Email Sucks

In many cases, email is an absolutely terrible way to communicate effectively.  In the The Happy Customer Handbook I discuss “Putting You into Every Client Contact”. 

I discuss the fact that communication experts say that body language and intonation account for 90% of effective communication.  How does email fit into body language and intonation?  It doesn’t.  Often, email communication should be called email miscommunication.

I’ve actually had people tell me they didn’t like the tone of an email they received from someone.  I asked them to send me that email.  As someone not involved in the issue I saw no tone what-so-ever.

Sure, a great writer can put tone into their writings, but to expect that a particular email, that may or may not have been hugely important to the sender, that may have been composed in a matter of seconds was sent with a particular tone is, at best, a guess. 

I often remind our team at that “Email Sucks”.  If you have something important to say and it could be taken incorrectly, “Email Sucks!”

Also, unless you’re willing to upset the recipient much more than you can imagine, you should never send an email that is negative or critical.

Another, rule of thumb that we’ve found that works is, “If you go back and forth about something with email quit typing and get on the phone, or go see the person.”

 You can get my hard copy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You for free at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  I just ask that you pay $2.97 to help cover shipping and handling.

 “Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You” 

 Keith Lee
www.keithlee.com

Stay in Shape and Live Your Bucket List NOW

I was talking with Grant Miller, the owner of Sun Your Buns Tanning Salons in Eire, Pennsylvania, about the Make-You-Happy Management System before I brought it to market and he said, “You’re showing business owners how to ‘Live Their Bucket List Now.'”  Hench, the name of this newsletter.

In living your bucket list I suggest you have at least one bucket list item tied to your health.  With that, instead of eating right and exercise to just stay healthy, you’re eating right and exercise to achieve something specific on your bucket list.

Here’s an example.  We live on a lake in the Seattle area and I’ve been a pretty good water skier since I was in my early teens.  One of the things on my bucket list was to water ski a hard, good, strong slalom run on my 60th birthday.

That meant I needed to stay somewhat flexible, and maintain my upper and lower body in good shape.

In July I crossed “ski a hard, good, strong slalom run on my 60th birthday” off my bucket list.

So now I can relax, and let myself go right… NOT!

My next ‘staying in shape’ bullet list item is, ‘ski (snow) Exterminator, hard and strong with my grandson, Carson.’

Exterminator is called exterminator for a reason.  It is STEEP.  It will be about 8 years before Carson can safely ski Exterminor.  That means I’m going to have to stay in great shape until I’m 68.

But Wait, There’s More…

Whitney turns 2 next year, so it will be time for her to start skiing and of course, I need to ski Exterminator with her too.  So… I’m going to need to stay in great shape until I’m 71, so I can ski Exterminator hard and strong with her!

Learn how to live your bucket list now when your read my book, “How to Control Your Business and Your Life.”

You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), How to Control Your Business and your Life, Proven Secrets to Creating Highly Productive Teams at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.

All Wealth is Based on Systems

All Wealth is Based on Systems

My friend and mentor Dan Kennedy says, “All Wealth is Based on Systems”

When it’s time to sell your business, what is it worth if you’re critical to it?  Not much!

What if you’re not only, not critical, but the business gets better whether you’re there or not?  What is your business worth now when it’s time to sell?  You know the answer.

When you get Buy-In from your team, have Systems in place for everything you do, an effective Performance Feedback System, and Systems to consistently deliver world class customer service your business will improve whether you’re there or not.

The goal I have with all of my clients is to make them irrelevant to the day-to-day, then week-to-week, and then month-to-month operations of their business, so they can create real wealth.

A few years ago I went on a three-week Mediterranean cruise.  When I left I told our operations manager what cruise line I was on, and the ship, that’s it.

I knew I wasn’t going to get a phone call.  That’s why I didn’t need to worry about giving her any more information, or getting an international phone number for three weeks.  For the last 20 years, while on vacation, I’ve never gotten a phone call from work.  That’s the freedom you get when you have the proper Systems in place.

But what’s even better than no phone calls, is that when I got back, the business was running better than when I left.  When you have the right systems in place, that’s what happens.

In the E-Myth Revisited Michael Gerber says,

“Let systems run the business and people run the systems.  People come and go but systems remain constant.”

One of the reasons systems give you true freedom is that when you have the right systems in place, and you have turn over in your business, things continue to get better rather than having to learn everything all over again.

When you hire someone, over time, the knowledge the person has at that job rises.

Without Systems (everything in writing) what happens when they leave?  The knowledge is gone and someone is back to training the new person one-on-one in everything that needs to be done.

