Successful Blog

Did You See the Netflix Movie that Bombed?

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As a business owner, you oftentimes have to put things out there and see what sticks.

What does stick can prove profitable, while other attempts can fall on deaf ears. Anyone remember the new Coke?

For business owners, effectively communicating with your customers and potential customers can mean the difference between turning a profit, breaking even and even going under.

Upset Customers are bad for Business

As many of you know, Netflix alerted subscribers a few months back that it was going to employ separate prices for its DVDs-by-mail and streaming video plans.

The end result would be a significant price increase for its customers, with the least expensive bill for customers who sought both services going from $10 to $16 a month. While $6 a month doesn’t sound like much, that is $72 a year that could go for other indulgences.

With the price increase kicking in this month, many Netflix subscribers indicated they would be turning elsewhere for their DVD and streaming video needs. Upset customers bombarded the Netflix site with countless comments, along with a barrage of tweets via the hashtag #DearNetflix.

According to the most recent data, it appears a significant number of those subscribers are holding true to their word.

Netflix recently trimmed its subscriber forecast for the present quarter, reporting it now expects to conclude the period with 24 million customers, some one million less than it had forecast just a few weeks back. When Netflix ended its second quarter at the end of June, it reported having 25.6 million global subscribers.

So, how did Netflix respond to this issue in hopes of righting the ship?

In yet another public relations nightmare, the company said it was separating its DVD mail rental and video streaming services, renaming the new DVD service Qwikster (the streaming service will remain under the Netflix name). Individuals who choose to both rent and stream videos will be required to log in to a pair of different sites and get two different credit card charges.

Research Ahead of Time Potential Fallout Issues

Not only have many subscribers expressed their dismay with the price increase, but they also were probably left scratching their heads as to the new name for the service.

As it turns out, Netflix apparently did not do enough research on the name Qwikster ahead of time, or officials would have known that the Qwikster name on social media venue Twitter is currently held by a male whose avatar is that of Elmo displaying a joint. Oops!

So not only now do you have a company upsetting many of its subscribers by hiking the costs for its popular service, but now you leave them confused with the name change, not even apparently taking the time to check and see who might hold that label on one of the most popular social media sites. Again, oops!

Due to the company’s recent gaffes, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings issued a statement to customers upset with the price increase for the service in recent weeks. “I messed up,” he remarked on the company blog and in an e-mail to subscribers. “I owe everyone an explanation.”

Running a successful business takes time and effort, but above all, the ability to always be one step ahead of the game.

In this instance, it appears Netflix and the changes it enacted, are getting tuned out by a large percentage of customers.

Photo credit: benzinga.com

Dave Thomas writes extensively for business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses. Among the topics he writes about is business cash advance.



Irresistible Consistency: Are You Suited Up for Soccer When Golf Is the Game?

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Right People, Right Positions, Right Game

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In the NYTimes bestseller, Good to Great, author Jim Collins laid out the foundation of an outstanding enterprise class organization. When I heard him speak, last October he said that the winner is the one with the best team. To achieve the best team,

  • A leader has to identify the right people who are the smartest.
  • A leader has to put them in the right positions.
  • A leader has to value, reward, and celebrate teamwork.

Those who change the world are enormously consistent in how they do it. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency. – Jim Collins, World Business Forum, 2010

It’s my experience that Mr. Collins’ short list brings constant improvement in situations where the game never changes. The hidden assumption is that the playing field, the conditions, the climate, the trends, and rules of business remain the same.

They didn’t. They don’t. They never will. They won’t.

Are You Suited Up for Soccer When Golf Is the Game?

I don’t doubt for second that Mr. Collins knows that and chooses his people to match the game that’s currently in play. Yet, when I work on strategy with big corporations and small business, too often I find their still suiting up and running the plays for the game that was on the field yesterday. It doesn’t work if you’re suited up for soccer and golf is the game.
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The Internet has moved the field, changed the rules, disrupted conditions, upset the culture, sparked new trends, shifted the playbook with new models and more flexible teams, and relocated the executive locker room.

The consistency that was a strength also built silos, sales scripts, and standard procedures that has lead some of those “smartest people” not to see what they see and not to know what they know in deference to rules build to ensure one-size-fits-all consistency.

