This article describes briefly terms you may or may not have already heard about and will give you some quick tips to finding information that is useful and accurate on the search engines (well of course that depends on the quality of the content but we have no control over that)

Now, I know this article is a little old and there are probably newer and more comprehensive articles out there, but I believe it will still help you a lot . Read it

I read this article on Hubspot and thought I would share it with you. It offers great advice to small business managers and owners on the value of meta data on your website and a little about what it all means. Of course there is a LOT more too it, but it will get you started.

After you have read it, I would love you to post your comments on this page. If you need more advice I would be happy to help, just email me.

Cheers
Michelle

This article is about dissatisfied customers and should get you thinking about whether you have existing customers that you’ve been ignoring, therefore, you are missing out (in more ways than one). So bear with me, there is a point to all this.

I am one very dissatisfied Foxtel customer, which pains me no end because my favourite shows are on Fox 8. Anyway, this is about my experience as a customer and how Foxtel seems to focus on the NEW customer and FORGETS their current customer (unless of course they are after money).

I believe forgetting about your existing customers is a huge mistake for any business, and Foxtel is likely losing business because of it.

So here is my gripe(s).

My husband and I have been a Foxtel customer for nearly 10 years. In that time we have noticed some key differences in quality and value:

• Foxtel fees keep going up and up and it is hard to justify the value, and they offer NEW customers the opportunity to purchase for nearly 1/3 of the price we are (were) paying
• Too many repeats, where are the new shows in the series.
• We were paying $1300 a year for repeated shows with constant ad interruptions. So on a typical half hour show, we regularly noticed 15 mins of ads

It is just not acceptable for PAY TV! Didn’t the whole PAY TV concept originate by pushing the fact there was ‘no advertising’. I don’t know about you, but I think that is double dipping. Foxtel gets paid by the customer and the advertiser, and we are getting less and less value for our money.

Then there is the issue of lack of variety. With the same shows being repeated 3 or 4 times and hardly anything new to watch. Most of the repeats recently on Foxtel are now also on free tv (granted a little behind but nonetheless, for free). Correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn’t Foxtel be showing the latest in a series?

Of course, sometimes we are happy to pay over the top prices for a quality product, if you feel you are getting what you pay for!

Now here is the clincher…

My hubby rang up to cancel the account, because we believed were not receiving value for money, plus received a letter from Foxtel threatening to cancel the account (we were less than one month behind, oops). So we paid the $96 owing but then the customer service rep offered us a $10 week deal if we stayed on as a customer. What the!

Now you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t think that was a good deal, but why wait until we threatened to cancel the account before showing they value us as a customer. If they had asked if we wanted to do that a month before we would have jumped at it; now we are beyond pissed and really don’t want anything to do with them.

Foxtel, it is just not good enough, you need to start looking at your existing (long term) customers and start giving back. Plus, get rid of the ads and put some new shows/updated series on.

So now we have a set top box, yes we miss our favourite shows, but the kids are playing more on the trampoline, running around, and we go to bed early instead of sitting up all hours catching up on taped shows.  Yes, there are a lot of times I/we miss it, especially on the weekends when all that is on ‘free tv’ is sport (yawn), but that is a sacrifice we are willing to make.

It is amazing to me how Foxtel continually advertisers great bargains for new customers, but I would like to hear from any existing long term customer that has received a special offer at random (no particular reason) that has reduced your monthly cost. We never received it until it was too late, have you and do you believe you should? Let me know your thoughts.

I have returned after a lengthy illness and am writing to say thank you for your lovely comments and to look out for a new article in the next few days.

There is a comment from a reader that has prompted me to write about dealing with dissatisfied customers (The Customer Is Not Always Right), a problem most of us have come up against at one time or another. So look out for it in the next week.

