Wild Streak

If you’re a U.S based online merchant looking to increase your Canadian customer base, this comprehensive free handbook is for you. Visa have developed a 97 page handbook to provide U.S. retailers with a bunch of guidelines and tips for doing online business with folks in Canada. It seems there are quite a few differences between [...]

The term Google Display Network refers to the massive number of websites that carry 'Ads by Google' on their pages. Here’s how to use it effectively.

Previously known as the Google Content Network, the Google Display Network gives the owners of those websites a share of the revenue generated by visitors clicking on the ads. 

When you advertise using Google AdWords, your account will have the Display Network enabled by default. Many AdWords users don’t realise this, and only become aware of it when someone recommends they turn it off. For best results, you’re advised (even by Google!) that these two sides of your Google advertising campaigns should be handled separately and differently. Below are the five most important issues for you to consider. 

Lower conversion rates

Visitors that arrive at your site via Display Network ads are not in the same mindset as visitors arriving from the search engine. The latter are actively searching for a particular product or service, while those clicking on Display Network ads are more likely to be clicking on impulse or out of curiosity after seeing your ad on somebody else's website. 

With that key difference in mind it is easy to understand why those visitors are less likely to convert into sales for you. However, this type of advertising tends to be cheaper than AdWords advertising on the search engine, so despite the lower conversion rate, Display Network advertising can turn out to be good value if you buy it at the right price. 

Separate your campaigns and budgets

I recommend that you set up a separate campaign for the Display Network and keep both the ads themselves and their budgets distinct from those of your other AdWords campaigns. Set it to run on the Display Network only, and limit your keyword bids to approximately half what you’re prepared to pay for your search ads. (This is just a starting point, as you should be tweaking those bids from time to time anyway).

Tailor your text

It is also worth changing the text in your ads from that used in the search ones, because Display Network ads are not subject to the same stringent click-through requirements as search engine ads, so you can afford to experiment more. Additionally, you’ll probably find that your ads need to be catchier to attract clicks. 

Streamline your keywords

Keyword choice becomes less critical in the Display Network as you really only need to indicate the general themes you’re interested in so that Google can work out what types of sites to display your ads on. Avoid using long lists of keywords as they can confuse the system. 

Be very careful about using negative keywords as they can have enormous impact in the Display Network and reduce your ad impressions massively. 

Track your results and target your investment

Track conversions from all your campaigns and run a placement report after a few weeks to see if any particular websites your ads appear on are performing well for you. If so, you might want to set up a separate campaign specifically targeting those websites to display your ads using Google’s placement targeting. Collect lots of data over a few months and you might even decide to use specific placements only rather than the whole Display Network. 

Using Google’s Display Network can be a little tricky at first, but with a little perseverance you can get more customers, and may even get them at a lower cost than those from the search engine. 

Got any questions or some experience to share? Please leave your comments below.

During a recent trip to the hairdresser, I got into conversation with the other customers – and what I learned will have a lasting impact on my business.

I didn’t expect to think about my business while getting my hair done, but then, I’ve come to realise that some of the most unlikely activities can lead to some very pertinent business lessons! 

Despite all the customers in the salon that morning being strangers, everyone felt inclined to speak in detail about their experiences with businesses both small and large. 

Ask anyone about a customer service experience and they’ll usually recount a bad one in detail. Sitting at the hairdresser that day was no different. These strangers were keen to share their experiences, and most of them were not good! 

If people are willing to share their feelings about certain businesses with total strangers, you have to wonder how many other people they’ve told don’t you? 

On average, a dissatisfied customer will tell at least ten people of their experience. These days, the use of email and the internet could mean that they communicate their dissatisfaction with thousands. 

As soloists, providing quality customer service is the one constant ingredient in the recipe for survival in a competitive marketplace. 

With that in mind, here are the four key points that I took away from the hairdressers along with my fancy new hair-do: 

Be proactive

Customer service means different things to different people, but in a nutshell, it encompasses everything a business does that either directly involves customers or has an impact on them.

Ultimately, good service is doing the right things the right way. It involves putting energy and enthusiasm into all your interactions with your customers.

Be helpful even if there’s no immediate profit in it - your customers will remember your efforts.

And focus on the positive. Your customers want to know what you can do for them, not what you can’t.

