business.  Here are some ways to help you achieve this.
 

1. Social media makes it easier than ever to connect directly to customers.

Establish your brand on social channels – Facebook, OpenSky, Twitter, Pinterest — where you can have active, real-time conversations.  It’s not only a great way to share updates but often times, it’s that real time feedback from customers that can help you resolve a problem before it impacts a huge number of people.  This will serve as an effective way to give people a great experience because then they share it with their friends and their friends share it with friends and so on.  There is nothing more effective for marketing than a truly happy customer.
 

2. It’s essential to listen to customer feedback on social outlets and respond right away.

  However, as it important as it is, make sure that isn’t the only way you’re getting direct feedback from customers about how you’re doing.  Ask for it anytime an opportunity arises.  From packing slips, to invoices, customer surveys and emails – there are numerous opportunities to ask your customers for feedback and offer a place where they can provide it.
 

3. In addition to blogs and social networks, invite members of your community from customers to partners and vendors into your offices, stores or workshops.

  Whether it’s for a party, focus group, or to demo a new product – creating the face-to-face connection can be invaluable for creating brand loyalty.
 

4. One of the most difficult and stressful elements of growing a business is expanding your products or services. 

Adding a new feature or service can strain your core business and potentially alienate existing customers, especially in the beginning. Open the lines of communication and bring your community into your growth strategy by talking to them during the process.  Working with your core customers early on to help them understand new products and services will keep you on the right track, provide valuable insight and make your loyal customers more forgiving of any mishaps in the road to success.

Author’s Bio: John Caplan is the Founder and CEO of OpenSky, the social network for shopping where members shop with their friends for unique, artisanal finds. Prior to OpenSky, John was the CEO of Ford Models. In five years, he rebuilt the agency, tripling its size and value while expanding it to include Ford’s artist divisions and digital media business. During the late 1990s, John served first, as CMO of About.com leading the brands growth and later as President of the About Network before selling the company to Primedia in 2001 for $500+ million. Caplan has made numerous appearances as a business expert on television shows including CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, Reuters TV, TODAY Show, WNBC-TV and many others.

3 Tips for More Customer Referrals

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By Jennifer Dunn

You need more clients, but what’s the easiest way to get them? Simple – through clients you’ve already done business with! However, what isn’t simple is obtaining customer referrals when you don’t know how to go about it. Here are three things you can do to ensure you’ll get a great referral at the end of a job.

1. Knock Their Socks Off

There’s absolutely no way you will get a referral from your client if you don’t do the job they wanted correctly. Would you give a carpenter a referral if they only fixed 3/4 of your floor? Of course not – it would severely hurt your reputation as a business owner and as someone to be trusted.

Make sure you’re doing absolutely everything your client wanted you to do. You may think you’ve completed a job but later discover you forgot a few things. These “few things” can be disastrous – not only to your chances of a referral but also to the client ever knocking on your door again.

2. Follow Up

Most jobs end when the client pays and you go your separate ways. The work is done and the client goes to see if what you’ve done will improve their business, life, or both. You go and try to find someone else to hire you so you can keep paying the bills.

However, that’s not really the end of it all, is it? The client doesn’t really know if what you’ve done has worked until it’s been road-tested. If you’ve created a new front page for their website, they could experience severe backlash to it even though it’s amazing. Their customers might rail against it for a myriad of reasons and you don’t know until it’s out there.

If you follow up with your client, it shows you’re actively invested in their business and not just a passing face in the crowd. Ask them how things are going and if they need any further help. If you see some interesting news they could use, send it along. It shows you care about them and your relationship with them, which can lead to good things down the road.

3. Ask and Offer Incentives

Your client probably has no clue you would like a referral. You can’t just assume they can read your mind no matter how heavily you hint. You just need to come out and ask.

Timing is key, though. If you haven’t completed the above two steps don’t even think about asking your client to refer you to his or her colleagues. On the other hand, waiting too long can be just as bad. The client may not even remember you if you wait half a year to contact them about it!

Sometimes incentives can do the trick. For example, offer your client a discount for the next job they need done if they refer a friend or two. If they’re a repeat client and they regularly bring in more work you can up the ante even more. Rewarding them for maintaining a good relationship with your company is never a bad thing!

Do you regularly ask for client referrals? How do you do it?

Author’s Bio: Jennifer Escalona Dunn is the owner of Social Street Media where she writes about small business, tech and finance for sites like WePay and Outright. You can find her on Twitter @jennescalona.

3 Things I Discovered About Marketing From My Customers

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By Chris Nosal

Over the years, going through various systems, methods, and education on marketing, I’ve come across a lot of information on the topic; much of it subject to debate, criticism, and even being completely contradictory (which made it hard for me to decide what to do, and what not to do).

However, one of the biggest things I’ve learned in marketing and working with people, is that successful marketing often comes down to just a few basic principles that, while often overlooked, make perfect sense when you think about them, but you can only learn them by listening to the people you’re serving.

But if you’re like me (and so many other marketers out there), you’ve gotten so wrapped up in trying to learn all the latest, greatest, and best “techniques” and tactics” that you were never able to see the basic reality of marketing itself.

