Negative Media Exposure

Like the saying goes: "Nobody is perfect," it also goes to say that no company can be perfect...in the public eye. No matter if you are running a huge empire or a small business, people are watching and they are waiting for you to do something wrong, so the media can expose your "wrongdoings." Even if you think that negative publicity is a nightmare, it isn't always "horrible." I'm going to tell you a few things I do to take care of negative press coverage- if it were to ever happen to me or my companies.

#1- Know journalists. This is by far the MOST important thing you need to start doing with your PR work. I can't tell you how many powerful journalists I know and have created relationships with so if I were to ever get negative media attention I could do the following (or have issues with another company I work with):

• Save my company
  
• Expose companies I have issues with.
  
• And you would be surprised how many journalists will put friendship over attention.

#2- Maintain the relationship with journalists. Knowing journalists won't do you any good, if they really don't know you back on a personal level. You have to be nice to them, but also entertain them with gifts, etc. etc. Keeping them happy, will keep your company's image happy.

#3- Use the journalists. Say that a TV station criticized your business. Then there is all this negative publicity in the air. You call up your journalist friends and tell them you have something better to share, the truth. Lets be honest- a lot of stories are evolved from rumors; if your company is being wrongfully publicized, then you should stick up for it and tell your part.

#4- Talk to your customers. Issuing a statement like Domino's did with their recent issue in the store with the employees playing a "hoax" will definitely give consumers something to chew on. But it is important to keep this statement in a conversational way and not sound like you are reading from a teleprompter.

#5- Turn something bad into something great. I'm not going to sit here and tell you how hard it is to get good exposure for your business in the world, because you probably already know that. But if you get negative press attention, there are a BUNCH of ways to turn that into PROFIT.

• Show the customers you have changed and improved by 1000 times.
• Give the customers an incentive for the situation.
• Be transparent with the "issue."

While each situation varies, as long as nothing is too- out there- it usually can be saved from a meltdown. The press is usually just stating facts, which go off of people's experiences, which a company can change with a "can-do" attitude. But in the end, it all comes back to, giving all the customers with the best experience they can ever have with your company, so you don't have to worry about the customers that have the hookups with the media.

#1 also goes to show that when you have journalist connections, more companies will be willing to work with YOU because they don't want to be negatively exposed themselves.

The bottom line is...start making friends with journalists and make that connection last and evolve.

Filter The Noise

It doesn't matter what industry you are in, there is always competition. Rather than fearing competition, I encourage it in any industry that I am involved in, because it makes me become that much better at what I do. A lot of people think there is only so much they can grow their business because there is always a larger fish in the pond. But I think that any entrepreneur, better yet- every person- can dominate their industry, if they learn how to handle the following:

The BEST Consumer Experience: It doesn't matter whether you are offering a paid service or product, a free one (like a blog), or even if you are working for someone. There is a consumer for everything and you have to deliver 200% to that consumer. If you are a business owner, you have to deliver 200% of what the customer expects. If you are a blogger, deliver something that people can go "WOW" to. If you are an employee, stick out in the crowd and really take control of your career and the consumer for your skills (the employer) should really see you as an asset to their company.

Approach With A Different Touch: There are a handful of people that can do what you are doing, but are you the only one that can deliver something a certain way? We all have our favorite types of food (Italian, Mexican, Indian, etc.), but we all have one place we choose to go to, to eat those favorite types of food. Why do we have favorites for our favorites? Because they deliver like no other. If you learn how to deliver with your own style and a way that no one person or company can, you will be building a brand right there.

Explore New Horizons: Too many people want to keep exploring what has already been explored. So they can only achieve what has been achieved. If you start exploring what nobody has explored before, chances are you will be able to achieve what nobody has been able to achieve before. Essentially, maximum recognition for your skill or product.

Get People to Compare: You do what people do, but you do it 10x better or you offer a 10x better product. People then compare. If people are able to compare your greatness to someone else's "averageness" then you should be able to dominate your market, one customer at a time. People will spread the word for you, instead of you having to lead them into a box, where only your product is available.

