In The Box Podcast

Episode 18: Response Rates, Honesty, Opinions Of Others And More – Podcast

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we talked about Facebook’s new response rate tracking, how long we should keep trying before giving up, if it’s best to always tell the truth, how to share unfavorable opinions with others, and how to move on from things that didn’t go our way.

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Episode 18: Response Rates, Honesty, Opinions Of Others And More

Response rates – How fast do you expect to get a response when you tweet or Facebook a complaint?

Attempt Length – How long do you keep trying before you try something else or give up?

Honesty – Is it good to ALWAYS tell the truth?

Opinion of others – Is it worth it to share your opinions of others if it is not a favorable one?

Moving on – How do you move on from things that didn’t go your way?

 

Stay Positive & Try Until You Can’t

All Good Marketing…

is consistent marketing.

Maintaining brand voice, which is hard, is only one piece of marketing. So is keeping up with customer service in terms of response rate.

When you demonstrate you know who your product is for by stating “people like us…,” you lock in consistency. But when you open the door to the masses, your marketing loses consistency and you customer service response rate tumbles and your brand voice is lost.

People respond to consistency. It’s how you build a tribe. It’s why they keep showing up.

 

Stay Positive & There’s No One Path To Remarkability, There’s Only Staying On A Path

In The Box Podcast

Episode 3: Robots vs. Humans 2, Customer Service, Disruption And More – Podcast

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we continued the conversation of robots versus humans, we chat about bad customer service, start a narrative around masculinity, explore the value (or lack of) of Instagram and play with disruption.

Episode 3: Robots vs Humans 2, Customer Service, Disruption

Instagram — What is the value of Instagram?

Robots over humans in service industry — Do you see robots or computer programming dumbing down the service experience of a business?

Bad customer service — Tell me about a bad customer service experience … what would you have done?

Alcohol in Madison — Best place to enjoy an adult beverage in Madison

Narrative around masculine strength — How courage is portrayed in relation to masculinity?

Disruption — Best time for it? worst time for it?

 

Stay Positive & Find A Way To Disrupt

Unlocking Potential #13: Q&A With Ryan Paugh

Ryan Paugh

When researching for a story centered on entrepreneurs under 30, a friend connected me with Ryan Paugh. At the time, Ryan was at Brazen Careerist writing, speaking and preaching about career-management. He was big into entrepreneurship… still is.

Like all the others on the unlocking potential series, Ryan is a linchpin. He is the source, the center of many entrepreneurial circles, providing resources and connecting people just as my friend connected me with him.

Without further ado… welcome, Ryan.

Q: You’re known for building epic communities. What does an epic community look like to you?

Ryan: An epic community is one that can help you unlock any door in your industry or trade. For communities like YEC and FounderSociety, we aspire to help our members gain access to everything they need to grow successful businesses.

Q: How did you get to where you’re at now? What’s your story?

Ryan: This is very geeky, but blogging changed my life. After I graduated college I started a blog with one of my best friends about Gen Y entering the workforce. Through the blog came my first business, Brazen Careerist, which was a free community for Gen Y professionals seeking career happiness.

Q: What’s the best and worst parts of being an entrepreneur?

Ryan: The best part about being an entrepreneur is having control over your own destiny. The worst part about being an entrepreneur is the toll it takes on your personal life and the lack of stability.

Q: What gets you filled up with passion and ready to take on the world, to go the distance, to be in it for the long haul?

Ryan: My family. Now that I’m a father especially, I find that I’m more motivated to be successful than I have ever been. I want my family to live the best life possible. I want them to see me as their hero.

Q: What do you see people regularly failing to do while starting a business? What would you suggest they do differently?

Ryan: Spending too much time on one idea is a common startup killer. Most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that they didn’t get it right on the first try. They had to iterate on their existing idea to make it work.

Q: What are four hacks you can share? They can be about life, relationships, getting a job, starting a business, whatever you would like.

Hack #1. Invest in a virtual assistant and outsource work that takes away from building your business. Challenge yourself to delegate at least one new thing per week to your assistant.

Hack #2. Perfect is stupid. Come up with an idea for a business. Build the minimum viable product (MVP) as quickly as you can and get it to market. Iterate based on feedback from your early customers to get better.

Hack #3. Become an early riser or a night owl and you will get more accomplished than 99 percent of the population.

Hack #4. Take care of yourself. You physical and mental health are strongly linked to your success.

Q: Here’s an open-ended question for you: What are your thoughts on waiting?

Ryan: Don’t.

Q: What about failure?

Ryan: Embrace it.

Q: Would you tell us about a truly challenging time and how you got through it (or didn’t!)?

