Internet Magic

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

“Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“We’ll see,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.

“How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“We’ll see,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“We’ll see,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“We’ll see” said the farmer.

This story reminds me about what’s going on with my business right now. We might say that it’s great that we have a big sale, but then the end up not making much money on the project.

Or we bounce a check, but then we pull a full scale change in our sales system, pricing structure and financial system. I might even get rid of the salesman because we can’t afford the high fixed cost associated with him and him not getting the sales to support that higher cost.

What have been some bad things that have turned into something good for you? Or what is a good thing that turned into something bad? I’d love to hear your story.

Have an interesting quote hanging on my wall – “Cut your costs to the bone – stop leaking money, you many need it!”

I read recently that businesses have started to see more profits lately and one of the reasons this has come about was because companies have been cutting out the fat in their budgets. I’m sorry to see people laid off. Often the other people in the department have to pick up the slack for the person who has been lost.

I’ve cut quite a few expenses over the last year. I moved my office into my home and save several hundred dollars a month. I found I rarely used my office for client or sales meeting because I like to see what a business’ environment looks like.

I also reduced my mobile wireless from $60 per month to $15 per month, and I got rid of services that I no longer use.

One client I’m working with now is reducing his Yellow Pages expenses from $8000/mn to $3,000/mn starting in January. By doing this he will free up more money to do online marketing, which reaches a greater number of people at a lower cost per lead. And there is more accountability because I can show him in his web site statistics the leads directly attributed to online marketing.

What are some marketing expenses have eliminated or shifted to more effective marketing? I’d like to hear what you’ve learned.

As a small business owner you can sometimes feel that you have to know everything and do everything yourself. This can be tough since we all have limited time to become experts.

That’s why I rely on experts to come alongside me to help on projects. I was amazed today by my programming partner, Matthew. This morning Matthew and I finished up some lingering details on a project he worked on for me. He had come up with some very creative solutions for multiple contact forms.

Matthew has his own company but works directly with my clients. Most of the clients know that he doesn’t work directly for me.

Over the last month I’ve used two different designers, a copywriter, and a team of search engine marketing experts. I have done all these things in the past but they are excellent at what they do. And I rely on them to help my clients get great results.

What are things in your business that you can partner with an expert and still make a decent profit? I’d like to hear what kind of people you’ve partnered with.

“If you know you have to swallow a frog, swallow it first thing in the morning. If there are two frogs, swallow the big one first.”  Mark Twain

Everyday I look at my schedule to see what’s on the docket. A lot of time there are fun things to do. But then there are the not so fun things to do, like fixing someone’s email or making a collections call.

I think about the quote above and it gets truer each day. When something has to be done and you don’t do it, it just gets harder to do and it consumes your mind.

The frog I swallowed today redirecting about 60 pages on a new site we are launching soon. And swallowing this frog was one of the last steps. It didn’t taste good but it’s over.

What frog on your to-do list are you hesitating to swallow?

Found this poem recently and found it encouraging. Hope you like it, too:

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but do not quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,

Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,

And he learnt too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit-
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit!

A regular customer went into the local Starbucks and wanted a cinnamon roll. He was in luck–there was one left. The guy made a point of starting his day at Starbucks with a coffee and cinnamon roll.

Charlie was carrying the hallowed last cinnamon roll to the register when it fell on the floor. “Uh oh, I’m toast,” Charlie said to himself.

Charlie confessed to the customer, “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it, but I dropped your cinnamon roll. Can I get you an apple fritter or donut instead?”

The customer was not happy and vented his frustration on Lori at the register. “Why don’t you get more cinnamon rolls?” asked the guy. “You are constantly running out of them. You guys used to get what your customers really wanted. I think Starbucks is just getting too corporate.” Lori had no explanation.

“I guess I’ll just have to go to another Starbucks and see if they can help me.”

Lori handed the customer his coffee and he left scowling. From then on he was known as Grumpy Cinnamon Roll Guy.

Grumpy Cinnamon Roll Guy came in a few days later for his coffee and cinnamon roll. Lori waited on him again and was able to give him a cinnamon roll that hadn’t hit the floor. Because Starbucks creates a climate of providing excellent customer service, Lori apologized again for the previous problem and asked him his name, which was Paul.

The next time Lori worked she had a hunch Paul would be in so she set aside a cinnamon roll in a little box and wrote Paul’s name on it and drew a little smiley face.

Sure enough, Paul did come in. He ordered his usual and by the time he got to the register his personalized cinnamon roll was waiting for him. Lori was working at the coffee bar and watched for his response. He looked down in surprise at the box, saw Lori across the store, and broke into a shy grin. He was no longer Grumpy Cinnamon Roll Guy.

Do we cater to people who are grumpy and demanding by giving them what they want? Not always. Do we put a little thought into how we can serve our customers better? Absolutely.

It takes creativity, consistency and skill to get to a place of service on par with Starbucks. We have opportunities like this every day to go the extra mile. It’s easy to take a few minutes to set aside a $2 cinnamon roll. It’s a lot harder to be gracious with a $10,000 project that has gone awry. But in the long run, it’s about asking how we can best create satisfied customers.

Despite his threats, Paul continues to come back. And he gets other things besides cinnamon rolls now. Maybe it wasn’t so much about the cinnamon roll as it was the need to feel heard and appreciated.

Having a couple young daughters, I get to watch the latest kid’s movies. While watching “The Shaggy Dog” recently my eye was drawn to the wall behind Tim Allen’s character’s desk. There was a football jersey and a varsity letter from Tim Allen’s real life high school. I thought, Hey, I have that same varsity letter somewhere in my boxes.

Tim Allen and I both graduated from Seaholm High School in Birmingham, Mich., though he was gone eight years by the time I donned my graduation robe.

In December, 1994, Tim Allen reached the top of the list on three categories–TV, movies and books. “Home Improvement” was the No. 1 show, his autobiographical book, Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man, reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in October and trailed only the Pope’s book that December. And his movie, “The Santa Clause,” was tops at the box office. This was a pretty remarkable feat.

Tim Allen reached that peak because he used his talents to make people laugh and took advantage of his popularity. And he was in the right place at the right time.

Today is the right time for search engine marketing. There is a lot of interest in the getting visitors to web sites through the search engines. We been looking at a variety of techniques and nailing down our procedures. Our clients are seeing a lot of good results with higher rankings and more visitors. Also, this past year I attained recognition as a Qualified Google Advertising Professional. This gives our clients confidence that I know what I’m talking about in regard to the Google Adwords program.