Acknowledgment Is Confidence: Going back to the previous point, if you can acknowledge that there are other strong players in the industry and point that out to your consumers, it shows that you don't fear competition. When you are confident enough to acknowledge others for their skills (or lack thereof), and know you will be able to capture the audience regardless, people will automatically see that you are strong and confident in your abilities to provide. This may include acknowledging another company for a rock star product, but then consumers see that you have a bunch of rock star products. Or sticking out in a group of people a company is looking to promote, where everyone has excellent skills, but it is a no brainier to see that you have the most skills.

The Faster They Come, The Faster They Leave

Too many businesses put on their marketing caps and think- quick sales and a lot of them, when the should actually be thinking about making sales to people that will result in the customer returning to their business, essentially bringing in the big dollar amounts. Even with web entrepreneurs, too many people just want quick hits to their site-or quick sales- so they buy AdWords ads through Google, or any other type of search ads, which usually only deliver a visit and sometimes a sale, but I highly doubt people go back to a site they got to, through search ads and then buy something again from that site. By the way, I'm not talking about affiliate marketing, I am just referring to businesses that actually buy search traffic and expect to build long term customers from that.

Back to the original discussion; every entrepreneur that wants to grow their new or existing business' customer base, should truly think about building a customer relationship. I know- you have probably heard that about a million times already, but have you thought and thought it through for your particular business? Each business is different and there is a different way of creating and continuing a strong bond with each customer for that business.

Sales and Incentives Don't Really Work.

Just about every business that exists in the world today, has probably done a sale or promotion in order to gain new customers. But from my experience, I don't really think it works. Sure- new customers do come in and sales might spike for the duration of the sale, but it goes back to normal levels after it is over. From retail experience, I can say that "deal hunters" only come out when there is a deal. If there is no deal, there is no sale. One may argue the point that you might get 1 out of every 20 people that come back, but that is a pretty small ratio.

Personally, I feel like putting a product on sale, cheapens the products overall image. Think about it- when is the last time you went to buy a Ferrari and you got a "deal" because Ferrari was having a "sale" on their F430's? I know I haven't! (And if you have, let me know, so I can go buy one.)

So, Not Giving A "DEAL" Brings In 0 New Customers, Right?

Wrong. Despite the fact that some businesses are "required" to run certain specials and sales, due to franchise requirements, if I don't have to run a sale in a business, I don't. Instead, I provide the BEST possible customer service and experience, out of any business in the industry, so I know that my customers spread the word that my location or my business is better than everyone else in the industry. You would be surprised, how many people are willing to pay top dollar, for an EXCELLENT experience. And I do mean excellent.

The point being, quality customer service not only keeps current customers happy, but helps build new customers. Going back to the fact that people talk, I always stress that building a quality and a long lasting business revolves around how loyal the customers are. From the trends I have personally seen, if a business dumps money into advertising, they will probably see some ROI, but to continue that ROI, they will need to keep advertising. Building a quality relationship with customers, keeps ROI where it is at- without those massive advertising dollars.

-I'm not discouraging advertising, but I always keep my main focus around building a qualitative customer base, not just a big one. (Having a big one is always a plus though, as long as it IS a quality one!)

Build Employee Loyalty

We always talk about building a brand and building customer loyalty, but rarely, do we speak of building employee loyalty. It is a really important factor in running any kind of business because it can mean the difference between saving money and spending money. The post on Turnover talks about how you can keep employees happy, without spending a lot of money, but building their loyalty to your company is a whole different discussion.

I have found, if your employees are loyal to your company, then it is easier to influence your customers to be loyal to your company and products as well. For example, a company that doesn't have loyal employees, will probably see higher turnover, which means regular customers will deal with new people more often than not. This shows that the company cannot retain a regular employee base, so how can the customer put faith forward and believe that you have a regular customer base. This is only scratching the surface, the assumptions in customers minds are truly infinite. They start thinking into things much deeper and sometimes even go elsewhere due to speculation they have.

