Small Office, Home Office Information

Many small businesses start blogs these days in an effort to stay in touch with their consumers. Maintaining a blog is not easy and maintaining your focus is perhaps the hardest thing to do.

It can be very tempting to use your business blog as a platform from which you can pontificate on all manner of interesting topics. Unfortunately your readers don’t come to your blog to hear you preach, they come for other reasons and if you are not meeting those reasons your readers and customers will drift away.

This is a true story and no names have been changed to protect the innocent or the not so innocent. For those of you who come from other countries, let me tell you that Toll Ipec is a huge road and rail transport company here in Australia and among other things they operate a door to door parcel service.

December 2 (a Friday) - two expensive flat screen monitors are picked up from a distributor in Brisbane by Toll Ipec. Both monitors are in identical boxes except one is marked ‘1/2′ and has the invoice and our address firmly attached to the outside of the box and the other is marked ‘2/2′ and has the Toll Ipec consignment note attached to the outside of the box. (How do I know it was firmly attached? Because we’ve had a number of deliveries from the same supplier, the same storeman has packed and despatched each delivery and you can’t rip the packet containing our address and invoice off the box without a huge amount of effort)

December 5 (Monday) - The box marked ‘2 of 2′ is delivered. I ask the driver where the other box is and he searches his truck and can’t find it. He says he will make enquiries when he returns to the depot.

December 6 - Toni rings Toll Ipec to find out what happened to the missing box. She’s told enquiries will be made and they will call us after a search has been made in the non-deliverable section in the Brisbane depot nd also after they have contacted our local depot. No one rings back.

December 7 - Toni calls Toll Ipec again and is told that further enquiries will be made and they will call us back by lunch time. No one calls back. After lunch Toni calls again and this time gets the run-around - the person on the other end of customer service 1300 number declines to put Toni through to the section she had been talking to and gives Toni a number to call herself.

December 7 (after lunch) - I call the direct number because Toni is almost in tears and speak to someone who finds the file, with all our calls listed, in the system - reads it and then asks me if I would like to start an enquiry. I remain polite but firm - ‘Yes I defnitely would like to start an enquiry’. I’m assurred that they will call us back. Of course, no one does.

December 8 - Toni calls the direct number and finally seems to be put through to someone in charge. She explains the whole situation again and she is promised that enquiries will be made and someone from Toll Ipec will call us back by lunch time. No one does.

December 8 (after lunch) - I go looking on the Toll Ipec website for a national customer service number and can’t find one so in desperation I email their IT Help Desk and a trouble ticket is raised.

December 9 (around lunchtime) - I get a phone call from the Toll Ipec office we had been dealing with and I’m told that an ‘All Ports’ request has just been issued. The caller explains that when offices around Australia get that notice they have to quickly search their undeliverable section to see if the missing box is sitting in their depots and respond. I’m assurred that I will be notified of the result by the end of the day. No one calls back.

December 9 (throughout the day) - I get several trouble ticket updates that tell me that my original email is filtering through the system and is being sent to various people.

December 9 (around 3pm) - I get an email cc’d to me from someone at Toll Ipec who is instructing someone else to forward my complaint to the National Customer Service Manager for Toll Ipec so that he can contact me. No one calls.

So now, after a full week of farting around trying to get the other monitor that we desperately need we are still no further advanced although we have learned something very interesting about a national transport company.

Toll Ipec has absolutely no idea about customer service and they seem completely disinterested in providing even a very basic level of customer service.

Toll Ipec let me have a little rant for just a moment, after all I think we deserve it don’t you?

One dissatisfied customer will tell their story to 10 others and each of those 10 will pass it on to another 10. So eventually your inability to provide customer service is going to bite you in the bum - after all, you’re not the only transport company out there.

Edit with an Update

Around 10.30 today (Monday December 12) I received an email from the Queensland Customer Service Manager for Toll Ipec asking me to supply her with a phone number so she could contact me. I replied, gave her the details, hit send ………… and the email bounced.

My first reaction was to burst into hysterical laughter (it’s not as painful as beating your head on the desk) but I controlled myself and phoned her.

She was very helpful and very apologetic and she called me several times through the day. She was able to tell me that the first box was never scanned into the depot in Brisbane. That was enough for us to be able to contact the supplier and they will replace the missing monitor.

At the same time she was interested to look into the matter further. For her it seems to be more than just another missing parcel because she was able to identify some points where procedure may not have been followed.

So the Case of the Missing Monitor continues but is now beyond the scope of this blog. We have received customer service - at last - and basically we’re as happy as they can make us.

But in any business customer service is the responsibility of every employee and any employee who doesn’t understand that has the potential to become a major liability for your business.

That’s a question that was basically asked of us the other day and the obvious answer is a resounding NO!

I suppose that has to be qualified just a bit because there are some small businesses that are just going to be too much for anyone who is getting on in years but there are certainly plenty of opportunities for small business people whatever their age might be.

Unfortunately many young people don’t understand that and they are quick to discourage any older person who might want to launch their own small business.

Only yesterday a lady of middle age came into the computer shop where Toni rents a desk several days a week. She happened to notice that Toni had Dreamweaver open and was working on one of our projects. The lady confided in Toni that she was completing a Macromedia (they make Dreamweaver) course at tech and she really didn’t know what to do when she had finished.

She was the only mature student in a class of mostly teenagers and they had all told her that she was far to old to even think of making money on the Internet.

The lady was greatly relieved to see Toni fall about laughing when age was mentioned.

Age is no barrier to anything you might want to do in a small business that wants to use the Internet as a platform. Anyone who suggests that age might be a problem is definitely not worth listening to.

