As a distributed technology and communications platform, the people who created the internet did not intended it to become a soap box for customers to burn their service providers in effigy.

The question used to be, “how can I get my website on first page Google?”  Now the question is, “how can I get this offensive blog posting off of first page Google?”

Reputation management is becoming a term that more and more businesses are learning. Reputation monitoring and effective response are a part of your daily chores. If not today, perhaps tomorrow.

David

Would you do business with a person who didn’t tell you their name or hand you a business card when you met them?

Would you consider requesting a proposal from an online service that does not include a phone number, contact form, or address on their website? It is not difficult to find websites on the internet where there is no information about the owners or key stakeholders.

Does your website have your phone number on the home page? How about a page that has information about your company directors? A detailed contact page is important – it certainly would encourage me to give you a call.

The Social aspects of the Social Networking craze that is sweeping the internet has to have an impact on how you write for your marketing website. Earn some trust by providing good information, make a clear call to action, and identify yourself. The days of doing business with corporations are slipping away… people want to do business with people.

If your marketing website is more than a few years old, it will be missing key elements that a modern website should include. It may be time for a website review with an Internet Consultant.

David A. West

Connect with me:

I first met Stuart Crawford several years ago at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.  Like many networking events that I attend, we exchanged business cards and continued to meet others that day.  I didn’t think anything more of this meeting.  Boy, did I not see the freight train of a relationship that was coming my way.

Lost in LIMBO

At that time, Stuart was with a Microsoft computer support firm that was making some great strides forward in helping smaller businesses to avoid being lost in LIMBO (Lost in Microsoft’s Big Organization).  Stuart has a very unique passion that many IT guy’s simply do not have or if they do, don’t demonstrate it in the community.  This guys is passionate about serving the Calgary business community.

New Kids on the Block?

In the past few years, my friend has evolved and most recently joined up with 3 other wonderful leaders in the Alberta technology community to form Bulletproof InfoTech.  Bulletproof is much more than the typical computer repair or network services company, they understand how business works.

Bulletproof Info Tech is the new kid on the block. Not to be confused with “young and inexperienced”, this is a company formed by two major stable networking companies and a team of professionals who have brought together their strengths to make something that truly is bullet proof!

Does it Take Technicians or Business People to Make IT Happen?

The model that I have observed Stuart, Rene Sloos, Jeff Anderson and Sean Tindall provide to business in Calgary and Red Deer wraps technology with a very deep understanding of business.  Want to know more about Web 2.0?  Need to figure out what small business telephone system you need?  How about just getting your in-house mail server to work?  Bulletproof  has so far demonstrated professionalism, caring for business in Calgary and Red Deer and a deep understanding of how technology works. That is how technology works in alignment with your business needs.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

I felt that Stuart’s friendship over the years, his commitment to business in Calgary and now Red Deer, and my new friendship with Rene, Jeff and Sean have warranted a post about them. It’s hard not to enjoy working with peers who all get excited about the evolution that technology and the internet have had on our lives.

Computer Support companies in Calgary are abundant. There are a lot of very talented and knowledgeable people in this industry.  If you need a solution that works, a company who cares and a group of guys you can have a business conversation with then Bulletproof InfoTech must be your trusted business partner.

When it comes to managing your information technology infrastructure, one size does not fit all… Vist the Bulletproof website here.

Tell me your thoughts on this… I would love to see your comment added below.

On another note, where do you network for your business? Visit the Calgary Entrepreneur site today.

Cheers -
David A. West

I wonder how many sales people beat up their competition by injecting rumour, innuendo and sorted negative remarks into discussions with potential clients?  I know at least one web company in Calgary that makes it their practice to undermine the competition with negative remarks. All I have to say is… shame on you.

Our client actually came to us and told us that this sales agent, who also happens to be one of the owners of the other company, was really very negative regarding the fact that this client chose to work with us.  At the time that we were competing for the work all I said to the client about the other company is that I thought that they were a good choice.  I told her that I believed them to be a sound and reputable service provider.

I don’t believe that it is to our advantage to talk poorly of our competition. The fact is that I don’t know very much about them or their business practices.  One thing that I do know, for sure, is that when a relationship between a customer and a service provider “breaks down”… it’s not always the service providers fault. So, the loss of a client is not always a true measure of the service providers performance.  On the other hand, if a service provider loses a lot of clients… then I’d say the writing is on the wall.  When the writing is on the wall, surely I don’t have to say anything.

What’s really interesting about the competitor that tried unsuccessfully to woo our client away with rumours and innuendo is that their efforts would have been better spent trying to preserve their own clients.   You see, my newest client, is this exact same company’s most recent lost client.  He switch to our service because of what he described to be a lack of service and poor billing practices. In fact the client described their practices as falling just short of fraudulent.

Be positive & care about your clients, their business and your own business. Good things will come from small actions that don’t include being negative about people you don’t even know.  If being negative is a part of your sales practice… be sure to clean up your own house first or your clients may leave you too.

Is there room in your sales process for beating the competition up?  Should an Owner who also sells be held to a higher standard?

Tell me your thoughts on this… I would love to see your comment added below.