Employee's who are loyal to your company will also represent your company in a better manner, on and off the clock. When they are with their friends and family, everyone will probably end up talking about how much they hate their employer, but if your employee talks about how much they like working for you, that will be a positive form of marketing.

Building the loyalty of an employee takes a period of time, but it arises from various things. For example, I have not laid off anyone due to the economy, so all of my employees don't have to worry about losing their jobs on a daily basis. Instead they can focus on the upbringing of the business they are running and making it more profitable. The less worried employees are, the better off the employer is. But back to the point of not laying off any employee, this shows that their employer stood by them in tough times, where another employer might have let them go. So even indirectly, they will think about the next time they want to leave your company to pursue a career elsewhere, but the job security might not be there. Experiences count and the more positive ones you can put out for your employees, the more chances of them staying with you for a long time.

Now, just because I don't lay off people due to the economy, it doesn't mean that I won't fire anyone for their poor quality work. In essence, I am not giving people a free ride and do as you please, type of job. You have to keep a balance between being a nice employer and being too nice of an employer where it affects the work output leading to your company's failure in some cases.

Making employees proud of your brand and loyal to your company is the first and most basic step in company reputation, marketing, and branding. Your company can only be as good as the people who represent it!

Gaining Credibility As A Start-Up

After writing a post on how Credibility Houses ROI, a reader requested that I talk about gaining credibility as a start-up business. Sometimes it is tougher for some start-ups to gain credibility, but if the person behind the start-up is well known, it isn't too difficult, if they have a good reputation. However, known or unknown, an entrepreneur who starts a new business, always has to build individual credibility for each of their ventures because more often than not, no customer or user knows nor cares who owns a company.

1) Don't be foolish- As simple as it sounds, a lot of companies mess up during their early phases. Whether it is providing bad customer service or doing something that upsets users or customers in another way, you have to make sure that everyone is always satisfied with what your company is doing.

2) Stay trustworthy- What is a good company? A company that users or customers can rely on and trust. Building trust obviously comes over a period of time, but your start-up has to be trustworthy from the beginning. Any wrong actions can especially get a lot of media attention when your company starts to grow, which can cause people to question your company, even though it was an issue of the past. If you advertise that you have the lowest price in town, make sure you maintain the lowest price in town, otherwise people will view your new company as a bunch of lies.

3) Get consumers talking- If your company is providing lousy products or is a bad company in the consumers eyes, people will talk naturally. But if you are providing good products, try to get testimonials from people and get the consumers stating their thoughts so you can show your future customers how people view your company.

4) Try to hire a credible staff- For example, if you are starting a consulting firm, try to employ a staff that is known to the public and has some credibility of their own. If people know that your company employs trustworthy and credible people, they will view your company the same way.

5) Be transparent- Tell people what is up. Don't mislead people even if you're not lying. Short term gains can turn into long term pains. More people will instill their trust in your company if you tell them things straight up instead of taking them down a curvy path.

6) Stand behind your work- The one thing all consumers look for is a company that can stand behind their work. If you are providing a service or product and your company messes up, you should stand behind and fix your problems. You shouldn't drag the customers through a long battle and either reject or fix their issues, but by doing it quickly and making it simple, people will definitely look back at your company the next time they want to make a purchase.

7) Don't irritate people- Something every person hates is when a company is irritating them. Whether a company is wrongfully billing them, trying to sell them more than they need or whatever else it may be, you can't irritate people. It doesn't hurt to up-sell your products, but don't go to the point where people are annoyed.

8) Communicate- The key to helping people out is to communicate. If you run away from your customers questions or concerns, they will think that you have something to hide, which is why you are ignoring them. If you can face your customers and answer 100% of their questions and concerns, people will find your company more credible.

