Growth Through Customer Service

So many businesses are always looking to sales to grow their business.  Forgetting about the amazing customers they already service and have more business for them.

Take a look at my newest video which may just help your business find the growth you need!

To Your Success & Prosperity!!

Follow Up To - Social Media Success Video

On Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 I posted a short video about how to be more successful on social media (Social Media Success Video).  After the post I received a few emails asking for examples of things I have done that have impacted my network, and show that my theory of helping others is all you need to do to be successful online.

Well as luck would have it, I received the message below through my Linkedin account from a gentlemen in my network who just changed jobs, and that I sent a little note of congratulations to.  This small gesture I made, had a huge impact on him and his day, which I know also impacted his want and need to help others.  

As I said in my video, it is not the big things that matter to people.  It is the small things that have the greatest impact on your network.  It is saying congratulations on a job promotion, the annual birthday wish or pointing a person toward a possible opportunity.  These are things that people remember, and then make them want to pay it forward and help others, including you.

LinkedIn Shosei  has sent you a message. Date: 1/23/2013 Subject: RE: Congratulations on your new position! Michael, What a surprise, that's very generous of you. I could not resist myself a smile on my face with your message. My sincere gratitude. You've inspired me today with your praise, the importance of a simple message, has so much positive energy to it, I'm re-examining the substance of my email communication with clients and prospects. I hope you had a great start for 13, please forward my luck for you and your surroundings. Boy, that was some influence. There's good air in the room now. Thanks a million! Best, Shosei On 01/22/13 12:25 PM, Michael McMillan wrote: -------------------- Hi Shosei, I saw you're now Creative Director at Cardinal & Sevenfold and wanted to say congratulations!

Keeping helping others, and remember to treat others like you want to be treated, and the world will make sure to take care of you!

To Your Success & Prosperity!!

Social Media Success Video

A short film I created to help people view social media correctly, so they can make the most out of the time they spend online.

To Your Success & Prosperity!!

Learn Problem Solving With Chess

As you climb the corporate ladder, the one thing many people are not prepared for is the amount of complex puzzles they are faced with every minute of every day.  Those who can navigate their way through these puzzles are destine for great things, including a spot in the C-Suite.  But, those who are not able to, typically find them self lost in middle management limbo for the rest of their career, or till they can figure out how to navigate these puzzles better.

So how do you learn to navigate these puzzles better?

CHESS!

I was six years old the first time I can remember sitting down at a chess board.  It was so intimidating with all the different pieces and movement rules.  But, after the initial intimidation wore off, I began to become obsessed with the endless patterns you could create to change the game in your favor.

When I was taught to play the game I was told to break down the board into smaller patterns that then have specific responses.  It was the first time I began to learn how to break down massive complex issues, into small well defined patterns that have very specific outcomes and responses needed.  This skill has stuck with me, and it is how I approach any major project or business puzzle that is put in front of me.

Here is a good example of a common issue many executives face:

It is the end of a quarter and the sales figures came in 19% under forecast.  The senior team sees this and tells you that you need to figure out specifically why this happened, and propose options to make sure it does not happen again.

There are an infinite amount of ways to approach this huge task, so how do you do it.  If you apply the principles of chess you will know that you need to first break down the problem "board" into smaller, more manageable pieces:

1. Marketing
2. Advertising
3. Sales
4. Operations
5. Accounting

Now that the board is broken down, you then begin to place the results "pieces" for each of these departments "patterns" into their specific buckets.  Once this is broken down, you now have 5 very specific patterns taking shape.

From here we can compare these patterns against historical patterns to find what changed and what the outcomes where.  Once we know this we now can see what patterns we used in response with a positive outcome to fix it.  At that point you apply the next pattern "take your move" and repeat till all the patterns have had the correcting pattern applied and you have achieved check-mate!

At the end of the day, chess is simply a massive puzzle made up of  an almost infinite amount of outcomes, based on specific patterns and outcomes.  Learning chess and being a life long student not only will allow you to get better at the game, but also begin to break down complex puzzles in life into smaller, more manageable puzzles you can learn patterns to implement to be successful with.  It is a skill that every business needs to have, and should be ever sharpening with the game of chess.

"The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it, so as to become habits, ready on all occasions."
-Franklin, Benjamin (1779) "The Morals of Chess" [online] Historical Chess

To Your Success & Prosperity!!!

My New Speaker Intro Video

Public speaking is one of my all time favorite things to do.  There is nothing more energizing than teaching others about new topics and ideas and then hear them talk about it after your speech. 

One thing I have always wanted to do was put together a video that could help convey my passion for speaking, and social media at the same time.

Below is my first crack at it.  Please let me know what you think.

To Your Success & Prosperity!!

FTE Must = Frank, Tammy, & Edward

Call any contact center and get into a conversation about call center services and you will quickly find the person you are speaking to referring to their agents as "FTE" "Dedicated Staff" or my personal favorite "operators."  For years the BPO industry has worked hard at removing faces and names from our operations team, and without knowing it, or maybe on purpose, made the contact center space seem like a commodity to the outside world.

But, how can you make human beings be a commodity?

The answer is simple, YOU CANNOT!!  Agents are real people, they have real bills, and funny enough are typically the primary consumers or the products and services they are supporting at the contact center.  So, how does the BPO industry begin the long hard battle of removing the idea of "Commodity Call Center" and get back to the days of looking at agents as people rather than an "FTE"?

The first step is for all of us to agree that customer experience and employee experience must be #1, and that profits cannot come before people!