Cheers -
David A. West

20 years ago, when I started working, a business typically had one or two phone lines and, that was it. There was no fax machines, there were no cellular phones, pages, email, blackberries. Executives relied on their pen and paper calendar, and another person that they referred to as a secretary. My first employer, after high school, had a telex. If I recall correctly there was one person in the office responsible to sending and receiving messages with it. The terminals that lined some areas of the offices were connected to mainframes – they really looked very important. Email, except in closed environments, didn’t exist.

In the early 90′s I sat in front of my first PC when I took a job with a real estate company in Calgary. It ran DOS and had only one program on it. It was a Word Processor. Soon afterwards Windows came out and replaced the first PC. This was the first time that our computers were ‘crudely’ networked.

As time goes, pagers made us more accessible to our employers through the 80′s and 90′s. Early cellular phones were in brief cases, cost prohibitive for most, and used only in rarely good service areas. In the mid 90′s cellular phones were being carried, as I recall, by management level personnel and above. By the mid 90′s the Internet and email started to take hold. Some companies had difficulty understanding, in these early days, that resistance was futile. In the very short years to follow, corporate email became a standard in communications. It was in this span of time that companies started laying off administrative support staff and receptionists, in favour of managers doing their own typing of letters, memos and other documents.

Today the PDA, or a Blackberry, has replaced the paper agenda and the cell phone (in some cases). Cellular phones are common place now. Almost everyone I know carries a personal or business cell phone. Some people are giving up their home phones and just relying on their cellular. Everyone, except my Father, has an email address. Some of us have multiple email accounts. The sending and receiving of faxes is on the decline. Most every form of communication we use today can easily fit on a belt.

So here we are, today, 2008, and we are almost too accessible. Somewhere along the line of advancement in communications, we have become a society that is demanding this degree of connectivity from our service providers and partners. Some time in the past decade I have lost the ability to sense a phone vibrating on my hip – apparently so has the guy in the restaurant who has the fancy music play instead of a subtle ring tone.

Along with the ability to send instant messages, short text, email and voice messages, some people have become accustomed to an instant response. It was easy to respond to email and phone messages when there was only five per day. Now that we are all connected, it is not uncommon to receive dozens of messages and calls per day. Some people receive hundreds of ‘contacts’ per day.

Unfortunately, as we were all getting connected and becoming so accessible, we have taught everyone to expect an instant response.

How did we manage business before we taught everyone to expect an instant response? It is time to slow down and find balance between great service and responding to every email and phone call as if we were an emergency service.

I’d love it if you would share with me any tips or tricks you employ to manage the constant flow of inbound communication in your business and personal life. I have some good tools in place, but am going to leave that for another entry.

Cheers,

David A. West

We are in the process of moving our offices to our new location near Heritage & McLeod.  One of the important tasks on my move list was to contact Shaw and make sure that our Internet connection could be moved without interruption. 

I apprehensively made the call to Shaw’s business support desk today. 

As you may have read in one of my recent posts, my current cellular company uses an interactive voice response system that causes me extreme stress when I call, I half expected a similar experience from Shaw.  I am elated to say that Shaw’s support was excellent.

• Call starts 1035 am.  On hold message advises me to wait for the first available person.
• Soon after, a voice advises me that if I would like to leave a 10 digit phone number, they will call me back in the same order as if I were to stay on the line.
• I think about it for a minute and am about to put my number in and something huge happened…
• An operator answered the phone and introduced herself. 
• Total lapsed time 4 minutes.

So, already I am having a better experience with this process, than with the cell phone people.  Imagine my surprise when she told me that I am not too late and that they have people available on the weekend to support their customers.  Not only did Shaw answer their phone, they are going to send a technician to our new offices Sunday. This will ensure that our connection is ready to go for Monday morning!

I wonder when Shaw will offer cellular phone services?

Cheers

David A. West

As a website developer, I have learned to “raise red flags” when a prospective client says certain things. for the purposes of this article, I have named these prospects, “The Expert Prospective Client”.

The expert – Knows how long a task will take before they ask.

They often say things like, “That’s just a simple task, isn’t it? I don’t think it will take long for you to do.”

The expert – Knows the value of our service, without asking for a quote.

They often say things like, “I just need this one thing done, it should be quite inexpensive…”

The expert – Has changed service providers recently.

They often have just left a previous service provider on questionable grounds. In some cases, they did not pay their final bill. They will say things like, “My last guy/gal used to nickle & dime me to death. Every time I turned around, they send me an invoice for something…”

The expert – Hires professionals, but openly admits that they could do it themselves.

They may say something like, “I could have done this myself, but my time is too valuable.”

The expert – Often offers to send you lots of new clients, provided you give them a good deal & do a great job for them.

They say things like, “I know a lot of people, if you do a good job for me I’ll refer you lots of business in the future.” These offers sometimes come as veiled threats if a project goes a bit sideways. The expert will say, “I wish we didn’t have to deal with this, I don’t know if I can refer my friends to you if this is how it is going to be…” It has been my experience that the people who use “referrals” as leverage, are the same people who never refer new clients.

My experience has shown that it is difficult to build a client/service provider relationship with the expert prospect.

Do you run across the expert potential client in your business? Have I missed any common traits in my list above?

David A. West