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Fashions Around The World

Hey Guys,

This weekend, Sat, April 24th 2010 come to Colonial Downs for a great evening of fashion, music and dining.

The Not-For-Profit Itz A New Day is putting up the EVENT as a fundraiser for their home for the victims of domestic abuse.

I was fortunate enough to have been of help to this group.

Go to http://itzanewaday.org/ for more ...

See you at the track..

Customer service - Lost Innocence?

This past week, me and the family flew over to Orlando for a quick trip to Disney World.

Overall we had a great time, and we did really enjoy this brief break in the day to day run around.

But our journey was not without its hiccups. I love these issues because it gives me more fodder to write about and help you avoid giving a hard time to your customers.

We arrived at the Orlando Intl. Airport a little after 12.30 midnight. After an interminably long walk to the Dollar Car Rental office at the airport, we were the only ones at the desk.

While the clerk was taking down our details, he was interrupted by his manager who called them in for an improptu meeting.

He left us standing there; with a 7 year old tired, sleepy and cranky child waiting while he held his meeting! There were two other clerks with no other customers.

I don't see why he couldn't have waited for a minute more while our work at the counter was finished and we were on our way. Probably some people do think that their "meeting" was more important than a paying customer!

After watching the 4 people huddle and talk for a few minutes, the meeting broke up and our clerk returned to his counter. His manager walked by on his way out, and guess what happens?

The clerk stops the manager to ask something about him having a day off and how to put that in the system or something like that! And we are still waiting for him to enter us and give us our car!

And then I ask him about the possibility of an upgrade, and he says with a grin: "This is the U.S.; you don't get free upgrades here!"

And this may be common business practice at some places; but I've never heard of it before - He then asks me to fill up the gas tank on my return within 10 miles of the airport; and submit a receipt as proof.


And when the business loses money, they wonder why!

I'll spell it out to you - clueless people - it's because you dont pay attention to your customer!

Your customer did not give you his hard earned money to stand and watch you while you guys are having an intra-office meeting. Nor does he want to hear smart ass answers designed to make the customer feel stupid.

Your customer expects top quality service, no matter what time of the day.

If you can't do that, and the customer finds another business that offers comparative prices, he is gone!

How I Topeka'd it before moving to Google.

Leave it to Google to make a great April Fool's joke. And they've pushed it in full tilt too...

What's in a name?

Social Media Tools

Social Media Tools that come in handy when growing your online business.

• howsociable.com – Social visibility score
• knowem.com – Profile building tool
• Social Media for Firefox – Build a powerful social profile on social news & bookmarking sites
• semrush.com – Find competitor organic search rankings
• Google Insights – Keyword demand trends
• Page Inlink Analyzer – Analyze inbound links, their Delicious bookmarks & keyword tags
• majesticseo.com – Historical back-link tracking
• trackur.com – Social media monitoring
• socialmention.com – Real-time social search & scoring, social keyword research
• bit.ly – Search friendly URL shortening with analytics
• analytics.postrank.com – Track social engagement with combined Google & social analytics

Reasons why small businesses fail

Its almost a cliche in the business world. "95% of small businesses fail in the first 5 years."
 Nobody ever says anything beyond this. 

So why do most businesses fail?

I've decided to identify why this may be true and write a series of articles on this.

Here is Article #1 on : Why Small Businesses Fail : Not Having A Good Startup Reason.

http://www.nobleriver.com/Articles/ArticleDisplay.aspx?Article=Why-Businesses-Fail-Wrong-Reason-For-Startup.htm

Hope you can learn from this.

Deep Janardhanan.

10 Things My 7 Year Old Knows About Selling

Let me tell you a story. This really happened at my daughter's day care.



My 7 year old and her friends at day-care decided to collect some money for the Haiti earthquake victims fund. So they set out to sell hand made bookmarks. She and the other girls made bookmarks that said "Boys Rock!" and offered it to the boys. The boys would bring some money and hand it over the next day.


The next day she came home and told me this story. "Daddy", she said. You are a marketer. Can you tell me why we couldn't collect any money?


Needless to say, I was flattered and just a little proud that my little one was taking marketing advice from her dad.

So I sat her down and gave her tips on how to market her little - ahem! - operation.

The next day she implemented my suggestions and had collected $12/- in under 5 minutes and much more before the day was done...

Here is what she did not do.

0) When she failed once, she didn't give up. She didnt try the same plan.

And here's what she did.- She got expert advice.


Here is how she collected the money.

1) She started targeting parents rather than her classmates.

2) She changed the product to speak to the parent than the classmates. " My son rocks".

3) She waited until the parent was close to the son or daughter and they had exchanged their hugs before starting her pitch.

4)She used emotion in her pitch by starting with "For the victims of Haiti earthquake, can you please..."


5) She clearly stated that she was looking for $1/- or more.

6) She found a rather large open box to hold the money because they could not find a money jar.

7) She started with $1 in the box; so parents could see that someone had already given.

8) They let each parent pick out their choice of available bookmarks.

9) After the parent had given the money, they made each person write their name on a piece of paper and wrote the amount of their donation against it.

10) When each parent gave, they all sang "Thank you" in chorus and clapped their hands loudly.

11) And when she got home, she gave Daddy a big old hug.


And in this true story, my dear entrepreneur are the 10 Golden Nuggets of Sales Wisdom.