Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Words of Encouragement
"We can gradually grow into
any conditions we desire,
provided we first make ourselves
in habitual mental attitude
the person who corresponds
to those conditions."
-- Thomas Troward
Monday, September 26, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Words of Encouragement
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
The most certain way to succeed
is always to try just one more time."
-- Thomas Edison
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Steve Jobs - Excellent Older Video Worth Rewatching For All Businesses
Steve Jobs, back in the day, telling us how simple brands really need to be
Friday, September 23, 2011
Old Technology for New Prospects
Using a piece of "technology" that you've probably got sitting in your office, for tracking prospect conversations
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Gateway Professional INSURANCE Services Is Latest Trend Setter Package Client
Upward Trend welcomes Cathy Spencer, and Gateway Professional Insurance Services as the latest Trend Setter Package client. Upward Trend will begin managing Gateway's blog, all their social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and others, along with a monthly email newsletter, video, SEO optimization, consulting, and more.
Gateway's current website will remain at http://www.gatewayinsurance.com/. Gateway Professional Insurance Services has been located at 1990 Alamo Drive, Suite 1 in Vacaville for the last 28 years. Give them a call at 707-446-9864.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Words of Encouragement
"You simply have to put one foot
in front of the other and keep going.
Put blinders on and plow right ahead."
-- George Lucas
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
TEDxCMU - Chris Guillebeau - Fear and Permission
Some interesting thoughts . . .
Chris Guillebeau travels the world and writes for a small army of remarkable people at chrisguillebeau.com. This talk is about crocodiles, killer whales, writing your own permission slip, and changing the world.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Leading Collaborative Groups
John Abele, cofounder of Boston Scientific and author of the HBR article "Bringing Minds Together," explains how to effectively manage teams.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
The One Star Review by Kirsty Dunphey
I was recently asked (most flatteringly) to give the opening address for a former staff member who has just opened his own real estate agency. As the words tumbled out of my mouth: “I’ve known Richard since his first day in real estate, I’ve seen him get his first listing, make his first sale, receive his first glowing testimonial.” It was at this point Richard with his trademark smile and honesty interjected with “She also saw me get my first complaint!” The audience laughed, and so did I.
Complaints, especially in service based industries like real estate are a common occurrence. Obviously great players attempt to minimise them, but I’ve always been of the opinion that when a complaint occurs, it shouldn’t be something you dread or push under the rug. It should be something that highlights a service or procedural error that you can improve on going forward. It's something that can make you better at what you do.
Saturday
5 days before the launch I’d gone out on a lovely romantic dinner with my husband to celebrate the day upon which 8 years ago he’d proposed to me. We arrived home around 10.20pm, Saturday and I checked my phone to find a text message from one of my business partners informing me that there was an unfavourable review posted on our facebook site.
I logged on to facebook straight away. After reading the review I texted the two staff members who may have been involved and heard back from them within minutes. From there I spent the next hour in repair mode.
The review gave us one star (this alone was mortifying for me when every other review on our facebook page had given us 5 stars). It stated that the person had called our office and hadn’t had their phone call returned in a reasonable time.
Devastatingly two of the reviewer’s friends had commented on the review already and it had only been up a matter of hours. That’s the power and the curse of instant social media beautifully illustrated. If 2 of his friends had felt they needed to comment, how many others had already seen it and not commented and how many had seen it just by looking at our page.
My first step was to comment on the review that I was looking into the situation and would be in touch soon. I also left my direct email address on that comment. I then went to the person’s facebook page and directly messaged them again stating that I was doing my best to get all the details and there I gave my direct mobile and email address and asked for some more details on the situation so that I could appropriately respond.
From there an email went out to all potential staff involved and all business partners as an update and a request for more information from those involved.
Sunday
Sunday morning I heard back from the complainant with the details. His frustration was completely justified, we had not gotten back to him in an appropriate time and I let him know where I was at in my investigations, I let him know he had been heard and that I was just waiting on a few more pieces of information to not only find out how he’d been left without contact, but also to resolve the enquiry he’d contacted us with. I told him when he'd next hear from me.
Monday
8.30am – I had the information he required from us that he was after in his initial phone call to the office and had that side of the situation resolved fairly quickly.
