A boxer wouldn’t last a single round in the ring if their trainer and team were telling them they should give up, that they’re not smart enough, strong enough or fast enough! You wouldn’t last a single round in your day-to-day life with all that crap in your corner, either.

You have a person in the ring coming at you with punches, trying to knock you out. Life can be the same. What are the people in your corner saying to help you win?

Some family and friend’s comments may be loving and protective, but ultimately defeating. Other times they’re just plain hurtful and demeaning. Their feedback may be completely unhelpful.

It doesn’t always mean that family and friends don’t love you, it just means they don’t always know how to help you.

You need someone in your corner to help you kick ass – to provide strategic, productive and actionable feedback.

Sometimes a little “believing in somebody” has a huge impact that they don’t get anywhere else.

I’m not referring to a brand as a logo and a typeface. I’m referring to the new kind of brand, the one is formed by the entire experience of a customer’s interaction. That experience gets branded into his or her memory and leaks into the buzz of modern culture. If you can’t make a good customer experience from start to finish, you’ve failed to generate brand value that will attract customers to come back for repeat business and tell their friends to come back, too. That’s how good customer experience directly affects the bottom line.

Increasingly bad customer experience seems to be a leading indicator of decreasing revenue. We saw this effect at Circuit City, when a new CEO fired every expert sales associate in the organization and hired new, cheaper, inexperienced ones who didn’t know what they were doing. Customers left the stores with incorrect information or with their questions unanswered. They went to Best Buy instead.

Original post: http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html

1. I Tweeted that I was considering using Mohawk paper for my next business cards.
2. Mohawk then replied to my Tweet and asked which paper I was interested in.

Social media is simply a “mind-reading” platform, which allows Mohawk to scan Twitter (using http://search.twitter.com/) for mentions of their name – and then engage with me one-on-one. Mohawk noticed that I was using their name and they responded – simple!

It’s this listening and one-on-one followup interaction that is changing the way businesses communicate with their customers.

Andrew Wicklander’s interview with my brother, Lance.

Project Idealism: Podcast Episode #10: Lance Walley of Chargify, Engine Yard, Parallax and more

In my latest podcast episode I interviewed Lance Walley, who has been building businesses for over 20 years. Most recently Lance co-founded Chargify – a recurring billing system, and before that EngineYard – a Rails application hosting company.

Lance spoke candidly with me about launching new ideas, scaling a business, failure, success, investing, and more. It was great talking with him and he shared a ton of great information. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewalley.

“Hey Reid, want to say thank you for all the business coaching. It has really helped my business and gang prevention ministry grow leaps and bounds. The knowledge, wisdom and resources you have provided have been priceless.”

P.S. By the way…. No, Reid did not ask me for this testimony, I just felt compelled to write this at this time.

God Bless,
Ray Johnson
Thug Exposed – Gang & Drug Prevention
Sacramento, CA

Store owners: sometimes your customer service training SUCKS! Your employees cannot make this kind of a statement to a customer without it making YOU look like an idiot!

“I’m only nice to them if they’re nice to me!”

This attitude is “very common” among employees, and is why most customer service SUCKS! Train your employees to be nice! This is also why most relationships and friendships can – all of a sudden – completely SUCK. Most people are only nice when they’re being treated nicely. Otherwise, most people are just getting back at the other person. This includes your employees “getting back” at your customers – tit-for-tat (“equivalent retaliation”).

Ever smile at somebody who smiled at you? Ever yell at somebody who yell at you? Ever flip off somebody for cutting you off on the freeway? Ever hear one of your kids say “He hit me first!” when you tell them to stop fighting?

Be nicer than you’re being treated. Smile.

A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions: Social Media Monitoring Wiki.

This is when you need a life/business coach:

Years ago a business-owner friend of mine mentioned she had successfully “won” an email argument with a customer that was an asshole. The email exchange lasted for 4 hours. The upside: my business-owner friend felt vindicated. She couldn’t let it go, she “had” to put him in his place. The downside: she couldn’t let it go, she “had” to put him in his place.

She couldn’t walk away and let it go. She was so angry that she ended up wasting 4 hours of her life YELLING IN ALL CAPS! Those were 4 hours that should have been devoted to sales, marketing, employee training and managing her business. All because she couldn’t control her emotions – and she hated that she couldn’t control her emotions. Which pissed her off long after she had “won” the email battle.

This is when you need a life/business coach!

“There are certain employees that are sooooo much more than just the role they fill! Jess, you are such an amazing person in every way! I am so sad to see you go but so excited for all the adventures your life brings!”

- Kasey Christensen, owner, SÜP restaurant, Reno, NV

Written by Audrey Watters / June 17, 2010

Indie pop band OK Go debuted the music video for their song “End Love” this week. And I bet you’ve seen it already. Since its upload to YouTube on Tuesday, the video has had over 400,000 views.

Arguably OK Go are the among the masters of the YouTube platform. Their famous 2006 treadmill video for “Here It Goes Again” clocks in with over 50 million views, making it one of YouTube’s most watched and most favorited videos. Certainly OK Go have been pioneering the ways in which artists can embrace new technologies – and use them to challenge the traditional parts of the record industry. And as pioneers, OK Go offer lessons for those outside the music business [as well].

Clearly, the most obvious lesson that startups might take from OK Go is: make a viral video. But…

Read full article: http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/06/what-entrepreneurs-can-learn-f.php