Keep your word

Your customers expect you to follow through on your commitments. If you say you’ll ring back the next day then make sure you do.

What might seem an insignificant action to you may leave your client with a lasting impression of your business.

Add value to each customer’s experience

Listen to each customer’s needs and wants, and ensure that the experience they have is a memorable one that will have them making glowing statements about your products and services.

Provide after sales service

After the purchase of your product or service ensure that you still look after your customers. They need to feel that you value them.

Good service leads to increased customer satisfaction. Follow through with good after sales service and you’ll build loyalty too, and that means improved business outcomes and profits for you.

Good customer service is simply good business.

What do you do to make sure your customers give you rave reviews?

Considering installing a pool or shed without the proper council permits? Be careful, Google Earth is watching. Google Earth is an incredibly useful and incredibly creepy tool. I’m navigationally challenged when it comes to the suburbs and love how Google Earth makes what used to be white knuckle trips into areas I’m not familiar with not [...]

Because you’re so good at telling us precisely what sort of support you want and need, we’re able to tailor-make Flying Solo LIVE! for your benefit.

We sift knowledge from our survey; watch how you move and comment around the site and observe the nature of discussions that keep our forums buzzing day and night. 

If it’s a hot topic for you, we’re hot on the case. 

In effect, you design Flying Solo LIVE! hence this year’s theme, The Power of Community. 

The best presenters 

Here's a snapshot of just five of our terrific presenters:

Julia Bickerstaff:  Formerly a partner of consulting giant Deloitte, Julia puts her expertise as an accountant and economist to good use in her own business and through her role on Channel 7’s, Kochie Business Builders. Business model need a refresh? Don’t miss her business planning session. 

Tim Reid: Author of ChaChing...The sweet, sweet sound of small business marketing success and host of Australia’s #1 marketing podcast, Tim is our opening keynote and will be explaining why advertising is a waste of money, how to get the most out of social media and a stack of other marketing gems. Be ready to take notes. 

Janet Horton: Having escaped both the US and the IT industry, Janet now uses her powers for good. She’ll share her micro business technology know-how to help you attract and retain more ideal clients, and demonstrate the best tech choices available to ease business problems. 

Craig Rispin: An accomplished business futurist and innovation expert, Craig helps businesses understand what’s on the horizon and how to profit from trends that impact the way you work. A past NSAA ‘Speaker of the Year’, we’re totally stoked to have Craig running our closing keynote session. 

Roz Howland: In a world that’s seemingly getting faster and becoming more complex, the need for organisation and systems has never been greater. Roz is one of the country’s few accredited professionals in this field and will be presenting her seven secrets of an organised office. Don’t miss it. 

And that’s just five of our line up of thirteen experts. With two sell out events under our belt, secure your place now to make sure you don’t miss out. 

After all you’ve told us, we don’t want to tell you we told you so. Grab your ticket today.

How the day runs

Flying Solo LIVE! is on Wednesday 15 September with registration opening at 8am for an 8.30am start. The final presentation concludes at 5.30pm followed by some casual networking over drinks. 

For one value-packed day, you’ll be surrounded by the tips, tools, knowledge, contacts, community and inspiration you need to build a business you love.

Download the full program here.

And STILL at the micro price of just $195 (inc GST), it’s one very smart business investment.

Tickets include a choice of sessions, morning and afternoon refreshments, a networking lunch and the chance to mingle with sponsors and exhibitors.

Book your place and we'll see you there!

Our 2008 and 2009 events were sell outs, so register online now to secure your spot.

Limited exhibitor spaces are also available, details here. 

Love your work!

Robert, Sam & Peter

 

PS: If you have any questions about the event or registration, please use this contact form or call Fiona Toy and our team of wonderful organisers on 02 4340 8897.

If staying on top of a pay per click budget of a few thousand dollars a month is daunting enough, imagine managing a $5 million a month pay per click budget. Internet Retailer’s newly released Search Marketing Guide quotes data from Conductor Inc., who studied over 2 million keywords and paid ad positions to estimate [...]

Following these simple guidelines can help ensure that your advertising strategy helps boost your bottom line.

Don’t sell anything

The age-old adage “Let the product sell itself” remains true. 

Your customers don’t want you to promise them a great service; they want proof you can deliver. Offer a free, high-quality seminar, consultation or e-book to let them see you in action. 

