Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Author: Paul Wallbank

  • Why hide your address?

    There’s a lot of concern about businesses not having a website with estimates that between 40 and 60% of all enterprises simply don’t have a website and most aren’t using social media.

    Businesses who haven’t bothered setting up a site, or at least a free Facebook or Google Places listing are missing out on customers, but even many organisations with an online presence aren’t publicising them well.

    A recent walk down my local shopping strip went past nearly 200 businesses. Of them only four had a reference to their website or preferred social media platform.

    Even businesses do have a website didn’t choose to display them where customers or passers by could see them.

    Worse, some of the fast food chains that are running social media campaigns had no indication that checking in or liking could win a customer a deal which makes you wonder just how committed those business are to these channels.

    It could be that businesses are afraid that referring to their online presence will encourage customers to move away from their physical store, if that’s the case most business owners are wrong.

    Customers are expecting to find our websites even if they intend to visit our stores or hire us. Our sites – even if they are only a free page from Google or Facebook – should be telling propective customers who we are, what we do, why are we great and what hours we’re open.

    Just as time is money to the typical business person, shoppers want to make sure they are going to the right place for the right product and won’t be wasting their time if they show up on a Sunday afternoon or after 6pm.

    There’s no reason not to have your web page, social media addresses and other online contact details somewhere prominent where customers can see them so they can see how great you are. Should your competitors be telling their story, they are going to be getting the customers.

    In a noisy, busy world we need to telling our stories both online and offline, peoples’ attention and time is too scarce to let an opportunity go by.

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  • No, I don’t like you

    Have you been asked to “Click ‘Like’ to find out more”?

    As more businesses use Facebook and other social media channels as marketing tools, the ‘Like’ button has become one of the key performance indicators for the success or otherwise of a Facebook page.

    So it’s not surprising to be required to ‘Like’ something to find out more about a business, product or competition – despite the latter often being against Facebook’s promotion guidelines.

    The problem with hitting the ‘Like’ button is my name is associated with that page or comment which is then visible to my Facebook friends and liking the wrong things can cost real friendships and even jobs.

    In social media forums like Facebook where there’s not even the pretence of anonymity, we are all accountable for our likes and dislikes. It creates part of our online persona and any observer is right to assume what we give a thumbs up on a social media site is what we like in real life.

    That’s not too damaging if it’s just fluffy cat pictures or some innocuous soft drink but it can have real life consequences outside of a social media platform.

    So no, I don’t like you because you have a Facebook page or a well executed social media strategy.

    If I do like you, it will because you’re putting out a good product, I respect your work or because you are a friend in real life.

    Random ‘Likes’ are a lousy measure of a business’ online success, they’re a lousy deal for the people who give them out as well.

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  • The web’s big weakness

    The web’s big weakness

    There’s a fundamental flaw in the way the tech industry does business, that weakness could be what ultimately kills many of today’s new media, web and social media services.

    AirBnB, an online home share service, is one of the darlings of the booming Silicon Valley start up sector, having recently being valued at $1.2 billion after a successful capital raising.

    Like most Web 2.0 and social media businesses, AirBnB’s advantage is in the low operating costs where customer support is left to the service’s peer review and social media communities while AirBnB pockets a commission for simply making the connection between the landlord and tenant.

    The flaws in this “all care, no responsibility” model became apparent last month when a lady posted a description of her house being ransacked by an errant housesitter she found through AirBnB.

    AirBnB’s management responded to the article with assurances they were helping and working with their affected customer, claims which were promptly contradicted by the original victim.

    To make matters worse, certain prominent members of the Silicon Valley investment and blogging communities alluded she was lying or was “batshit crazy.” Now that other stories of bad AirBnB tenants are appearing, the view this is simply the untrustworthy word of a deranged customer affected by their first such incident is looking hollow.

    Failing to deal with customer problems is not unique to AirBnB, hiding behind impenetrable layers of “support” backed up by user hostile terms and conditions is familiar to anyone who has had to deal with an online service gone wrong.

    Last month Thomas Monopoly found he was locked out of his Google account and had it not been for the intervention of a senior Google employee, Thomas’ problem would probably still be stuck in an endless feedback loop.

    Exactly the same problem has been encountered thousands of times by other users of web mail, social media, online auction and matchmaking sites.

