Dennis O'Neil - Speaker & Author on Internet Sales, Marketing, and Social Media » Customer Experience

What Makes Start-up’s Different from Traditional Business and Why You Should Think Like One.

dennisoneil — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:18:00 +0000

I am regularly amazed at how difficult some companies make it to business with them, or simply get a taste of their product or service. Traditional businesses are terrified a potential customer/client will find a way to take advantage of them; a way to skirt their beloved system and get something for free. They setup rules and policies to prevent any circumvention – making sure no one uses their product or service in a way they didn’t intend. This is a problem.

Who operates differently?

While no longer a start-up, consider how Google operates. Is Google afraid you’re going to get something for free or take advantage of their work without paying anything? Of course not. They want you to take it for free. Outside of advertising, most of the products they sell are upgraded versions of a free product – after millions of users have provided them with feedback about what they’d be willing to pay for.

Does Facebook care that I’ve never clicked on an ad? Maybe they want me to click, but they’re not going to kick me out if I don’t. They’re not going make it harder for me to use their platform until I start clicking. They recognize that they need to fit their revenue model to my behavior, not attempt to twist my behavior to fit their revenue model.

Does Twitter try and stop people from using their service in unconventional ways? The founders of Twitter admit that they never realized the service would end up supporting so many uses. When these new users took advantage of the Twitter system and benefited for free, did Twitter try and squash this use? Absolutely not. It watched and learned how people were using what they built. They didn’t care how, but they wanted people to use their service.

Start-up’s are about identifying new revenue models. Traditional businesses are about clinging to the ones they already have.

Start-up’s don’t care how customers use their product, they just want them to use it. Those users help define the value of the service and identify the revenue model.

What can you do?

Clearly a currently operating business cannot start giving away its product just to learn about its users, but it can let down its guard a bit. Instead of directing is customers and stifling creative uses with regulation, it can see what happens with less system. You could learn a lot. Enough to see new opportunities.

There are businesses clinging to old models that are simply unsustainable in the long term – too rigid, too closed, too cold. Take the risk and let people take advantage of you. Let those people help you determine what your next revenue stream should be.

Instead of an environment of defensiveness, create an atmosphere of welcome. Otherwise, some start-up may do it for you.

Effective Communication with Social Media

dennisoneil — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:30:29 +0000

On March 9th, I had the pleasure of speaking to over 200 new home sales and real estate professionals at SMC SalesCamp. My assigned topic was “Effective Communication with Social Media.”

The videos below contain my full presentation.

In this presentation, I was able to introduce the concept of Lead Curation – Creating an environment conducive to growing connections into prospects. I’m looking forward to digging deeper into this in the coming days/months.

I’ve also included my presentation, and the handouts made available to the attendees below. Please feel free to share this with anyone you think may benefit.

Part One Video:

Click here if you can’t see the videos, presentation, or handout

Part Two Video:

Effective Communication with Social Media on Prezi

SMC SalesCamp Spring 2010 Handout

Want More Facebook Fans? Don’t Buy Them. Earn Them.

dennisoneil — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:30:24 +0000

I do not become your fan by clicking a button. The click merely affirms the work you’ve already done.

If I’m a true fan of a business (not just in the Facebook sense), I am rooting for that business’s success. I’m an advocate for the product or service. I feel a sense of pride when I see people using the product or I hear of the business’s growth. I’m invested. The business’s success is my success. That connection does not get created with the click of a button.

The volume of real Facebook fans you have is a trailing indicator of how your customers feel about you. You will not earn more real fans with giveaways and coupons. You’ll just build a list as impersonal and generally ineffective as the average non-customer email database. They will ‘hide’ you from their stream quicker than an ‘unsubscribe’ request.

Having a lot of Facebook fans alone doesn’t make you a popular company, just like having stacks of business cards doesn’t make you a good networker.

The businesses I’m a fan of have worked for that type of respect and investment from me. They didn’t give me a coupon in exchange for my allegiance or fandom. They built that respect before I was willing to click the button.

If you’re unhappy with your volume of fans, consider doing more to earn the allegiance of your customers before you ask for it.

Social Marketing is Providing Customer Service BEFORE Someone is a Customer

dennisoneil — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:45:00 +0000

While I’m far from a major real estate investor, with a partner I own a vacation rental property that is about 3 hours from my home. For many reasons, including the shear distance and weekly activity, we pay a management company to run the day-to-day for us. Overall, I’m happy with the job the management company does for us.