Those companies suited up for a highly consistent playing field are finding their sales numbers and their service reports frustrated by customers who value responses that are custom-made for what they need. Because to over-value consistency is to focus on process, when it’s people who help a business thrive.

So how can we use Jim Collins’ Good to Great research and insights to leverage the opportunities of the new people-focused game — the social business culture, changes in the way companies and customers communicate, constantly moving metrics and toolkits, trend shifts, and elastic team dynamics of the 21st century online and off?

What Are the Highest Values of Your Business?

For 21st century organizations to move fluidly and fluently through multiple platforms and cultures, we need to look at the old short list in a slightly new way. The winner will still be the one with the best team, but now to achieve the best team, leaders will ignite communities of like-minded leaders at every level inside and outside the organization — employees, partners, vendors, customers, evangelists, friends, and fans who also want to invest in taking something from good to great.

Long-term, loyalty — trust — is a value-based relationship.

  • Live your highest values.
  • Be able to recognize the people who share them.
  • Invite those people to help build your business.

Consistency will win — a consistency of valuing the people who share your highest values is irresistible business strategy.

What are the highest values of your business?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Right People, Right Positions, Right Game

Let Your Human Out: Build Connections With Your Small Business Marketing

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A Guest Post by
Stacey Acevero

Online marketing is really based on relationships, but living in a virtual world
where people can talk to one another, buy from one another and follow one another
without ever having to make a face-to-face connection can de-humanize the
marketing process.

If your marketing efforts aren’t generating the results you hoped for, try these 3
ways you can come out from behind your corporate cage and strengthen the bond
between you and your consumers.

1. Introduce the faces behind your brand.

Imbed video of conversational interviews with your management and staff
in online press releases, on your website and on your social channels. You
can also provide photos and profiles of the employees who will be the official
tweeters and bloggers for your company.

A study by The Next Web found that Facebook updates with photos receive
300 percent more engagement. Capture that increased engagement by
having your employees post on your Facebook page, tweet, like, comment

and communicate through LinkedIn using their corporate photos and
profiles.

2. Highlight corporate events on your Facebook page

Give followers an opportunity to see the best in your employees by uploading
videos of corporate philanthropic events. For example, members of your
staff might volunteer at a 5K run for the American Heart Association. Have
them all wear company shirts and showcase their presence at the event.

You can also invite employees to submit videos of their personal
philanthropic projects. Establish a monthly employee volunteer spotlight
column to introduce people in your company who are making a difference in
their community.

3. Respond to ALL comments

Businesses big and small are learning that the effect of a negative comment
can be hugely destructive. In fact, a recent study by InsideView found a
negative review on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter can cost a company 30
customers.

So it makes sense that companies respond quickly to negative comments.
This is where a human touch can ease ruffled feathers. Your reaction should
be personal and compassionate. Sometimes providing a sense of humor
can diffuse situations as well – invest time and training for the person who
will be the face of your brand in the midst of criticism on your social media
platforms.

However, it’s almost worse to receive a positive comment via your social
media channels and not respond. If someone has gone to the trouble to
say something good about your brand, thank them and then engage them
further. They may be open to letting you retweet, share and incorporate
their feedback into your press releases, website or email marketing.

Businesses and buyers are two intelligent species that can live in harmony together.
It takes a commitment to creating relationships and a willingness to continue
conversations.

Add a human touch to your online marketing strategies and your business will move up the evolutionary chain.

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Author’s Bio: Stacey Acevero is Social Media Manager for Vocus/PRWeb. Public Relations, SEO, marketing, small business and social media nerd. U.S. Air Force auxiliary 2nd Lieutenant and Mission Scanner. Organizer and sponsor of charity events. You can find Stacey on Twitter as @sacevero

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Don’t Chase Down Your Dream, Bring It to You

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Own Your Dreams

When I was young my dad used to say, “If you’re going to be a teacher, own the school.”

I’d explain that’s not how schools work — that schools provide a place to do what I want. I’d tell him about what I’d teach and how what kids would learn would change the world.

He said I had my dreams in the clouds.
He said that was no way to own my dreams.

