Archive for February, 2008
Two Examples of Customer Service You Might Want To Avoid
These past few days here in South Africa have been somewhat dominated by the arrival of Mac-xine…yes, I have gone over to the dark side and have now purchased a black Macbook to replace my beloved Sony Vaio which has let me down one too many times recently by overheating and shutting itself down in [...]
These past few days here in South Africa have been somewhat dominated by the arrival of Mac-xine…yes, I have gone over to the dark side and have now purchased a black Macbook to replace my beloved Sony Vaio which has let me down one too many times recently by overheating and shutting itself down in a huff.
One major reason drove my decision…I REFUSE to move to Vista.
Two major things delayed my decision to make the switch however…
- I have a number of software programs (such as Camtasia, MS Office, Fireworks) for which I have the PC versions but not the Mac versions and I didn’t fancy spending another £1,000 or so to replace them. Fortunately, the Mac can also run Windows (so clever), so that’s not a big deal…the only additional problem was that I didn’t (don’t) have all the disks I need to load the software on from scratch again.
- It’s a Mac.
But I got over myself and duly trotted along to the Apple shop here in Cape Town to get Mac-xine. Two hours later, I had her….a panther-like beast of a laptop (about twice as heavy as my Vaio but twice as fast starting up).
If you’re wondering what took so long to make the purchase, it was combination of a few things:
- The over-helpful sales person (one of those annoying Mac envagelists who couldn’t manage to contain his glee at the fact that I’d “converted”) – not only did he not answer any of my questions, instead preferring to show me all number of things the Mac could do and go on and on about it, he also kept contradicting himself.
Rather amusingly, as he was trying to demo the macbook to me, it too had a hissy fit and the keyboard stopped working completely. Not the best product demo ever and if I hadn’t already made my buying decision, I might have been dissuaded by the rather uncooperative macbook.
- I stupidly asked if he knew whether there is a Mac replacement for Camtasia…30 minutes of searching on google later, he’d managed to download and install a replacement which didn’t really do what I wanted it to do, so he proceeded to show me a (long) workaround using iMovie and Garageband. Not the solution to my problem, Mr. Mac but thanks for trying.
So now I’m typing this on Mac-xine – windows XP installed, everything working perfectly (after a few hiccoughs and a total system re-install) and I’m loving the Spaces & Expose functionality. I’m sure I’ll feel compelled to write a Mac vs PC review so watch out for that…it’ll be from someone who has actually used both, not from Maccies who’ve never touched a PC but still feel qualified to compare, nor vice versa.
So that was the first example of customer service to avoid….the second one (experienced at the Harbour House Restaurant in Kalk Bay – don’t go) can be found here >>>
Listening To Your Intuition & Trusting Your Blogging Instincts
In the days of old, it was our instincts which kept us alive and our intuition which helped a little too. Today we seem to be conditioned to ignore our instincts and instead behave as we’re conditioned to behave, not as our own internal instincts might often be guiding us.
Have you ever had something on [...]
In the days of old, it was our instincts which kept us alive and our intuition which helped a little too. Today we seem to be conditioned to ignore our instincts and instead behave as we’re conditioned to behave, not as our own internal instincts might often be guiding us.
Have you ever had something on your “To Do” list which has sat there un-done for ages?…something in your gut was telling you not to do it yet (and it wasn’t just laziness).
And then a little later down the line a very good reason has revealed itself that makes you applaud yourself for your fine display of judgment in not doing that thing on your list.
I’ve had that a lot recently when it’s come to all things blogging-related on all my blogs. I’ve always trusted my instincts, they’re usually pretty good and the past few months have been no exception.
Last year I was on somewhat of a mission to get as many chekkies blogging as possible – seeing it as a great way to spread the word about the Paul Chek way of working when it comes to health. The thing I got wrong was the advice about how to use blogging to market what you do.
I believed – as had been my experience – that blogging is a fantastic way to generate buzz, spread the word and even get clients…and that’s what I told everyone (btw – I still believe that). What I didn’t realise however is that there is a very big difference between blogging and *effective* blogging (which I define by how effective your blog is at doing the things you want it to for your business).
Many chekkies simply used it as a platform to say the same messages they’d been saying offline…not realising that blogging is a very different medium and that their offline message wasn’t always as effective as it could have been anyway. This is the case with many small business and is very common amongst life coaches too.
Even being mentioned on some of the bigger blogs can be as useful as a chocolate teapot if the message isn’t quite what you want it to be. Some of my guest posting efforts haven’t maximised the potential benefits as much as they could have done because the message I was giving wasn’t really the message I wanted to be giving…I had an instinct about these at the time but still went with it (who could turn down a guest spot on Problogger, eh?!?).
I’ve come to realise over the past few months as I’ve grown as a professional blogger, that if you really want to use blogging as a way to boost your business and share your message, you’d better trust your instincts, learn how to do it and not just follow the crowd.
BTW “trusting your instincts” also means *not* doing any of the following for a business blog:
- Having an unprofessional-looking blog hosted on blogger (unless you can customise the design yourself)
- Starting a business blog and then neglecting to write on it again
- Failing to learn how to market your blog once you’ve started it up (having a blog is one thing, marketing it effectively is a whole different ball game)
If your instincts are telling you that blogging isn’t as easy as it seems, you’d be right (although it really isn’t that difficult – and any smart business owner will seek the help they need). If your instincts also telling you that generating clients from a blog is also not as easy as it seems…again you’d be right!
Develop good blogging instincts and it will stand in you good stead…listen to them and act accordingly and you won’t go wrong.
Why I Don’t Bother With Blog Subscriber Stats
Ok that’s a lie…I am interested in the subscriber stats for all of my blogs because it gives me an indication of certain aspects of each blog.
Things like:
Is the content compelling enough to make people want to stick around and read more?
What sort of content do readers seem to like more versus less?
Is it worth [...]
Ok that’s a lie…I am interested in the subscriber stats for all of my blogs because it gives me an indication of certain aspects of each blog.
Things like:
- Is the content compelling enough to make people want to stick around and read more?
- What sort of content do readers seem to like more versus less?
- Is it worth taking the time that I could be spending on the business/on the beach continuing to write/run this blog? (when my Dad and Auntie are the only subscribers!!)
Unlike many other bloggers however, I don’t wear my subscriber stats like a badge of honour and display them proudly for all to see.
Not that there’s anything wrong with this at all – but I choose not to for several reasons…
- I blog mostly because I enjoy it – not as some sort of experiment, to make money or to prove anything to anyone else.
- I want people to make up their own minds about whether they want to read my blogs – not because it seems like they *should* due to high subscriber numbers (the sheep mentality of “Oh it must be popular, I should read this”).
- I’m really not that bothered – whilst I’ve had a particular target in mind for a couple of my blogs, I realised recently that it doesn’t really matter at all and the number is arbitary.
- High subscriber numbers are a “nice to have” but not a necessity for me to blog – and I’d far rather spend time on writing quality content that I know will be useful to and enjoyed by a few particular readers than writing content that is “digg-able”, “stumble-able” or other…but please don’t let that put you off digging or stumbling should you so choose!
I guess the extent to which you obssess about subscriber stats depends upon your reason for blogging – and yes, it is much more rewarding when you know that at least a few people are reading what you write; but just because they aren’t, doesn’t mean you should stop if you’re enjoying yourself.
I’m curious though…why do you like to display your subscriber numbers?