Yes, I know this may sound insane, lowering our profits to make peoples lives better, are you nuts?!?!?!  No, I am not nuts, just understand that when people who work for you are happy, they are willing to go the extra mile for your business, which in turn will help you grow even larger than you are today.  So yes, sacrifice a little profit today, for MUCH more profit tomorrow.

So this is step one, and it is a step that we are already seeing being implemented in the business world.  Just look to Zappo's, Amazon, and a long list of other very successful businesses putting people first and reaping the benefits from it.

So why not in the BPO contact center space?

Some will immediately say, "we do not have the margin needed to do that!" or "businesses will not pay the rate to make that happen!"

My response is "YOU ARE RIGHT AND WRONG!"  LOL!  Got to love the salesmen/politician response.  

What I mean by this is that yes, businesses out of the gate will not be willing to pay more for a service that most of the BPO space charges much less for.  But, they would be willing to pay more for a service that is at a different level than what your competitors have to offer when you can prove it.  The hard part is that one word, "PROOF!"  To do this right you must be willing to try it at the potential cost of your profitability on a program.  But, by doing this you will then build the proof needed to show other businesses why this approach not only works, but must become the new standard in the world.

It goes back to the oldest sales teaching there is, Quality Before Price!  If you can prove that your BPO sees agents as Frank, Tammy and Edward instead of "FTEs", and that this view of employees will help make your customer more money.  Then guess what, you can get the price needed to build an amazing new way of performing BPO support services!

Once these first steps are taken, you have to commit to stay the new path you have designed.  This way your employees do not see it a fluke, but the way things are and can become part of your new solution.

Forging a new path all begins with taking the first step.  Are you willing to see what lays beyond the well known beaten path?

To Your Success & Prosperity!!

How To Work Weekends, While Not "Really" Working

One of the biggest mistakes so many B2B sales people make is the idea you can punch out at 5pm (12pm for most) on Friday and be checked out till 9am 'ish on Monday morning.  The problem with this thinking is people like myself and other top performing sales people who know the reason both days of the weekend start with "S" is because they are SALES days!!!

Now, I am not saying you need to be putting in 10 hours days Saturday and Sunday, because I certainly am not.  But, you do need to make sure that you are still active with your network, especially on the weekends.

Below are three easy things you need to do to keep your business network engaged on the weekends, while not taking away from your personal and family life.

1. Schedule Your Email Times - 15 minutes, 3 times a day (mine times are: 8am, 12p, and 8pm) to check and respond to any emails you received.  Also use down time to do spot checks for important emails.  This way you can keep up on all emails, while not impacting personal time with family.

2. Automate Your Social Media - If your business network is engaged with you using social media, try using pre-loaded posts that are then schedule to be posted on your behalf over the weekend.  I use a combination of two products:

Buffer App (http://www.bufferapp.com) - This is a easy to use web and phone application that allows you to load up links and posts that are then posted on a set schedule.  If you go this route, make sure to get the pay for version.  It is inexpensive, but allows you to link unlimited accounts, and load up as many posts as your heart desires.

Tweet Deck (http://www.tweetdeck.com) - Far and beyond one of my all time favorite social media applications.  I use this application all the time for tracking all my social channels, and scheduling specific posts that I want to go out.  This is really good for high impact posts that you want sent out a a very specific time on very specific channels.

--> Two quick tips with both of these applications.-->
1. I schedule one hour every Friday to do nothing but load up my Buffer and Tweet Deck with posts for the following week, or longer if I am traveling.  This way I can set it and forget it, and not have to worry about it till the following week.  Makes things very easy, and forces me to do it each week.

2. Though both programs are great for posting, you still have to manage your social channels.  Though it may sound hard, I have a personal goal to respond to any post that mentions me, or asks me something within 2 - 3 minutes.  This is hard to manage, but I find it to be very impactful to my business network, and has led to a lot of business to come my way because of my responsiveness 24x7/365.

3.  Sunday Night Prospecting - Why wait till Monday, when no one wants to hear from you anyways.  Sunday allows you to get ahead of everyone and be the first thing your prospect sees and hears on Monday morning.  The quick trick here is to limit your time to 1 hour, and only do this after your kids are asleep (if you have kids).  In my hour, I dedicated my hour to calling because I do all my prep work on Friday so my time is as efficient as possible.

Here is what the whole thing looks like:

Friday:
- Create a list of prospects in our CRM that I need to call and leave a touch point voice mail for.
(I average 57 dials per hour with voice mail, so I know I need at least 60 numbers on my list)

- Schedule a reminder in my calendar for my 1 hour of calling

- Create a list of prospects I want to email

- Create a template email to send out to all the recipients

- Upload both the email list and email to Constant Contact (http://www.constantcontact.com) and schedule email to be sent out at 10pm, Sunday evening

Sunday:
- Sit down and close the door and run though my canned voice mail scripts in my head two - three times.

- Begin dialing and leaving voice mails.  (Though I have canned messages they are very personalized so they sound unique and engaging.)

- Take the last 10 minutes to update my CRM of my actions and what I left in voice and via email

All told you will only use up about 2 - 3 hours of your time on the weekend, but the results will be HUGE.  I am a big advocate of life work balance, and there is no reason in a sales role you can not have both.

Remember your family is who will support you and help you get through those bad quarters.  So always put their needs of you first.  But, also remember a sales role does not stop for weekends!  So if you schedule your time carefully, and be as efficient as possible you can work on the weekend, while not "really" working.

To Your Success & Prosperity!!!