Over-time you’re lucky if you make any progress.

But what if you have systems?  That is, written documentation for everything that the person does.  What happens to knowledge when someone leaves and you have systems?

It’s that simple.  When they leave, and everything they do is documented, how hard is it to replace the person and get the new person up to speed?  Just think of the amount of time you’ll save.

Watch this hour long video to Discover You Can Create The Systems You Need to Become Wealthy:

Exposed!!! Owner of Company Named, “Best Business To Work For In Washington State” is a “Ruthless Manager

It was reported today that Keith Lee, the owner of American Retail Supply, which was named the Best Small Business to Work for in Washington State by Washington CEO Magazine is a Ruthless Manager.

How is that?  How can the owner of the company named “The Best Small Business to Work for in Washington State” now be revealed as the co-author of the New Edition of No B.S. Ruthless Management of People & Profits?

It was revealed today that Dan Kennedy, the author of numerous No B.S. books, chose Keith Lee as the co-author for his newest edition of No B.S. Ruthless Management of People & Profits.

Our intrepid reporter, Lois Lane, caught up with Mr. Lee as he was sneaking into his office today and asked him how he could head the Best Business to Work for in Washington State and be a Ruthless Manager.

Mr. Lee replied… “I don’t choose the names for Mr. Kennedy’s books, and Dan and I don’t agree on everything, but when it comes to managing a business and the people in it; we agree much more than we disagree.”

Keith pointed to page 14 in the No B.S. book where Dan Kennedy writes about business owners, “And one thing they all have in common: gripes, complaints, disappointments, frustrations, pain and agony with regard to their employees.  Much of this has to do with unreasonable expectations and a misunderstanding of the actual nature of employer-employee relationships.  Some of it lies squarely at the fault of the business owner for failing in one or more of the Three Requirements for Having Employees: Leadership, Management, Supervision.”

Mr. Lee continued, “While I don’t think the nature of the employer-employee relationship need be as adversarial as Dan, the expectations and the nature of the relationship needs to be addressed during the employees’ first day of employment.  With our DVD training business owners who use our Make-You-Happy Management System set those expectations during the first hour of employment.”

Mr. Lee agrees wholeheartedly with Mr. Kennedy’s statement that business owners failing in one or more of the Three Requirements for Having Employees is the cause of many of their headaches.

Mr. Lee says, “Business owners usually lead, manage and supervise as they were led, managed and supervised, or how they learned in business school; neither of which work very well.”

Performance Reviews Suck

Mr. Lee pointed to Performance Management.  Every business owner knows that they need a Performance Management System but the only type of system they know about is Performance Reviews and they know that Performance Reviews Suck.  With this the business owner continues with Performance Reviews knowing that they suck, or they stop them altogether, and are left with no Performance Management System.

Mr. Lee informed this reporter than Dan Kennedy agrees that Performance Reviews are “like looking in your rearview mirror to drive your car.”  Mr. Kennedy’s tells the story of how the late Mike Vance, who worked personally with Walt Disney on the original Disney University and other projects, laughed and scoffed at standardized annual or quarterly ‘performance reviews.”

Mr. Lee’s management system replaces Performance Reviews with Personal Development Interviews.

Mr. Lee went on to explain.  “Just listen to what they’re called.  Which would you rather give… a Performance Review or a Personal Development Interview?  Would you rather review someone’s performance, or develop someone?

What if you’re on the receiving end?  Would you like your performance reviewed or would you rather have someone work proactively to develop you?

Which do you think gets better results, developing people and coaching them or reviewing their performance after the fact?

Traditional management focuses on catching people doing things wrong.  If every time I do something wrong the boss catches me, but he doesn’t catch me when I do things right, my creativity is stymied and I stop using my creativity, stop stepping out front, and stop helping the organization grow by using my creativity.

Conversely, when we start catching people doing things right, we encourage empowerment.  People start to do things in the organization.  Productivity improves on an ongoing basis.  Improvement doesn’t just come from management but from the whole organization interacting with each other and picking each other up.  The organization is permeated with a motivating environment.

Another benefit of this type of management is you create a learning organization.  Researchers tell us that as we move forward, people are going to stay with organizations where they have an opportunity to grow and learn.  There are going to be many more skilled positions than there are people to fill them.  And if there are a lot of skilled positions and not enough people to fill them, money isn’t going to make the difference.  Money is going to be a given.  You’re going to have to pay in the competitive market to get good people.  But they want to work in a place where they can grow, where they can enjoy themselves, where they can use their creativity to help the organization grow, and that happens in a learning organization.  That’s exactly why my company, American Retail Supply was named the Best Company to Work for in Washington, by Washington CEO Magazine.”

