it’s okay to be human

Southwest Airlines blogged a list of things to do to prepare yourself for becoming a flight attendant.

The post is not laugh-out-loud funny, at least not to me, but it speaks to me that a large company like Southwest is willing to poke fun at itself.

You will be hearing soon about how we made a big mistake with a client’s email list, and then turned it into the most profitable event in their history. People make mistakes. That is okay. As long as you fix it and don’t do it again.

3 steps to being human:

1. This week, admit a mistake to a client, a coworker, your boss, whoever. Not something big and fancy. Just a “yeah, I could have done that better.” It helps keep the ego at bay.

2. Discuss your limitations with someone. Talk about how you can team up with people to achieve what you can’t do alone because you are limited. Don’t wait for others to ask for help. Admitting that you need help can make it easier for others to ask for help.

3. Tell someone you appreciate them. Not with any motive in mind, just to say thanks.

the start-up attitude: no guarantees

“No matter how hard you work, there is no guarantee of anything. There is no guarantee of a job in the months ahead, no firm placement of a where your office may be, and certainly no perks that established companies have.” – Andy on creating value in a startup

Today it snowed here in Seattle. So much that only about one third of our people could make it to the office, with most of the rest working from home. I assumed that my team would be here today so we could work together on a project.

Some people call this assumicide. What if it snows? What if your best client goes bankrupt? What if your best employee is not available? Can you still deliver value?

I work in a small, very fast-moving company. So what Andy says in his post resonates with me. But I have a hell of a lot to learn about not just knowing that their are no guarantees, but planning ahead with that in mind. And the better I get at that, the better I will serve my clients, my coworkers and my boss.

mary schmidt on how to get business

1. You smiled when you saw me coming.
2. You looked me in the eye.

Read all 16

doing what anyone can do

Leo Bottary writes a blog called Client Service Insights, and his #1 insight is “Insight #1 – Client service excellence isn’t about doing the things no one else can do; it’s about doing the things anyone can do, but just don’t.”

Today I just found out how true that is.

A month ago, we put up an under construction page for a client, whose site is launching next week. Take a look. Nothing fancy.

That nothing fancy page has gathered a large number of names and emails of people who want to hear about Cassin and when the new site launches.

Seth Godin keeps on saying that you just have to let people raise their hands and tell you that they want to hear from you.

Now, when the site launches, we will have a large number of people to inform. And you can bet that email will have a link to tell a friend.

The client did not ask for anything other than your usual under construction page. We were doing the newsletter anyway for the main site, so as an afterthought, we threw the signup form into the under construction page.

and your name was?…

Even when we get the names down, the personal data (did they grow up in New Hampshire or Maine?) can be elusive. Linda commented on my post about connecting with people in business asking how I keep track of all the tidbits.

My answer is to pay attention to a very few people. Which is not really an answer, but an explanation that I do not deal with so many people just yet that I have to have a real system. If I do, I will start posting such data in our project tracking tool, within our company forum. That way anyone talking with the client (not that anyone else should be) will know that so-and-so has a newborn.

The problem with this is, maybe the information I learn about should be kept, not private, but not public. Jory calls it Stalk Marketing when someone you don’t know finds out a lot about you in order to sell you stuff.

Key point, know who you are dealing with and how they feel about their personal information. And err on the safe side.

pleased to meet you

You think I would understand this by now, being in client services and all, but it surprised me a bit when we talk with a client this morning by phone who expressed how pleased he was to talk with us, to meet us.

Now, we had emailed back and forth, but never talked. Or rather, our boss and his boss had talked, but not us. So now we know what each other sound like, and have a good sense of where the other is at, how happy they are with where the project is at.

We also both got extra information that the other may have deemed not important enough to include in an email, and yet colors the situation in an important way. As in, there is this other project following yours, so we need the site to get done before we can start this other thing.

So besides doing a good job, clients want contact. And they don’t get it much. So give them a call, just to say that everything is all good.

what i do

Start talking about the marketing side of things, the part we get to after main site design is done, and I start smiling. At least that is the evidence from a recent meeting. The big boss noticed that I was grinning like an idiot. I thought (afterwards) of how best to explain what exactly I do.

