It’s not the tools
“It is a poor workman who blames his tools – the good man gets on with the job, given what he’s got, and gets the best answer he can.” And I suggest that by altering the problem, by looking at the thing differently, you can make a great deal of difference in your final productivity because you can either do it in such a fashion that people can indeed build on what you’ve done, or you can do it in such a fashion that the next person has to essentially duplicate again what you’ve done.
It isn’t just a matter of the job, it’s the way you write the report, the way you write the paper, the whole attitude. It’s just as easy to do a broad, general job as one very special case. And it’s much more satisfying and rewarding!”
Online Brand Management
In the past five years I’ve worked with a lot of brands get into social media in a holistic, useful, human way. Each of the companies had unique internal organizations, brand voice, industry (retail, software, online content, hollywood PR) and different external goals. But after working with several companies and their different needs, I began to realise an overall process that was needed before doing any kind of campaigns, marketing or expansion on – especially in case a crisis situation arose (and it always, always did in the most surprising of ways).
When I work with companies now, the following presentation is the basics of what I do (and I do mean basics!). I’m a huge believer that you don’t just “do” social media or hire an intern or someone out of school because ‘they know how to tweet’ (I remind people that if it took them 5 years to build a company, it can be undone in 5 seconds with the wrong tweet).
Before a company gets into social media, they need to ask themselves a very important question: why. Once that’s answered, they need to figure out what the brand’s online voice is (this can sometimes be a couple of months of trial and error to see what’s working & what isn’t) and then what social media channels work best for all of that and the company. Then the whole company can start to produce the right content, customer service and campaigns plus be able to receive information back from the community, grow it, and empower it.
The other big component is the Crisis Communication solution, lightly touched on here. It’s something I try to get initiated in the beginning of working with a company but generally speaking, it’s been hard to partner with PR and internal groups to get this accomplished as a lot of companies – particularly corporations – are used to working in silos. And PR, generally speaking, acts as a gate keeper of information and doesn’t seem to like partnering with social groups in solving online issues (they like to “make statements” instead of looking at the issue, understanding its online process and community, and addressing it frankly). Usually the thought of a crisis communication plan doesn’t come up until, well, there’s a crisis. Don’t let that happen to you – trust me.
Amen
“Your brand statement tells who you want to be. Your customer service says who you really are.
How you treat your customers, employees, and vendors tells the truth about your brand. Just as actions speak louder than words, there is no way you can proclaim yourself a “people company” unless you prove it by living the values that look so good in print.
Who you hire, what you celebrate, and the values you live tell more about your brand than any fancy brochure.”
A note about scaling.
“Let me tell you something about scaling. McDonalds is scalable. It’s also as boring as holy hell. However, my local coffee shop, The Bean, is not very scalable but they are awesome and everyone loves them.” AJ Leon
Smart Growth Manifesto
“There is a difference between ambition and greed. Ambition drives us to be extraordinary, reach higher, and do outstanding work. Greed is the byproduct of a scarcity mentality that tells us our gains must come at the expense of others.” The Slow Growth is Smart Growth Manifesto
Customer Service is essential
Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster is a fascinating albeit slightly depressing read for anyone who has in the past loved luxury or service. Shopping in boutiques has always been something I’ve loved to do because I would get the best and most knowledgeable service. The sales people would learn my name, they’d put things aside when they came in, they could tell me the little details, they’d wrap up my packages and make shopping an experience whether I was buying something for $20 or $200.
Living in Santa Monica with neighbors like Los Angeles and Malibu, “luxury” boutiques are all around. Every name designer and brand is within easy reach of me yet service and knowledge within those companies is pretty elusive. Even more so during the recession, which you think would be opposite.
During tough times, when foot traffic has slowed and dropping cash is slower still, you’d think companies would regroup, get rid of unproductive, knowledgeable people and train those that stay on how to treat and engage customers, how to explain the products from a t-shirt to a ring to a Bentley and then train them on how to present it upon check out.
But I can’t tell you how many luxury stores I’ve been to where the sales people just kind of do their own thing from gossiping with each other, to letting merchandise just unfolded on shelves to saying, “Um, I don’t know” when asked a question. In a store shelling out luxury products and I as their only customer in sight, it’s frustrating. I’m actually a European shopper in the sense I generally like to be left alone to browse but when I have a question, someone better have an answer. And if I’m going to spend money I don’t take into consideration just the price of the item but the entire experience. If the sales person makes it less than, I walk.
Yesterday a girlfriend and I went to the new J.Crew Collection store in Malibu, one of three in the country. We were the only customers with 5 sales girls running around. To their credit, the nicest woman came over and was genuinely interested in helping us and talking to us and we were genuinely happy to be petting the pretty things – specifically the luggage.
With a trip coming up to Europe, my girlfriend wanted to buy it. She hesitated at the price and asked my opinion since I’m a frequent traveller. I tried asking the sales lady a lot of questions but the first problem was it took 4 sales women to figure out how to open the special lock system. And then they each just gave a quick blurb about how it was hand made for the Royal Family and limited edition. I asked a few more questions but didn’t get answers to those. It was, however, a stunning piece of luggage and I had read up online about it a little so I knew the quality was high and could totally see my girlfriend with it.
But with such a big purchase, she wanted to make sure she knew what she was getting. And you’d expect from a store – especially a high-end retailer – to be able to get your every bit of information and present it in a totally confident way. But when she asked the price it took four women and about ten minutes to try to figure out the price of the bag. When she asked to see the inside, it took about another 10 minutes to figure out how to open it. When she wanted to know all the materials used, it took scrambling around to find out what the material was (we were told the shell was made out of leather even though it clearly wasn’t). Totally in-love with the product, my friend hesitated in buying it because the whole experience in the store seemed uncertain. The staff wasn’t making it easy for her to say yes to buying. Their confusion made her confused about buying.
Elsewhere