Please let me know if there are any specific business improvement/marketing topics you would like me to write about and don’t forget, if you have a legit, legal and non-offensive business I would be happy to advertise your business for free on my partner page. Check it out

Have a lovely day

Sincerely
Michelle

PS. I am writing another ebook on operational business systems, now is your chance to receive advice. Please email your business system setup/improvement questions related to operational processes and I will do the best I can to help you gain a better understanding!

Find out:

• your life’s purpose
• how you can live a happier and healthier life
• how to manage your life and go in your preferred direction
• how to stand up for yourself
  
• and so much more

“This Man Was Told He Would Never Read Or Write…. Now Travels The World Helping Thousands With His Phenomenal Life-Changing Programs” read Dr John DeMartini’s story here and watch the video for insight into a amazing 2 day event coming to Sydney & Brisbane, Australia

This man is amazing, I have listened too his story and was blown away by his experiences and what he shares with the world. This is a 2 day free event that could just change your life FOREVER. See you there!

1. Create useful content. Nothing else is important (hopefully I am starting to do that for you)
2. Update your useful content regularly. Today’s web audience expects to see fresh material, and having regularly updated content will keep them coming back (don’t forget to sign up for my blog)
3. Build sticky and interactive pages on your website including discussion boards, comment capability and anything else that helps build a community (include sharing buttons)
4. Seek out partnerships with other people with email lists to promote your website (would you like to partner with me, if yes, please sign up to my blog and email me. I am currently developing an awesome product for family and small business that you might like to be part of)
5. RSS feeds are a great way to keep visitors informed of fresh content on your site. For an explanation of RSS feeds, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGssU and how easy it is to receive up-to-date information from your favourite sites
6. Create an affiliate program to promote your products and services (working on that one myself)
7. Use SEO techniques to get listed naturally at the top of Google, Yahoo and other search engines (I achieved this on 2 sites)
8. Podcasting is a great way to build a regular audience and keep them coming back, see http://www.feedforall.com/videos/what-is-podcasting.htm
9. Invest in PPC advertising (ie. Adwords) to drive targeted traffic to your website, see http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/adwords/webinars/index.html
10. Create a blog with fresh content that builds a regular audience. Use the following tool to find out which blog software is right for you http://www.weblogmatrix.org – I use Wordpress or Blogger
11. Build profiles on popular social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Use your profiles to connect to others with similar interests and send them to your site, see http://www.linkedin.com/in/michellepavel and http://twitter.com/bestbuys and http://www.facebook.com/?sk=welcome#!/profile.php?id=100000072687878
12. Invest in other forms of free and cheap advertising including banner advertising – visit http://www.fasterprofits.com.au  for a full list.

This post concept was courtesy of David Riklan, Self Growth. Links and info has been updated

If you seriously want to be rich, famous and respected… then have I ever got a deal for you.

You can read this story or skip and go to the videos on this site and in the next 48 hours you will receive information that Bob Proctor gives out in his $12,000 seminars - absolutely FREE. 

START NOW

I’m about to tell you a story that will make you afraid. Probably very afraid!

But more importantly it has the potential of making you a bucket load of money, by helping you to remove blockages and start making positive changes in the areas of your life that you believe aren’t working for you.

Imagine what you can gain by learning from a world renowned expert such as Bob Proctor? A man that practices what he preaches.

Read carefully and be prepared to shed a tear at the end, I did!

A woman living in downtown Ontario, Canada came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said “I don’t think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat.”

“Is the man of the house home?” they asked. “No”, she replied. “He’s out.” “Then we cannot come in”, they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened. “Go tell them I am home and invite them in!” The woman went out and invited the men in. “We do not go into a house together,” they replied. “Why is that?” she asked.

One of the old men explained:

“His name is Wealth,” he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, “He is Success, and I am Love.” Then he added, “Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home.”

The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. “How nice!!” he said. “Since that’s the case, let’s invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!”

His wife disagreed. “My dear, why don’t we invite Success?”

Their daughter was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: “Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!”

