Women's Enterprise Centre

2009-11-27T10:55:00.007-06:00

Social Media. Is it for me?

Social Media and marketing 2.0 seem to be the big buzz words these days. But what do they mean, how do you get started and is this important for my business? These are all questions that our clients are grappling with as they look to stay on top of the changing face of marketing and still be relevant to their clients.

For those who attended the Women Business Owners presentation by Seth Godin, you will recall that part of his message was the how is less important than the who. Facebook, twitter, blogs, and many other vehicles are really just tactical tools to creating and maintaining relationships with customers.

The key is relationships.

Are your customers online? Do they go online for information? When they want to do research on a product, service, look for references, find contact information, assess credibility, do they look to the Internet?

If the answer is yes, then you need to be online.

If your customer is online, you can have a one way conversation with them with a simple webpage. Now step that up a bit. Think about what that might feel like as a customer. How many people would trust, seek out, and advocate for a friend that only spoke at them, rather than with them?

Relationship is King. Two way conversations, discussion forums and opportunities for feedback allow customers to feel connected. Connections create communities. Communities create advocates.
Would not it be great to have potential customer come to your website for information, ask a question, and have one of your customers provide the answer rather than you? Consumers are very savvy today and trust complete strangers before those with a vested interest in selling to them.

MM

2009-08-07T08:36:00.003-05:00

The Devil is in the Details

This saying is generally attributed to Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) who maintained that whatever one does should be done thoroughly; details are important.

Unfortunately stories about poor customer service are more frequent than we would hope. Sometimes bad customer service is delivered with good intentions. A situation occurred recently that made me think about the importance of doing things right or not doing them at all.

Last year, a friend and I celebrated her birthday with an evening of pampering and manicures at a spa in our neighbourhood. We both enjoyed the experience and agreed that we would return for future services.

Exactly one year and one day after our visit, I received an e-mail from the spa. The message read “Thank you so much for using our services yesterday. I hope you and your friend Alice Smith enjoyed your experience. We look forward to hearing from you again soon.”

Nice message, but off by a year! And, to boot, my friend’s name isn’t Alice Smith it’s Alice Jones. While it may not seem like a big deal, these simple mistakes made the company look amateurish. I would rather not have received the message than to have gotten one that made me question the professionalism of the business. My earlier positive feelings about the business have now been tainted.

So, the moral of my story is that as a business owner, when I am sending out personalized e-mails or print materials, I really need to be sure that I get the details right if I want the message to be effective. Otherwise, I might be better off sending generic messages which, even if less effective, I know are will be accurate and correct.

CR

2009-07-29T09:07:00.003-05:00

There's an interesting little snippet in the February Harvard Business Review (http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/web/2009/hbr-list/dynamics-of-personal-influence) that
points out that a person’s influence increases as the degrees of separation decrease. The example given is that a person connected directly to a smoker (one degree of separation) has a 61% risk of smoking. By the third degree of separation the risk is down to 11% and goes to nil at four degrees of separation. This may seem obvious at first but the author, Nicholas A. Christakis, points out that this fact is useful to consider when targeting customers in order to build on influencers with specific connections.

The notion isn’t new, it was covered comprehensively in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point several years ago; but Christakis’ point is in regard to behavioral influence which, in terms of the predilection to use a product or service, can be a useful tool for product dissemination and marketing. The extent to which the adoption or use of a product is based on behavioral characteristics (Christakis uses obesity, smoking, altruism, voting and happiness, to name a few) is the measure for the successful use of this strategic approach.

If your marketing/sales efforts are already based on this concept and are proving effective and you’d like to share some of your experiences and ideas, please let us know at the Centre. We’d like to hear about some success stories in this area.

SHA

2009-07-27T15:34:00.005-05:00

Here’s a thought for those who depend on in-store sales staff... make sure to train them well!

I had a an interesting experience of the unpleasant variety this weekend. I had been mattress shopping. Saturday was to have been my reconnaissance of what the local market has to offer but, had I found the right item for the right price, I was prepared to take the plunge. I went into a well-known store (let’s call it Mattress Store X) that sells beds and bedroom furniture.

I was the sole customer and the heads of four salesmen whipped around toward me as I entered, much like the T-Rex in Fantasia on scenting the poor doomed brontosaurus. One separated himself from the herd and began to stalk me. He timed his steps so that they were slightly longer and faster than mine and as I added speed, he began a flanking maneuver that brought us together at the end of one aisle that terminated in a beautiful mahogany dresser and a NO EXIT sign.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Well...” I began, “I have trouble sleeping and have some problems with my joints and...”

He cut me off before I could finish my sentence. “We have 25 different mattresses here and surely one of them has your name on it.”

Hmmm, I thought, wouldn’t it be easier to sell me a mattress if he let me tell him what I was looking for?

The salesman, we’ll call him Matt, bade me lie down on every horizontal bedding surface (without changing pillows, ugh, no thanks) and tell him which was most comfortable. I assured him that it would take more than a thirty second lie-down to make a four-figure decision and that I wanted some information to go along with the free sample. Matt then launched into a long monologue on pocket coils, continuous coils, pillow tops, isoform, viscoelastic, microfiber, pressure points, contours and a host of other mattress jungle jargon.

“But I don’t understand when you say that this mattress has more pressure points and this one is more plush...how does this translate to which will work best for me with my sleep issues?” I asked.

