8 Business Lessons From My Broken Kenmore Refrigerator

What a joke.

Last Friday, my 3 ½ year old Kenmore refrigerator stopped working. At the time I’m writing this, almost a week later, it’s still not working.

Here’s a recap of this comedy of errors and the lessons you can learn . . .

1. I’m home with my 4 month old and notice the refrigerator makes a loud click, the motor turns on for about 5 seconds, then it clicks again and shuts off. I open it up, and while the contents are still cold, the fridge is not blowing cold air anymore. Realizing time is of the essence, I stuff a 5 week supply of frozen breast milk from the freezer into a cooler and rush it to my wife’s office to store in the freezer there.

Lesson #1: Frozen breast milk is worth more than gold. If you have some stored in your freezer and that supply is put at risk, do whatever it takes to save it. Whatever the solution, it’s a lot less expensive than hiring a psychologist to help your wife recover from the loss. (While I realize this is not a business lesson and most people reading this will never encounter this situation, believe me, if you do, you’ll thank me!).

2. I returned home after successfully delivering the payload before it melted and called Sears to come out to repair the refrigerator. I am pretty much forced to use Sears because the expensive parts of the refrigerator are still under warranty. I’m told they have no service appointments until Monday.

That put us in a real bind. We had medication for the baby and fresh breast milk in the fridge (not to mention food for us). No matter how much I explained the situation and pleaded with them, I was told there was nothing they could do for us.

So faced with having no refrigerator for the weekend, I rush out (cursing Sears along the way) to buy a mini-fridge so we can at least stock the essentials until the repair man comes. I save a few things, but have to toss most of what was in our fridge and freezer.

Lesson #2: If you have a customer in a bind, what can you do to help them? What contingency plans could you put in place to make sure they get the help they need? In this case, could Sears have offered the option of a loaner fridge for the weekend or let me talk with a service technician to see if perhaps there’s an easy or temporary solution to the problem?

One way to turn customers into raving fans that sing your praises from the rooftops is to come up big in their time of need.

3. The technician comes out on Monday and as soon as I describe the problem, he tells me it’s the starter relay – which, of course, is not under warranty.

The good news is that it’s only a $30 part.
The bad news is that labor costs $200 (plus a $10 gas surcharge).
The worst news is that he doesn’t have the part in stock and couldn’t get it and come back until Thursday to make the repair.

The tech is a nice guy and shows me how easy it is to install this myself and tells me where I can order the part online as well as a local store that might have it in stock.

Lesson #3: Be prepared. I explained the problem to the scheduler on Friday and would think it was on the repair ticket. If the repair man knew exactly what the problem was when I described it to him, could he (or someone else in his company) looked at my ticket BEFORE he came out? Then maybe they could have made sure they had the part that would likely fix my problem, saving me and him a wasted service call.

How can you anticipate your customers’ needs and be prepared before you are in front of them and have tell them you can’t give them what they need?

4. I call the local company the tech mentioned, Marcone Appliance Parts Center in St. Louis. It’s a little after 4PM. After being on hold for 54 minutes and hearing over and over again how important my call and customer service is to them, I get disconnected at 5PM when their phones shut off. I vow never to use Marcone – ever!

Lesson #4: Back up your words with action. As a copywriter, I’m acutely aware of the importance of words and the messages they convey. I’m also acutely aware that if you don’t back up your words and messages with action, you lose all credibility. Don’t bullshit your prospects with empty rhetoric or promises, you’ll only piss them off.

5. I order the part online from SearsPartsDirect.com. The site shows the part is in stock and with expedited shipping, I can have it by Wednesday. 24 hours later I check my order status and it now shows the part is backordered. I call SearsPartsDirect.com and they can’t tell me when the part might ship. I tell them I want to cancel the order. They tell me once an order has been placed, they can’t cancel it.

Yes, that’s right. I placed the order on the understanding that it was in stock and would get to me by Wednesday. Now it turns out that not only is that not the case, but they won’t allow me to cancel my order of a backordered part that hasn’t shipped yet! The rep happily lets me know that once I get the part, I can easily return it. I ask if that includes the cost for the expedited shipping I paid for (which cost almost as much as the part itself) and am told the refund would only cover the part itself – not the shipping.

After demanding to speak with a supervisor, I’m transferred a department they actually called “Customer Resolution.” I pitch enough of a fit and am told, as it turns out, they can cancel my order.

