Active Management

Author: JT

  • Starbucks: Acronyms Help Learning

    Starbucks: Acronyms Help Learning

    In the plan to dominate the market in the 1990s, Starbucks knew they had to help their staff. Challenges would arise and customers would not be happy, which often led to unhappy staff. In order to help create a cultural shift they implemented an institutional habits program: ‘LATTE’. LATTE stands for:

    • Listen
    • Acknowledge
    • Take action
    • Thank the customer
    • Explain why the issue occurred

    What a clever way to use the theme of their product to create habit forming behaviour with the baristas!

    What could you use in your business?

  • What is a Business Coach?

    What is a Business Coach?

    Success Flow Chart

    The fitness business world moves fast and gets more competitive daily, the challenge for everyone in business is staying ahead. How else can you enhance in sales, marketing and management strategies. Having a Business Coach isn’t a luxury, it is a necessity your business must have.

    A consultant will tell you the answers to your questions and even do some of the work. A coach will lead you to personally discover the answers. For long term personal development a coach will increase your business skills and enhance your business.

    As a personal trainer, you know if your client has done their ‘homework’ between sessions. You can see it in their performance.

    Accountability is one of the greatest strengths of working with any coach. A business coach helps you set the goals to drive your strategies and then checks in with you to ensure you will achieve your goals.

    In business, we often look at ourselves and our performance unrealistically. It can difficult to get an objective answer from yourself about your business, your Business Coach will always tell you the truth, even if you don’t want to hear it.

    • A Coach can help you fly above your business, so evaluate how it really going.
    • A Coach will make you focus on the great game of business: determine your long-term strategies and plan the journey.
    • A Coach will have candour – tell you the way it is.
    • A Coach will listen.
    • A Coach will help you systemise your business that will allow your business to function more efficiently and make more profit.
    • A Coach will be help you with your marketing manager, sales and personal development. They will be your confidant, your business mentor and your friend.

    You may be able to pay the bills and even take your wage from your business without the help of a Coach. It is almost impossible to thrive…

  • Ten Email Tips

    Ten Email Tips

    • Don’t over mail your list, but don’t undermail either.
    • Create both text and html versions.
    • Include a URL two or three times in your email letter.
    • Remember that shorter is better.
    • Test several subject lines before mailing, knowing that lines that are vague or intriguing work best.
    • Send your email mid-week.
    • Know that personalised email gets up to a 20% better response rate.
    • Include a PS with a URL link.
    • Send gift promotions to your customer list and introductory offers to outside lists.
    • Keep an eagle eye for opt-out rates and know that if they’re over 1%, you’re doing something wrong.

    Email marketing has increased, so always work on improving how you do it!

  • Hump Day Laugh #3

    Hump Day Laugh #3

    HD 3

  • Selling on Price is a Disaster Waiting to Happen!

    Selling on Price is a Disaster Waiting to Happen!

    Author Lawrence L. Steinmetz said, ‘If you think you can match or sell below your competitor’s prices, you need to understand that you will have an ongoing, lifetime gun battle of survival which, sooner or later, you are going to lose. There is nothing that is ever going to make that go away.’

    As a gun slinger in the Wild West, you had to be quick or dead. No matter how fast you were, eventually you either slowed down enough or met someone even faster which mean RIP!

    The way to increase your profit margins is to be the first and only choice for your customer and prospect. The surefire way to do that is to distinguish your business by excelling at customer service.

    Work on developing your competitive edge in 5 areas:

    • Competitive, but not necessarily lower, price
    • Quality that is unmistakable from the moment of ownership
    • Service that transforms your customer’s life
    • Marketing that is aggressive, constant and present online and offline
    • Delivery of absolutely everything you promised and then more
  • Getting Videos Found on Google

    Getting Videos Found on Google

    Optimising your video is not just important for the searches being done on Google, Yahoo and YouTube. You will also find search results when the video you’ve watched ends, so it’s not just the search engines that will help get your video noticed.

    With videos being used so much more than ever, here are a few tips to help you:

    Title

    • 120 characters
    • Think of your title as a headline
    • If you include brand name in title, it should go last

    Description

    • 5,000 characters
    • Be as detailed as possible (short of entire transcript). The fact that you can put in 5000 words is very much underrated. You can put in almost an entire article to get found. Use it!
    • Include URLs (with http://) to playlist or website

    Tags

    • 120 characters
    • Be as detailed as possible
    • Include: brand, city, topics

     

    Source: State of Search http://bit.ly/p1Ns1K

  • Do You Give Apple Products Away?

