Top Five Tech Tools You're Probably Using - but could use BETTER: part five

Calendar/Task Management

Microsoft Outlook

I had a client a few years back - an office with about five people working in it. You could stand up at your desk and turn around 360 degrees and see the entire company in the sweep of your glance.

While I was there working on low-level installation and configuring, I couldn't help but overhear something occur more than once: an important meeting scheduled with a client had to be rescheduled because one or more staff members had a scheduling conflict. What?

Everyone that worked in the office was in view of each other, and within earshot. Even more puzzling, everyone had Microsoft Outlook installed on their computers. What, I finally asked, were they using to manage inter-office scheduling. Answer: NOTHING!

I'm not a shill for Microsoft, but Outlook is the corporate standard for good reason -- in addition to being an email client (which is all they were using it for) it's a contact manager, a task scheduler, and has individual and group calendar capabilities. Don't think I'm picking on Small Businesses, though -- most of the larger firms and corporations I've worked at and for didn't use Outlook for anything but email either.

Outlook isn't the only viable candidate for task scheduling and shared calendar management: Google Calendar, leveraging the iCal standard, is a great FREE alternative, which interacts natively with almost any Smartphone, making it an even better mobile solution than stationary desktop-based Outlook. As I often say in situations like this, "It's not the tool you choose, it's the tool you USE".

Google Calendar

Task management and calendar (appointment) management about more than just making checklists. Making sure that appointments are kept and tasks don't fall through the cracks are essential aspects of providing superior customer service. They're also areas in which Small Businesses tend to fail miserably since, if they manage them at all, they usually depend on memory or old-fashioned, 20th Century pen and paper methods.

Managing your appointments, tasks and to-do lists manually, by some paper-based method is a non-starter in the 21st Century business environment.

• You can't copy and paste
• You can't search
• You can't import or export email addresses, phone numbers and website URLs
• You can't easily categorize or prioritize your activities
• You can't share your schedule with multiple co-workers
• You can't see, at a glance, available free time to schedule the activity of several people

Let's face it: most Small Businesses still aren't in a position to increase their staff or budgets. Increasing efficiency and eliminating wasted time and effort are simple, accessible ways to step up your customer service game. Google Calendar allows you to create alerts for your scheduled appointments that will send you reminders by email, popup messages or SMS text messages delivered to your cell phone.

I use Google Calendar's alerts to help me not "airhead" important meetings. I create email reminders five days, three days and one day before each appointment. Two hours and one hour before each appointment, I have text reminders sent to my cell phone number. It's like having the most efficient executive assistant constantly shadowing me, keeping me on track with my schedule.

So I can concentrate on the important things: attending the meetings on time, and providing superior customer service to my clients. To-do lists that track to my phone keep the "what I have to do next" literally at my fingertips. So very little falls through the cracks. And tasks that are tracked in a system like Outlook, Google Calendar or some other computer-based/online system, roll forward until they're cancelled or completed.

Thus, fewer important things are overlooked or fogotten. And I don't double-book my time anymore, which used to happen when I managed my schedule on paper or, even worse, by "remembering" them. Because a mind IS a terrible thing to waste -- on the trivial details of task and time management.

Let you computer and you Smart phone do the grunt work -- so you can focus on the stuff you get paid for.

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Related articles

• ClickMeeting Introduces Plug-In for Microsoft Outlook (prweb.com)
• Why I moved from Microsoft Office 365 to Google Apps - Part One (tubblog.co.uk)
• Latest Zoho Calendar Updates: Sync for Google Calendar, Birthday Calendar (zoho.com)
• Two-way Gmail Outlook Sync by CompanionLink (sys-con.com)

Top Ten Reasons Small Businesses Fail - part five

Employees

Many Small Businesses are "solopreneurs", so this post won't apply to them... now. Hopefully, many of these one-person enterprises will expand, and gain staff members or working partners. But there are those Small Business which have employees: managing them well can determine the difference between success and failure.

Your employees are the face of your business - usually the first people your customers and clients will have contact with. To most of them, your employees ARE your company. How well your employees understand the mission and focus of your business, and whether these employees treat your clients with courtesy and respect, shapes the reputation and public image of the company and brand you work hard to establish.

Just as you should never take you clients for granted, you cannot afford to overlook the importance of training and managing your employees. Treat them like mere "workers", and they will only be in it for the paycheck, unconcerned with the effect they have on your clients who, without exaggeration, ARE your business. You must treat your employees as the partners they are - enroll them in the dream, the long-term goal, and not just the short-term pay-off.