If you’re providing a great product, the sales will follow. 

Sex up your headlines

Sensationalise, scandalise and personalise your headline. Your headline has to be catchy because, let’s face it, most of us have the attention span of a three-year-old when it comes to advertisements. 

Your clients face a constant assault from the media. Make them laugh, cry, or raise their eyebrows. Do whatever necessary to pull your target market in. 

Tell a story

Now you’ve got their attention, use it wisely. Your clients need to know how your product or service will impact their lives. 

Will your helpful advice allow them to spend more time with their families at the end of the day? Does your organising strategy prevent costly tax audits at the end of the financial year? Keep it specific and keep it simple. 

Make it tangible

Remember the old days of catalogue sales? A beautiful, full-colour catalogue would arrive in our mailbox once a month, and every now and then it was accompanied by product samples! Seeds, craft supplies, office necessities – no matter what it was, we were instantly like children who couldn’t wait to open their birthday presents. 

This principle is just as true today as I stand next to my recycling bin tossing pieces of junk mail in without so much as glancing at them. Then every few months, my junk mail disposal is interrupted by a car dealership flyer with a key attached that proclaims, “This could be the key to your brand new car!” My fingers twitch waiting to open the envelope, peel the key from the flyer and turn it over in my hands as I imagine myself in my dream car. When the time eventually comes for me to buy, it’s a pretty safe bet which car dealer will be top of my mind.

 If you are a service company, maybe you can’t package a sample of your service into a direct mailer, but I bet you can take advantage of the thousands of promotional items on the web. Send a miniature tape measure to prove that your service will “measure up” to clients’ expectations. Get balloons printed with your logo and promise to “rise above” the competition. 

Providing something tangible and bulky ensures that your mailer will get opened while the others hit the bottom of the recycling bin. 

Do you follow these principles in your advertising campaigns? What kind of results have you achieved?

I’ve touched on this before, but it’s a practice still rife, so I thought it worth mentioning it again as it can save your company cash and harassment. Some years back, marketing companies offering forum posting services started to spring up all over the place. The usual spiel is that their “expert” staff will post an [...]

I recall research from a few years ago that found that at all income levels, people say they would be satisfied if they could get 20% more.

If our goal is always ‘more’, then we’re destined to spend our careers striving for that elusive extra 20%.

But what if you had a specific goal in mind? What income level would you be satisfied with? And how much are you prepared to sacrifice to get it? The mission then becomes finding the most efficient and satisfying way to generate the income you need, and no more.

If you thrive on relentless work and like the notion of wealth for wealth’s sake, then by all means go for it. But if you don’t, how much time and effort are you prepared to sacrifice to pursue it?

Nothing comes free. Big incomes extract their pound of flesh, and increasing income delivers a diminishing rate of return. After a certain income threshold is reached, more money actually makes very little difference.

In fact, a 2009 survey by the Australian Council of Trade Unions of 2,800 workers found that 75% would be happy to take a pay cut to work fewer hours.  It seems more time is what people truly want.

I was mid-draft of this article when I read this inspiring thread in the forums answering the question “Would you start a business if you knew you’d earn less?” I thought Ray summed it up beautifully in his response:

“A good income will not make you happy if you don't like your job. Not having enough money to live on will make it impossible to be happy. If you can fit somewhere in between you should be very happy.”

Unlike most employees, business owners do have the flexibility to shape their hours and incomes.

This is a topic Julia Bickerstaff is addressing in her forthcoming Flying Solo LIVE! presentation.

It may sound idealistic, but there are thousands of stressed-out execs and business owners earning six figure incomes with no off switch in the pursuit of more – more status, more money and bigger lifestyles.

I admire people who have managed to create the freedom to spend their time how they like, and with who they like. That time might well be spent working, but it might also be spent travelling or doing community work. Success = having the option.

Okay, so I’m a long time off hitting the Bahamas. Maybe if I had 2000% more!

Will you know when enough’s enough? Or does setting a limit show a lack of ambition? Have your say.

I recall research from a few years ago that found that at all income levels, people say they would be satisfied if they could get 20% more.

If our goal is always ‘more’, then we’re destined to spend our careers striving for that elusive extra 20%.

But what if you had a specific goal in mind? What income level would you be satisfied with? And how much are you prepared to sacrifice to get it? The mission then becomes finding the most efficient and satisfying way to generate the income you need, and no more.