Lesson #5: If you tell a customer you can meet their needs, meet them. Deliver the goods as promised in the timeframe you promised it. Bonus points here if you deliver more than expected, faster than they expect it.

Lesson #6: Don’t enact stupid-ass policies that make no sense. If a customer wants to cancel the arrangement before any goods or services are delivered, then make it as easy as possible to do it.

Lesson #7: If you need a department in your company called “Customer Resolution,” that’s a pretty big clue that Customer Service needs a big overhaul.

7. I order the part from an online store (which I found using Google AdWords) and it supposedly will arrive by FedEx Thursday morning. Hopefully, the part number the Sears repairman gave me is the right one and the part works, but at this point I’m making no assumptions. If it doesn’t work, I’m getting rid of our Kenmore refrigerator and buying a new non-Kenmore one from someplace not named Sears.

Lesson #8: Everything you do in your company is marketing. Your customer service, the quality of your product, what customers hear when they are on hold, your billing and cancellation policies, etc.

All these things affect people’s impressions of your company/brand and their decisions to buy from you or not. You can spend millions building a brand and trying to get customers in the door only to have sloppy customer service, shoddy products or service, and dumb policies sabotage it all. This is even more true in the Internet age where pissed off customers can vent their frustrations on message boards, review sites and blogs.

I hope the lessons outlined in this blog are helpful and can make at least some good to come out of this debacle. Oh, one last thing, if you ever need a new refrigerator, I’d recommend staying away from Sears. I know I will.

(Update: Partselect.com and FedEx came through and we now have a working refrigerator!)

Toilet Paper Marketing

Toilet paper is a commodity.

Companies that sell toilet paper spend millions a year on advertising trying to get noticed. Trying to build their brand. Trying to get customers to buy their product instead of the competition’s.

It’s a challenge because there is really nothing new or interesting about toilet paper. Everyone pretty much knows what it does, what it’s for, and how to use it. Sure, they can (claim to) make softer, more absorbent toilet paper than the competition – but sales are highly price sensitive. If the competition figures out how to make a similar quality toilet paper to yours at a lower price, they could wipe away your market share in an instant (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Many entrepreneurs approach their marketing like they are toilet paper. They spend a fortune on marketing and advertising that pumps out the same boring messages as the competition. Swap the logos in their ads with any of their competitors and no one can tell the difference.

As a result they become toilet paper – virtually indistinguishable from the competition, highly price sensitive and constantly having spend huge amounts (which ad agencies are only too happy to help them do) to find customers.

But what if you spent your time and (much less of) your money providing highly valuable and useful content for your prospects by . . .

Writing articles.
Publishing books.
Speaking at conferences.
Conducting seminars.
Becoming the media’s go to source in your industry.
Blogging regularly.

Do this and you provide value your competition can’t match. You tell a more compelling story that your competition can’t tell. You become THE expert. And . . .

THE expert doesn’t have competition.
THE expert doesn’t compete on price.
THE expert has customers seeking her out instead of having to find them.

So, when it comes to your industry – are you the expert or are you the toilet paper?

Two Reasons Why Google AdWords Just Became Even More Powerful

Google just upped the ante when it comes to pay per click advertising. I was already convinced that Google AdWords was the most powerful advertising tool to come along in a very long time. That’s even more true today.

Google recently announced two significant changes to AdWords that will be a huge improvement for all AdWords advertisers.

1. An Improved Keyword Tool

Once upon a time Yahoo!’s Overture Keyword Tool was the tool of choice for internet marketers researching keywords online. For some reason, however, Yahoo!’s done away with it (want to know why Yahoo!’s struggled, it’s decisions like these). One of the key features of Overture is was that it would give you traffic estimates for your keywords, something Google’s Keyword Tool did not.

No more. Google’s improved Keyword Tool now lets you see estimated search volumes for keywords. It also displays a graph of each keyword’s search volume trends for the last 12 months and tells you which month over the past year had the highest search volume for each keyword.

It gets even better. Not only can you get search volume estimates for broad matches of your keywords, but for exact and phrase matches too. This shows you how including or excluding the various match types in your campaign will effect the amount of traffic you can expect.

But wait, there’s more! Google throws negative keywords into the equation as well. The improved Keyword Tool lets you view a list of potential negative keywords and the search volume you’d expect for each. In this case, though, the estimated search volume you see will indicate how much less traffic you can expect by adding that negative keyword. Strategically adding a lot of negative keywords can go a long way toward boosting your CTR and prevent you from wasting a lot of money on irrelevant impressions/clicks.