You can get Keith’s hardcopy book (not an e-book), How to Control Your Business and your Life, Proven Secrets to Creating Highly Productive Teams at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.

Honest Abe and “Reason Why” Advertising

Honest Abe and Reason Why Advertising

By Keith Lee

Even if some of the stories were fiction, two of our greatest presidents were known for their honesty – Honest Abe and “Yes I chopped down the cherry tree” George Washington.

This month we’re going to tie honesty into “reason why” advertising.  People like to know why.  This applies to a lot of things and certainly applies to your advertising and 3D Mail advertising.  Also, while there may not be any real reason your customer saves more at an “Anniversary Sale” or “Back to School Sale” or “End of Season Sale” or etc, etc, we all know that an “Anniversary” or “Back to School” sale is more effective than just “Sale”.

The NOT SO OBVIOUS Part of Reason Why Advertising

The “reason whys” I use above are pretty obvious and are used a lot, but I want to talk about some not so obvious “reason why” advertising and the power in using them.  I send a marketing tip of the week each week (actually twice a week) to my American Retail Supply clients (you can sign up to get the tip at www.AmericanRetailSupply.com by clicking on “Free Retail Store Marketing Newsletter.”  With each tip I send a ‘special of the week’.  Here’s a special I recently went with a reason why.

Let’s look at difference between using ‘reason why’ advertising verses ‘just telling you it’s on Sale’.

I could have simply said “Sale ½ Price” and included the details of the product itself.

Instead I told a story.  Here’s the story with the reason why:

‘I won’t go into details but our client received the wrong OPEN sign so we have this one here in our warehouse, and since it’s not in our catalog, or on our web site, it will just sit here unless I tell YOU about it.  Sale Price One Only $151.93

Now I don’t know how many orders we would have gotten had I simply offered the same product at ½ of its normal price, but I know that the Sale sign in the tip, with reason why advertising, was sold before 10AM on the morning that the Marketing Tip was sent.

So what does this have to do with Honest Abe?  Often a great reason why is simply telling the truth of why you’re having a sale or something in particular is on sale.

Here’s another example of reason why advertising that I used in a marketing tip of the week special:

We just got done with our twice yearly inventory and we found a few things that are going to just sit here taking up room unless we tell you about them.  So, over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing these items with you.  Now remember, these are here due to some mistake so the supplies are very limited at these prices.

Here’s an example of our sales rep using reason why advertising and making lemonade out of lemons.  BTW – this was a huge success!

The picture shown is of a refrigerator magnet.  The middle of the magnet can be removed after the event and used by the recipient for other pictures.  The American Retail Supply logo shown is the picture below is a label that Ariane used to cover up the RSVP phone numbers, email and the like.

Here’s the letter Ariane sent.

“You’re Invited…”

OK, I admit, you’re not actually invited to my wedding. To be perfectly honest the wedding was called off before I could even send out the invitations, and now I’m stuck with 200 of these magnet invitations! But I am inviting you to take a couple minutes to look at the enclosed magnet and flyer and see if they’d be right for your store.

I’ve always been one to make lemonade from lemons, and after holding these things for over a year wondering what the heck to do with them, I finally had an idea. I’ll send them to my top clients, like you, to show you the great BIC products especially magnets you can get from me at American Retail Supply.

I’ve enclosed the flyer so you can see some of the shapes, sizes and colors you can get for your store. I realize budgets are tight right now, but you’ve still got to advertise your business and get the word out. Promotional products and magnets in particular are a great way to do that. You can give them away as gifts to your best clients, give them to people who make a qualifying purchase, or you can even sell them in your store and make a profit while you advertise yourself!

Hopefully you know by now when you purchase your packaging and fixtures from me you’ll always get my “Make-You-Happy” customer service. The same goes for any promotional products including:

  • Magnets
  • Pens
  • Cups & Mugs
  • Key Chains
  • And 1,000’s of other great products!

As an added bonus, I’ll give you 20% off your first order of any promotional product, you purchase in the next 30 days. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience to talk this over. I look forward to speaking with you.

Sincerely,

Ariane Caruso Ariane (AmericanRetailSupply.com

800-XXX-XXXX ext. XXXX

P.S. Remember, no matter what you order from me you’re always guaranteed to get my “Make¬You-Happy” service. If you’re not over-the-top, grinning from ear to ear happy when you receive your order, just give me a call at XXX-XXX-XXXX and I’ll do what it takes to make YOU happy.