Everything comes down to the BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE you can provide. From the moment a customer steps in your front door or visits your website, you have to provide the BEST user experience ever. You have to maintain that experience at the same level forever. Keeping people happy from the start is the only way to create a bigger and better company.

People Talk

People always talk. Whether it is good or bad people will talk, about your business, about your product or service, or even talk about you as an entrepreneur. It is good to take in all feedback, but you should really shine light back on good feedback...in other words you should show testimonials that people give in regards to your business to your future clients. As an entrepreneur, word of mouth or what people say about you will always reflect how people think about you before they actually meet you. The "word on the street" matters.

How Can The Word On The Street Help You?

If customers are happy with your service, they will say so, but you shouldn't take that comment and leave it there. If there is something positive floating around about your business, you should put some extra weight on it. Take those comments and show those testimonials to your future customers. It will give new customers confidence in what you have to offer.

At some of my retail locations, I have a wall that features what people say about my products or service. In a few online ventures, we show testimonials in a section of our website. It should be visible to new customers as soon as they connect with your business.

Gaining the confidence of customers will help you increase boarder line sales. If people are not convinced that you have a great product or service, those good testimonials will help the customers make their decisions.

How Can Having Good "Street Talk" Be Beneficial As An Entrepreneur?

I have ran into a lot of situations where my name has helped me make stronger connections with people that have just met me. There is no doubt, people talk about business dealings that they have or have had with other entrepreneurs and the positive talk from that can make people WANT to work with you.

For example, once I was working on a new project, when I started to work with a local law firm who knew me from my name. It was pretty impressive, not only that they knew my name, but knew numerous people that I work with. It made me feel more comfortable working with them and in return it helped the firm make sure the work they did for me was to my satisfaction.

On the other hand, if you have a bad street reputation, it can hurt you negatively as well. When you seek out new people to work with for new ventures, if they have heard negative things about you previously, they might not take you seriously or even may choose not to work with you.

Overall, street talk or reputation is good if what people are saying is positive. You can also leverage the talk to your benefit and essentially make more money for you or help create stronger connections. It is up to you how to maintain the positive street talk though.

Running A Transparent Business

Being transparent as an entrepreneur or running a transparent business gives you an upper hand in whatever you are dealing with. If you have been transparent with your business year after year and continue to be, you will more likely deliver higher customer service, at the same time run into less troubles. Being transparent will also help you deliver more quality within your business.

If you have not been running a completely transparent business or haven't started a business yet, you will notice that when you do start being transparent, there will be a stronger relationship between you and your employees and also you and your customers. The strong link will probably get more customers to come back to you, essentially giving you repeat sales and at the same time get your customers talking about your business among their friends or family.

Why would customers be happier if I told them something the way it is?

People look for what is really up these days. Nobody has time to listen to manipulated things or even that same sales pitch they have heard a thousand times. If you become honest with your customers, they will probably see through the sales tag and find that it is more beneficial to THEM to buy from you instead of the competition.

Admit your mistakes...

Making mistakes with a business or as an entrepreneur is only natural. It happens to everyone. But what everyone doesn't do is admit their mistakes and say they were wrong, instead they try to cover up their questionable judgment. For example, if you are working with a team to launch a new product, but a decision you make is incorrect, and you try to draw attention to another problem or incorrect decision someone made along the way of the product launch, instead of your own, people will notice that and they might become distasteful with you. On the other hand, if you took action and faced your incorrect decision, people will probably be more willing to work with you to fix it quicker, so less "chain-reactions" arise.

Same thing goes with a business. A matter that comes to thought instantly, is when Facebook launched their Beacon project a couple years back. It was a service that displayed what everyone's friends were buying online and notified people in their mini-feed. People's thoughts for "privacy" suddenly jumped out of the roof and Facebook acted on the feedback. Mark Zuckerberg, addressed the issue on a company blog post, and apologized for the lack of privacy with the project.

What about my staff?

