Almost every company, whether they’re big or small, has a customer service department – or at the very least an owner who wears the customer service hat on a daily basis.

A small business can actually become big based on their customer service. Before you start laughing at the idea, let’s take a look at the differences we see in small business customer service versus the customer service we see in the larger companies.

The bigger they are – the harder they fall. This rings true with the larger companies and their customer service. Call a big company with a complaint and you’ll rarely get a satisfactory resolution. In fact, you might hang up before you even reach a human because they keep you embroiled on their automated system until you finally feel defeated and chalk it up to a lesson learned.

Customers can lose interest in a company fast if they don’t get their complaints taken care of in a timely manner. A small business owner can offer personalized complaint resolution in a timely manner.

Policies are a pitfall. The larger companies generally have some kind of policy in place to protect themselves – the fine print you forgot to read when you bought the product.

The smaller business owner tends to stand by his product or service, or is so intent on growing his business that he delivers above and beyond your expectations to ensure that you remain loyal to his brand.

Make sure you treat every customer the same and provide the kind of customer care you’d want to have if it was you on the other end of the line making the call. Sometimes, you might lose a customer based on his or her dissatisfaction, but don’t let it cause you to tarnish your reputation by being rude or negative with them. Continue being polite, because even though you didn’t meet their needs, they could recommend someone to you in the future whose needs you will meet.

Customer service is meant to help support the customer whenever they have questions or problems. When you address them as a person and not a case number they’re more likely to come back and do business with you again.

The small business owner has the advantage in this respect. Their business focus is on their customers and getting them to come back. Larger companies have the luxury of seeing an influx of new customers every day, so they’re sometimes not as concerned with keeping the old ones happy. Take advantage of your small business status and go big on customer service or it could be the one thing holding you back from achieving growth in your company.

The thank-you note has gone away like the paper it was once written on. I don’t mind an email, or god forbid, a phone call – to thank me for using a service. The problem I have is that I don’t get any of those anymore.

I bought my first home last spring. I couldn’t count on all my fingers and toes the number of service providers we’ve used to fix-up the house and lawn, but I can tell you exactly how many of them have stayed in touch with me…

One.

I met my real estate agent at a networking breakfast 2 years ago. We exchanged information (I wasn’t even looking for a house) – and she kept in touch regularly. As soon as I needed a house, I didn’t even look for other agents – I just called her and set up a meeting. I already “knew” her, she was even a “friend.”

(If anyone is looking for a house in the Madison, WI area – let me know and I’ll forward her info.)

See? I even tell everyone I know about her. The reason is simple – she’s a real person who cares about relationships. I’m sure she cares about other things – like making money – but I can guarantee you that she’s more interested in helping you out.

Do you know why this is? How in God’s name could a business owner not have profit as the number one thing on their mind? Because she knows that if she’s good to you, you’ll tell someone else.

That’s it. It’s networking at it’s most fundamental level. It’s the reason why word-of-mouth is still recognized as the best marketing program ever. It’s why affiliate programs have made millionaires out of people who refer people. It’s the concept that you don’t need to sell anything to anyone – all you need to do is be nice to people and make sure they know what you do.

That’s it. That may be the one line that all of us should read, re-read, post on our mirror, and repeat to ourselves 10 times per day.

“You don’t need to sell anything to anyone – all you need to do is be nice to people and make sure they know what you do.”

How To Thank People

Saying ‘thank you’ after you provide a service is expected (even though that rarely happens anymore either). Calling someone on the phone to say thank you is great too. A follow-up can clear any bad air that people might be experiencing. You know it’s common that people have questions after-the-fact but don’t have the time or energy to call and ask about it, right? When they don’t get a follow-up from you – the next time they need your service, they go back to the yellow pages instead of your entry in their address book.

The best way, in my opinion, is to follow up with each and every person you come in contact with by mail. Yes, good ‘ol mail. A thank you note/card can make an immediate – and lasting – impact. Add your own handwriting to the card and the impact doubles. Add a picture of your contact/customer to the card and the impact doubles again.

This is Too Much Work

You may feel like this process takes too much time for the amount of return. The process can be slow to heed results, but you have to remember that networking is a long-term deal. This is your business for life. Work on this for 6 months and it’ll be easier, a year later you won’t remember not doing it, a year after that you’ll be having so much fun and rolling in so much money you’ll look back and laugh that you didn’t start this earlier.

