TweetMy wife and I own a motorcycle. During fair weather season (which is quite long in Texas) I tend to ride to work 3-4 days a week. At between 35-40  miles per gallon, it saves me a fair amount of money – and it’s a lot of fun to ride.

Motorcycles do require a bit more maintenance than cars. There’s the regular oil changes, coolant changes, lube jobs and such; but, there is also chain or belt changing, and close monitoring of various mechanical pieces which make the bike safe. Although my wife is more than capable of maintaining the bike, we tend to take it to the dealer for maintenance. This is something I don’t normally consider for our cars.

They do good work, of course. That’s the main reason we take the bike there. They also charge us a fair price – at least it seems fair to me. Another reason, though, which stands out in my mind is the relationship we have with the people who staff the service department. When I call to make an appointment to bring the bike in, which is about once every 12-18 months, the service manager always remembers us. He asks how we are doing, how we are enjoying the bike, and whether the problem they fixed last time we were in was still fixed. I don’t know if the dealership has a tremendous CRM system or if the service manager has a tremendous memory – either way they make us feel like we’re part of the family.

We could take our bike to a closer shop, but we drive 20-plus miles out of our way because these guys are good and they treat us well. They are responsive to questions via email and phone and take the time to chat with us when we come in.

That’s the kind of business I like to work with. How about you?

TweetHow do your potential customers gauge expertise and credibility? If you don’t know, you need to find out.

Background Story
In 1995 I had the privilege to travel to the Czech Republic to work as a translator for a group of leaders who were directing numerous soldiers touring around the country. These soldiers acted as honor guards and musicians helping cities and towns celebrate the 50th anniversary of liberation from the Nazis at the end of WWII. It was a great experience from which I learned quite a bit.

On the day of the main celebration, I found myself in Plzeň (Pilsen) tagging along with the Colonel who commanded the overall effort. We watched a reenactment of the surrender of Nazi forces in the city and a parade in the Square of the Republic from the top of a hotel overlooking the area. Then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. (later Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright gave a speech where we had “backstage passes.” Later we took part in the unveiling of a new monument dedicate to the soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division. It was quite an exhilarating day.

Right after the monument dedication, the Colonel and I were walking back towards the main square to view the display of historic WWII vehicles when an man hurried up to us and insisted we stop. He thrust a baby into my arms, pushed a young lady next to me and told us to smile and took a number of photographs.

Curious, I asked the man why he was photographing me with the baby and the young lady. He pulled out a very old sepia-toned photograph from his pocket and showed it to us. It was a picture of General George S. Patton with a very surprised look on his face holding a baby. The man explained that the picture depicted him, as a baby, being held by General Patton on the glorious day of liberation. The baby I was holding was his grandson, and he wanted a picture of his grandson taken on the day of celebration for the 50th anniversary with another American soldier.

After his explanation, I pointed to the Colonel and asked the man, “Wouldn’t you rather have your grandson photographed with the Colonel? He’s the commander of the American soldiers here in Pilsen today and is much more important that I am. Besides, I’m just a Sergeant.” “No,” he replied pointing to the ribbons on my uniform, “You have more awards than he does. Colonels are , you have obviously accomplished much, so you are more important.

How Did He Distinguish Importance?
To this man, my expertise or relative importance was reflected in the ribbons on my uniform not by the rank insignia I wore. In a similar fashion, potential customers look for signs of your competence and importance to distinguish you from your competitors. The key is to find out what they look for in order to best communicate this to them – and it might not be what you think it is.

How You Do It
Chris Brogan or Julien Smith would say you need to be a “Trust Agent.” Andy Beal would advise you to be “Radically Transparent.”  Rob and Steve Snell would advise you to show your expertise in your chosen field in various online medium.  The truth is contained in all their excellent collective advice.

Here are some ideas to get you going:

• Have you or has your business won any awards?
  Why not create an awards page on your web site to display them to everyone? Show the ones which indicate you have expertise in your field. You don’t have to be ostentatious, just explain what they are.
• Are you involved in your community?
  If you aren’t, you should be. Talk about things your chamber of commerce or Rotary Club is doing. You don’t have to brag. Invite others to join in.
• Do you have work you can show visually?
  I’ve seen many successful construction and remodeling sites show before and after pictures of their work. This can be very effective. Blog posts and YouTube videos (ala Snell – check out link above) show how the work is done is a very persuasive tool. If you’re an attorney, it might not be a good idea to show mug shots of those who you successfully represented, though.
• Do your customers talk about your good work?
  Consider asking them if you can post their comments on your web page. Better yet, ask them to post positive reviews on consumer review sites (find out which ones are popular among your potential customer pool). See if they will be willing to appear in a video – that could be quite compelling if done right.

