Category Archive

    These are exceptional examples that give us a standard which anyone who works in customer service can strive to achieve. Though we may not be able to make such extraordinary gestures towards our customers every day, of course, these examples show that great customer service can have a powerful effect.   Banker Gives Away $400 of Her Own Money This is an old story. On a Friday like any other, a man was scrambling to get to his bank on time so that he could withdraw money that he would need imminently. His situation was dire because he had just learned that his mother had died, and he needed to get on a plane as soon as possible. As the bank was about to close, the branch manager showed remarkable generosity out of concern for the man’s terrible circumstances. She withdrew $400 from the ATM out of her …

    One of the best ways to dial-in your product is to learn from those who have already discovered ways to be successful. The products you’ll see here have capitalized on established marketing psychology, provided solutions for the needs of our modern world, and created unique innovations to win over large numbers of consumers. There are valuable lessons to be learned from each one that you can apply to the products of your own business.   Etsy.com Etsy is a useful example to all businesses, primarily for one reason: It is an excellent example of finding a differentiator and making it work for you. Etsy is one of Amazon’s many competitors, but it is one of the top competitors because it employs some of the best bits of Amazon, such as quick, seamless purchasing and a responsive UI, while offering customers a flavor all its own. People go to …

  Do you have a lot of competitors, and are having trouble setting your business apart from the rest? Your potential customers are waiting to see some selling point that defines you as the better choice of all the options for your product or service. There are a few key strategies that you can use to start gaining the advantage over your competitors. 1. Superior Customer Service Excellent customer support cannot be over-emphasized, and it is exactly the thing that turns out to be the Achilles’ heel of many businesses. The unfortunate tendency is to provide customer service that is barely sufficient, only to show that you have some level of support to appease your customers, and this is 180 degrees wrong. It cannot be a peripheral aspect of your business to which you don’t devote much attention; people will give you their business over a competitor, solely for your …

    There’s no doubt about it, running a small business is no walk in the park. While it has its challenges, there are also personal, as well as practical benefits to being a business owner. Here are a few of them.   1. You can take it as far as you want. You have the power and the freedom to run your business as effectively as you want; the sky really is the limit. The point here is that you can build a business that is as professional, as grand, as specific as you want it to be. The only limitations you have are the ones you set for yourself. You set the tone, you establish the parameters, and you stop exactly where you decide you want to stop.   2. Power to change things as needed. If you see something about your business that isn’t being done the …

    Most of us are familiar with the concept of crowdfunding to promote a creative project or other pursuits, as it has become woven into the fabric of commerce. As you start to look into different crowdfunding platforms, you will quickly find numerous types of these platforms, for just about anything under the sun that needs to be funded. Kickstarter is the most well-known, but there are many others that may be a better fit for you to raise funds for your small business or startup.             Kickstarter Though ArtistShare is generally credited with being the first crowdfunding platform to emerge in the U.S., Kickstarter followed a few years later and gained the most traction of the preceding platforms. It pioneered the concept of sourcing funds from the public for just about any project, including startups that were not able to secure traditional funding …

When you hear about startups, they are usually success stories of thriving businesses, but this isn’t a perfectly accurate reflection of reality. Many startups are wildly profitable at first but can’t be sustained for the long haul, and many never quite get off the ground. You may be one of the lot who had a rough go of it, doing everything you can to keep your new business afloat. It is a scary and incredibly stressful position to be in. It only takes some altered thinking to turn difficult circumstances into potential for an upside. Peace of Mind Comes from Preparedness If you’re running a business, then you probably have your ducks in a row, for the most part. But there are a vast number of business owners who really don’t plan for the worst, and this is key. Let’s be honest, though; sometimes you just don’t have the resources …

Brand identity is a little easier to pin down than your brand, in general, for which there are varying definitions due to its tendency towards the abstract. Jeremiah Gardner puts it simply in his article, “The difference between brand and identity,” defining a brand as “the relationship between an organization and an audience”. The assertion that it is a relationship is the key distinction, as a company or individual’s brand revolves around how its customers or patrons relate to it. “Brand” and “brand identity” can almost be used interchangeably, but not quite. If your brand is a collection of all kinds of expressions that are associated with your company, then your brand identity is basically the sum of all the parts. Brand identity is the clear manifestation that defines to customers, or to any outsiders, who you are and what your specialty is. The following three exercises will help you …

    Although it wasn’t always the case, the general idea for businesses today is to give customers as many options as possible because that’s what they demand. Is that what they actually want, though? It’s exciting to have a variety of options to choose from (like forty different kinds of pasta sauce), but there is something to be said for simplicity. Here we will consider both sides: Should you offer fewer options for your customers, or as many as possible?   Letting Them Decide There is actually more to this than it seems at first glance. It’s one thing to have a store, online or otherwise, that sells a wide variety of products which are not of the same type; but it’s something else to specialize in one type of product and offering many different versions of it. For instance, you might have a website that sells iPhone cases …

Business ownership is a hectic occupation. On top of all the expenses of daily operations, there is always something else that needs to be paid off or financed, such as a new business opportunity that, if you play your cards right, could end up bringing in more revenue, which you will use to fund your next venture, and so on… So what’s wrong with this picture? You’re bringing in money but not really keeping any of it, which kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? This doesn’t mean that you should stop putting money into your business; that’s not the point. The point is that it is possible to keep feeding your business while giving back to yourself. It just takes a conscious, deliberate effort to pull it off. This article offers a couple of suggestions that can not only promote the advancement of your business, but pay yourself at …