Make it Easier

I use a product that does most of the hard work for me. I log-on to a website, pick a greeting card, write a note in my own handwriting font, add a picture if I have one and click send. The card is printed, stuffed into an envelope, stamped, and mailed for me. I can even create campaigns with several cards that send out over time – it’s like an email autoresponder for the ‘real’ world.

If you want to see how this system works, you’ll have to contact me and let me know because it’s a closed system. I promise I’ll make time for whoever takes the initiative to contact me about this. It’s THAT important.

No Matter What, Say Thanks

Even if you don’t take the steps to write notes or make phone calls, at LEAST say thank you to the people that do use your business or buy your products. We live in an age where whatever we need is at the tip of our fingers on a search page. People don’t need to remember you when they can just as easily find a provider with another search.

MAKE them remember you next time. Especially in a down economy, don’t let yourself get stressed out – or worse yet, go out of business – because you’re short on sales. There is PLENTY of business out there for the people who have built relationships. You just need to make sure you are one of those people.

Just remember it’s never to late. You can choose right now to turn your business around by creating lasting relationships with your customers and contacts.

Do it.

If you’re running a home business that relies on replication, there are a few key things you should not overlook.  Whether you’re working with a network marketing downline, training new sales people, or managing an affiliate program – these keys can help produce not only a successful team, but could help you become financially and professionally rich.

NEVER do anything you wouldn’t want your team to do.

This is practical in almost every situation. If you don’t want your team wasting hours on designing business cards, building new marketing systems, or watching television – you shouldn’t be doing those things either.

Assuming you’ve got yourself into a business that has usable marketing systems, think hard before you try and create “your own thing.” Could your downline or team do this? Could they also then teach it to others? The chances are likely that using the systems in place – whether you think you can build a better one or not – is the best method. This not only creates replication, but it creates focus and limits distraction.

The build-in system may not work work better than a system you would customize, but replication creates more success than you could ever produce by yourself.

For real replication, keep it simple.

For each step you add to the process, you severely decrease your teams chance of replicating success. Whether or not there are 20 possible things to do, you need to focus on the core THREE. This, again, creates focus.

If someone above you hasn’t already done this, break the business down into 3 major parts. Practice, teach and preach these 3 parts with everything you have. You can always add more complex branches to this later, but limiting yourself and your team to 3 or 4 primary tasks every day creates habits and core success. Three tasks a day for your group is the recipe for replication soup. ;)

Create what you want replicated.

Similar to the first item, if you want something to be replicated – you need to DO it! If you want your team to support their team via phone calls and emails, make sure you are doing the same. Does your team have your cell phone number? Do you call them every once and a while to check their progress? This not only creates a supportive atmosphere, but accountability. This support is then passed down to their team, and so on. THAT is replication.

Replication is action that creates action. This new action can never be sparked by inactivity. It’s rare to find someone starting their own home business who has COMPLETE self-motivation that creates action. If you want your team to succeed, you’ll be the catalyst they need. Replication, then, will follow.

What are the best ways you’ve found to create replication in your business? Let us know in the comments.

Being a home business owner is tough road to travel. Along with taking on the hefty tasks of branding and selling, you have to organize and manage the administrative aspects of your company too. Luckily, there are a million products out there designed to help you streamline your projects and keep your operations running smoothly. But oftentimes these products can be expensive and unnecessary, significantly cutting into the bottom line. Even though home businesses typically have low overhead, there are always ways to keep cutting corners, and in this financial environment it’s never a bad idea to keep a strict eye on administrative costs.

A smart business owner is constantly researching ways to trim your overhead costs to make sure their business is as profitable as possible. Make sure you’re at the top of your game by implementing and taking advantage of all the free and low-cost options there are out there for small business owners.

1. Accounting Software — If you’re really handy with the spreadsheets, you can build and keep track of your business finances in Excel or Google spreadsheets using simple formulas. But if you’re more of an input and go type person, you can try Intuit’s Quick Books Simple Start Edition which was built specifically for small businesses whose accounting is pretty straight forward. You can download it here.

2. Advertising costs — If you haven’t already, try your hand at online advertising. There are many a good deal to be had on the web. Research websites or blogs that cater specifically to your niche industry or target demographic. Facebook offers great advertising deals by exposing you to a vast marketing audience and letting you set your own cpm (cost per thousand impressions) or cpc (cost per click) price and setting a daily spending limit. You can run a two week advertising campaign geo-targeted to your location for less than $300. And seeking out niche websites and blogs that have a very specific focus and audience can yield you even better results.