2. Advanced Content Network

This feature gives advertisers more control over ads in the content network. The Advanced Content Network allows advertisers to combine keyword and placement targeted campaigns in one campaign. What does that mean?

A placement targeted campaign allows advertisers to target specific websites on which to run their ads. However, up until now Google would take a look at your keywords, come up with a “theme” for the keywords in an AdGroup and run your ads on sites that it thought matched that theme. The problem for advertisers is that one of your keywords could be “industrial work positioners” and your ad would appear on a website detailing sex positions (I’ve actually seen this happen!). Needless to say, Google’s idea of an AdGroup’s theme does not always match what the advertisers theme actually is.

The new Advanced Content Network can help advertisers avoid those problems. Now you can bid on specific keywords (not a theme), select what websites you want your ads to run on, and have your ads appear only on the web pages on those sites that contain your keywords.

The really nice thing about this Advance Content Network is you can now adjust your bids based on specific keyword and placement combinations. So if you find your ads perform especially well on a few websites, you can increase your bids just for those sites to hopefully get more impressions, more clicks, and more sales. (By the same token you can lower your bids for sites that don’t perform as well.)

I’ve just started experimenting with this new feature this week and need more time to kick the tires on it. However, from the looks of things, advertising on Google’s content network just got a whole lot more enticing.

Thomas Edison’s Key To Creating a Successful Business

I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others…
I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”
Thomas Edison

He’s one of the most prolific inventors the world has ever seen.

He gave us the light bulb, phonograph, kinetoscope (motion picture projector), stock ticker, and fluoroscope – just to name a few of his 1000+ inventions.

But the quote above is perhaps the greatest display of Edison’s true genius.

Many entrepreneurs get this backward. We think about what we like, what we’re good at, and what kind of product, service, company we want to invent. It’s only after spending a lot of sweat and equity in developing the concept that we discover the market isn’t there to support it.

Start with the prospect.

How can you make their lives better?
How can you help them achieve their goals?
How can you help them avoid a pain?
How can you serve a market in a way that no one else is serving it?

Want to significantly improve the odds of your success? Start with the prospect and keep them at the forefront of your mind as you develop, refine and market your business idea.

It takes research.
It takes hard work.
It takes thinking about others first (which is contrary to our nature).

But if you want to launch a winning business, take the advice of one of the greatest minds of our time – find out what the world needs, then give it to them!

3 Ways to Deal With the Dreaded Google Slap

Reports of skyrocketing minimum bids. Pissed off advertisers complaining on message boards and blogs. That must mean it’s “Google Slap” time again!

Google Slap, for the uninitiated, is when many AdWords advertisers find that Google’s algorithm tweaks have caused Quality Scores to drop and minimum bid prices that were under $1 to go to $5 – $10 overnight.

Why does this happen? Google is Google because it strives to provide the most relevant search results to its users. This is true in the organic search results as well as in AdWords. The algorithm Google uses to determine relevance changes constantly as Google keeps trying to improve the search results for its users. Every now and then, these changes can be significant.

When this happens, advertisers whose keywords, ads and landing pages still provide relevant results in Google’s eye have nothing to worry about. However, advertisers whose campaigns fail to live up to the new standards get punished, or “slapped.” If you log into your AdWords account one morning and see your minimum bid prices have rocketed and many keywords have become “Inactive for search” – you’re the victim of the “Google Slap.”

So if you’ve been slapped, what can you do?

Here are 3 options for AdWords advertisers to deal with Google Slap:

1. Pay the increased bid prices. If Google says you need to pay at least $5 or $10 per click, you could just raise your bid prices to those levels. For those selling high priced, high margin products or services, this may be an option. It’s not an option, however, for those selling items where the lifetime value of a customer is a few hundred bucks or less. Whatever the case, I don’t recommend this option.

2. Find out how you offended Google and fix it. If Google doesn’t think you’re relevant for the keywords you’re bidding on, find out why and fix it.

Often your website is the culprit. Adding more content to your site (especially your landing page) that contains the keywords you’re bidding on can help your bring those Quality Scores back up and minimum bid prices back down. I’d definitely recommend testing this option out before even thinking about option #1.

3. Advertise elsewhere. I think AdWords is the most powerful marketing system to come along in a very long time. But it’s not for everyone. And I would never recommend compromising your business model just to make Google happy.