Don’t Chase Down Your Dream, Bring It to You

My dad didn’t care if my dream was to run a corporation, a classroom, or a saloon. He cared that I understand how dreams work — how we bring them us rather than chasing them down.
My dad made three points about how to fill my dream with attraction.

  1. We can make any idea attractive by turning it into action.
  2. It’s the action not the idea that makes the difference, the difference we alone bring to the idea.
  3. People who bring action build their future by delivering value that would be missed if they weren’t there.

Whether we work in the most obscure company, or work for ourselves at contract jobs. People notice value added contributions. People look for folks who offer them unique value.

Value added is an irresistible contribution and it brings surprising opportunities as a reward.

Don’t wait for your dream to deliver …
deliver yourself to your dream everyday …
… in small amounts, in small steps, in small and big actions.
Get where your dream lives by always keeping it in view.
Show up with your dream in every breath and in heartbeat,
and every moment will bring you closer to that dream.

How do you bring your dream closer to you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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Create New Business Connections Using Twitter Less than 30 Minutes a Day!

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Grow Your Business

This article first appeared on Amex Open Forum

If you produced the world’s most enticing business networking event, who would you invite? Certainly we’d all want people from our own industry – vendors, partners, stakeholders, employees, customers and clients, even competitors – people from all over the world connecting and sharing what they do and how they do it.

Information and connections invaluable to creating more opportunities for any business … but taking advantage of all of the possibilities at a huge event — finding the best strategic matches to your business — is clearly impossible to do. After all, such a gathering would involve thousands of great people (and likely a few who aren’t so great), and you’re only one you. In the few days at any live event, it’s not possible to explore a serious business relationship with every person who might strategically help you grow your business. And the cost in time and resources to attend more than a few events a year limits that ability to connect even more.

That’s what has made Twitter so popular. Twitter has become the World’s Largest Networking event and you can sign in to connect and build relationships that will grow your business simply by investing some quality time every day. Here’s how to get started building that Twitter network in as little as 30 minutes a day.

  1. Decide who you are. Twitter is about people of like minds and like values connecting to share what they know and to find ways to work together. To attract the people who meet that criteria for you, you have to be clear on your values, clear on who you are, and clear on what you have to offer people who might want to work with you.
  2. Choose a great profile pix. Your Twitter profile is your calling card and the first place people look when they want to know more about you. Think about the vendors, partners, stakeholders, employees, customers and clients, and even competitors you might want to talk with and learn from when you choose your profile picture. Make it a picture that reflects a real person that those real people will want to get to know.
  3. Make your bio more than a pitch. Read a whole slew of Twitter bios. Which ones make you interested in the people they represent? Say something in your bio that makes me want to know more about you and be sure to include a link to where I can find that “more” if I do.
  4. Search for like-minded people and follow them. Many tools can help you locate the people you want to follow. Make a list of key words that might identify the people who are a good match for you. Job titles, issues, and trends make good key word searches. Some tools to start finding people to follow might include Twitter’s own search box, Listorious.com, and a “who to follow on Twitter” search on your favorite search engine.
  5. Check who your followers are following. When you find and follow someone who knows your industry and also knows Twitter. Click through to see who that person is following. Read their bios and decide whether you should be following those people too.
  6. Listen to the people you follow and add value to their conversations. Watch what the people you follow do that you find worth imitating. Most influential Twitter folks talk directly to other people and make their message about the people they’re talking to. If you want people to listen to what you’re saying, speak in their language and make the message about them.
  7. Curate Attractive Content. Read the online publications that the people you want to attract and connect with would be interested in. When you find a great article, share the title, share the link, and share the @Twitter name of the author if you can find it. Everyone enjoys it when someone passes on their work. Many writers watch their Twitter “mentions” to see who has talked about them. It’s a great way to make relationships with them.
  8. Start slowly. Show up at the same times every day. With 15 minutes in the morning around 7am and 15 minutes in the evening around 4pm or 7pm, you’ll start seeing the same faces show up in your Tweet stream. and relationships will naturally happen, if you simply reach out to the people who care about the same things that you do.

Though Twitter can take more time than anyone might be able to afford, if you invest 30 minutes a day for a month, you’ll begin to get or extend invitations to share an email or a phone call about working together. Then, you’ll know how Twitter has come to be the world’s largest networking room inside your computer.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Are You Afraid of Getting Personal in Business?