It has been well established that people will take a job that pays less if they feel they will be treated more respectfully, included in the decision-making and provided greater challenges and opportunity to prove themselves. They'll actually work harder and longer if they feel they have a stake in the ultimate outcome.

Think about it: How many times have you dealt with the rude bank teller, the argumentative customer service representative or the condescending auto mechanic?  Is this the type of person you want to be the face of your business? An employee treated as a mere "worker bee" is likely to be frustrated and spend each day watching the clock, feeling miserable and unappreciated. It costs you nothing to treat your employees with respect, courtesy and interest.

Satisfied employees are your ultimate promoters - their enthusiasm will be infectious and have a powerful impact on your customers, face-to-face, over the phone and even in email communication. An involved employee instinctively understands the value of quality customer care, and won't have to be constantly reminded to follow up and follow through.

The return on investing in your employees will be have a measurable effect on your bottom line, your customers' satisfaction and client retention. By contrast, a dismissive attitude of "my way, or the highway" is the surest way to guarantee that both your employees and your clients take you up on your offer... to take their time and money elsewhere.

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Series inspired by "Top Ten Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail" by: Connie Holt, E.A. cholt@henssler.com
The Henssler Financial Group Position Paper
© 2004 The Henssler Financial Group | www.henssler.com

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Related articles

• Leadership Tips for Small Business (thinkup.waldenu.edu)
• Small Business Employment Continues To Leak (247wallst.com)
• The Effects of Your Employees on Your Bottom Line (blogs.constantcontact.com)

Top Ten Reasons Small Businesses Fail - part four

Clients

Every Small Business owner, operator or employee should be aware that it costs much more to acquire a new client than retain existing ones.  But old or new, client management is essential to your Small Business economic health.

A key reason Small Businesses fail is that they fail to appreciate the distinction between clients and customers, or they take their clients for granted, chasing after the sale but never following up after the payment clears. Yet there are a few simple, low-cost activities that can help you turn customers into clients, and find new business with your existing clientele, such as:

• An informative, interactive website
• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Email campaigns (and autoresponders)
• Cross-promotions and value-add upselling
• Favored client discounts
• Client loyalty cards, coupons or programs

Business is about relationships - court your clients like a romance.  Remember: there is much more to client management than the sale. Otherwise, it's just a customer relationship. A well-established brick and mortar shop can survive on "one and done" customer relationships; a service business, a startup or an online venture must attempt to capture clients - those people (or companies) that will do business with you on an ongoing basis.

Clients will support your business, well beyond spending their money with you once, and moving on to your competition (usually, without notice). To cultivate such a connection, you must get to know your clients' needs. Examine your financial records, invoices and communications to determine:

• Who your best clients are
• How much business they do with you, on average
• What goods or services they purchase most
• What related goods or services might appeal to them.

"Customer service", even though we're really talking about clients, is one of the single most important overlooked practices of Small Businesses. We're not just talking about handling complaints, and correcting the occasional error in order fulfillment. This is about developing lasting relationships that can make the difference between prosperity and bankruptcy.

These relationships BEGIN with the sale, but do not end there. If, for you, a successful purchase is the end of your active concern... that may be why your client retention rates are lower than they could be.   Just as your relationships with family, friends and loved ones can go cold from neglect, you must put a sincere effort into nurturing your client relationships.

Find new ways to relate to them, but be careful of crossing into the "spam zone".   You want them to appreciate the constant contact, not dread and avoid each new phone call or email. Focus on the value you add to their lives and businesses; it's okay if this takes some time and effort.

What have you got to lose -- except opportunity, revenue... and clients?

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Series inspired by "Top Ten Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail" by: Connie Holt, E.A. cholt@henssler.com
The Henssler Financial Group Position Paper
© 2004 The Henssler Financial Group | www.henssler.com

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Related articles

• Client Retention is Easier with This 5 Step System (bettercloser.com)
• Analysis of 100,000 Small Business Websites Uncovers Critical Challenge (prweb.com)
• Social Media for Small Businesses Is Anything But Small (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• Small Business Growth: Reach out, get connected, and get educated (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• How Insider Perks' Brian Searl Got 9,000 Twitter Followers (businesspundit.com)

Top Ten Reasons Small Businesses Fail - part two

Competition

Are you the best at what you do? Among the best? Anywhere close to the best?