If you thrive on relentless work and like the notion of wealth for wealth’s sake, then by all means go for it. But if you don’t, how much time and effort are you prepared to sacrifice to pursue it?

Nothing comes free. Big incomes extract their pound of flesh, and increasing income delivers a diminishing rate of return. After a certain income threshold is reached, more money actually makes very little difference.

In fact, a 2009 survey by the Australian Council of Trade Unions of 2,800 workers found that 75% would be happy to take a pay cut to work fewer hours.  It seems more time is what people truly want.

I was mid-draft of this article when I read this inspiring thread in the forums answering the question “Would you start a business if you knew you’d earn less?” I thought Ray summed it up beautifully in his response:

“A good income will not make you happy if you don't like your job. Not having enough money to live on will make it impossible to be happy. If you can fit somewhere in between you should be very happy.”

Unlike most employees, business owners do have the flexibility to shape their hours and incomes.

This is a topic Julia Bickerstaff is addressing in her forthcoming Flying Solo LIVE! presentation.

It may sound idealistic, but there are thousands of stressed-out execs and business owners earning six figure incomes with no off switch in the pursuit of more – more status, more money and bigger lifestyles.

I admire people who have managed to create the freedom to spend their time how they like, and with who they like. That time might well be spent working, but it might also be spent travelling or doing community work. Success = having the option.

Okay, so I’m a long time off hitting the Bahamas. Maybe if I had 2000% more!

Will you know when enough’s enough? Or does setting a limit show a lack of ambition? Have your say.

Your About page can be critical in encouraging customers to do business with you, but get it wrong, and it could make them do an about face!

If written well, your About page will encourage perfect strangers to trust you, and consequently, do business with you.  Make no mistake; people genuinely want to discover the person behind the pixels, the brains behind the business, and the scene behind the screen. 

DO think about your customer

Write your About copy after answering this simple question: If I were the customer, what questions would I ask about the person or people behind this business? 

Address those questions with clarity, personality and conciseness and you’re on your way! 

DO write in the third person

Write your About page in the third person. In other words, don’t refer to yourself as ‘me’, ‘myself’ or ‘I’. Using ‘he’, ‘she’ or your name helps to build credibility. 

DON’T use too much jargon

Avoid using excessive amounts of jargon, even if your target audience is likely to understand it. Everyday language is much more intimate and accessible than jargon, which may bamboozle some of your prospects. 

DON’T be too general

Tell your personal story rather than writing something general that gives no real insight into who you are. 

People in micro business often remove the personal aspects from their websites in an attempt to appear larger and attract corporate clients. But remember, the larger the client, the more research they’re likely to do before they make contact. 

Be specific rather than secretive. 

DON’T be long-winded

Sharing your story doesn’t mean you need to share every twist and turn of the journey. Save the long-winded life histories for your great grandchildren, and keep the copy on your About page concise. 

DO feel free to follow this example

Sarah Smythe provides French language tuition in people’s homes. Questions potential clients may be asking about Sarah while visiting her About page include: 

• What are your qualifications?
• Are you a native speaker?
• If not, have you lived in a French-speaking country for any length of time?
• How old are you?
• How much teaching experience do you have?
• What are your interests?  

So Sarah might approach her About page like this: 

Born in Paris in 1965, Sarah graduated from the University of Paris with a degree in languages. She spent most of her adult life teaching French in schools and pursuing her hobbies of cycling, Scrabble and extreme shopping. 

After a brief trip Down Under in 2000, Sarah decided to move to Australia permanently after falling in love with the country - and one of its handsome occupants!  

Sarah has been teaching French to children and adults in their Sydney homes for over three years, and she absolutely loves helping people just like you learn to speak French fluently.  

An About page inspires action from your website visitors, whether it be good or bad. Share your story in an interesting, personal and effective way, and it’s bound to have a happy ending! 

So, do you agree that the About page is one of the most important on your website? Or is it all much ado about nothing?

If you visited Amazon’s press release page at the moment, you could be forgiven in thinking you had hit the Kindle-specific press release page as the device is mentioned so often. Ebooks are turning into very big business for Amazon and others. According to Amazon, the Kindle has been their best selling item two years running [...]