If you’ve tested your site out and discovered that a one page sales letter site makes the most sense for your business but Google doesn’t like it – don’t change it! Take your advertising dollars elsewhere. Get traffic from other sources (which you should be doing anyway). Try video marketing, article marketing, SEO, affiliates, or even (gasp!) offline promotions. AdWords is not the only game in town.

How To Add Social Bookmark Buttons To WordPress.com Blog Posts

Being frustrated about there being no built-in way to add social bookmarking buttons to my WordPress.com blog posts, I went looking for an easy way to do it. I found one on another blog and made the video below to demonstrate the technique and help those even less technically inclined than I. If you’re using WordPress.com for your blogging, I hope this video helps you drive a lot more traffic to your blog!

3 Mistakes You’re Probably Making in AdWords

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt

A number of small business owners have hired me to review Google AdWords accounts they’ve set up. I’ve noticed a number of the same mistakes over and over again in these campaigns. If you’ve set up your own AdWords account, chances are you’re making the same mistakes too.

Here are 3 of the biggies that you should fix immediately!

1. Not split testing ads. Split testing is the most powerful, yet underused feature in AdWords.

A split test is basically a competition for your AdWords ads. You have two or more competitors in each AdGroup that run against each other. The one the generates the best response from the audience is the winner. Then you bring in new competitors to try to beat the winner. By letting your prospects pick the winners, over time, you end up with the ad that gets the gold medal in bringing you lots of gold (or, cash, if you prefer).

One bonus mistake I’ll mention that’s related to split testing. When split testing, go into your campaign settings to the “Ad serving” option under “Advanced Settings” and make sure you select “Rotate: Show ads more evenly.” Leaving the default option of “show the better performing ad more often,” will skew your results and won’t give you a good read on which ads are the true winners.

2. Running keywords on Google search and the content network in the same campaign. Google gives you a few options of where your ads will show:

1. Google search shows your ads when someone searches for your keywords on Google.com
2. Search network shows your ads when someone searches for your keywords on Google’s search partner sites (ie. AOL.com and Ask.com)
3. Content network shows your ads when someone visits a webpage in Google’s content network that Google believes is relevant to your keywords (these can be sites ranging from the New York Times down to Joe Blow’s blog)

Google search and the search network are a very different beast than the content network. On Google search and the search network people are typing in keywords related to your business. This means they are actively searching for something related to what you offer. They have a conversation going on in their brains at that very moment that makes them a highly relevant and motivated prospect.

People surfing the pages on Google’s content network sites are not actively looking for you. They are in a much different mindset than someone who’s actively typing in keywords. You have to interrupt the people on the content network to get their attention. The clicks you get from the content network are often not as high a quality as those you’ll get from search traffic.

These differences between search and content traffic have a few implications for your AdWords campaigns. First, the ad text that might work on search, might not work in content and vice versa. Second, the bidding strategies are different. Generally clicks are less expensive on content than on search. Lastly, having content and search in the same campaign can throw off the results of your split tests. And as we learned above, split testing is vital to your success so you want your results to be as accurate as possible.

Content and search traffic don’t play nicely together. So while it may take more time to set up and monitor the same keywords in separate campaigns, it’s time well spent.

3. No negative keywords. Keyword research is essential to success in AdWords. But keyword research is not just about finding the search terms that will drive relevant traffic to your website. It’s also important to find search terms that may drive irrelevant traffic to your website. This is especially important when using the broad matching option in AdWords.

I’ll make up an example. Let’s say you have a company that manufactures raffle tickets that are sold to charities for their fundraisers. If you bid on the broad match keyword ‘raffle tickets’, it’s possible that your ads will appear for search terms such as ‘airline tickets’, ‘football tickets’, ’speeding tickets’, etc.

It’s easy to blow a sizable chunk of your AdWords budget on irrelevant traffic. Adding a comprehensive list of negative keywords can go a long way towards making sure visitors to your site are actually interested in what you have to offer.

There are a few places you can find good candidates for negative keywords.

• Keyword research tools like the Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker.
• Running a “Search Query” report in AdWords which will give you a list of search terms that have triggered your ads.
• Looking at your website logs to see what search terms people are typing in to find your site.
• Your brain.

So there you have it. Three mistakes (plus a bonus) that many small business owners make in AdWords. Eliminate them from your campaigns and you will improve your CTRs, Quality Scores and drive higher quality traffic to your site.