Each of these ideas is designed to get people to understand you are good at what you do and you are the person to help them get a job done. Don’t go over the top trying to sell yourself, let your expertise speak for itself. Remember, “it ain’t braggin’ if it’s true.”

It won’t work to do just one of these things, either. Different people judge you by different criteria. A blended approach will help you reach the largest audience of potential customers.

Do you have any methods you have used to show your expertise and skill? Please feel free to share them in the comments.

TweetThose who have served in any of the armed forces know teamwork. Some may not do it well, but they know about it because it’s stressed from day one. Let me share a great lesson I learned while attending a leadership school during my time in the U.S. Army.

Background
When I was an up-and-coming young soldier, recently promoted to the rank of Sergeant, I went to the required month-long training at the Army’s Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC). The particular school I attended was the 7th Army NCO Academy in Bad Toelz, Germany. This PLDC had the reputation of being the toughest in Europe. One feature of the school was the infamous “Autobahn,” which was the main hallway through the classroom portion of the building. It had a black strip in the middle and an alternating color on the sides. The black strip had to be polished to a mirror finish each day and no students were allowed to walk on it.

In the time leading up to my departure, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the experience.

I showed up at the school and was assigned to a squad of about twelve to fourteen other young soldiers. We were all from different units and had different specialties and different backgrounds. The one thing we all had in common was that we all wanted to finish the class successfully so we could keep our newly-acquired rank or be promoted.

One person from the squad was assigned to be Squad Leader. This person was in charge of making sure all the squad’s tasks were completed each day and inspecting each squad member’s uniform before the morning inspection by the school cadre. A goodly portion of each soldier’s successful completion of the course was riding on the evaluation the cadre gave them for their time as Squad Leader. Because there were around fifteen soldiers in our squad, this job rotated every two or three days.

Each squad was assigned different duties which the members had to perform as a team after classes were over and the classroom floors were mopped and polished and before lights out. The trick was, these jobs had to be finished with enough time left over before lights out so everyone had opportunity to polish their boots and press a uniform for the next day.

One squad was assigned the task to wax the “Autobahn” each evening, another was directed to clean all the showers and latrines in the basement of the building, a third was tasked with waxing the other hallways. Our squad was assigned the task of cleaning the Commandant’s office and the rest of the headquarters building.

The Plan
The very first day the group got together and divvied up the individual portions of the building to clean. One person vacuumed the carpeted areas, another mopped and waxed the tile floored rooms, still another cleared out the trash from all the wastebaskets, etc. Each person had a task and we all worked together and finished the entire job in about two hours.

I wish I could take credit for the stroke of genius which came out of the meeting we squad members held after the cleaning was done. Someone suggested that to make sure we all got good evaluations as squad leaders we would all agree to do the same jobs we did that first day; and, no matter who was in charge we would work together for the success of everyone. We all shook hands and “pinkie sweared” and agreed that’s how we would do it.

The Result
It worked, too. The next day we had our cleaning time down to one and one-half hours. The day after that, it was down to an hour. By the end of the first week we had our time down to thirty minutes. Done, done and done – and done to the Commandant’s satisfaction.

After we had our duty time down to thirty minutes, we had lots of time for boot polishing and uniform pressing. We also had time to play cards and nightly Spades tournaments were held.  At one point I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about before I went to the class – the class was turning out to be quite easy.

At one point, about half way through the course, our instructor came in for the first class of the morning. He closed the door and motioned for us to gather around his desk at the front of the classroom. He looked around as if making sure no one would overhear what he was about to say. He asked us, in hushed tones, what we were up to.

None of us quite understood what he was talking about, so he clarified. Apparently, the members of the other squads were complaining that our squad didn’t have enough work to do because we were finishing our cleanup duty in the Commandant’s office in thirty minutes and they were working right up until lights out. They thought it unfair that we were “getting over” and were demanding we be given some of their work. Our instructor was quite puzzled because there were no complaints from the Commandant. In fact, our instructor told us the Commandant mentioned at a recent staff meeting that his offices had never been cleaned so thoroughly.

We all broke into smiles as the squad leader for that day explained what was going on. He told our instructor about the meeting we had on the very first day and how we agreed that no matter who was in charge, we would do the same job every day and work it so every succeeded at that part of being squad leader. The reason we were finishing up so quickly was because of teamwork and lack of egos.

The other squads hadn’t worked out such an ingenious plan. I saw them, every day, argue amongst themselves about the best way to do this or that task. Every time a new squad leader took over (mind you, this was just about every other day) he or she would impose on the others “The Way It Ought To Be Done.” This would result in arguments and delays in getting the work started, thus more time taken to complete their tasks. While we were playing cards, they were fighting over whose way was best.

