“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!”

From You and Your Research

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.

“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.”

From Your Brand Can’t Hide Behind Poor Service

“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

“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

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.

So we put it on hold and left to think about it. Now the story splits into two here because there is my friend who wanted that suitcase and was willing to over look the situation to get the product. The product was more important. So when it took about 10 minutes and three sales women to figure out how to ring it up and they still could not answer some of the questions, my girlfriend overlooked that because at this point, she wanted that bag.

However this morning I get a text from her – she’d been way over-charged for the bag. She’d looked online and seen they had charged her for a larger size. I was so furious for her.

In a retail store that hasn’t seen crazy opening days and wasn’t busy on that particular day, 4 sales women totally dropped the ball. It’s not like they’re managing 17 stores, 80 people, different changing venues – they’re managing J.Crew merchandise in a J.Crew store. They should be beyond experts. They should know the intimate details of a $1500.00 bag. But no one did.

Yes they were friendly but ultimately they represented this luxury store very poorly. There was no wrapping of the case, no special tags given, no info on how to care or clean or what to do if it rips. Plus, they got the materials wrong and charged my friend for the wrong size.

When I said the story split it split in the sense that the bag was obviously worth it to my friend to go through the hassle and over-pay for it. That store got lucky to have her as their customer because if it was me buying the bag, I would have walked out. I wouldn’t have purchased it because the whole experience didn’t inspire confidence or specialness. It was a transaction mess. And I think stores are being both lazy and counting on customers to not care or say anything. Or worse yet, it’s that we’ve all come to expect bad service. For people to not be invested in their jobs unless it’s some kind of glamorous one like a movie or rockstar or bazillionheirres because chances are, we’re not invested in our own jobs. They’re not what we expect so we don’t commit. We save up for when our dream jobs arrive. The problem is, even that dream job – if it comes – will have a lot of tasks you won’t want to do or require you to be passionate about something you’re not. So my advice is to bring the passion to everything you do, even if your job isn’t your full-time passion.

The sales women at J.Crew obviously loved the brand as each of them were decked head to toe in their clothes and were choosing to work there. But they didn’t seem invested in the company or in themselves. Because of this, I have zero trust in their abilities despite the pretty store and fashion sense of the women. Instead of building customer relations and having two sales instead of one, they lost a customer and had another tell her friends about the over-charge which means a potential loss of even more customers.

Time and time again I see this happening not just in luxury boutiques but in restaurants, in hotels, in dealing with other business from Hollywood to tech and I wonder when did people stop caring about their job and about customer service? When did we decide that we don’t have to be experts, participate in educating ourselves or invest in a job we chose to take on whether it’s in tourism, retail, the web or the arts because it’s either not our “calling”, it’s only part-time, it’s just to pay the bills, it’s not fun? Any job you have is important to someone else so you’d better start making it important to you. Don’t sacrifice yourself and a customer because you’re only waiting tables until you’re discovered – that’s not the customers fault or responsibility. If you choose to go to work, then do the best because it will only get you further ahead, build better relationships, teach you a lot and most importantly, always make you invested in yourself. If you can be invested in rocking out a retail job, imagine what would happen if one day you got a dream job?

I can speak from experience on this because when I was 18, I worked in housekeeping at the famous Chateau Lake Louise; a four star luxury hotel that stars stayed at but also the average person who saved up for a once in a lifetime experience. It was my first big job and I thought there were times when I would be “on” and times when I could just complain about cleaning the 14th suite. You know, the expensive rooms would get the best cleaning and the best dressed people in the lobby the best service. I would be selective about when I’d rock out the service because not everyone should get the same – not everyone was going to be nice to me or had the fancy room or was actually staying at the hotel. Plus, I thought, I’m in housekeeping. It’s not like that’s a cool job. It’s not like that’s my passion!

But during a training session, my supervisor ended up giving me advice that changed how I worked entirely – not just at that job but every job thereafter.

He said that everyone in the hotel, whether they’re walking on the grounds outside, or through the lobby must be treated as though they are paying for the most expensive suite in the hotel for the most amazing experience possible. The reason? When people are walking around you don’t know who paid for the cheap tour bus room or the thousand dollar lake view suite. You can’t judge so you must give your best with everyone you meet whether you’re bringing strawberries and champagne to a room or just having finished cleaning a toilet. That how we held ourselves changed the experience of everyone we came into contact with and if we couldn’t muster the energy to be the best for each and every person, they wouldn’t have the best experience. And it didn’t matter what job we had, that if we couldn’t be fully invested in what we were doing, someone, somewhere, would be affected. And our business wasn’t in disappointing people.

That advice changed how I did each and every job from then on. No matter what it was, I did my best. Even cleaning toilets. In my personal life, I rarely made my bed and hated cleaning my roomt but when I went to work, I never cut corners or went in with an attitude. I actually ended up winning an award for most consecutively cleanest rooms and the quickest amount of time (my passion was skiing and hiking and I wanted to get out fast!) and received a promotion really quickly because my enthusiasm, pride and customer service was noticed by everyone (boss, co-workers, guests). That taught me to do the best, know as much as I can and deliver no matter what because it will help me somewhere else and in the meantime, create success for my customers, my co-workers, my company and myself (promotion meant more ski time and I was able to work a late shift!).