While you cannot think for someone else, you can influence how they act if you create a surrounding that is persuasive. If you try to scope out people that are transparent and hire them, it is more likely that the people that are not transparent, will become more inclined to be transparent. After all, do you really want a employee that isn't transparent, working for you? You are the first step to having them become transparent.

What it all comes down to...

The bottom line shows, being transparent with your business or being a transparent entrepreneur will give you a better reputation in the end. If you remain transparent through the years, consumers will put their trust into you and that is the true key to crossing the finish line successfully.

Maybe the first step to becoming transparent, is to get a transparent business card. :)

Starting A New Concept

That's unheard of! When starting a new business, if you really want to make it big, it has to be more than just starting a new business. You have to start a new concept, trend, or niche. Look at any franchise, the founders are usually the wealthiest in the "food chain," then come the franchisees and so on. Take a look at Google, it dominated search, then there were multiple search engines that came along after Google was named king, but Google was and is still the master of search.

Now, it isn't true that you have to come up with a new concept in order to succeed because surely, Yahoo was around before the Google days, but Google still dominated the search industry. This shows that just because you started a concept, you might not dominate it. Yahoo still gets more page views with the number one Alexa web rank and dominates the web news industry. Google has entered the markets for news, but people still resort to Yahoo for that more than Google from what I see. Another example would be Friendster and MySpace. Friendster was around since 2002, in which it had been the successful in breaking the ground to social networking, but it had not done much after that. MySpace came along and took over the original concept, but allowed users to tweak their profile in newer and better ways. If innovation is not kept going, a company can soon face being taken over or even worse- surpassed and left in the dust.

It should be kept in mind that when trying to innovate new ideas into an existing business, the quality should be consistent, if not improving. The web browser business is a great example of this. Internet Explorer was always what people were using in the beginning of the internet era, soon after there were competitors, but none significant until Mozilla Firefox came along. The reason why Firefox was able to "steal" Internet Explorer users, is simply because they had a more secure and faster browser. Although Internet Explorer still has the largest user base, there are competitors slowly creeping up due to lack of quality.

After your business becomes an authority, you don't have to stick to the original concept of the business you are involved in because surely you will want to enter other industries. With that authoritative image, more respect will be given to your brand and it will be easier to acquire and dominate other markets. Since Google's authority in search, they have captured other web markets such as RSS feeds with Feedburner, the email industry with Gmail, the blogging industry with Blogger, the video industry with YouTube, and much more.

Ego Satisfaction? Not So Much

A few days ago I posted a video on the Customer Experience aspect business, where you can develop a brand and have your customers potentially market it for you. In relation to having a rockstar business or brand reputation out in the open, you should also be caring enough to see who is saying what about your brand. Good or bad, you should find out what the word on the street is about your brand. Gary Vaynerchuk made a video on how you should be searching and caring for your customers, some may thing it is ego satisfaction, but it is far from it.

The Business Supremacy

The true concept of being better than the competition is really to focus on a similar product or service, but with a more “customer-friendly” experience. I am going to focus on the difference between MySpace and Facebook and talk about how Facebook won over many of MySpace users. There are many examples of customers who switch from one company to another for reasons such as what Facebook provided for MySpace users, with a similar experience. There are many facts that also show Facebook has surpassed MySpace overall such as having a higher Alexa rank.

There were some pre-MySpace era social networks such as Friendster, who had an opportunity to take off, but never quite made it. Then there’s Facebook, which is a huge threat to MySpace…in a way. MySpace really won people over because it was a social network where users could customize the look and feel of their individual profiles. The ability to add applications such as music widgets, top friends, and other features were really popular with MySpace. All was going well for MySpace, but there were some drawbacks. The first biggest drawback of MySpace was that it was disorganized and lagged quite a bit. It was never up to speed of which most users expected and it seemed to be extremely cluttered. For this reason MySpace lost a LOT of users, some of which I personally know. Security was also an issue in the early MySpace days, because there were many users who did not wish to publicly expose their profiles and the option of making your profile private was not that enhanced.

