Week of July 20, 2009

How many times have you dealt with someone in business and have come away feeling they are either not qualified or could care less about your business? It happened to me again this week trying to deal with my cable/broadband provider.

I am not a techy and need help when something goes wrong. When I called the help line I got a person who was clueless and not very friendly. Whenever that happens, I always wonder how the service provided by my business is perceived. Only occasionally will someone complain. They usually just go elsewhere the next time. The cable company says the phone calls are sometimes monitored and does a follow-up survey.

What are your quality control measures? Do you do follow-up calls on your Account Executives? Do you have quality control surveys with your clients? Are you close enough to your big clients that they will tell you if they are not getting quality service? Are there regular discussions about how to treat clients in sales meetings? What about the other people who have contact with clients...Traffic...Continuity...Engineering at remotes...Promotions. Everyone needs to understand the golden rule of business: "Treat your client like you would want to be treated."

Car wars are on and you need to be on top of everything automotive like never before. It doesn't take a genius to predict big changes as a result of the upheaval over the last few months.

In a new Merrill Lynch study they predict Ford will grow and have the largest market share in the U.S. in the next four years, while GM's share will diminish as a result of bankruptcy and trimming lines from its brand portfolio. The study also predicts Chrysler will be half its former size. The study's rosiest picture is for Hyundai and Kia with projected growth of 3.5% each and Honda at 3%.

This is all crystal ball stuff from a company forced on Bank of America because it was so insolvent. But, we can be sure there will be a lot of marketing by all companies to try to save or grow market share. From the manufacturer to the local dealer, they will be looking for the next great idea. It's going to be big money so make sure you have your staffs working on it 24/7.

It was inevitable ... Now bad guys are finding ways to falsify the scale of some social media accounts. In the world of social media scale is everything. Don't ask me exactly how it is being done, but apparently there are several ways.

Large social media accounts can be scalejacked. According to a post by Dave Balter in Adweek, the bad guys "watch the daily trending-topics list and append those hashtags to your own tweets. Presto: massive-audience time."

He also writes about something called Twitter Trend-Spiking. In this one the bad guys create several accounts and then concentrate tweets about the same subject that sends the message to the top of Twitter trends making it look like the latest great thing.

In the end, just like any other marketing, social media is about quality. Remember when you dive into the brave new technology world that your job is to influence people, not just grab tonnage.

A friend of mine suggested I read a book titled "Flying Through Midnight," written by John T. Halliday, who flew covert missions over Laos during the Vietnam war. It's an interesting book about the invisible war that Americans were supposedly not fighting. He flew night missions in an old C123 that looks like a twin-engine C130. It's a great read and I recommend it, but that's not the reason I bring it up in this column.

Beyond a good war story, it is an interesting chronicle on a young man learning how to follow his instincts rather than only the written rules. His instincts when measured against rules and procedures are what made it possible for him to live through the conflict. Those of you who have been in the military know there are rules and procedures for everything and sometimes, like all rules and procedures, there is a much better way of doing things.

The book is a great study in learning to trust the instincts you learn as you are exposed to situations. The most successful people are those who can purge their minds of "the way it's always been done" and follow their instincts when necessary. Check yourself this week and see how many times you are simply following protocol and how often you break and follow your instincts. I hope your instincts are still intact.

There is always good news you can share with your clients. As I write this, the market is up in the mid to high 8,000s after its low just four months ago in the mid-6,000s. It's still a long way from the high water mark in the 14,000s in October 2007, but up is good.

The Commerce Department has released some good news you can put in your pocket to use when people are lamenting the recession. New home construction expanded for the second month in a row. Starts were up 3.6% in June to 582,000 units. Not only was this a good increase, but it was also 51,000 units more than economists expected. It's the highest level of starts since last November. Also, building permits increased 8.7% indicating that the trend will continue.

Always be the person who shares good news rather than allowing yourself to be drawn into only discussing the negatives of the economy.