Even in 2001 before I went out on my own, when I was working at a job I didn’t find fulfilling, I brought my a-game every day. It’s why I left on great terms with my boss (and CEO of the company) and why I was able to move forward onto the next job without any bitterness or resentment or more importantly, fear. I hadn’t “saved up” my energy or abilities for “the perfect job” which meant that by doing the best with things I didn’t fully enjoy, made me able to confidently  rock out the jobs I did.

Not every job will be your passion (cleaning toilets wasn’t mine) but you need to bring your passion to your job. Each and every time you go to work.

I think during these times where it’s no longer chic to flaunt things, being able to flaunt a job and a job well done should become the new status symbol.

Erin McKenna the smart, savvy, passionate entrepreneur behind the successful bakery Babycakes NYC, has a book coming out, BabyCakes: Vegan, Gluten-Free, and (Mostly) Sugar-Free Recipes from New York’s Most Talked-About Bakery.

She made the above video to let people know and what I love about this video is you see her, you see the bakery, you see the glee and fun and then you see what you can make if you get the book. It’s all so slick but it feels completely authentic – like you want to be a part of it even though a company is selling you something. I love that kind of marketing.

1. Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
2. Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.
3. Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.
4. Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market.
5. Marketing begins before the product is created.
6. Advertising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about far more than that.
7. Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
8. Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
9. Products that are remarkable get talked about.
10. Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your returns policy.
11. You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, once unfooled, talk about the experience.
12. If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget, you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers realize that it is an investment.
13. People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
14. You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.
15. What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love.
16. Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
17. Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade show booths, junk mail) are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work.
18. People all over the world, and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
19. Good marketers tell a story.
20. People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
21. Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
22. Effective stories match the worldview of the people you are telling the story to.
23. Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.
24. A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.
25. Living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to survive in an conversation-rich world.
26. Marketers are responsible for the side effects their products cause.
27. Reminding the consumer of a story they know and trust is a powerful shortcut.
28. Good marketers measure.
29. Marketing is not an emergency. It’s a planned, thoughtful exercise that started a long time ago and doesn’t end until you’re done.
30. One disappointed customer is worth ten delighted ones.
31. In the googleworld, the best in the world wins more often, and wins more.
32. Most marketers create good enough and then quit. Greatest beats good enough every time.
33. There are more rich people than ever before, and they demand to be treated differently.
    Organizations that manage to deal directly with their end users have an asset for the future.
34. You can game the social media in the short run, but not for long.
35. You market when you hire and when you fire. You market when you call tech support and you market every time you send a memo.
36. Blogging makes you a better marketer because it teaches you humility in your writing.

I’m asked a lot to be in books, to review books, to promote other’s books and 99% of the time I decline. Everyone and their mamma seems to have a book nowadays and from what I’ve seen, a lot seem to just be riding the creative bandwagon which I hopped off long ago.

The thing is, I’m highly creative but I’m also business and it seems that books either address one or the other. Also, a lot of self-employed/creative books geared towards women tend to lack “meat” – they go for making a person feel good with words like “juicy” “blessings” and offer ideas that aren’t appealing to me like pink markers, morning pages, breathing deeply and dancing wildly (ok – I like the last one). For someone like me who is a do-er, I want to be inspired with advice I can actually take from people who not just dish it, but have lived and are living it (I can’t take another self-help guru with a messed-up life promoting how to live and work creatively!).

Bitter much? Yes but I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s a lot of bad books out there. And when you’re starting out you might be tempted to buy them all (I almost did!).

That is why I am so, so, so thankful that Lauren Bacon and Emira Mear’s new book, The Boss of You, is finally available.

Over 5 years ago, Lauren and Emira ran an amazing site called Soap Box Girls which let women talk about what women talk about but also had tid bits on business (they really highlighted women-run business) politics and crafting. It was a great zine ahead of it’s time. I was so in-love with what these women were doing (running their own graphic business on top) that I asked them to be profiled on Another Girl at Play. Lucky for me they said yes and a great friendship started.

It was in this interview that I received the best bit of business advice I’ve ever received: Don’t undersell yourself!. Women undersell themselves on so many levels that to read this from them really, really stuck. And I’ve always asked for what I’m worth and have never settled financially or with projects. That’s thanks to them.

They now run the site “Boss Lady which has lots of great info. It was also the base for their Boss Lady Panel at SXSW last year that I, along with Jenny Hart and Vickie Howell, were able to be a part of. The five of us meshed so well and we offered great advice and stories – some of which are found in The Boss of You.

Whether you’re starting an internet based business, something crafting or a brick a mortar store, this book is something you need – and I don’t say that lightly. It doesn’t talk down to you and it’s not dry. It’s personable with real advice to get you rocking out. Isn’t that what a great book does?

Finally the podcast from the panel I did at SXSW in March is up. Listening to it I felt really proud (yes, even with the embarrassment of realising I talked about vomit) of all that we said in it. The advice that Emira, Lauren, Jenny and Vickie shared I think is really valuable and I hope the fun we had really came through.

“Successful, creative and self-taught entrepreneurs (from graphic designers, to producers, to crafters) will discuss and offer advice on what it’s really like to be the gal running the show. With experience running their own successful businesses on-line and off, each of these women has a wealth of information, advice and success stories to share. The panel will explore what makes business different from a female perspective, the particular challenges the panelists have faced, how to create/maintain a business with/without employees and how to achieve financial success all without boas or pink markers.”

Listen Now to the Boss Lady Podcast