Facebook came to be popular after News Corp. had bought MySpace. The winning feature of Facebook was really the organization and easy-to-use structure of the network. Facebook was always fast to surf through and always gave the “clean and neat” feeling. In other words, Facebook was strong on the points which MySpace was not. As a competitor, Facebook really delivered on what features were weak or even non-existent with MySpace. This is really the key to winning over competitor clientele in many industries. Facebook had many of the good features of MySpace, but even added more to that. Facebook is known for its ability to add apps to individual profiles, which MySpace never had at the level of which Facebook had. The security of having a Facebook profile is really enhanced because users are able to edit the security of each aspect of their profiles.

After Facebook really catered to MySpace users, many of the users stopped using MySpace all together. This really shows that Facebook was “better” than MySpace. Most of the people that used MySpace and stopped, used it for a short period of time, but the Facebook users are still using Facebook especially because Facebook kept the innovation going. It is important to realize that even when a business captures its competitor’s customers, the business should come out with new ways to enhance the user experience or come up with new products that will really attract customers to stick around. Facebook came up with Facebook chat, which increased the time users spent logged into Facebook. They even tried experimenting to give more of a MySpace type feeling it seems, but users really didn’t care for it. – Most users still stuck around. This shows if a business has a service that is truly phenomenal, it is hard to lose customers, even if changes are made that people dislike. However, if changes are made, customer feedback should be taken into consideration and be used to tweak the changes.

Personally, I started to use Facebook as soon as I knew about it, even before it was big, while having a MySpace account. I stopped using MySpace for about after 6 months or so, but have been using Facebook for a few years now.

Facebook’s business concept is really great, but for the company revenues are not as strong as MySpace revenues. Advertisers view Facebook’s ad system as weak and ineffective, which leads them to advertise on MySpace over Facebook, which can really anchor the growth of the company. This shows that even while providing a great experience to customers, companies still need to focus on the bottom line because after all, it is a business and there should be a profit made.

Branding Myself And Branding My Venture

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook or Facebook founded by Mark Zuckerberg? It is a question of branding one’s self or their empire. Personally, I’ve had this experience before. I have been a part of ventures, but when I sell them, I am no longer associated with them and there is no brand for myself, just the business. In the business world, companies are well known, but the people behind them are not as well known. So why do you need to brand yourself and how do you do it?

Originally when Facebook launched, Mark Zuckerberg used to have a tag on the bottom of each page that went something like “A Mark Zuckerberg Production.” This definitely spiked the curiosity of who Mark Zuckerberg was as Facebook grew. Facebook being his first large venture, many who know Mark today, did not know him in the pre-Facebook era. Today he has a brand not only connected to Facebook, but he has a self-branded image out in the world as well.

It is important to brand yourself not only as whom you are, but what ventures you are a part of. I was previously involved with some online ventures, that I played a small role in, but did not brand myself as a part of them. The connections made through a venture can be connections that you can use in the future with other ventures that you may be involved in. Once you create your own brand, people will look for where you are involved in other ventures, not the other way around.

Creating a LinkedIn profile is wonderful to help you create your own identity online, while networking with others at the same time. Unlike Facebook or MySpace, it’s more of a professional social network. There are straight forward connections to each person’s industry, showing who they work for, kind of like an online resume. LinkedIn is the best professional social network out there, which is why it has the most users out of any other professional social network. If I had to recommend one social network to anyone for networking, it would be LinkedIn.

Making your own website is also a phenomenal way to brand yourself. People have access to (YourName).com over the web, which you can turn into a blog about yourself or a website that explains what you are involved in. Some people even redirect their name to their about section of another one of their websites. Sometimes, your name might not be available, in which case you might want to try hyphening your name and see if that works. Creating a website can be awesome, but you should always remember to keep it professional and try to go for a different look or concept that what others do. For example, Neil Patel has a unique website NeilPatel.com which has a different concept, than any site I have seen, of walking visitors through who “Neil Patel” is.