It’s been a full year since I took much note of what screen resolution folks are running their monitors at. Here’s the latest, along with browser statistics. The top ten monitor resolutions for June 2010, along with May 2009 results: 1024 x 768 – 24.27% (down from 33.44%) 1280 x 800 – 17.98% (down from 20.46%) 1280 x 1024 [...]

On your website, content is king. Here’s how to write yours so it works hard for your business.

The effort you put into getting your content right pays off in numerous ways, including:

• Increasing the chances of your site being found and ranked highly by search engines
• Driving traffic to your site
• Gaining repeat visits and lifting conversion rates
• Boosting the chances of other websites linking back to yours, which further improves search engine optimisation (SEO)
• Conveying your key messages
• Building your brand and winning customers

Write for search engines

Your primary aim is to write for your target audience, but in doing so you should also write to ensure search engines like Google will index your webpages and rank them highly. 

It’s vital that you write engaging copy that contains relevant keywords (the words and phrases people type into a query box when seeking information). The judicious incorporation of keywords into your copy means search engines will assess your page as being relevant to those keywords and your chances of achieving a high search engine ranking will be enhanced. 

The trick is determining which keywords to incorporate. Using your market knowledge together with keyword analytical tools you should be able to identify keywords that people commonly use in online searches relevant to your business. 

Writing keyword-rich content is an integral part of ensuring your website ranks well on search engines. 

In addition to your body text, include your keywords in your navigation labels, page titles, header tags, alt descriptions (for images), image titles, anchor links and file names. 

Tip: Don’t settle for single keywords, use several relevant words arranged into a specific phrase. For instance, rather than ‘fish’ use a phrase like ‘tropical fish home aquariums’. If your business is localised, include your area name in your keywords. 

Include a strong call to action

Each page of your website should encourage your reader to do something, whether it’s clicking through to another page, using an interactive tool, or signing up for your newsletter. 

Your calls-to-action should offer compelling benefits. Write them using action verbs and commands that convey a sense of urgency, such as ‘Discover’, ‘Sign up’ and ‘Buy now’. 

Tip: Use this as another opportunity to embed those keywords you identified earlier. For example, rather than saying ‘Sign up for our newsletter,’ your call to action might read ‘Sign up for our newsletter Keeping tropical fish in a home aquarium’. 

Write for web-reading

People reading online tend to skim, quickly seeking out words and images of interest. To cater to this style of reading:

• Write short, punchy sentences
• Keep paragraphs brief and succinct. (Nothing discourages an online reader more than big blocks of text)
• Use subheadings so readers can easily zoom in on the most relevant text
• Using bulleted lists like this one can help make your copy easier to read 

From a design perspective, make sure your copy has sufficient white space around it. Keep column widths narrow, and use images to add visual appeal. 

Avoid long webpages that compel the reader to scroll down. The web is a linking medium, so you don’t need to write in a linear fashion as you would in print. If you’ve got a lot to say, break your copy into multiple pages and give the reader the option to read on by clicking on links. 

Tip: Under no circumstances should you take printed material and upload it verbatim onto your website. This common practice might save time, but is counterproductive if the copy wasn’t written with web-reading in mind. If your printed material is useful, edit and adapt it for the web before uploading. 

This is the first article in a two-part series, the second of which will cover the importance of writing concisely and in plain English, and how to write meaningful page titles. 

If you have any additional content writing tips, please share them below.

As a new business owner, it can take a while to get used to other soloists offering their unfailing confidence that you’ll achieve everything you set your mind to.

This is especially relevant if you’re a refugee from a corporate environment built around rules and restrictions, or if your parents’ way of protecting you was to tell you what you couldn’t do, rather than what you could.

In comparison, it can feel pretty empowering-but-confronting to have a new group of business friends say “You can do anything you decide to”. (If you’re in start-up mode and yet to experience this, try heading over to the Flying Solo forums and introducing yourself and your new business – the level of support you’ll receive from complete strangers will both astound and uplift you).

These nice, supportive people exist by the truckload. You just have to make a choice to go out and find them instead of hanging out with the other kind.

To grow your business and your confidence, it really does help to seek out people and businesses that encourage and support you. You don’t want negative people influencing your mindset, and you don’t want people who see the flaws in all your ideas and dreams. You certainly don’t want whingers taking the shine off all the shiny stuff.