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Guest Post
by Annabel Candy

Would you like to build stronger relationships with your potential clients and create trust faster?

Me too and I’m finally making in roads. It took me 1o years to work out how to get my clients to trust me or, more accurately, to accidentally discover how to build their trust faster, but now I’ve cracked it I’m never going back.

When I first set up my own business in 1998 I didn’t know much about the business world and I lacked confidence. I felt as if I didn’t fit in. In my mind business people were hard-nosed professionals, wearers of suits and time poor workaholics.

To make things worse it wasn’t just that I felt as if I didn’t fit in. I really didn’t. I worked from home on a small island in New Zealand and all my clients were a 30 minute ferry ride away in the city.

They had real jobs in real offices. They were real business people and I was just a pretender, a business wannabe.

To make sure my prospective clients didn’t find out that I worked from home I played safe. I invested in a great logo in a timeless design and chose safe corporate colors of blue and grey.

My branding, which carried through to my website and business cards, looked classy and professional but it didn’t have any personality. It just wasn’t me.

Being new to business I did what I had to do to start finding work. I got the yellow pages out and started cold calling.

My business is web design and web copywriting. I had an MA in Design for Interactive Media and two years experience designing, writing and setting up effective websites but getting work was still hard. Like pulling nails in fact, and during the nine years I ran that business I never once got a job unless I met a client face to face.

Even after we got our first few jobs and started getting leads through the search engines and word of mouth recommendations, I still had to meet people before they’d give me the job.

But over the past few years my business has turned around and so have my clients. All of a sudden I have clients in faraway places who’ve never met me and couldn’t even if they wanted to. Even though I live in a small Australian vacation resort town I now have clients all over the world.

So what changed?

Two years ago I started blogging. I set up a blog called Get In the Hot Spot because I wanted to learn about social media and blogging to help my web design clients.

I wrote about travel but my blog posts often strayed into personal development or just personal stories.

My blog was definitely not a marketing tool for my business but gradually people started contacting me and asking if they could work with me even though they’d never met me.

People all around the world suddenly wanted to work with me not because they knew my qualifications or work experience, but because of personal experiences I’d shared on my blog.

Looking back to when I was new to business I made a big mistake by always putting up a professional front. I hid my personality and values behind what I thought was business-like behavior.

But sharing personal stories has helped build trust and grow my business much more effectively. Whereas before I probably came across as one of those boring experts we all try to avoid, now people see me as a real person, someone they wanted to hang out with online and offline, someone flawed like them and someone they’d enjoy working with.

These days I still have my safe, grey and blue corporate website for my web design business Mucho but my fun blog Get In the Hot Spot has really taken over. To give you an idea of the difference in branding check out the logos.


Which business would you prefer to work with?

 

How to Get Personal in Business

Blogging helped me grow my business so well that I eventually set up a separate blog where I could share my business and online marketing tips. But I’m careful that, although the topic is business, the writing style is still fun and shows my personality. I often share personal stories there too if they’re relevant.

You don’t have to have a blog to share your personal side with your clients and show your personality. You can do it on your website, through Twitter or Facebook or anywhere else you connect with your clients both on and offline.

Of course there are parameters and you don’t want to over share, but these are my tips for humanizing your business by sharing personal stories:

  1. Be personal but still professional. Make sure your language and stories are family friendly.
  2. Tell stories that people can connect with and choose personal themes like childhood, family or holidays that everyone can relate to.
  3. Keep it interesting – short, sharp injections of personal stories are good. Lessons learned are always popular. Endless rambling monologues about you aren’t.
  4. Inject humor into your story. Everyone likes to laugh and a smile or chuckle will make people relate to you faster.
  5. It’s a two way street. Don’t forget to pay an interest in your client’s personal life too and ask them about their family or vacation plans. It will let them know you care about them as people, not just as potential clients, and help you find common ground.

What are your experiences? Do you share personal stories with your clients?

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Annabel Candy is a copywriter, web designer and travel fiend. She wrote Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps to help other small business owners and writers tap into the power of blogging. Annabel shares her blogging tips at Successful Blogging and her travel stories and personal writing at Get In the Hot Spot.

Thanks, Annabel, for sharing your story!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!