Creating your own name- as your brand is always great, but you should try to stay away from naming products after your name. Sometimes people create a blog off of their name and brand off of that. I don’t like to personally take this approach because I feel it is less creative. Both of my blogs have unique names, instead of having RomilPatel.com as a blog URL. Blab Web is known as its own brand as well as Venture Level known as its own brand. RomilPatel.com is known as my brand, but I am known as the founder of all the brands. I think an independent URL expresses a sense of a unique brand image for that particular blog. Having a "FirstNameLastName" blog, can give yourself an name in the world, but I feel that it is best to come up with unique names for blogs because it gives a sense of bold style.
(I don't know what I want to currently do with RomilPatel.com, but I'm thinking about making it into a personal type of blog.)

How Large Enterprises Are Perceived

In many businesses there are large transactions that go on as a common thing, but for many small businesses or startups, big business deals are hard to come by. Clients always want to make sure who they are purchasing a service or product from, is one of the best at what they do. Nobody wants to buy from a small, unknown business. In advertising, no company wants to advertise with the third best advertising agency. If you were managing a Fortune 500 company, would what would you expect to see in company that you managed? There are many valid facts that are foreseen to show that a business has the strength and power to be an anchor in the industry they are classified in.

What is noticed in being #1, as a company and brand image?
1) Making sure quality service and reputation is upheld by loyal customers.
2) Having dealings with large companies (well reputated) publicly noticed.
3) A company that shows the capacity and knowledge base of an anchor.
4) Well note the good things a company does.

Having a strong loyal customer base is always a big plus point in any company. The more satisfied customers a company has, the more chances of referral business they get. Only customers that are truly satisfied will hold up a positive image for a company. It is very well known that- bad news travels fast, so it is very hurtful for a company to provide bad service instead of no service.

Any company that links themselves as a supplier with a well known corporation is always noticed as a valuable source. Showing that your business has big clients, can be advantageous to your future client flow and help your company show it has a strong reputation since it deals with giants. The more people that know about the dealings with good corporations, the more the public could perceive your company as a strong and knowledgeable, enterprise.

Showing that the company your running, knows what it does and is “better” among the others in the industry is always viewed as a strong company by clients. The ability to handle big jobs, involving more capital or other funding in the long run, shows the ability and capacity to fulfill the necessary requirements of capturing larger sales.

The community that buys from a certain corporation always likes to see that the company is “giving-back” to the community. For example, Google had its 10th anniversary recently, when they announced “Google Gives Back.” In this they are planning to help the world by giving a certain amount of funding for a new project that people will benefit from. Google is perceived as a company that is not only useful and reliable, but likes to help the world in return for their success.

These are just some things to note how big deals are brought upon large corporations and shows if the proper steps are followed, any size company can land bigger deals if they “play their cards right”-so to speak.

Overnight Growth, Not So Great

Many of us have bought it thinking we might hit it big overnight, and while some of the people who have bought lottery tickets have won the big check, most do not win anything. I’m over my lottery ticket buying days. Most people consider a lottery ticket the key to overnight growth and success. While I believe that overnight growth can be very-well possible, in most cases, it is not probable. I am going to give a couple examples of how overnight growth can be a short-term gain, but a long-term damage.

- The first example is about the fast food restaurant industry. – Say you are the owner of a sub shop that just had its grand opening and everything is going smooth for the next 6 months. After the six months have passed, you have probably got a grip on inventory control, staffing the proper amount of employees throughout the day and so on. All of a sudden, out of the blue, your sub shop is mentioned, on a TV interview, to be a celebrity’s favorite place to eat lunch. The next day you see the day opens up like normal, but when lunch rolls around, chaos occurs, and you find yourself understaffed, running out of products, and busier than the highways during rush hour. Now, most may say, that this is only a problem for the duration of the hype that the celebrity has created, but if you look into further detail, you will notice that while you might have made more profit than you made in the whole week, during that time where everyone flooded your sub shop for lunch, I see the long term damage. Your staff rushed through service, so some people might have gotten the impression that your shop lacks the phenomenal service it always has in reality, causing those people not to come back in the future, leading you to lose out on long-term sales. Running out of product very-well might be another issue, because this will lead you to display that your restaurant is not properly stocked for the amount of traffic it drives and since you had to turn people back, they have lost out on their lunch hour’s precious time, so they will more than likely not give your shop another shot for lunch.