Here are some ideas to get you started on tuning out negativity and tuning in to the support that’s out there for you:

• Turn off the news and current affairs shows. You don’t need that lowest common denominator rubbish in your world!
• When people offer you compliments, money, help or anything else, say ‘Thank you’, and accept it gracefully. Know that you deserve it. (Remember how good it felt last time you gave something to someone in need? You get the chance to let someone else feel that good. Don’t spoil it. And if you’re tempted, think back to how bad it felt last time someone rejected a gift you offered them).
• Offering support to others can be just as uplifting as receiving it yourself, and smiling, laughing and being playful can transform almost any situation. Try it - the rewards are fantastic! On a recent holiday to Japan my wife and I decided to give what we called “Emergency Koalas” to people who helped us as we travelled. One day our waitress was a miserable, unhelpful teenage girl – but we gave her an  Emergency Koala anyway. That 90-cent clip-on koala brought her a much-needed smile, and her response became one of the highlights of our holiday. That young lady taught me that sometimes it’s worth breaking the rules, and it’s a lesson I’ll never forget.

Support is challenging because it’s not about keeping you where you are, it’s about lifting you up and taking you to the next level.  

Has that been your experience, too?

If you’re running a subscription service, do you send out credit card expiry email reminders? If not, maybe you should. I used to work with a subscription based service and one of the thorns in our side were customers who forgot to update their credit card details after their current card had expired. Considering the service [...]

A no.1 ranking on a popular keyword or phrase in search engine results not only brings a ton of traffic, but instant credibility it seems. A Northwestern University study found participants trust Google so much, many just click on top ranked sites. While Google doesn’t rank on credibility per se, the study found that a site’s layout [...]

Have you got a ‘To do’ list? Or maybe a few of them? One for work, one for home, one for projects, that pile of mail, all those emails?

As micro business owners we can easily get very bogged down in stuff that sucks our attention and time, leaving us little energy or opportunity to ever do anything meaningful.

Ever wonder if your priorities are out of order? There are only three things you need to consider if you want to pull them back into line.

Priority 1: Things that make you feel very, very good

You knew this was coming, right? I’m sure I don’t need to berate you with all the reasons that YOU are priority numero uno?

Reasons like:

• You can't drink from an empty well.
• You can't inspire others if you're drowning.
• Nothing matters if you're not there to enjoy it.
• People actually want you around in decent shape.

They may be clichés, but you get the idea. No martyrs please; they only end up dead.

Things that make you feel very, very good can include things like exercise, massage, yoga, meditation, listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, hanging out with your partner, chatting with your chickens, gardening… whatever blows your dress up!

As long as YOU love it and it's something you want to do (not something you feel you should do) it deserves to be a priority.

Priority 2: Eliminate irritants

Irritants (sometimes referred to in coach-speak as 'tolerations’) are things that drain your energy. Examples include the dust an inch thick on your bathroom fixtures, the extra bit of bubble wrap padding your behind, or the dead-end job that is sucking the very life essence out of you (or was, before you wised up and decide it was time to fly solo).

Handling one or two of these tolerations every day can free up some positive energy. If you deal with the smaller things first, you'll clear the path to handle the bigger issues much more easily and with less effort.

Priority 3: Everything else – with provisos

Slot everything else into third priority, and even then, before adding a task to your ‘To do’ list, determine it’s importance by asking yourself two questions:

1. Does this task serve my intentions and purpose?
2. Do I enjoy it?

So tell us. What are your priorities? And how do you decide which ones to focus your energy on?

“Not like that! I’ll show you how to do it” is one of my daughter’s favourite sayings. She’s two and a half years old. Problem is, I think Amy’s desire to be in the right is inherited.

When someone executes a simple task differently to me, I have historically been quick to leap in and ‘correct’ them. But in my never ending quest to be a nicer person, I’ve been practising holding my tongue. Gee, it’s hard!

Still the mental commentary rages. Why’s my pal dicing the carrots and not slicing them? Why did my mum’s oldest friend ice lamingtons using a spoon, not a knife?

It was John’s reaction that highlighted the need to get over myself. “Sam, Jill owned a tea shop for five years. She taught your mum how to make lamingtons. I think you can trust her methods.”

But we’re very attached to our ways, aren’t we? Did you hear about the lady who recreated a favourite family recipe for her grandmother?