Many small business people are people of action. They can’t sit still and do nothing when they have a good idea. They have to explore, sample, test and investigate. Once they have completed those actions then there are times when they should take further action and there are some times when they should do nothing.

That ‘do nothing’ option is probably the hardest option of all for them to take but there are times when that really is the best option.

A guy we know here in town approached us on the weekend with a view to us building a website for him. Currently he has a page on a community portal that brings in quite a bit of business for him. That page ranks very well in the search engines for the key phrase that he needs to focus on but he has no control over the page or what images the portal owner chooses to display on the page.

So our acquaintence thought that his own web site might be a better option. We looked at his situation and in his case the ‘do nothing option’ was the best. That may sound strange but these days a new website has no guarantee of ever reaching the same level of search engine ranking that his single page already has.

If it did manage to reach that point it would take many months and possibly even a year or more. So there was definitely no short term advantage in having his own website built and there were no guarantees that there would be a long term advantage either.

Will he really opt for the ‘do nothing’ option?

It’s hard to say but could you sit still and do nothing if that were the best option?

There are many small business people who are involved in online marketing. Of all the huge range of things a small business could be involved in online marketing would have to be one of the hardest and it is becoming harder and harder all the time.

The amount of competition that people who market online is just one of the factors involved here. There are many others and most of them are almost beyond the control of the small business online marketer.

So it’s no surprise that, when one well-known person in this part of the small business world becomes excited about a product and writes about in genuinely glowing terms, that a lot people will rush to jump on the bandwagon without taking time to read the fine print.

Of course, the fine print is more than just the fine print on the contract. The fine print also includes things like how the product will fit with what the small business is already doing and whether or not the new product is well established or still in beta mode.

Ultimately, if the product doesn’t work for you then if someone needs to be blamed for that failure the blame should start with you and not with the person who suggested the product in the first place.

Toni and I have been watching as a very genuine and responsible online marketer has been trashed by people who blindly rushed in to take advantage of something that was working for him.

Nobody forced them to follow his lead, no one held a gun to their head and made them take on the product he found that worked for him. Instead, they rushed in without understanding the fine print and some of them have not made the money that the expected to.

Instead of blaming themselves they’ve blamed him for the inability to make the product work for them. Right now they are making life hard for him but in a few days it will have all blown over as they rush off to follow some other great idea that probably won’t work for them either.

If you want to seriously make your small business work then don’t be a lemming - don’t rush from one good idea to the next till you are worn out. Take the time to read the fine print and see how the product will fit with your business and only then should you take some tentative steps to see if it will work for you.

If it doesn’t work and you are committed to the product them improvise adapt and over come instead of standing around crying and blaming someone else.

A couple of days ago I was talking about small business advertising and you can find that piece, and a photo, here.

Most of the graphic at the top of the newspaper advertisment came from a business card we designed for the owner of that business. And along with the order for that business card came an order for a website that we subsequently built for the owner of the business. (It’s very pleasing to be able to tell you that the website is already bringing in sales.)

Yesterday that newspaper ad - and the graphic - caught the eye of a resort owner over on Fraser Island (that’s a major tourist spot near where we live) and she contacted the guy we did the work for to see if he could recommend anyone to build a website from scratch for them.

He recommended us and now we’re meeting to discuss a fairly major project for our small business.

It’s funny how an initial order that was worth maybe $150 for the design of that card can lead to so much more.

Earlier today I offered you a link to some suggestions for starting a small business.

Now here is a story of one man’s approach to starting his business. Sometimes you can gain inspiration from other people’s experience although I’m not suggesting that wearing a wig and a dress is going to work for everyone.

In case you haven’t realised it, when you’re reading this you are actually reading a blog and for many people blogging is a business and for many it’s a small business.

That means that successful bloggers often have a lot to teach small business people. That is certainly the case with Ten Rules for Profitable Blog Startups. A lot of what Darren has to say there is very applicable to any small business person who is trying to get their business (whatever it might be) off the ground.

Yes I’m back … after too many days stuck in the salt mines with hardly any time to call my own I’m back to spend a little time on my own projects.

One of the tasks we’ve been doing over the last couple of months is encouraging a friend who owns a computer store to take his business to the next level. There’s been a make-over in his shop, a part of his business that was taking up his time but providing little income has been ditched, a new business card has been designed and he is trying to boldly going ahead with an advertising campaign.

Unfortunately he has been a little hesitant with the advertising and did miss some opportunities but we’re encouraging him and slowly he is beginning to trust our reasoning and judgment. He has tried some televison advertising but failed to follow it up effectively and this week he tried some newspaper advertising.

Here in the town where we live there are three free papers delivered to everyone’s home each week and we know of a lot of business people who feel that advertising in those papers is a bit of a waste of time. Our friend has tried it in the past but like many, he has been a little tentative and kept his ads small and barely noticeable.

Today though he splurged and this advertisment appeared in the paper.

(Trust me, my photography does not do the ad justice)

That full page ad cost our friend around $1600 and I’m sure a lot of you would never think of spending so much on an advertisement. I must say that I was a little surprised that he went ahead with it but today he learned a lesson.

Despite what a lot of people will try and tell you, advertising in small local papers can pay off. In the first four hours of trading today he had more than paid for that advertisment with new customers continually coming through the door.

The ad used the graphics from the business card we designed for him so it really does catch the eye and it also brands his business.

I am sure that he will agree that the $1600 was money well spent but once again, he’s missed out on an opportunity to capitalise on the success of that ad . Instead of building on that ad with other forms of advertising he is going to let that page go as a one off for December.