3. Administrative Assistance — If you need basic admin help, a virtual administrative service like Guru or eLance could be the answer. A friend of mine runs a highly successful online food venture and uses a virtual assistant to help her tackle her inbox and respond to the hundreds of queries she gets every day, schedule appointments, write weekly newsletters and contact vendors. In addition, the assistants are pre-screened and make bids for your work, so you’re able to get a qualified candidate for a price that fits nicely into your budget.

4. Freeware — There’s way too much free software online for people to spend hundreds of dollars on expensive programs. If large corporations and publishing houses can switch over to save overhead, so can you. Need basic formatting and spreadsheet programs? Try Google Documents (which you can save and send as Word files). Looking for a database to keep track of your client list? Try Base, a free database management system from Open Office.

5. Skype It — If you sit in a home office all day, there’s really no reason to pay for a land line for your business when you can take care of all of your calls via Skype. If you normally use your cell phone to take care of business, you can cut down on your bill and daytime minutes by taking advantage of free (or extremely low priced) online calls. Skype allows you to pay $2.95 a month to make phone calls to land lines and cell phones. Their free service is limited to other Skype users.

6. Office Supplies — Forget the overpriced Staples and Office Maxes of the world. Switch your focus to online. Computer related purchases can be had for a fraction of their sticker price at newegg.com. You can snag computer monitors, memory sticks, USB keys, and pretty much anything else tech related for pennies on the dollar. Forgo buying writing, office and paper supplies at office supply chain stores which typically charge a higher premium and check out your local Dollar Store or Wal-Mart to find cheaper supplies. Or if you really want to go all web 2.0, nix paper altogether and run a completely digital business – just don’t forget to backup all of your data on an external drive ($46.99 at Newegg).

7. Health Insurance — If your healthcare isn’t covered by a working spouse, look into freelancing unions to find affordable healthcare. Another alternative is to look into any state sponsored programs like New York State’s Healthy NY programs.

8. Legal Counsel – The cost of getting sound legal advice can wipe out a small business, so if you need a second opinion on something, there’s no reason not to take advantage of pro bono legal services. For writers or people who work with online creative projects, you can contact Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts — a nonprofit legal organization that takes on pro bono work to help settle issues with almost anyone working in a creative field, be it journalism, dance, theatre, fashion, design or visual arts. Although they’re located in New York, they typically take on cases from all over the U.S. You can also check out the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service for general advice and to get set up with pro bono counsel, if needed.

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve had so many blogs fail I wouldn’t even be able to list them by memory. I’ve tried niche blogs, broad-topic blogs, news blogs, and business blogs… but there was a reason they all failed.

I came across Yaro Starak, a crazy-haired Australian blogger who does very well for himself over at his Entrepreneur’s Journey blog. He’s turned his blog into a $10K/month business over the last several years with discipline and a blueprint (and a little luck, I’m sure). In my case, the one thing I was missing was a good, proven blueprint.

I don’t find it a coincidence that shortly after learning about Yaro’s blueprint in October 2008, Good Plum (which had just started) began taking off quite considerably. I all of a sudden started writing regularly for Mashable, I had people emailing me daily with questions I could help them with, my weekly newsletter started seeing new subscribers every day… in just a few short months. I’m of course not making thousands of dollars here, but there is no doubt that I will as I continue to follow my (& Yaro’s) blueprint.

There’s a reason why I advertise his material on Good Plum’s sidebar – it’s because I use it and find it extremely useful (I do NOT advertise anything I don’t use myself).

If you’re not familiar with Yaro Starak and his blog, and are looking to start a blog as a business, I’m happy to pass along the link to download Yaro’s blueprint which I have adopted as my own. Better still, this is completely and utterly free – no strings attached!

Keep in mind, that it’s rare that blogging alone brings someone enough to live on. In my case, Good Plum is simply here to serve a single, grand purpose: to be an outlet for my knowledge so that other people can learn from me. Along the way, I hope to gain loyal readers and partners who will follow me through any business I might decide to take on.

Back to Yaro’s blueprint, I wanted to give you a list of the chapter titles included in the free e-book so you can see just how powerful this stuff is. Here’s the link again to download Yaro’s Blog Profits Blueprint for yourself.