By midday I also had an explanation as to how the return of his call had been delayed. We’d had a staff member away from the office on medical grounds and this contributed to the delay. However, most importantly, when I relayed this to the complainant, to me the most vital thing was that I let him know that these were the circumstances surrounding the issue, but they were by no means an excuse. Every office is busy, every office has people away sick and every office should have appropriate means in place to deal with these everyday occurrences so that the experience to the customer is seamless.
In damage control mode I wanted to make sure that while I was working on resolving this issue that the unfavourable review wasn’t the first someone saw when they looked at our reviews page. As such I asked a number of clients if they'd feel comfortable in reviewing our services on the page and quickly we had a couple of lovely reviews from very happy clients showing at the top of the page. Now, back on to resolving my one star.
Tuesday - Wednesday
I went to the office in question so that I could speak to the staff members involved and conduct some training based on the feedback we’d been provided.
I kept contact with the complainant informing him of the training I was doing and the progress we were making in attempting to have delays of this sort not be an ongoing issue.
Thursday
I touched base a final time with the complainant to make sure he was 100% happy with the way I’d handled the issue. When he replied that he was, I asked if he felt comfortable removing the review. His reply was that I’d gone to a lot of trouble and he was happy to remove his review. He was extremely reasonable the entire time I dealt with him. And my final follow up to this gentleman will be to pop something in the mail to him next week thanking him for his feedback and for helping us become a better service company.
Ultimately, with social media, you can typically find ways to remove unfavourable posts and reviews by deleting them. For me that was never an option. If I couldn’t find a way to resolve this issue for the gentleman so that he felt comfortable deleting the review himself, I would have left it there (as sad as that would make me).
Was it a lot of work to go to get him to delete the review? Yes, it was quite a big investment in my time.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. It highlighted an aspect of my business that I wasn’t aware of and that needed addressing.
I’d go as far as to say that I’m grateful for the complaint because of the flaws in our service delivery that were easy to address and rectify that it illuminated.
The next time you get a complaint – will you see it as an opportunity to get discouraged or an opportunity to improve?
Reproduced with permission from the Kirsty Dunphey weekly email. To subscribe to Kirsty Dunphey's weekly email, go to www.kirstydunphey.com
Complaints, especially in service based industries like real estate are a common occurrence. Obviously great players attempt to minimise them, but I’ve always been of the opinion that when a complaint occurs, it shouldn’t be something you dread or push under the rug. It should be something that highlights a service or procedural error that you can improve on going forward. It's something that can make you better at what you do.
Saturday
5 days before the launch I’d gone out on a lovely romantic dinner with my husband to celebrate the day upon which 8 years ago he’d proposed to me. We arrived home around 10.20pm, Saturday and I checked my phone to find a text message from one of my business partners informing me that there was an unfavourable review posted on our facebook site.
I logged on to facebook straight away. After reading the review I texted the two staff members who may have been involved and heard back from them within minutes. From there I spent the next hour in repair mode.
The review gave us one star (this alone was mortifying for me when every other review on our facebook page had given us 5 stars). It stated that the person had called our office and hadn’t had their phone call returned in a reasonable time.
Devastatingly two of the reviewer’s friends had commented on the review already and it had only been up a matter of hours. That’s the power and the curse of instant social media beautifully illustrated. If 2 of his friends had felt they needed to comment, how many others had already seen it and not commented and how many had seen it just by looking at our page.
My first step was to comment on the review that I was looking into the situation and would be in touch soon. I also left my direct email address on that comment. I then went to the person’s facebook page and directly messaged them again stating that I was doing my best to get all the details and there I gave my direct mobile and email address and asked for some more details on the situation so that I could appropriately respond.
From there an email went out to all potential staff involved and all business partners as an update and a request for more information from those involved.
Sunday
Sunday morning I heard back from the complainant with the details. His frustration was completely justified, we had not gotten back to him in an appropriate time and I let him know where I was at in my investigations, I let him know he had been heard and that I was just waiting on a few more pieces of information to not only find out how he’d been left without contact, but also to resolve the enquiry he’d contacted us with. I told him when he'd next hear from me.
Monday
8.30am – I had the information he required from us that he was after in his initial phone call to the office and had that side of the situation resolved fairly quickly.
By midday I also had an explanation as to how the return of his call had been delayed. We’d had a staff member away from the office on medical grounds and this contributed to the delay. However, most importantly, when I relayed this to the complainant, to me the most vital thing was that I let him know that these were the circumstances surrounding the issue, but they were by no means an excuse. Every office is busy, every office has people away sick and every office should have appropriate means in place to deal with these everyday occurrences so that the experience to the customer is seamless.