“Let us heed our daughter’s advice,” said the husband to his wife. “Go out and invite Love to be our guest.”

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, “Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest.”

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: “I only invited Love, why are you coming in?”

The old men replied together:

“If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would’ve stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever he goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!”

I heard that story from an amazing person, Bob Proctor. He went on and told me this:

“Most people don’t have wealth or success in their lives and that’s probably because they don’t know how to love. Whether you want just wealth, success or love in your life… I can help you achieve it.”

I believe 100% in Bob Proctor. He can help you achieve great success in your life. But there’s one condition…

You’ve got to give him 6 minutes of your life everyday until the day he helps you achieve your goals. Is that a deal? Okay, then as a first step, go to this website right now and don’t forget to come back and let me know about your experience:

http://www.sixminutestosuccess.com

Make sure you read all the way through to the end. There is a HUGE secret hidden within the website.

http://www.sixminutestosuccess.com

Cheers
Michelle

If that is you, don’t let those limitations stop you from being your own boss, realising your dreams, and doing something different.  If you have the desire to work for yourself, and want to do something different I suggest you do the following to get the ideas flowing.

Look around – I mean really look around at your surroundings.

Search: Lets say you live in/near a city, you catch the train everyday to and from your 9-5 job. As you look out the window take in the buildings, area, people, signage etc.  See if any ideas pop out at you. For example:  Notice how unsightly the buildings are facing the rail line, they are covered with grafiti or just plain ugly.

Solution:  Start a business that provides three benefits:

(1) Offers artistic young people (grafiti artists and the like) the opportunity to do what they love, take pride in their work, and get paid to do it – I bet it will stop them from defacing their own handy work

(2) The building owner / business owner can use the artwork as advertising (ie. say the local factory for Nike is on the rail line and vandals have defaced their walls facing the line. If there is a beautiful picture, creative advertisement, or branding image on the side of the wall, wouldn’t that attract attention and look more appealing?

(3) Cheap solution for marketing and advertising to a large audience (ie. say 50,000 people use that line everyday)

Plus, on the side business/building owners could pay for a service to clean up their walls. Lots of options to establish a highly successful business out of that concept alone. Go ahead and use that one if you like, I don’t mind.

What other ideas can you get from that or other things to come off it?

Write everything down and do some research, something else may prompt you to look further and presto a ‘new or refreshing idea’.

Another way to come up with ideas is to write a list of all the things you love to do and number then one through to five or more. Then write another list of your skills or knowledge/expertise. Cross-link the two lists to come up with ideas based on what you love and what you are good at. Or look at what you really love and find out what you need to learn to create a business around that. Your idea doesn’t have to be original. If you have something to offer that your competition doesn’t and you can win their customers, your idea is a winner. Make your idea more unique, put a twist on it, think of something you can add to an existing idea to make it a little different.

So you really want to go into business for yourself.  If you need help working out business opportunities to suit you, please visit my business-ideas page for more ideas.

Working ‘on’ your business allows you to:

• look for new ways to attract customers
• improve your business system
• monitor staff performance; ensuring your values and guidelines are being followed
• find new products
• analyse and beat the competition
• create new marketing campaigns
• enhance your business image
• find business partners
• and the list goes on

Of course, if you don’t want to work ‘on’ your business, and prefer to work ‘in’ it doing what you love, then delegation is great for handing out the tasks you despise. You may even have staff that would love to do that task and be better at it.

Each task you delegate should be briefly assessed against your employee’s level of skill and ability to carry it out to the level required; you will then feel confident the job is going to be done properly and/or professionally and your employee won’t feel overwhelmed. Make sure you provide ALL the information necessary to perform the task properly, skipping vital bits of information can cause problems and disagreements. Take the time to show your employee what needs to be done. You may think, “Well I might as well do it myself”, but when they get the hang of it, you won’t need to do it anymore, which is one less thing for you to do.