    Do You Give Apple Products Away?

    Did you realise that Apple have a team of people scouring newspapers and the online world seeing how people give their product away – which they don’t really like! In fact, while they realise the power of their product and their brand, they prefer their products not to be given away as it ‘cheapens’ their product.

    If you’re looking to use Apple products in your promotions, this page will provide you with all the information you need in relation to purchasing and promoting Apple: http://www.apple.com/au/promotions/

  • How to Write a Survey: Tips from Kate Tribe

    How to Write a Survey: Tips from Kate Tribe

    Kate Tribe from Tribe Research truly gets surveys and she shared some fantastic tips:

    • Develop a database to provide you with information that you can continuously add to.
    • Ask questions regularly, and remember – there is no point doing feedback if you don’t act on it.
    • Regardless if you have a big or small database, it’s still relevant to conduct a survey to gain information and feedback.
    • Be clear about your survey and consider the following points:

    Who is conducting the research?

    What’s your objective?

    What are you doing with the results?

    Who will see the responses?

    • When asking someone to participate in a survey, always make sure you thank them for their time!

     

    Here are some questions she believes we should be asking regularly:

    • When you think of my business, what are the first three words that come to mind?
    • How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?
    • What one key thing could we do to improve your experience?
    • What is our key strength?
  • Aussie Brands on Facebook

    Aussie Brands on Facebook

    I read a great blog post last month sharing insights into Facebook and Aussie brands! Carly made these great points for any size business to consider:

    What practices produced the best engagement results?

    • Posting 2–4 times per week
    • Posts involving a question, product/company information or competitions or those designed for pure engagement (e.g. ‘Have a great weekend!’)
    • Posts that involved a charity, posts that specifically asked for fans to like or comment on the post, posts that asked for feedback and those that were personalised by the inclusion of the poster’s name
    • Posts posted during work hours
    • Shorter posts (1–3 lines)
    • Larger community size (no-brainer)

     

    Source: The Social Skinny http://bit.ly/p1Ns1K

  • What to Tweet?

    What to Tweet?

    At Filex, I did a session on social media explaining why your tweets and Facebook updates need to be messages aligned with your brand. So I searched online and found this great list of things you can tweet and Facebook update:

    • New announcements from your brand
    • Teaser previews of offerings you are working on
    • Related interesting news from the industry
    • Trivia related to your product: history, technology, anything!
    • Ask for suggestions – people love to help someone out.
    • Events you are holding (this informs as well as gets you attendees)
    • Events you are participating in (this shows you are active)
    • Witty one-liners: jokes, daily wisdom, or just about anything else!
    • Helping people find opportunities (Helping people solve their problems is the best thing you can do to promote your brand.)
    • Popular events: upcoming sports events, festivals, etc.
    • Unexpected developments – was Gmail down today? Tweet about it!
    • Regular industry news – yup, this doesn’t hurt if mixed in.
    • Sales announcements
    • Job openings – open positions, both with your brand and at other places you know
    • Ask for customer feedback! Invite people to share their experiences with your brand.
    • Participate in the relevant hash tags, and get more visibility.
    • Set up and announce tweet chats based on brand-related hashtags.
    • Follow people and make acknowledgement via tweets.
    • Thank people who have recently followed you.
    • Post the latest updates from your blog along with the link.
    • Direct people to other social media channels you own by tweeting about them.
    • Search on your brand name and respond to tweets that are about you.
    • Create Twitter lists of industry-relevant analysts, well-wishers or customers, and announce the lists publically. This sends a positive message to the mentioned people.
    • Participate in trending topics and viral hashtags to rope in some attention. Ensure your opinion is related to your brand somehow.
    • Tweet-greet your followers daily. Saying small things like ‘good morning,’ or asking about their health goes a long way in forging ties.
    • Tweet and tag your best employee of the week. This keeps the staff motivated and gives them a platform.
    • Announce weekly deals, tweetpon (coupon), etc. and evaluate its viral reach to understand how influential your brand is.
    • For B2B brands, find analysts on Twitter and build up conversations with them. Twitter is the best place for making your opinion heard.
    • Give daily twitter tips on usage of your brand’s products/service or on the basis of industry expertise. Tips sell well on Twitter.
    • Make regular #FF Follow Friday recommendations or announce fan of the week with some incentives or freebies to the winners.

    Source: Social Media Today