It’s obvious from the last post date that I have been away from my blog for quite a while. I’m not going to make up any excuses for why I haven’t written or even give it any more of my time and energy.
Once you’ve established a decent business and reputation why would you not give a crap about your customer service?
Nothing frustrates me more then when I have to chase after customer support for answers. It seems that recently more and more of my business transactions have required making contact with customer service and my experiences have been really crappy to say the least. Is it common to receive such poor customer service or is it just that I’ve never had to seek out customer service before?
If you’re going to claim that you’ll answer inquiries and tickets within 24 – 72 hours I think waiting a week is more than enough time before sending a second email and/or support ticket. The really sad part – I’m still getting no response! And trust me these are not businesses that are new or unknown. These are business run and owned by reputable people that can be seen on social media platforms yet just have non-responsive customer support.
If anyone can shed light on such unprofessional neglectfulness, I would love to understand the thought process behind such thinking.
My good friend, Ken McArthur is standing in a circus tent today
asking 2,000 people to spread a message of hope to teenagers who
don’t think that life is worth living.
I think it’s a great message of hope for anyone and would love to
see all of my readers think about spreading it today.
Here’s Ken’s simple message for for giving hope (and maybe saving
someone’s life!):
G – Greet and meet: talk to others, smile, say hello, ask
someone how they are doing
I – Involve yourself and others: find a cause you can support,
volunteer, pledge resources. Get the people around you
involved, especially if you see someone beginning to
withdraw. Invite them to participate in some activity, to
“get out” of their comfort zone
V – Validate others: tell others that they matter – especially
family members and friends that you tend to see daily but
may take for granted, give genuine complements
E – Empathize: be a listening ear, take time to be fully
present, don’t try to solve – just acknowledge someone’s
feeling/hurt
You can find out more about Ken’s wonderful project with his
Impact Action Team at:
Spread this message today!
Earlier this afternoon I was fortunate enough to listen to Howie Schwartz for over 90 minutes as he answered over 300 Traffic questions live. It was packed with content and people. Listeners on the call were able to simply fill out a form and ask/submit any traffic question(s) they had.
Yes he did promote an upcoming event, but hey, the content he covered and gave away for free on this call was well worth the time. And I’m sure, just a sampling of what you’d get from ANY of his Live events. In a previous post about attending live events, I spoke of my experience at Howie’s Online Profit Workshop. And I’ll still stand by what I said, “If you can get to a Live event, Go! If you can get to a Howie Schwartz Live event, Go faster!
If you’re interested in listening to the webcast replay of this call, visit http://tinyurl.com/6rczhs
If you’re interested in attending Howie’s next Live event, go to: http://www.TrafficTornadoWorkshop.com
I believe you should also be able to listen to the replay here, if he takes it down from the site listed above.
And No this is Not an affiliate plug. This is just my humble opinion and strong suggestion as to where to go and who to follow/listen to when it comes to Making Money in any Niche Market.
As an immediate follow up to the post on FireFox 3.0 and ScribeFire – Awesome! This nifty blogging tool is going to make my blogging life so much easier. And in return, I’ll be able to post more and with less effort. Imagine reading around the web and being able to create posts to your blog right there on the spot. Can’t tell you how excited I am to get to know this powerful tool.
And just so you know, there is well known web 2.0 marketer who not too long ago released “for sale” a very similar tool. Can’t beat “free” value!
Get it today!
Okay so up until today I’ve pretty much used IE as my browser. I did try FF before but my computer wasn’t able to handle having both browsers open at the same time. Not sure I needed both open at the same time, but that’s how I began using it. And you know how it is, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks and it’s human nature stick with what you know.
Yet, since turning to online marketing, I’ve forced myself to do many of things that are a little uncomfortable for me. Like opening up to complete strangers, posting my picture, recording my voice and soon to be posting live video with myself included (up until now, I’ve only posted a PP presentation with my voice as audio).
With an upgraded computer on hand and the newly released version 3.0 of FireFox, I decided to give it another shot. And wanted to try this ScribeFire add-on I saw on the TechCrunch site. There appears to be quite an extensive amount of add-ons and plug-ins available for FF and I look forward to playing around with it.
I’m actually doing this post with the ScribeFire add-on at this very moment. ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that intergrates with your FF browser and lets you easily post to your blog. When I’m done with this post, I’ll just push a little button “publish as a page” and viola! If all works well it should show up as a new post in my blog! How easy is that?