Despite this general satisfaction, I really dread phone calls and emails from them… all of them. Why you ask? I only hear from my management company when they want us to spend money… something broke, they want something upgraded, they’re suggesting carpet shampooing, etc. I’m not debating the need for the work, but their approach to communicating with me is flawed. The ONLY time I hear from them is when they need to send me a bill or suggest I spend additional money.

Stick with me. I’ll get to the part where this is related to being a trust agent.

As I thought about the feedback I could give to my management company, I was reminded of customer management trainings – those that preach multiple positive contacts throughout a relationship to minimize or negate the impact of a negative contact. If all I ever hear from my property manager is bad news and bad feedback, then I associate them with bad things. Paying for things, despite their necessity, FEELS bad. Most people don’t like to part with money unless the experience surrounding the purchase feels good.

It takes a big effort to offset a negative. Many will tell you it takes five or more positive touches to offset one negative touch. If I got a monthly phone call, or maybe even a monthly email from my management company sharing a positive review from a recent renter, I wouldn’t hate hearing from them so much. My severe dread of their communication would almost certainly switch to indifference at a minimum… At least I’d take the call when it came in instead of sending it to voice mail. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the bad news I associate with their communications, I’d be really happy. They may even get some evangelism out of me.

So as I thought about this relationship between positive contact and customer service, the correlation between it and the teachings of the social web became clear. The general tenet of the social web is that you must give before, and a lot more than, you receive. Chris Brogan suggests that you promote others 12 times more than you promote yourself. As is with most successful offline relationships, its not a good idea to walk up to someone you’ve never met and ask them to do anything, let alone give you money. A warm relationship, one where a connection already exists – a connection that is not solely dependent on the transfer of money – will be much more likely to develop into a long and beneficial professional one.

So back to tying all this up.

The example reminds us that an abundance of positive associations with a product or company make the impact of the occasional negative associations less or non-existent. We know that generally people associate parting with their money as a bad thing, and that this feeling is amplified when doing so in a unfavorable business relationship.

So what if I was the recipient of these positive associations before I was even a customer? What if instead of always asking for money (asking for the sale), a business also built a valued relationship where a friend or prospective client associated said business with positive insight and experiences. Wouldn’t that make it easier to ask for the sale at the appropriate time? Isn’t this really what we talk about when describing online etiquette… helping people buy a lot more often than asking them to buy?

What I really want from a company is customer service when I’m still a prospect. I want good things from them before they ask for my money. I want to know that my relationship with them is not solely dependent on a financial transaction. If there’s enough positive connection, I’ll feel good about parting with my money when the time comes.

Who are You Changing For? You, or Your Customer?

dennisoneil — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:33:06 +0000

If we agree that happy customers are a necessity for long-term business success, shouldn’t long term planning be based around that directive?

I recently attended REBarCamp in Philadelphia. Okay, so it wasn’t really that recent, but I’ve had some thoughts stirring since I’ve left. I attended a session there titled “The Future Brokerage.” The topic centered on old vs. new vs. newer real estate brokerage models. The discussion was well facilitated by moderators Joseph Ferrara of the Sellsius Real Estate Blog, and another gentleman I, unfortunately, cannot recall.

The audience was mostly real estate agents, all with different opinions about what was the better model… the traditional in-house agent with commission splits or the no-office-monthly-fee-100%-commission version. The moderators and the audience discussed each of these arrangements in detail and hybrids of the programs.

Never having worked in a general brokerage environment, the conversation dynamic was interesting, but one noticeable component stood out to me. All of the conversation centered around what the agents and brokers preferred. I listened to agents describe why they were uncomfortable with desk fees. I listened to brokers complain about how none of the agents took advantage of their office support. ALL of the conversation about the better model revolved around how it affected agents and brokers.

I was a complete spectator for the session – just sitting back and taking in the conversation. Afterwards, as I was reflecting on the topic, I wondered why no one discussed which model produced a better experience for buyers and sellers. It seems the largest complaint from the real estate community today has been that fact that they’re just not enough buyers and sellers. Wouldn’t an agency model that produced a better buying or selling experience attract a larger market share of buyers and sellers? Wouldn’t an agency that attracted more buyers and sellers attract more/better agents?

The session offered some valuable insights into the relationship between agents and brokers, and employee atmosphere is certainly a big component of a successful business. However, I think the primary focus of the group was misplaced. I don’t think you can make any business decision without considering that decision’s impact on the customer. I certainly don’t think you can design a new business model without it either. What say you?