When I was young and working in sales, I never fully understood the reasoning behind the phrase, “The customer is always right”. I had seen so many customers who ran the sales staff ragged with nasty attitudes and indecision. Nothing was ever right. These people had a snarky comment for everything until they shot down every option and each attempt the salesperson made to make them happy. The size wasn’t right, the product was inferior, the color was wrong (after clearly stating that this was the color they’d wanted), the help was incompetent and so
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Cleaning Up Your Language: That Is
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Concise writing is a must for the virtual world. People don’t have time to do much anymore, and even reading takes a hit, as individuals skim and scan text on the Internet to get exactly what they need and want; no more, no less.Cleaning up your language to have concise, snappy writing that says it all in as few words as possible is key. Passive language is old, and trimming down the word count, eliminating filler goes farther than flowery prose. “That is” can be an enemy, and cutting out those two little words does
> Read MorePutting the Finger on Professionalism
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Being professional is a tough thing to put a finger on. My personal opinion is that a professional attitude is one where you give the impression of authority and expertise, answering the person’s questions with confidence. That doesn’t mean being short and snappy, though. That also doesn’t mean sounding condescending or untouchable. One-liner emails that smack of pretentiousness aren’t going to work, nor are short messages that sound angry instead of professional. Add a friendly air to your tone. Be approachable and open while you answer questions or discuss a project. After all, we’re all
> Read MoreCustomer Feedback
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Improvement is something that never ends for a business, no matter what that business happens to be. We want our products and services to be better, our websites to be more efficient, and we want to increase our profit margins by having more satisfied customers. Knowing what you need to improve about your business and working towards that change will help you achieve that goal. One way to know what you need to improve on is to go right to the source: your customers. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers for their opinion after
> Read MoreDo Emails Even Count?
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Your portfolio looks spiffy. There isn’t a word out of place, and your punctuation is just right. Your bid proposal looks great too, and the grammar is perfect. You’ve got everything set up to impress, wow, and show off what you can do. A project you’re interested in gets posted, and you slap your bid up, full of confidence. Then you get an email from the buyer. Things are looking good, you got noticed, and the buyer is interested. You whip off a reply, thinking you may have just landed the contract. Was your email
> Read MoreNo Place Like Home Page
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Creating a home page for a website isn’t easy. Many people try to cram as much information on that first page as they can, including all the company’s information, ads, promotions, news, search bars, and subscription registrations. While your site’s home page as your first impression to visitors and potential customers, you don’t want to make it so confusing or full that they don’t have any reason to delve further into your site. Too much information can bore people. When I go to a site and see lots of text, I don’t bother reading through
> Read MoreCookie-cutter Bids
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Many buyers don’t like cookie cutter bids. If they’re going to do business, they like to know who they’re going to be working with. A personal note or message can make the difference between your bid being noticed and only getting a glance. There’s nothing wrong with cookie-cutter bids, though. Everyone is busy, and it takes time to write personal bids for each project, especially if you bid on many projects. If you’ve written your bid properly and covered all the details, that’s fine. You may only get a glance at first, but if your
> Read MoreI Can Do Anything
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It’s a rare day when I admit I can’t do something. Harry often comments on my brimming confidence and attitude that I believe I can do anything – or at least give anything a valiant try. Trying, in turn, lets me learn something new and gain those missing skills. Sometimes, though, things don’t always go according to plan. I received an offer to blog on a software development site. While software and programming aren’t usually my thing, the chance to start a community, encourage commentary, and explore new software seemed right up my alley. The
> Read MoreInternet Survival for Small Business
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We’d all love our online business to work for us while we sleep. The reality is that it takes more effort to promote your business than putting up a website that sells what you offer. Marketing and promotion, along with some good SEO tactics, will make the difference between going bust and getting noticed. You don’t have to spend thousands on helping your business survive either. There are plenty of little ways that you can promote your website and drive traffic, such as using article marketing, giving out free ebooks, or networking for link exchange
> Read MoreOrganize Your Thoughts
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You’ve just landed a large writing project, probably much larger than you have ever completed before. Sure, you can whip out 500 words with no problem, but now you’re facing a job that has ten times that word count.. How are you going to fill all that empty space? It certainly looks like a daunting task. The best thing to do is break down your topic into smaller, manageable chunks. Divide your topic by choosing headers for each section. If you have to write 1,200 words for an article, create six headers for sub-topics. If
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