Yaro’s Blog Profits Blueprint table of contents:

How To Make Money Blogging
Blogging as a Business, Not a Job
What’s Next?
Who Is Yaro Starak?
What Is A Blog And Why Are They So Popular?
How Blogs Make Money
The Two Key Ingredients For Attracting Attention
Why Do You Blog?
How To Choose Your Blog Topic – Passions Vs. Profits
Let’s Talk Tactics
Content + Marketing = Traffic
What Is A Pillar?
How Do You Create A Pillar?
How To Market Your Blog
Time vs. Reward
Most People Are Lazy
Communication Channels
The Power of Leverage
Compound Effects
Think Big Picture, Work Little Picture
Traffic Tactics
Peer Relationships
Network Effects
Start With Your Peers
Bigger and Better Content Pillars
It’s Time To Make Money
Can Blogs Be A Stable Income Source?
The Holy Grail of Blog Monetization – Recursive Affiliate Income
The Next Best Option – Direct Advertisers
The Problem with Google AdSense
Other Monetization Options
My Top Blog Monetization Methods
Turn Your Blog Into A Business
Why Most Bloggers Fail
Do You Have Enough Information To Succeed?
Congratulations! – Now Get To Work
Advice For Beginners, The Lost And Confused
Would You Like Me To Coach You?
Thank You For Your Attention

“The Twitter Effect” – also known as The Mashable Effect or The Digg Effect – as become a topic of conversation lately due to a handful of blogs being taken offline from the amount of traffic instantaneously sent to them from Twitter.

The basics of the effect are this:  a link is posted by someone on Twitter, that link is “retweeted” (forwarded, in email-speak) again and again and again.  If it’s a popular or timely topic, this can cause a surge of traffic to that one page on your site almost instantly.

At Good Plum, we’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of these situations in the past week – both started by @Mashable’s Pete Cashmore linking to a couple of the posts here, as well as guest posts I’ve written for Mashable.  The flood of visitors added up quickly and at one point, there was many hundreds of simultaneous readers on 1 or 2 pages of the site.  Server logs show a spike, but no where near peaking our processing power.  How did we survive this?

This amount of simultaneous visitors trying to access the same content on a blog can take many servers down temporarily.  We have a couple basic tools in place that help prevent this from happening and we’d like to share:

Tip 1 – Grow Up
Get OFF your shared (or grid) server.  I really don’t care much what technical people tell me about how their shared system grows with my site, etc. — I’ve had too many experiences where the accessibility is way too unpredictable.

We use a virtual private server (VPS) from ServInt here at Good Plum.  A virtual private server gives you dedicated resources (drive space, processor power) to keep your site and database running smooth.  It’s essentially giving you a full dedicated server for a fraction of the cost.

A good VPS from ServInt is only going to cost you about $49 a month to start – probably about double what you might pay for a decent shared server – but the long-term benefits are clear.  Flexibility, reliability, and performanace.  Who wants to lose out on hundreds and thousands of potential readers/visitors just because we have a cheap web host?

Tip 2 – Cache It
On your WordPress blog (which MANY people reading this are using), do you know the amount of stress a lot of visitors at once has on your database?  It’s amazing if you monitor database activity during a high-traffic rush.  WordPress performs so many queries that it’s difficult for it to perform those queries hundreds of time, all at the same time.  The effect is that it shuts down and you lose your traffic until you get the server reset (or, much worse, you actually go over some of your host’s imposed limits and they shut you down).

The ultimate tool to prevent WordPress overload is…..

WP Super Cache.  Super Cache is a WordPress plugin that actually caches (stores) copies of a dynamically generated page.  It then allows subsequent visitors to view that stored copy, instead of having to generate the page all over again for the next visitor, and the next, etc.

Once you activate the plugin and someone visits a page, the page pulls what it needs from the database just like it normally would.  But then it stores that page to a folder on your server.  Next time someone visits that page (or hundreds of people at once), it has the cached version of that page to display instead of having to pull it from the database again!  I can’t stress enough how much this saves your server.

Of course, if you update the page or someone comments on an article, the cache is cleared so the new version is available to the next person.

–
Are YOU prepared for the Twitter Effect?  You never know when someone with some social juice will start a retweeting avalanche that could either shut you down, or bring you a thousand new fans!

After a long day when you go to bed, right before sleeping, what is the last thing in your mind?

When you wake up in the morning, what is the first thing you think of? It totally depends on what you do and who you are. For most of us, those last and first thoughts are related directly to what is a problem in our lives. For a mother might be things like what to cook tomorrow, how to cope with teenager hormones and moods, or perhaps, how to pay for that gift that is really out of the budget.

For so many people, those last and first thoughts are directly related to their jobs. Many are worried of loosing that income, even though they can’t stand working there. Many are working extra hard to get that promotion, to improve their performance, to be in a better situation.

But what can drive you to be a better worker if you don’t like what you do?

That’s the reality that brings you down. You need the money to support yourself, to support your family, to pay for the mortgage, to pay for the bills, and yet you daydream about having a different job, better paid, a job that makes you happy.