- An example in the online world, of overnight-growth causing more long-run damage, would be when your website receives a tremendous amount of traffic in one day, than it has ever received in a lifetime! While it is a great thing to have 1,000,000 visits in a day, it is not so great when you were unprepared for it. In most cases, if your site is hosted by a third party host, your site may have been taken offline or the traffic would have been allowed and you would be facing overage charges in bandwidth. Both cases would hurt your site’s image because if it went offline, people would be more likely not to visit it again and if you got overage charges, you might have a tough time paying the bill. If your traffic grew gradually, over time, from say 20,000 visits a day to 60,000 to 150,000 and so on you would have been more likely to be prepared for it.

To conclude, I would like to mention, that in addition to be prepared for extremes, you should consider the long-term path to success, because you are probably more likely to benefit more from it. There are always exceptions to the examples above, such as having a sub shop being mentioned in the 10 best places to eat, which just might bring lost customers back. Or with a website, you might get traffic and attention from others among the web for having such growth overnight and make up for the time when it went down or the overage in hosting fees. Just remember, in business, you should think of the ripple effect and your company’s overall image.

Corporate Blogging

Whether you are a part of a large corporation or are running your own small business, corporate blogging can be advantageous to your company on many levels. Your company may already have a website, but a blog can add different interaction and a more solid connection to clientele. It can potentially be a inexpensive form of advertising as well.

Some key advantages of running a corporate blog:

- Your company is able to connect with customers to promote items more directly.
- Your company will be able to do Q & A with clientele, available for everyone to view.
- Your company can manage subscriber lists with emails so you can send special offers to active readers of the company's blog.
- Able to establish a "friendly" name in the community with the association of a blog.
- Provide helpful resources to clientele through the blog.

Having a blog lets companies update information on a regular basis. It can be a company news site, updating clientele on what products or services a company is coming out with. Companies can also address public issues or concerns directly, instead of through the media or other sources. A corporate blog can also improve customer support by creating an image that the company is active in customer satisfaction.

Some corporate blogs in the world today are ran by leading companies such as DELL, "Direct2Dell" and GM, "GM FAST LANE"

Most of the bigger companies have hired professional bloggers who run the blog and publish news on them, but it is not necessary for small businesses to hire professional bloggers as anyone can learn to blog!

All in all, you may see it as an advantage to start a blog for your own small business or might want to present the idea to your company.

Proper Sales Presentation

The bottom line boils down to how you present yourself to a potential client. Your sales pitch will say everything if you're a salesman or the presentation you give to your client will define your company.

Make sure you are prepared when going to see new clients and giving a sales presentation. Include thoughts on why you are the edge over your competition and the benefits of your services. Also make sure you know what you are talking about and not just a verbatim that any other person could have presented. Think of yourself being a new client, what would you want to see in a person to make you want to use their service?

----> Don't be a robot. It could probably be the worst you can do. If you don't interact with the client you will never win them over. Ask them what questions they have and make sure you can think on your feet. You don't want them to think you are making anything up, the best way to go about this is to prepare some general Q&A's beforehand so you might have some idea of what to say when a likely question is asked.

Too often I see salespeople just trying to pitch their products with no real sense of what they are talking about. I'm just talking about normal sales people, they lack the knowledge of what they are selling, so as a buyer that does not give me the confidence I need to buy the product. I also find in many cases, I know more about the product than the person trying to sell it to me.

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