Granny watched in surprise as her grandchild cut the ends off the piece of meat “Why are you doing that?”

“It’s how mum did it and she learned from you.”

“I only cut the ends off because my pot wasn’t big enough!”

Granted, this tale seems more literary than literal, but it illustrates how blindly we blunder through our day to day actions without questioning their validity.

Here are ways to wake up.

1. Hold your tongue. Let people do things their way rather than leap in with an alternative.
2. Counsel wisely. Instead of “That’s not how you do it” consider, “What do you think of this way?”
3. Be receptive to alternatives. Giving consideration to other methods is a good habit to adopt.
4. Ask for opinions. Replace “This is the best idea ever!” with “What do you think of this idea?” for example.
5. Let go. When working away from home, I have to accept things will roll differently at home. I’m learning not to worry about whether my kids have eaten yet or if they’ve brushed their teeth. 

There’s more to life than being ‘right’ and there’s no doubt being respectful, observant and judicious are far more important qualities.

So why’s it so hard? Tell me what you think. I promise to listen carefully to what you have to say.

Generating referrals is the ultimate in marketing. They’re credible, powerful – and they’re free. But how do you undo the damage when referrals go wrong?

I love referrals. I’ve started and grown my business based on this very method, and I’ve shouted their virtues from the rooftops. I’m always thinking of people I can introduce to each other, and I gladly accept all referrals sent my way.

So recently, when I was referred a client by a highly admired industry leader, my ego shoved its way to the front of the queue, pushing back my loyal friends Sense and Reason.

But this match turned out to be doomed. The relationship ended in tears, a shortfall in my pocket and a few sleepless nights. My forever running late friend, Hindsight, chides me that I should have listened to that persistent little voice in the back of my mind.

But I didn’t. Because I was scared of saying no in the first place, I had now placed my reputation on the line.

Then, not a week later, someone I’d waxed lyrical about failed to show up to a meeting I’d suggested with a colleague of mine. I didn’t just feel embarrassed – I also felt responsible for his slackness. And again, I felt my reputation was damaged.

So I vowed to do everything possible to prevent business referrals from going wrong in the first place.

Referrals will still go wrong though. Every situation will be unique and must be addressed individually, but the following steps are a guide to help you manage this delicate situation next time it happens to you.

Apologise

Whether it be for mistakes you’ve made or for the situation itself, an acknowledgement that things have progressed in a less than ideal fashion is the beginning.

If you’re worried about admitting to your mistakes, be more worried about the ramifications if you don’t. Done well, an apology may also elicit something unexpected: an upset client turned raving fan.

Compensate

From a full refund to a hand-written note, compensating your client should be up for careful consideration.

But do be careful in matching the level of compensation to the severity of the situation. A mismatch can be as insulting as the crime committed.

Onward

If the situation has been resolved and you’re both happy to continue your relationship, then leave the situation in the past. Don’t bring it up again. Don’t use it as ammunition. A bit like marriage, really.

If you can’t move forward without looking back, then you need to ask yourself whether this client relationship is for you.

Don’t bad mouth the other party

This is a tricky one. If a client or supplier has been unscrupulous, they don’t deserve to be protected. Expose away. But there’s a time and place to do so – and it’s certainly not to your clients.

There’s a big difference between exposing with dignity (and without emotion) and bitching.

Keep in mind that your clients might just be wondering what it is you say about them behind their backs.

Communicate with the person who sent you the referral

How do you bring the topic up tactfully with the person who thought they were doing you a favour by sending you this referral without looking like you’re pointing the finger at them?

If you don’t bring the situation up, are you jeopardising your relationship with them (along with any future referrals)? Is your reluctance to be upfront inadvertently implying that you are the guilty party in the whole sorry mess?

And if you are the one at fault, how do you explain your actions and salvage your relationship with the referrer?

I’m still working on the best way to address this awkward situation. What I do know is it’s a tough call.

Move on

This can be the most difficult – yet crucial – step in the process. Recognise that things could have been handled differently, take note of how, and then forget about the situation.

If you don’t, not only will your business suffer, your health could to. Through my angst, I suffered from a heart condition for several months, even though I was only 28 years old.

Life happens, I’m learning!

So how have you handled referrals gone wrong? Did you manage to salvage your relationship? We’re all ears.