And in this post I’d like to share with you 3 simple strategies that transformed my entire business:

1. Focus On Creating Great Products.

We know that our products and services are, ultimately, the only reason we make money, and they’re what we get paid for, yet I’m forever amazed at how many marketers take the element that is at the CORE of the success of their business, give very little time or attention to making it great for their customers, and are often content to sell mediocre products, as long as their marketing is good.

We live in the social media age, and if you want to get a good reputation, and to have a thriving business, your first priority needs to be on focusing on the core moneymaker in your business, which is your products; plain and simple, if you put great products in front of people, they will pull out their wallets.

2. Start By Building Trust.

Everywhere I look, I see hype and sensationalist claims; people shamelessly bragging and throwing hype in your face about how great their products are, and while this worked at one time, before the rise of the internet, when 4 or 5 people were doing it, and you had time to listen, now we hear this propaganda so many times a day that we just tune it out, and all these claims just blend into one big pile of noise.

If you want to stand out with your readers, start by talking about why you created your products, educating readers on the features of your product, and teaching readers how your product is going to benefit them. If you really want to stand out, build a loyal following, and get noticed, start by focusing on creating an intimate relationship with your customers.

3. Be Passionate About What You Do.

Whether it’s Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Steve Jobs, people get behind someone who has a VISION, because they see how that vision will benefit them, and the world, and want to see that vision fulfilled. That’s the real secret to building a lasting business that works.

When you inspire people with a vision, you give them something they can get behind and support, and instead of just pitching a product, you’re building an emotional bond with people, and connecting with them on an intimate one-on-one level, which is a THOUSAND times more powerful than just trying to convince someone to buy something they don’t already want so you can make money.

No matter what you do, you need to make sure that you’re doing something great, because once you’re gone, no matter how much money you’ve made, you can’t take the money with you, and you can’t get back the time you’ve lost once it’s gone.

Remember what I said at the beginning of this post; the people you’re SERVING.

Your job and focus in marketing is not to make money, it’s to serve people, and if you follow this formula, the money will come naturally as a result of the service you provide.

So make sure you don’t become a slave to money, and that you use your life doing something you’re passionate about that helps people.

When you follow this formula, you’ll find that not only does it make you successful, but it also provides the added benefit of helping others, giving your life real meaning, and enabling you to make the most of every moment of your life.

Remember that if you truly want to be successful in marketing or business, it starts with focusing on making the biggest possible difference you can in lives of the people you help, doing what you love with your life, and you’ll find that everything else falls into place naturally.

Author’s Bio: Chris Nosal writes about various self-help, personal development, and learn some interesting new marketing strategies at his personal blog. You can also read his blog to get more free advice, connect with Chris, or download his free marketing eBook.

Asking For Feedback From Clients: How and Why It’s Vital

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By Jennifer Escalona Dunn

Every business owner likes to think that his or her business is great and is operating at 100% efficiency. If your clients haven’t complained and your bank account is fine it’s easy to pretend that nothing is wrong. However, you could be setting yourself up for huge problems down the line if you maintain this illusion.

Undoubtedly, one or more of your clients has something to say about the services you’re providing. Whether or not they’ve told you personally is irrelevant; sometimes people don’t like to upset the apple cart and won’t tell you what you think…unless you ask!

Why Feedback is Important

This isn’t to say that your business is falling apart at the seams. It’s only natural that a problem might crop up from time to time.

However, one problem that occurs all the time may end up harming your business in the long run. Wouldn’t it be terrible if some little thing you could have easily taken care of irreparably damaged the work you’ve done over the years?

It may seem like you’re tempting fate by bringing these issues up in the first place. After all, if you’re asking about the problems people have, doesn’t this give them a chance to focus on what’s wrong?

This may be true, but you want these problems coming up when you can control them rather than out of the blue. If your problem is being late with assignments, one or two won’t kill you – a whole year of it, though, certainly won’t help your bottom line.

How to Get Feedback

Feedback is pretty important to the long-term health of your business, but how do you go about getting it? Is it as simple as just asking each client or should you use other methods?

Ideally you want as wide a sample as possible. As stated before, some clients may not be very receptive to freely giving out their opinions. Their ideas are still valid, though, so you need to provide an avenue for these people as well.

One idea is to make an anonymous survey on Facebook or a service like SurveyMonkey. This way all clients can provide their opinions without fear of backlash from you. Not that you would yell at them, but some may have trouble getting over their hesitation. Of course you can always email clients individually. In the email you can provide a link to the survey or they can just reply to your message.

One helpful tip is to have specific questions in mind. If you have concerns about your timeliness, for example, ask questions about this. Focusing your efforts can yield better results as it concentrates clients’ energy on that issue rather than fumbling around trying to figure out what might be wrong with your business.

Also remember: not every piece of advice you get is going to make perfect sense. In fact, you may receive flat out terrible advice from clients. Don’t immediately discount it, though. Try to figure out what they’re really saying and get to the root of the problem. It may end up helping you in the long run.