    Many of the people running these services retort their products are free so users get the support the support they pay for – an argument conveniently overlooking that most “free” web services are based around selling customer data – but even this does not justify delivering the basic services users have been lead to expect, regardless of what a 5,000 word user agreement states.

    Today’s tech startups, and many of their big established cousins in the IT industry, have the idea that customer support is an optional extra and an expense to minimised or outsourced.

    In this respect they are not too far removed from dinosaur car manufacturers or some of today’s less dynamic retailers offering little in the way of customer service or after sales support.

    That way of working has died as consumers have been able to go online to vent their dissatisfaction, strangely today’s hot tech start ups seem to have missed this aspect of the revolution they have helped start.

    Ignoring consumer problems is exactly what’s bringing traditional businesses unstuck in the online world. The funny thing is it might bring many of the online business undone as well.

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  • A question of respect

    A question of respect

    All too often a discussion of business leadership descends into a series of homilies and recycled stories equating corporate warriors to ancient Chinese generals.

    In a time where we’re obsessed with the shiny toys of technology, we often forget that all business is social and leadership and respect are the keys to growing a successful enterprise.

    Last week’s final session of the 2011 Let’s Talk Business series was refreshingly different with David James of Sydney’s Brasserie Bread, Mike Cannon-Brookes of software company Atlassian and business mentor Chris Witt telling their stories of leading growing enterprises.

    Mike and David showed how real business leadership is about entrenching values within in an organisation that fosters consistently good service and great products.

    David told how Brasserie Bread treat their retail partners with generous commissions and services that encourage cross selling illustrated the key difference between smaller businesses taking the long view and the short term views taken by corporate managers.

    The cross selling and commission models work well for Brasserie Bread’s retailers, the customer comes into a shop to pick up their bread order, buys a coffee while they are there and – as they discover more about the business – they become a regular.

    While there’s a great difference between a bakery and software company, Mike Cannon-Brookes had a similar view about values, telling how Atlassian has the “beer test” where they ask if a prospective employee would be interesting when talking over an after work drink.

    Atlassian’s main mantra though is “don’t f*** the customer”, which is notable in a business world largely dominated by the belief you give the customer the minimum you can get away with.

    Both Brasserie Bread’s and Atlassian’s philosophies can be boiled down to one word: Respect.

    Respecting customers, suppliers, staff and resellers is something that’s forgotten by many larger businesses obsessed with short term gains at the expense of anyone foolish or unfortunate enough to do business with them.

    The current problems of big retailers can be put down to that lack of respect; for suppliers as they screwed the last cent out of their supply chains, for staff as they crudely cut numbers to achieve their performance targets and for customers who found service had become a word with little meaning in their stores.

    It would be unfair to pick on the retailers though as most large organisations share that attitude of disrespecting everyone who doesn’t sit on the same floor as the CEO.

    Much of these beliefs on blindly cutting costs, outsourcing service and focusing on short term KPIs came out of 1980s thinking at consulting firms and management schools.

    Although the schools and consultants have updated their thinking, many business leaders are stuck in that short term model which worked well during the two decades of easy credit we’ve went through up to 2008.

    Chris Witt summed this short term thinking up well with his closing comment; “Neanderthal man’s survival strategy was short term, it didn’t do him much good.”

    Respecting your business relationships is the key to long term survival in these uncertain times, we need to be insuring we show the respect to our staff, supplier, customers and partners we hope they would give us.

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  • Reinventing webinars

    Reinventing webinars

    I’m currently preparing a Smart Company webinar on local search for business. Like most other presenters I prepare for a webinar by putting together a presentation on Keynote or Powerpoint and talk over it while the audience watch and listen over the web.

    That’s pretty typical of most webinars, but I can’t help but think we’re doing this the wrong way by falling into the trap of appliying old techniques to new technologies.

    In most industries we fall for this problem; when the motor car came along, our forefathers applied the ways of horse and carts to the new technology, going as far as calling them “horseless carriages”.

    The movie industry is probably the best example of this. When movies first appeared, producers and writers applied theatrical techniques and it took a decade or so for them to figure out how to work best with the new media, then they had to relearn for talkies, followed by the arrival of TV and now the industry is adapting to Internet streaming.

    In many ways we’re still in the “silent movie” phase of online presentations; we’re learning through trial and error what techniques work while inventing new tricks that take advantage of a personal screen.

    So that gives rise to the question, how do we adapt our presentations that are designed for being presented to a room full of people to a more intimate online medium?

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