(End letter… con’t on next page…)

 

How can you use ‘reason why’ advertising in your business?  You know, I think it’s next to impossible (and very risky for your business) to have one way to get 100 new clients each month.  I think it’s much more secure and achievable to have 100 ways to get one new client each month.

The same is true of keeping existing clients and getting them to buy more from you.  You need 100 different ways of doing that.  But how do you find time to do that?

If you’re going to do the marketing for your business (and I suggest you do) you better have systems in place to see that everything else runs very well.

That’s what I do.  I spend the huge majority of my time doing the marketing for American Retail Supply.

How do you get 100 things done?  Our Management System creates consistently great client service but also allows for a lot of personal initiative.  So in the case of Ariane’s letter, Ariane had the idea.  She took the idea to Travis, and Travis created the letter.  Then our receptionist Megan stuffed the envelopes to complete the mailing.

So the point is, I don’t personally complete all the 100 ways we have of getting or keeping a client.  I can’t get 100 things done and I don’t have the ideas to get 100 things done.  We have systems that encourage individual initiative and that means I’m not the only person getting 100 things done.

How can you tie in transparent honesty with your “reason why” advertising?

 

Beating The Odds

No matter what business you’re in, you likely have competition from a discounter, national chain, huge franchise, or something along those lines.  Regardless of the competition or the industry we can all learn from those who survive and are thriving in the face of this competition.  This article is about one of those businesses who are beating the odds and what you can learn from them.

You might know that I own American Retail Supply (www.AmericanRetailSupply.com) We provide independent retailers with the things they need to run their stores – the bags they give you, displays, fixtures, marking equipment, point-of-sale computer system, etc.

Let me ask you a few questions. Think back 20 years, or even 10.  How many independent drug stores do you see now versus 20 years ago?  Pet stores?  Department Stores?  Office supply stores?  Hardware stores?  The list goes on and on, and the answer is the same:  NOT MANY.

In those 20 years, while the market has shrunk dramatically, our sales at American Retail Supply have grown more than 10 times.  But this month’s article is not about my business, it’s about one of our clients who has beaten the odds and huge competition from the “BIG GUYS” and not only survived, but thrived.

McLendon Hardware opened in 1926.  Today they have 7 stores and continue to grow while Home Depot and Lowes blanket the market area with new stores.  At the same time that the entry of these retail giants forced the biggest regional hardware chain into bankruptcy, McLendon’s continues to thrive and open new stores.

How do they do it?  How does McLendon’s Hardware continue to grow, survive, and thrive while the old leader in the market has gone bankrupt?  I interviewed the president of McLendon Hardware, Mike McLendon, a few years ago to find their secrets, and you can use these same secrets to thrive in your market place.  Throughout this article I’ll use italics to ask you questions about using the ideas previously discussed in your business.

Find a Niche and Fill It

McLendon’s niche hasn’t changed in 87 years… Their niche – SERVICE, SELECTION, and LOCATION.

McLendon says they see themselves as being more family oriented than their competition.  That makes sense coming from an 87 year-old family business.  McLendon says, “People come to a hardware store because they have a problem, and they want to be able to go home and fix the problem themselves.  And they want to be able to understand something about the problem.  That’s one of the reasons we stay in business.  People think we can help them with their problem, they get the solution, go home and fix it, and they’re happy.”

Seems kind of simple, right?  Give your niche what they want.  McLendon’s wide breadth of products and friendly, helpful staff, insures that customers go home with solutions that make them happy!

What makes you different?  As my mentor Dan Kennedy says, “Why should someone do business with you versus every other option in your business category?” 

I shop at McLendon’s Hardware.  Here are just a few examples of their selection and great service.

I had a chip in my bathroom sink that I wanted to repair.  I went to the national chain about a half mile from my house.  They had one color – white.  My sink is cream.  I drove 5 more miles to McLendon’s.  They had the exact color match and 50 other colors!

What do you offer that your clients can’t get from the competition?

I needed a Philips head screw driver bit for my power drill.  I went down to McLendon’s, and like always quickly found someone to help me.  She suggested a bit and then said, “Here, try this one also.  We just got them in.  You can have it for free.  Let me know what you think of it.” Are you kidding me?!?!

It really is the little things.  What can you do to surprise and delight your clients with the little things?

I traced a leak in my hot water tank to the flexible copper tubing water inlet hose.  I took the old hose to McLendon’s where again someone was ready to help me.  Instead of just handing me the hose and letting me go, the sales person took an extra 30 seconds to tell me exactly how to install the hose.  His information made the job much easier and the repair will last longer.