Have you ever received negative feedback from clients? Were you surprised? How did you rectify the situation?

Author’s Bio: Jennifer Escalona Dunn is the owner of Social Street Media where she writes about small business, tech and finance for sites like WePay and Outright. You can find her on Twitter @jennescalona.

How to Build Interest (Part 2 in a Series): Honesty

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By James Ellis

(This is Part 2; you can find Part One here.)

I recently flew to NYC (in a plane) and I was reminded of how bad air travel is. I used to be a full-time business traveler. I know plenty of business flyers. And the simple fact is that there is no such thing as a good airline.

Oh, there are people who work in airline companies who can, on occasion, do good things. But usually they don’t. They don’t care that your luggage went missing, that your guitar got smashed, that your child traveling alone never met the airline rep you paid to make sure your child got somewhere safely. On time means pushing off the jetway, not getting where you want to go. Customer satisfaction means you only feel semi-violated getting somewhere.

But I have a way of fixing modern airlines: Honesty.

The worst part about flying is the lying, the lack of understanding how passengers/cargo are treated, the gamesmanship, the arbitrary and hidden rules. You spend a few hundred dollars to be told you will be treated like kings and then get treated like traitors.

Marketing teams think that if they tell us the truth, no one will book tickets. But I disagree. I hate being told that two airlines are merging “for my convenience” and not to lower operations costs by 0.2%. I hate being told that it is time to board passengers in Group 3 when no one actually looks to see if I’m in Group 3. I hate that we all pretend that my iPad will cause the plane to crash if I turn it on during takeoff (um… the entire plane is an electronic device, people).

My new airline will simply be called SucksAir. At no point will any of the marketing lie. I will flat out say that the seats are cramped, there’s no food for free, the air as healthy as your average flu vaccine, the drink cart will mug anyone with an aisle seat, the pilot will always sound hopped up on Valium, and the in-flight entertainment will always be commercials. At no point will anyone who works at SucksAir ever treat any paying customer like a human being. Flights will be coming and going on a schedule closer related to a Roman orgy than a German train station.

Being honest is the unique selling proposition. You know that SucksAir is a crappy airline that just happens to get you where you want to go. No more, no less.

What if you were equally honest? Painfully honest. Brutally honest. About your industry, your customers and yourself. If you can’t be stand-up comedian honest in your blog, you should stop blogging.

What’s the fear? That everyone will realize that you’re making it all up as you go along? That you think some of your customers are idiots? That there are shysters in your industry who make a pretty good living? Trust me, we already know that. It might just be enlightening to hear you say it.

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is a digital strategist, mad scientist, lover, fighter, drummer and blogger living in Chicago. You can reach out to him or just argue with his premise at saltlab.com.

You Might Be the Problem If…

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By James Ellis

Sales sluggish? Traffic down? Conversion rates dipping? Boss seeming a little gruff with you lately? Fewer smiling customers? More customer comments than you’d like?

They all have a root problem and a root solution, but sadly, you’re not going to like it.

The problem is you.

Not the editorial you, the plural you, the groupthink you, or even the royal you. You. The person reading this. You’re the problem.

That’s not 100% true. You didn’t cause the housing crisis and the fiscal cliff. You didn’t create all the public uncertainty slowing economic growth. But you are still the problem.

Why? Because the only person you can control is you. If you claim it’s your boss’s fault, that means you get to pass the buck. If you decide lower conversion rates are because your customers are dumb, that’s an excuse to not try and fix it.

But you can’t just “fix it,” can you. Especially if you believe that the fault lies with someone else. Making it your fault and your problem means that you get to do something about it, not just blame and move on. Making it your fault means that power lays in the one place you can use it: within you.

And that’s not just some self-help/new age/zen-esque notion. The problems with your business and site are usually you, in that you haven’t figured out how to build a site for your customers. You built a site for you.

The joke among web designers and graphic artists is that the client always wants to logo bigger. Why? The logo doesn’t ever help the customer, it’s bigger to stroke the ego of the client. Every pixel of space added to the logo is a pixel taken away from something the customer might actually want. Every interstitial ad is ten seconds you stole from your user. Every home page that touts how much you appreciate your customer is a another click the customer has to slog through to get to their order status.

When you send marketing emails, do you fill it with junk that you want the customer to know, or do you fill it with what the customer actuality wants? Is your web site showing products that you want the customer to know about, or the products your customers came for?

Do you even know the difference?

Don’t you love it when two airlines merge and they tell you that they did it for your convenience. It wasn’t to lower operating costs and increase margins while bringing standards of customer service to ever-falling levels? This is what a company calls convenience?

Do you know the difference between “important customer emails” and “spam?” I bet the standard you have for your personal emails and those your company sends are different.

And that’s why you are the problem. Because you are the only person who can stand up for what your user wants and actually give it to them. They will reward you later with more sales and better word of mouth. But for right now, as the calendar changes over, the burden falls on you to fix your problem.

How will you become the solution?

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is a digital strategist, mad scientist, lover, fighter, drummer and blogger living in Chicago. You can reach out to him or just argue with his premise at saltlab.com.