Wherever you rank in comparison to your competition, are your existing or potential customers or clients aware of how you compare? As importantly, how accurate an assessment do you have of where you rank amongst your competitors? Remember: our ideas are like our children - we love them because they are our own.

But as any honest parent will tell you, sometimes we must face some brutal truths about ourselves. Before you can match or exceed the competition, you have to understand who the competion is.

How many competitors do you have?  This is not an abstract question about hypothetical competitors "out there, somewhere"  in your chosen field: this is about who your potential clients might consider in addition to, or instead of, you? More importantly, it's about who your existing customer or client might consider doing business with instead of you.

To remain competitive, you have to assess the competition: the "business school" term for this is "competitor (or competitive) analysis". Who else is doing what you're doing? How saturated is your market? Even if you don't operate from a physical (brick and mortar) office location, most of your customers/clients are probably local.

Examining the competition is also helpful in determining whether your pricing is too high or low for your market, and is a good source of ideas for new goods or services to offer.

You have probably heard the phrase "there's no loyalty in business anymore". This is usually said in reference to employer loyalty - gone are the days that "noone gets laid off at IBM", and such. There's no such thing as a guaranteed steady job, regardless of trade.

There's also no such thing as automatic customer loyalty. Just because they've "always done business with you" doesn't mean that they'll be back tomorrow, to replace the product or renew the contract.

Business, especially in today's economy, is about relationships. Just as apathy and ignorance of other potential suitors can lose your sweetheart's affection, inattention and unawareness of competitors can lose business. Make no assumptions, and court your clients, existing and potential, as if you were a newlywed on honeymoon.

In many ways, the stakes are even higher...

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Series inspired by "Top Ten Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail" by: Connie Holt, E.A. cholt@henssler.com
The Henssler Financial Group Position Paper
© 2004 The Henssler Financial Group | www.henssler.com

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Related articles

• Keep stroking clients, or they'll flee (theglobeandmail.com)
• 3 Keys to Competing (blogs.forbes.com)
• What Are The Top Three Things All Small Business Websites Need? (gilygily.com)
• Startups: Dealing With Competition [TNW Entrepreneur] (thenextweb.com)
• Being Different Isn't Just "Cool," It's Necessary To Survive; Part 2 of 2 (blogs.constantcontact.com)

Top Ten Reasons Small Businesses Fail - part one

Procrastination

You're only as good as your word. Missing deadlines, arriving late for meetings, forgetting to follow up or follow through - these are all symptoms of procrastination, and key factors of Small Business failure.

As a Small Business owner, operator or employee, you cannot afford to slide down procrastination's slippery slope. Since word of mouth is the most effective low cost marketing strategy (and a rich source of revenue and referrals), you must be perceived as someone who:

• Keeps their word
• Honors their commitments
• Values their customers' and clients' time

You may be familiar with the expression "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail". Here is its procrastination-related corrolary: "If you fail to show, you show to fail". Free yourself of the voice in your head, which is telling you some variation of the following: "I work for myself, therefore -

• Noone is the boss of me
• I set my own schedule
• My time is my own
• Why must they nag me - I'll get it done (eventually)

The phrase "it's only time" is a complete falsehood: time, to a great extent, is all there is. As an independent entrepreneur, or as an employee, you either bill for time directly, or the time required to perform your task (or make your goods) is a major factor in your compensation. Time is, in many ways, your most valuable asset.

Timeliness is also an aspect of quality, which is a perception in the client's or customer's (or employer's) mind, NOT an objective quality of the work performed or goods created. As a computer service professional, a hard-won lesson is that the job isn't done until the client perceives it as done. I could have fixed it weeks ago, but if I wait for weeks to tell the client, only at that moment is it done as far as they're concerned.

And let's face it -- the person paying for the job, not the one performing it, is the one who must be satisfied. Don't take too long to understand that, if you want to stay in business...

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Series inspired by "Top Ten Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail" by: Connie Holt, E.A. cholt@henssler.com
The Henssler Financial Group Position Paper
© 2004 The Henssler Financial Group | www.henssler.com

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Related articles

• You're the Boss: Top 10 Reasons Small Businesses Fail (boss.blogs.nytimes.com)
• The Top Ten Ways To Grow Your Business (myventurepad.com)
• About Company Strategy (thinkup.waldenu.edu)
• About Starting a Small Business (thinkup.waldenu.edu)