Staff are usually more willing to assist and more capable than given credit for, plus they may feel they are actually contributing to the business  and their  job satisfaction levels will increase, which turn, may produce better quality outputs and customer service.

Delegating helps your business in so many more ways than just giving you time to play golf or go to the gym. It frees up your time to work on the future of your business like:

• updating your system documentation
• establishing or updating a marketing campaign including publicity, website development, internet marketing …
• writing to your existing customers with a special offer to say thank you
• obtaining feedback and incorporating modifications for improvement
• setting up your website or adding information
• and the list goes on

Keep in touch with the needs of your employees, what they like to do, what they are good at. You may have a gem or too already under your roof that will take the load off and do the job pretty well.

Have you every asked your employees:

• Are you doing what you love, if not, what do you love?
• Are there any positions in the business or tasks you would like to do?
• How can I make working here better for you?
• Do you believe I am communicating the importance of your role in the business?
• List 5 things I can do to make it easier for you?
• I would like you to do XYZ would you be interested?
• I have a list of tasks that I would like to delegate, which ones would you be interested in doing?
  

The answers may surprise you!

You don’t have to implement suggestions, but staff can sometimes see the business from a different perspective and have some great insight into what you can do to improve your systems as well as customer satisfaction.

If an employee makes suggestions and they are interested, delegate tasks to include them in the improvement process and I bet  you will see they are much happier and more willing to do more to help.

Have you had an experience as an employer or employee that demonstrates how effective delegating is, please comment below:

Have you noticed all the ‘deals’ that seem to be popping up lately, like ‘buy xyz car and get $000s cash back’; and that’s not all, you also get a set of steak knives (just kidding). If you are in business that provides a product that is ‘not’ of sound quality (unless you are a bargain shop), what do you think is going to happen to that business down the track. In recent months I have purchased several items through online wholesaler sites. The items were for personal use mostly, but here’s the thing, most of the items have either been thrown out or just not used at all because they were not of the standard I expected.

Here is the other thing, most customers will NOT complain, they will just NEVER return to buy from you again and will tell their friends not too. Frankly, if I had seen the same items in a retail store, I would have thought they weren’t worth the money, unfortunately the Internet makes products look very inviting and can easily cover up any imperfections.

Here is a classic example:

Have you ever looked for your dream home online, found it and then gone for an inspection only to realise it wasn’t that big, it didn’t really look that good in the flesh (so to speak), it was worn out and looked tired. After looking at a number of houses that were initially viewed online, I started to get very frustrated.

How many times have you bought something online or from a shopfront, just to find out it was rubbish? Did you return it, did you ask for your money back? Did you buy there again? If you did any of these, you are one of the minority.

So what happens then is we don’t go back to purchase from that store again, simply because:

1. the products are just not up to the quality expected
2. for online purchases, the cost of delivery is too high, which bumps up the price to way beyond what we should really be paying for that type of product in the first place.

Which brings me to you and your products

In your business, you can avoid the above pitfalls by providing ‘quality’ products. Products that are of a high standard, that the customer will not return because it wasn’t what they expected. Maybe you are not interested in ensuring your business stays around for a while, then you obviously don’t need to read any further. Of course, not all businesses stock ‘quality’ products; take the cheap dollar markets for example. There is a huge difference though, we don’t go in there expecting high quality products, we are looking for something cheap. We know what we are paying for and we don’t mind doing that.

If you are really interested in providing ‘quality’ products (& services for that matter) for your customers, you may need to consider developing a system that allows you to automatically (through the use of standard processes) produce those ‘quality’ outputs. A system can be complicated and very daunting, but if you start by planning out your requirements, you will be well on your way to ensuring your products are of the quality and value you and your customers expect. There is no rule that you need to be certified to ISO 9001 standard either (unless you client requires it of course), but you can still use the standard guidelines to help you setup your system effectively.

Please comment on what you have done to introduce quality into your business philosophy! Got any interesting and unique ideas?