I also believe, but haven’t gotten that far yet, that I should be able to drag and drop formatted text from pages that I’m browsing, take notes, upload images, and post to multiple blogs. Sounds pretty cool if you ask me – and I’m far from being hip and up-to-date with the latest and greatest techy computer stuff. I will keep you updated but for now lets see if this really works. Drummmm roll please . . . I’m pushing the button . . .
This past Wednesday – June 4, 2008 – I attended my first live event – Howie Schwartz’s Online Profit Workshop – and all I can say is, “WOW” what a wonderful experience. I had no idea what to expect and actually was a little nervous about going because I wasn’t sure my knowledge would be up to par with the content to be delivered. I wasn’t that familiar with “Social Marketing” and “Web 2.0″ and that is one of Howie’s fields of expertise.
I had heard Howie a few months ago on a teleseminar with another well-known Social Marketing Web 2.0 genius, Jack Humphrey. I was simply amazed to hear what they had to say, but in retrospect, I was not ready for the content they delivered. It just sat there in the back of my brain as I continued to focus my efforts in other areas. The impression lasted however and the names would not be forgotten. I continued to keep up with Jack through his Friday Traffic Report and heard Howie maybe one other time (not really sure of this as I think I had him mixed up with someone else). In any case, I liked the quality of content they delivered and put them on my “worth following” list.
Then I heard Joel Comm on Ask.JoelComm.com answer the popular question, ”What’s the fastest way to make money online?” You can watch the clip here if you like but the short answer was, “Go to a conference!” “Go to a conference!”
According to Joel . . . Read the rest of this entry
Lots has been happening since my last post just 8 days ago and this month as a whole has been a little unusual for me. I totally lost focus of my goals and priorities and immeresed myself in my online education to the point of information overload. And I’m not downplaying education and learning all you can about your business. However, this month alone I probably listened to more teleseminars, webinars, and conference calls than I did in the total 6 months I’ve been online.
There were times when I had 2 and 3 calls going on at once switching ears and phones and listening with the computer. Looking back at my behavior, it was totally insane. Did I get some good information? Sure I did. But was I productive in my online business? Not really.
What pulled my head out of the clouds was when I heard not 1, not 2, but 3 very successful gurus say that too much input can actually decrease output. And everytime I heard about why people fail, it always came back to “moi.” So with that being said, Let the games begin because I’m back and I’m moving on up!
And just so you know, my information overload detour wasn’t a total lost. I got to hear Frank Kern, Eben Pagan, Dan Kennedy, David Garfinkel, Rich Schefren, John Carlton, Brad Fallon, Charlie Page, and Alex Mandossian, just to name a few.
As an internet marketing newbie, when the names of the so called gurus are thrown your way, they really don’t mean a thing. You really don’t know at that point in time whether they are really established and successful or just saying so. And of course, you hear some names more than others. Which by the way, is NO indication of their success but rather a guage on the amount of promotion being done for that particular person.
After a while, you’ll start to learn the names and soon be able to match a name with a face and even the area of expertise. If you’re like me, you’ll start to sign up for information from all over the internet and find yourself overwhelmed with a ton of information. Some useful and most garbage. It is through this process, that the “real” gurus will outshine the “posers” and “wanna be” which should then signficantly reduce the number of lists you signed up with to a managable number.
Do you put off your work for later, only to find your deadlines steadily approaching and your stress mounting? Then you, my friend, are one of the millions of people, like me, afflicted by the procrastination syndrome. Procrastination is the biggest reason for loss of productivity and late output. Though many would not admit it, they would benefit greatly if they would just stop procrastinating and take action – Overcome Procrastination That’s Stealing Your Life’s Potential …
I’ve fallen behind on my posts and general marketing because I’ve allowed myself to get distracted by information overload. I’ve tried multi task thinking I’ll get more accomplished, only to find out at the end of the day I’m rather unproductive. What I’ve realized over the last few weeks is that losing focus and falling prey to everyday distractions is procrastination in disguise and that sticking to a plan always proves to be more productive. Avoid and Overcome Procrastination
For many people, putting off their work for later is more habit than desire. It can be so hard to get into a groove where starting your tasks in a timely fashion is a priority; especially if the consequences for being late are things that one can easily bear. Two main reasons we procrastinate . . .
If you are one of these people, yet you desire to shake off your propensity for procrastination, then you have come to the right place. Here are a few tips to help you overcome this dilemma and become a more productive and reliable person. Read the rest of this entry