During the design and development stage of rebuilding a site, I keep the clients up to date on what is going on. I manage expectations. When they have low level questions, like “How do I make my CMS do this?” I answer them. Actually, if it is a fairly technical question, I find the person who knows, get the answer, make sure it is in plain english, and then relay that answer to the client.

If the question is high level, like “Should I try to compete in this particular market over here?” then they talk to Ian, and I get to listen in and offer my thoughts.

In this first stage, I am performing a function. And it is fun, because I get to help people understand what is going on. At that meeting, we talked about URL redirects and how they should be. The boss claimed he was an idiot with this, and wanted it in plain english. So I said:
“I call person A, she answers, I find out who she is. I call person B, the code routes me through to person A again, but I am expecting person B, so I am not happy. That is what you have now. What you want is, when I call person B, their message machine says that I should really be talking with person A, and gives me their number.”

And he was happy. Because, when put in language you understand, URL redirects are not complicated- it is more of a language barrier thing than a requires technical background thing.

So design and development is fun because I get to help people understand stuff.

But then, when the site is mostly finished, we get to work on the marketing stuff. SEO, PPC, maybe landing pages… and here I both get to help people understand what is going on as well as play a direct part in making them money. Also, I understand a lot more of this aspect of what we do. I don’t have to ask anyone about what a landing page is supposed to do, so I can answer client’s questions immediately.

And I get to see a direct impact on sales. Did this ad work? Did that landing page work? How can we tweak this? These are all questions I can sink my teeth into. And, more than being a conduit and a translator of information, I can have a greater impact.

So what do I do? I help people understand their project during all phases, and I help make them more money.

Now that is fun.

crayon: new marketing company has headquarters online, in second life

The problem with a company of people from all over is how to bring them together. The new marketing company crayon is doing that in Second Life (think The Sims + World of Warcraft).

So the employees can all meet together even as they live far apart, within their headquarters online. For me, I wonder when I can meet clients avatar-to-avatar. Cheaper than face-to-face, but better than just being on the phone.

Thanks to Shel for the story.

the power of a phone call

I called a client. Because she was not happy. And you know, we thought she was not happy because we were not showing her excellent designs in a timely manner.

She is now happy. I think we thought wrong. She may have been frustrated that the designs were not what she wanted- but she was not happy because she thought she was being… ignored. Pushed aside. Or something like that.

And here is the lesson for you- it does not matter that we are all thinking about her project, and how we can make it better, and it does not matter that we are sending her many emails with different designs and ideas.

Because, on this project, for her, right now, she wanted- no, needed a phone call. That’s what told her that we cared about her.

And if your clients don’t feel like you care about them, nothing else matters.

kinko’s part two: how it should be

I went to Kinko’s this morning (7:10am), expecting to fight with them to make our business card order happen.

Instead, I explained what needed to Becky, an assistant manager. She told me exactly what I needed to know the first time. She apologized that her coworkers had screwed up, and explained that they were getting a lot of new staff on. She did not say this as an excuse, just an explanation.

I will be back there soon to get the order to her. And I am sure it will be done right the first time. Because Becky is on the job.

I still don’t trust Kinko’s. But I trust Becky. And I will be telling everyone up her chain of command how she got the job done the first time, no fuss. And I am talking about her here. When I get her last name and the address of the Kinko’s where she works, I will tell you, so if you need a job done right and you are in the area, you know where you can go.

I am really really easy to please- I just want the job done right, the first time, fast, with no exceptions. See? That wasn’t so hard. And for Becky, it isn’t.

Takehome: for some clients, like me, even when we lose faith in your organization, a new face who performs perfectly can regain that trust, though it will be focused on just that one person.

Takehome #2: meeting expectations is critical. Notice that Becky has not actually done the job yet, just set the expectation that it will be done right the first time. That is the first step, and a good start to doing a job right- but she still has to deliver. Stay tuned.