A huge smile broke out on our instructor’s face. He told us not to tell anyone about our conversation. He said something like, “Very few people get it when they come here. You guys did. Keep up the great work.”

You see, it was all about working together as a team for the common good. Instead of PLDC being a dreaded experience and a time of torment, we actually had a good time. Don’t get me wrong, we did work hard. In the end, though, checking our egos at the door and working together made the experience a whole lot easier.

How about you – do you have a teamwork story? Please feel free to share in the comments.

Top image:  photo credit: The National Guard

Bottom image: My personal collection

Tweet

Andy Beal is an expert in reputation management on the web. His knowledge on the subject is vast, thoughtful and expert. For that reason it is quite appropriate he should co-author a book about (as the subtitle reads) “Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online.” He and Dr. Judy Strauss succeeded quite well with their book, Radically Transparent.

Radically Transparent is divided into three parts:

• Understanding Your Online Reputation – which helps you understand how “The Conversation” works – and doesn’t work.
• Building Your Radically Transparent Reputation – which offers hints, suggestions, tools and methods for building a good online reputation
• Monitoring, Repairing and Planning Your Online Reputation – which offers methods, tools and possible courses of action to take if your online reputation is sullied.

Each section is filled with real life, case study examples, personal experience and best practices to help you understand and work your reputation through various online channels. The instruction contained in the book will give you practical knowledge to help you better understand and use the tools available to tell your story and respond to comments, both good and bad, which you will find on the web.

Although likely not written as a text book (and certainly not dry and boring as text books can sometimes be), Radically Transparent should be a text book for marketing and PR students. It is also an excellent volume to help professionals already in the field to hone their skills to keep up with changing trends in those areas. I highly recommend this book to those looking to learn about or sharpen their online marketing and PR skills.

For a great example of Andy’s work, check out his recent Marketing Pilgrim post “Ten Online Reputation Management Tips BP Can Use Today.”

Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss. (Amazon Affiliate Link).

Photos courtesy of Andy Beal.

TweetThe sound of thunder rolling across the area warns of an approaching storm – and reminds me to talk with you a little about disaster recovery. This is something most people think of only after it’s too late. Like buying life insurance or making a will, it’s something a lot of people don’t like to talk about let alone do, but backing up your data is a critical part of your business and personal computing.

When I worked in tech support there were many occasions when I would be handed a desktop or notebook computer with a crashed hard disk or some other problem which caused data to be lost. I wonder if the feeling I got telling someone they lost all their work, pictures of their kids or grandkids, music collection or what have you was the same as a doctor or nurse has telling someone about the death of someone close. Even if it wasn’t I still felt terrible about it.

The saddest part about this is that data loss is preventable. Here are some tips to get you thinking about it:

Business Machines

• For desktops, consider using a product like Acronis. If you cannot make images of your hard disks, at a minimum back up document and data stores.
• For servers, Acronis or Syncsort’s BEX are good considerations. (Note: I only recommend Acronis or BEX because I have had good experiences with them, this is not a paid endorsement.)
• Store your backups on removable media and store them off site. Your backups will do you no good if they are burned up in the same fire that destroyed the computers they came from.
• If you only have one or two machines, consider using thumb drives or external hard disks for your backup media.
• There are also a number of offsite “cloud based” backup solutions like Barracuda Networks or Carbonite you may wish to consider. I’ve not used either of these solution, so I cannot comment on their service.

Home Machines

• If you are running Windows 7 as your operating system, it has a backup feature built in.
• Other operating systems may also have built-in backup applications as well.
• Home machines can be backed up to thumb drive or external hard disk.
• Back up your documents, photos, music files, checkbook databases, etc.
• Store your backups somewhere else if possible. If you leave them with someone else, make sure it’s someone you can trust with intimate, personal data!

Hosted Web Sites or Blogs
Even if your web site host backs up your data for you, it is to your advantage to back up your data and keep it close. Your host could go under or you might have a billing dispute. There are a myriad or reasons to keep your data with you as much as possible. Each web host and hosting platform has its own unique features that it’s difficult for me to give any specific recommendations other than to “just do it.”

One important thing most people don’t think about is to test your backups. Having the data stored nicely somewhere isn’t going to do you much good if you can get it back in a usable form. Restore some data every so often to not only make sure your backups are complete, but to also make sure you can use the data when it is restored.

What About You?
Is there something you feel I missed? Do you have any backup or restore hints? Do you have a horror story you don’t mind sharing to help us all learn better? Please feel free to share in the comments.