There’s a song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young that says: “If you can’t be with the one you love, Love the one you’re with.” To fall in love with something you don’t like already is very difficult! But if you give it a try, maybe then you will start liking what you do.

The trick is to enjoy what you do, to take your job as a hobby, and then you will never “work” again, simply because you enjoy it so much, it is not a “job” anymore. To make money doing something you love, is the ideal situation for every human being.

Of course not everybody can be the official taster at Hershey’s Chocolate Factory, or testers for mattress and comfortable chairs. But if there is something in your life that gives you satisfaction, something you really enjoy and you are good at, why not try to make that special thing your main income?

Accepting your reality means sacrifices, means doing things that might not be what you wish. But don’t give up your dreams. Try to find an outlet, and make your reality a life worth living. After all, happiness is not a destination… It’s a journey.

When you hear the word “coach”, what comes first into your mind? Do you picture a basketball team with a man/woman shouting out directions? Or perhaps a football team with a man/woman pacing to and fro and calling out the names of the players?

Coaching is no longer reserved to sports teams; it is now one of the key concepts in leadership and management. Why is coaching popular?

Coaching levels the playing field.

Coaching is one of the six emotional leadership styles proposed by Daniel Goleman. Moreover, it is a behavior or role that leaders enforce in the context of situational leadership. As a leadership style, coaching is used when the members of a group or team are competent and motivated, but do not have an idea of the long-term goals of an organization. This involves two levels of coaching: team and individual. Team coaching makes members work together. In a group of individuals, not everyone may have nor share the same level of competence and commitment to a goal. A group may be a mix of highly competent and moderately competent members with varying levels of commitment. These differences can cause friction among the members. The coaching leader helps the members level their expectations. Also, the coaching leader manages differing perspectives so that the common goal succeeds over personal goals and interests. In a big organization, leaders need to align the staffs’ personal values and goals with that of the organization so that long-term directions can be pursued.

Coaching builds up confidence and competence.

Individual coaching is an example of situational leadership at work. It aims to mentor one-on-one building up the confidence of members by affirming good performance during regular feedbacks; and increase competence by helping the member assess his/her strengths and weaknesses towards career planning and professional development. Depending on the individual’s level of competence and commitment, a leader may exercise more coaching behavior for the less-experienced members. Usually, this happens in the case of new staffs. The direct supervisor gives more defined tasks and holds regular feedbacks for the new staff, and gradually lessens the amount of coaching, directing, and supporting roles to favor delegating as competence and confidence increase.

Coaching promotes individual and team excellence.

Excellence is a product of habitual good practice. The regularity of meetings and constructive feedback is important in establishing habits. Members catch the habit of constantly assessing themselves for their strengths and areas for improvement that they themselves perceive what knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to acquire to attain team goals. In the process, they attain individually excellence as well. An example is in the case of a musical orchestra: each member plays a different instrument. In order to achieve harmony of music from the different instrument, members will polish their part in the piece, aside from practicing as an ensemble. Consequently, they improve individually as an instrument player.

Coaching develops high commitment to common goals.

A coaching leader balances the attainment of immediate targets with long-term goals towards the vision of an organization. As mentioned earlier, with the alignment of personal goals with organizational or team goals, personal interests are kept in check. By constantly communicating the vision through formal and informal conversations, the members are inspired and motivated. Setting short-term team goals aligned with organizational goals; and making an action plan to attain these goals can help sustain the increased motivation and commitment to common goals of the members.

Coaching produces valuable leaders.

Leadership by example is important in coaching. A coaching leader loses credibility when he/she cannot practice what he/she preaches. This means that a coaching leader should be well organized, highly competent is his/her field, communicates openly and encourages feedback, and has a clear idea of the organization’s vision-mission-goals. By vicarious and purposive learning, members catch the same good practices and attitudes from the coaching leader, turning them into coaching leaders themselves. If a member experiences good coaching, he/she is most likely to do the same things when entrusted with formal leadership roles.

Some words of caution though: coaching is just one of the styles of leadership. It can be done in combination with the other five emotional leadership styles depending on the profile of the emerging team. Moreover, coaching as a leadership style requires that you are physically, emotionally, and mentally fit most of the time since it involves two levels of coaching: individual and team. Your members expect you to be the last one to give up or bail out in any situation especially during times of crises. A coaching leader must be conscious that coaching entails investing time on each individual, and on the whole team. Moreover, that the responsibilities are greater since while you are coaching members, you are also developing future coaches as well.