In damage control mode I wanted to make sure that while I was working on resolving this issue that the unfavourable review wasn’t the first someone saw when they looked at our reviews page. As such I asked a number of clients if they'd feel comfortable in reviewing our services on the page and quickly we had a couple of lovely reviews from very happy clients showing at the top of the page. Now, back on to resolving my one star.
Tuesday - Wednesday
I went to the office in question so that I could speak to the staff members involved and conduct some training based on the feedback we’d been provided.
I kept contact with the complainant informing him of the training I was doing and the progress we were making in attempting to have delays of this sort not be an ongoing issue.
Thursday
I touched base a final time with the complainant to make sure he was 100% happy with the way I’d handled the issue. When he replied that he was, I asked if he felt comfortable removing the review. His reply was that I’d gone to a lot of trouble and he was happy to remove his review. He was extremely reasonable the entire time I dealt with him. And my final follow up to this gentleman will be to pop something in the mail to him next week thanking him for his feedback and for helping us become a better service company.
Ultimately, with social media, you can typically find ways to remove unfavourable posts and reviews by deleting them. For me that was never an option. If I couldn’t find a way to resolve this issue for the gentleman so that he felt comfortable deleting the review himself, I would have left it there (as sad as that would make me).
Was it a lot of work to go to get him to delete the review? Yes, it was quite a big investment in my time.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. It highlighted an aspect of my business that I wasn’t aware of and that needed addressing.
I’d go as far as to say that I’m grateful for the complaint because of the flaws in our service delivery that were easy to address and rectify that it illuminated.
The next time you get a complaint – will you see it as an opportunity to get discouraged or an opportunity to improve?
Reproduced with permission from the Kirsty Dunphey weekly email. To subscribe to Kirsty Dunphey's weekly email, go to www.kirstydunphey.com
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The 3 Jobs In Life
A long time ago, I heard this from a sales training record, that there are only three jobs in life:
1. Filling the things that are empty.
2. Emptying the things that are full.
and
3. Scratching where it itches.
I've often thought of this since the early 1970s when I first heard it and I think I have to agree that every job I can think of falls into one or more of these three categories.
Just a bit of trivia for your enjoyment!
1. Filling the things that are empty.
2. Emptying the things that are full.
and
3. Scratching where it itches.
I've often thought of this since the early 1970s when I first heard it and I think I have to agree that every job I can think of falls into one or more of these three categories.
Just a bit of trivia for your enjoyment!
Monday, August 29, 2011
Discover The Work You Were Born To Do: Part 9: A Greater You
Nick Williams presents the nine ways to Discover The Work You Were Born To Do. The ninth is in a greater sense of yourself and a new sense of identity. See http://www.inspired-entrepreneur.com.
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Discover The Work You Were Born To Do: Part 8: Wake-Up Call
Nick Williams presents the nine ways to Discover The Work You Were Born To Do... The eighth is behind a wake-up call or even a crisis. See http://www.inspired-entrepreneur.com.
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Discover The Work You Were Born To Do: Part 7: Lost Dreams
Nick Williams presents the nine ways to Discover The Work You Were Born To Do... The seventh In your lost and neglected dreams and your underutilised talent. See http://www.inspired-entrepreneur.com.
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject
Friday, August 26, 2011
Discover The Work You Were Born To Do: Part 6: Who'd Pay Me?
Nick Williams presents the nine ways to Discover The Work You Were Born To Do... The sixth is behind the words If only I could find someone to pay me to do it. See http://www.inspired-entrepreneur.com.
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Discover The Work You Were Born To Do: Part 5: Naturalness
Nick Williams presents the nine ways to Discover The Work You Were Born To Do... The fifth is through your naturalness, which shows up in other peoples eyes. See http://www.inspired-entrepreneur.com.
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Discover The Work You Were Born To Do: Part 4: I Don't Know
Nick Williams presents the nine ways to Discover The Work You Were Born To Do... The fourth is behind "I don't know".
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way of speaking on this subject.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Discover The Work You Were Born To Do: Part 3: Shadow Life
Nick Williams presents the nine ways to Discover The Work You Were Born To Do... The third is your "Shadow Life".
We love these videos by Nick Williams. He has a wonderful way to speaking on this subject.
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