What information, education, expert advice can you give to you clients that your competition doesn’t?

I’ve learned my lesson.  I now drive right past the national chain and go a few more miles to McLendon every time.  For me, McLendon is right on the mark.  When I go to other hardware stores, because it’s convenient, I often leave discouraged.  When I go to McLendon’s I go home with the solution to my problem.  McLendon tells me he often hears customers saying, “I should have just come here in the first place.”

What can you do to create loyal customers who, even if more convenient, don’t even think about going somewhere else?

Finding Good People

With the national chains coming into town, finding and keeping god employees has become a bigger challenge.  The big guys can often afford to pay more.  But McLendon’s relies on great help to send customers home with solutions.  How do they do that?

McLendon’s attracts employees who want to be more than just a clerk.  Trades people are attracted to McLendon’s.  They have a tool guy who was a contractor and didn’t want to be a contractor anymore.  He likes his job, he likes the people, and he gets the regular hours he wanted.

A journeyman electrician hurt his back and couldn’t work as an electrician, so now he works at McLendon’s.

The new store manager at the Kent store started at McLendon’s when he was in high school.  McLendon finds that people may leave the company to go to work for a new competitor, but they often come back to McLendon’s.

What can you do to attract the kind of employees you want, and will give your customers Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service, without having to pay premium wages?

There’s more to this article, but you’re going to have to wait until part 2 of this series next month when I reveal the six core strategies McLendon’s is using to not only survive in the shadow of the retail giants, but thrive.  Stay tuned!

See how the Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service System can help you

or

Find out more about the Make-You-Happy Management System

Temptations by Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy

Intro given by Keith Lee

Dan Kennedy is not only the leading expert in Marketing; he is the highest paid Copywriter in the world and is my personal mentor.  Everything Dan says to do, I do because I know what an impact it has had and will continue to have on my businesses.  If you are a small business owner looking to grow your business you’d be wrong to NOT listen to Dan.

Temptations by Dan Kennedy

Success and productivity are not the same things nor does maximum productivity necessarily translated to success. You might, for example, achieve a very high level of productivity at cold-calling prospecting and pushing through CEO’s doors in order to sell your services, but come to understand that you do not feel at all successful as a result; instead, perpetually stressed and anxious, demeaned by the ‘numbers game’ and the rejection; burnt-out…and come to realize you would have been better served devoting productive energy to building a marketing system that brought interested prospects to you.

As you set out to get a far stronger grip on your time, to enhance your performance, it’s important to be constantly assessing your reasons for doing so and the validity of the objectives you are pursuing and achieving.

Entrepreneurs tend to be under more constant assault than executives or others, so it is easier to lose grip on the thread that leads through the muddle to the prize. Prizes you don’t really want to get set up in front of you by others, and you race to get to them while losing the critical thinking that questions the appropriateness of the prize. This takes your time and invests it where it can’t get a desirable return. Entrepreneurs are, by conditioned habit, often by ingrained compulsion, perhaps even by nature Problem Solvers and Mountain Climbers. It’s what we do. But not every problem is one you need to solve or should care about solving. Not every mountain you are led to needs conquered by you.

My racehorses are incapable of critical thinking. They are bred and trained and conditioned nearly from birth to race. They are notable and fierce and automatic competitors. When I climb into the sulky and drive the horse to the track, get him moving behind the starting gate amongst the other horses, never, never, never does he stop and think—gee, maybe this is a race I don’t need to run. But you and I are capable of such critical thinking. We can reign ourselves in. As entrepreneurs, we are automatic competitors, automatic problem-solvers, automatic mountain climbers—but we are capable of overriding our automatic inclinations.

If you put a business problem or opportunity in front of a true entrepreneur, he automatically leaps upon it and begins solving it or capitalizing on it. He reacts as if a lion is thrown a hunk of raw, red meat. The lion will respond even if he has just had a big meal and is not hungry.

The entrepreneur will respond even if he has more on his plate than he can handle, no need to respond, no time to respond. In this way, entrepreneurs are dangerous to themselves.

You can reduce that danger with more disciplined time management. With entire weeks scheduled and scripted in advance, the new and unexpected must take a place in line, patiently wait, and instead of reacting impulsively, you can attend to it more calmly and thoughtfully. One of my principles is that nothing is ever as bad or as good as it initially appears. Before acting hastily based on first impressions, each new thing—problem or opportunity—must be carefully inspected.

Temptations by Dan Kennedy

Click here to find out what Dan Kennedy is giving away!