On Christmas Day, IHOP was the Number One Hottest search on Google. Now we know that people in Daytona weren’t searching for an IHOP in New York… Everyone around the country was looking for a place to eat, a place that was open Christmas Day. IHOP may have been the number one search, but I’ll bet that right after that, it was followed with a query like “places open Christmas Day in (their town)” or “Breakfast Places in (their town)”. This alone should convince the throngs of Business owners that still don’t see the importance of having a website… It’s 2000 freaking 9… time to smell the proverbial coffee! Call your Web Designer, or better yet, visit www.Lettimdoit.com and GET ONLINE!!!

Like many parents I’m sure, I was frantically trying to locate a Nintendo wii for my boys less than a week before Christmas… I won’t bore you with the details of how many stores in numerous cities that I contacted with the hopes of finding this illusive video game console, but I will tell you of a standard response that I received from almost every store that I called. After the clerks would tell me of the bad news… that they ran out, sold the last one, etc., I posed the question “do you know when more will be coming in”? Almost exclusively, the reply was “they don’t tell us - or - they don’t give us that information” Granted I may be over-critical because I’m tuned into the good and bad of customer service, but who is “they”? By the clerks responding in this fashion, doesn’t it shout that they are not in fact a part of the organization, but rather an “insignificant” of the corporate structure? I then began to wonder how much stronger those organizations would be if they empowered their employees with simple everyday information, especially in times of National crises’ like a shortage of Nintendo’s! With a standard response that went something like this… “a truck will be here Wednesday, all I could tell you is to try back then” 1) The clerk got the customer off their back in an efficient way, exercising good customer service and not looking like “just a clerk”. 2) The company by arming their clerks with this canned response, now has more than “just a clerk”. The customer will probably still end up without a Nintendo, but they will still have a good feeling about that company, and buy into the idea that the “clerk” really is an “associate” or “team member”

I heard that Kurt Vonnegut, before he died, suggested that our Government form a “Department of The Future”. I immediately thought that we as a people have a dire need for this department, and I was so amazed that it hasn’t been formed yet. Please Mr. President, get this thing going, appoint some Hot Shits with reasonable egos, balance the Good and Bad of rapid technology, clean of the environmental mess caused by our elder knuckleheads, and get us back on a course that we can all look forward to.

 

 

 

You’ll be on your way to millions of visitors… dumptrucks will pull up to your business and unload money at your door… You know, Balderdash is just a fancy translation of Bullshit, and that’s what these claims are. Google themselves receive emails promising Google top rankings in Google! Look, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) IS necessary if you’re to be seen in the search engines, but unless you have a business that is not fiercely competitive, or unless you want to target a smaller local market, first page search rankings are going to be pretty impossible to achieve. Concentrate your SEO efforts in making your Website content more relative to what you offer. Expand directory submissions, and cultivate some kick-ass backlinks. SEO is basically free, but takes a serious amount of time, research, and talent. Be honest with yourself… if you’re not going to devote your time to improving your SEO, then hire someone… it’s not cheap, but when you weigh out the improvement to your  visibility, it’s extremely cheap. www.Lettimdoit.com  offers SEO services, and will be launching their sister site, www.SpecialForcesSEO.com  in early 2009.

 

 

 

Carrabbas Italian Grill, and Outback steakhouse have been favorite destinations of mine for a very long time. Sure they’re not five star restaurants, but their food was good, portions were fair, service excellent and above all their consistency was very impressive. On my recent visit to Outback, as I was buttering a piece of their signature dark bread (you know, the one with the knife stabbing it) only to notice that they switched from Real creamy butter to a more oily “butter blend”, at Carrabas about a week later (also owned by Outback) I noticed that they switched from Fresh Pasta, or one that certainly had the taste and texture of fresh, to boxed pasta that tasted like a mediocre egg noodle. OK, am I over-reacting? It depends on if you’re looking at it from a compassionate angle… that they need to save money to survive this economy, or the What the Hell are you Thinking angle… do you know how many loyals you’re going to lose that actually know the difference. This is a classic mistake that so many businesses make. In an effort to shore up their bottom line, they cut back in service by being understaffed, or much worse, they cut quality with the thought in mind that “most won’t even know the difference”. These tactics are so short sighted and almost always lead to destruction. The cutting of labor is somewhat understandable as labor costs are significant… but butter and pasta? C’mon!! I expect this from others, but I never expected it from the Outback group… please boy’s, give some more thought to where you shave.

I was looking at one of our WebDesign competitors’ website a few minutes ago, by the way, a practice that every business owner should do from time to time… anyway, they had a questionairre for their prospective customers to fill out… one of the questions they asked was… get this… On a scale of importance from 1 to 10, how important was “Graphic Design Quality”. That question shouldn’t even be in print… if you are trying to sell anything… yourself, a product, or a service, you must know by now that as human beings, we DO judge a book by its cover, period. Image is everything and anyone that says differently is clearly mistaken. Yes, of course content is important, but unless you attract your customer (the Book Cover) you’re not going to have the chance to flaunt your content… I’m not necessarily proud of our species for being this shallow, but it is the truth nonetheless. Another question this site went on to ask their potential clients was “How important to is our response time for changes/questions”?  What?!? C’mon! Nobody wants to wait at all, and anyone made to wait ultimately becomes hostile...  think of being on hold with a larger company… “your call is very important to us… your expected wait time is 8 minutes”… I just want to say, nothing makes me feel more important than being told by a recording to wait 8 minutes… and by the way, if I’m so important, how about you cut into those obscene profits a little and hire someone to answer my call!