Ryan: Without going into too much detail, I had a health scare a couple months ago that left me feeling mentally paralyzed. It took weeks for me to feel better and get back to my business. The reason I was able to take the time off that I needed to recover was my amazing team. At some point in the future, you’re going to need to take some time off too and it will go a lot smoother if your company can operate with you missing. Being a great leader means learning how to delegate to your team and trust that they can get the job done. You should spend time early on in your career getting comfortable with this. You’ll thank yourself later.

Q: What are three lessons people should know about building a community?

  • Community businesses are are some of the most difficult businesses to run. I love what I do, but it’s not an easy road to riches. There are plenty of other avenues you could take to get rich quick
  • Great customer service can keep a paying customer loyal even when the product still needs work.
  • People will pay a premium for a concierge-level community experience.

Q: What makes an idea or a business or a person remarkable?

Ryan: Vulnerability. I’m drawn to people, ideas, and businesses that are not afraid to be what they are even if that might lead to them being criticized.

Q: Any last advice you want to give someone in marketing or someone who is thinking of starting a business?

Ryan: Share your ideas with as many people as possible.

Q: Lastly, where can people find you and the remarkable work you do? (Shamelessly self-promote here.)

Ryan: The communities I’m currently building are YEC and FounderSociety. We also run a great startup advice website for early-stage entrepreneurs. Follow me on Twitter. I try to blog semi frequently at ryanpaugh.com.

 

Stay Positive & Go Share Your Ideas, Be A Hero, Start Something

When People Come To You With Problems

When People Come To You With Problems

Solving Customer Service Problems

Zappos and a few others revolutionized the way to handle problems. It’s not merely about their shipping policy. Nor is it how nice they are when you call them.

Say you’re at Target or Culver’s or some other physically established business, and you have a problem with a product or your meal. You have to go to the customer service desk or they have to phone the manager to get a solution. You’re fighting a battle on enemy territory. Most of the time you win, but does it really feel that way? Do you leave happy?

Where a solution gets hashed out surely is as important as how it gets hashed out, but neither are as important as how the person feels while hashing it out. When you walk up to the customer service desk, you’re on that store’s turf and, perhaps, feeling mad and uncomfortable. Zappos (and so many other online retailers now) do so well because they meet you at your home, where you feel more comfortable. But, we can’t all be online businesses, nor should we.

What if the restaurant resolved your problem in a remarkable way? What if they tried accommodating you in a way that leaves you feeling it wasn’t a big bump in your day? What if they replicated in person the same phone experience you might have with Zappos when you call with a problem?

Sure Zappos and online businesses meet you at home, but what’s stopping other businesses from making you feel the same?

 
Stay Positive & Seems The Best Solution Is To Make Your Home Theirs

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Marketing!

Marketing!

Everything Is Marketing

I’m known as the marketer in my office. Most conversations I overhear I end up shouting “marketing” when I hear of something someone did on purpose, but my coworkers didn’t realize it.

During some cubical conversations, my coworkers will ask if something is marketing or not. I rarely look over from my standup desk to respond, I just shout “everything is marketing.”

It is.

Each interaction you have whether it’s with an ad, with a client or with your coworkers, you’re marketing.

It doesn’t matter if you’re thanking your boss for bringing donuts, on the phone providing customer service or out mowing your lawn. You’re marketing.

What you’re marketing is yourself and if people who see your marketing know you well enough, by extension you’re marketing your lifestyle, your job, your personality, your story, your brand.

Everything is marketing these days. It doesn’t matter if someone is watching or not.

Nor should it.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Bittersweet, But It Can Work To Your Advantage If You Want It To

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Customer Service – Complete Mistreatment

Customer Service – Complete Mistreatment

Yelling

We’re all in the field of customer service.* Some live casual lives, only just touching customer service on the surface. Others actually have “customer service” in their job titles. As any person in the latter situation can attest (and if you use your imagination enough, anyone in the former situation can attest), sometimes we’re completely mistreated by the people who we are there to try to help.

It seems almost puzzling how someone could call wanting OUR help, but act so ignorant, so rude, so hateful; as if we’re not human.

As humans, it’s devishly difficult to be friendly and willing to help someone who is acting the complete opposite toward us.

Here’s what gets me through those frustrating, stressful, red-face-flushing times… I fire them.

They’re not who my product or service targets. They’re not who I want my team to have to endure. They’re the part of the 80 percent of work that only accounts for 20 percent of results. (Some people I would argue fall under the 90/10 group.)

As humans, it’s also natural to want to please everyone.

You can’t. So don’t.

 

Stay Positive & Release Your Stress

*Let me know if you want me to explain how.

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