Matt didn’t seem to be terribly concerned with my sleep issues. But he definitely wanted to sell me a mattress. Any mattress. When he scented another customer wandering aimlessly around asking to be prey, he rushed off with a parting peremptory, “...try them all and let me know which one you want!” his talons catching and scraping on the hardwood floor as he achieved traction for the turn and leap.

I decided to do a bit more research on-line and look at a few more stores before making any major monetary decision without sufficient knowledge. As I was leaving Matt dashed over, sides heaving and sweaty browed, and said, showing a bit more tooth than I wanted to see, “So, have you decided?”

“Well, I’m not sure, perhaps I’ll be back. Are you open on Sunday?”

“Yes, but I’m not here on Sunday, perhaps you could come during the week,” Matt roared.

How perfect an example of NOT paying attention to customer needs at any level. This T. Rex didn’t care what I wanted or when I wanted it. He only wanted his kill. I had been prepared to part with a goodly sum of money in exchange for a promise of many nights of restful and uninterrupted sleep, but we were on such different levels that there was simply no possible connection. What a waste of an hour of my life that I could have had for so many other more useful pursuits, like lawn bowling or decoupage.

Later that day, a friend told me about a book she was reading that she thought everyone involved in sales should have on their required-reading list. It’s called “Integrity Selling for the 21st Century” with the subtitle “How to Sell the Way People Want to Buy” by Ron Willingham. (http://www.amazon.ca/Integrity-Selling-21st-Century-People/dp/0385509561 ) I borrowed it and spent the better part of Sunday afternoon re-learning important information about how to create positive exchanges in an ethical and helpful way. The book isn’t a brilliant innovation, it’s simply a cogent collection of thoughts about selling as doing something FOR people, not TO them. Willingham balances achievement drive with value creation and shows how it’s not about you, but about the customer.

As women in the entrepreneurship development industry, we advise that a practical, holistic and ethical approach to making our businesses successful is the best way to build the lasting customer relationships. That teaching is totally in synch with Willingham’s message and I’m happy to pass it on.

Meanwhile, I’ll sleep on rocks before I return to Mattress X.

SHA

2009-07-21T15:50:00.002-05:00

Wow, looks like we sank into the dreaded 'Blog Bog' for a while there!

Many apologies to those who follow the doings of the Women’s Enterprise Centre and its devoted minions. Our website work has taken longer than we thought it would and we definitely got stuck in a bit of a rut.

To those who have had similar experiences building and maintaining a web presence for an organization or business, I can only say...forge on, if you hit obstacles and challenges, get professional help (thank you Modern Earth!), if you run out of things to say, read a newspaper, if you don’t have a thought in your head because it’s summer, well, who can blame you...see you in September.

However, a new day dawns here at the Centre and with it new energy to get the word out about our favourite topic, entrepreneurship and women. And anything else that strikes our fancy here that we can cull from the prodigious amount of reading , research and discussion that goes on in our hallowed halls.

We can’t promise daily thrills and chills, but, hopefully, some semi-weekly thought-provoking ideas, links, insights, the occasional video clip, some reading recommendations and suggestions on good places to go to watch sunsets, hear music or learn something you didn’t know before.

Welcome back, thanks for being patient.

SHA

2009-02-12T08:29:00.002-06:00

Hello and welcome to our newly designed, upgraded, uplifted, uploaded, exploded web page!

We’re happy folks at the Centre now that our site is more client-centric with many more features that enable us to support and serve you, the sole reason for the Centre’s being.

We have more articles, more business links, more success stories, more information overall in a more easily navigated site with clear directions and simple access. One of the highlights is the new seminar and event registration page where you can get information about and sign up for all of our courses, all from the comfort of your own domain, at any hour of the day or night, in your PJs or otherwise.

And there’s more to come. We’re planning on selling training materials and WEC branded merchandise, there will be webinars, photos, video and a stack of very useful, up-to-date tools that will make our website the place you want to come back to often if you are a woman starting up, expanding or transitioning from a business.

This blog is also a new addition. We plan to feature bright ideas, thoughts, links, new concepts, discoveries and revelations that we believe will give you impetus for action, strategic thinking, and focus.

Our conversation around the lunch table today was about what makes a successful entrepreneur. I firmly believe that I can spot a winner from 20 metres without my glasses. She is the one who is taking notes at advisory meetings, conferences, and seminars; she considers everything a learning experience and is open and flexible in her thinking. She has strategic focus, making important decisions within the framework of specific goals and objectives. She is a constant student and her main area of research every day, all day, is her customers; who they are, what they want, read, hear, pay attention to, are excited by and will trust in.

We believe in what we do at the Women’s Enterprise Centre. We are very motivated by your success; it’s the reason we’re here, after all. When we can plant a seed, add even a modicum of an idea to spur some growth, help you to see a broader area of opportunity or a more focused path and direction, we are happy! All we want in return is for you to bring an open mind, strength of purpose, creativity, a positive outlook, a sense of humour and a pencil and a notebook to write down good ideas when you hear them. Sometimes entrepreneurial attributes take time to develop and bloom as you build your vision into a reality….but the pencil and paper is a must.

You will hear lots of voices in this blog over time. You’ll know us by our initials and our writing style. We are all very different women here, but our commonality is that we are all here to work with you, to help and support you, to see you succeed brilliantly and take the world by storm. Here’s to you and all you do!
sha