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Six Strategies to Side-Step A Summer Slump!

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The long days and warm breezes of summer are here at last! Your projects are completed and clients could be heading out of town, en route to vacation. Maybe a client or two will green light new work just after Labor Day? You also may have a vacation scheduled—but what else will you do this summer? While it may be tempting to succumb to a summer siesta, July and August don’t have to result in lost business momentum. You may decide to work fewer hours, but you can still be productive.

This summer, you can choose to be creatively resourceful and move your business forward in key areas, even while many clients and prospects are otherwise engaged. In fact, because many clients and promising prospects who remain on your radar screen may be more available during July and August (when they’re not vacationing), it may be feasible to schedule some client face time. Positive business relationships are a competitive advantage, able to magnify feelings of trust and credibility that can make a difference when you’re on a short list for being hired.

The summer slowdown is also an excellent time to conduct strategic planning. Unless this time of year is a busy one for your organization, you may find the summer months to be conducive to examining your business operations, financial picture, marketing ROI, workflow efficiency and other areas that will get your company organized and operating efficiently. Once Labor Day rolls around, you’ll be happy that you gave yourself a jump start as the busier fall and winter seasons approach. The six strategies suggested below are meant to inspire you to take decisive action during this season and prepare your business to flourish and grow like a garden in summer.

1. Launch a Gratitude Campaign

While technology has enabled us to communicate and connect from any location that supports internet access, virtual and other online conversations cannot replace the power of face2face relationship building. To that end, consider scheduling meet-ups during July and August. The summer months are usually an ideal time to catch up and sit down with your professional contacts in your locale who’ve been especially impactful—clients, colleagues, prospects who were almost clients, your business support team—bookkeeper, accountant, business attorney, internet security expert and website host—plus the referral sources who have been your cheerleaders. Whether you meet over a “power” breakfast buffet, an al fresco lunch, or after-work drinks at a roof top bar, showing those who’ve advanced your success how much you appreciate their support by inviting them to be your guest will display your gratitude.

2. Host an event

Why not celebrate summer by hosting a networking event? Everyone loves a good party and an invitation to a summertime get-together has the potential to make those on your guest list anticipate a good time and happy to RSVP. A weeknight networking meet-and-greet event could be a wonderful way to nurture important relationships and get to know a few people better as well. A prime source for your guest list could be locally based LinkedIn or other social media business connections. You might also invite other colleagues with whom you’ve become friendly, including those you’ve gotten to know at business association events you attend, whether or not you are a dues-paying member. Schedule your reception to begin at 5:30 PM or 6:00 PM and run for two hours. Order three or four light hors d’oeuvres and consider offering guests a gratis glass of sangria (maybe with a limit of one drink per person) until it’s gone—after that, it’s a cash bar for all and the conversation is sure to flow.

3. Offer summer promotions

Summer sales and special offers are common in certain industries and may work well in yours. The goal of your promotion will be to pique the curiosity of clients and prospects and tempt them to do business now, in order to save money. For example, you might offer a promotion where clients can refer someone to you and receive 15%-20% off their next service or product purchase. Depending on your business and behavior of your clients, a summer promotion may or not may not be lucrative in the short-term but may instead persuade a lapsed client to reconsider your services and products or convince a previously reluctant prospect to finally do business with you. If the outcome of your summer promotion succeeds in generating revenue from either current, lapsed, or new clients, you would be wise to tweak the promotion and repeat the campaign during the December holidays or New Year.

4. Assess and refresh the customer experience

So much of client retention is connected to their perception of the experience of doing business with your organization. Life (and business) is about managing expectations—and you can obtain first person insights on how clients feel about the experience you deliver by sending out a four or five question survey. It’s good business to invite clients to express what they appreciate and would like to see more of and as well, let you know what is no longer useful.

Give your survey good visibility—send it with monthly invoices, post it on your website and social media home pages and distribute it by SMS (and simultaneously test client reactions to that format, if you haven’t previously communicated with clients in that fashion!). Be sure to include a response deadline on the survey to encourage quick replies and give yourself enough data to analyze answers and decide what, if any, changes to incorporate.

Your survey can also be a pathway to collecting and amplifying user-generated content, a resource that can be an excellent strategy for gaining brand exposure and showcasing original content. Using the business’s location geotag or a unique but simple hashtag can incentivize customers to share their experiences, delivering authentic social proof and organically expanding the reach of marketing activities.

5. Optimize business operations

How much more revenue might your entity generate or how much more time would you have—for self-care, family time, social activities, or working on the business—if you outsourced one or more operational functions? You may already have a retainer arrangement with a network manager to keep digital operations up and running and providing cybersecurity, but who else might you hire? What would describe the job specs and how many hours per week seem necessary? Also, how much can you afford to pay? Or maybe it would be better to explore tech or artificial intelligence solutions to automate certain functions, whether client invoicing, email marketing, or chat bot responses to prospect inquiries? A worthy goal for any hiring that you do is to promote optimal customer service while minimizing administrative overhead.

6. Get an SBA/SCORE business coach

Rather than attempting to figure out important business decisions by yourself, why not contact the Small Business Association and ask to be put in touch with one of their experts who can help you to address the issues referenced in item #5? Founded in July 1953, the SBA has provided high-quality and comprehensive business development guidance at either no charge or for a modest fee. SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, was founded in 1964 as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, is the nation’s largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors and a resource partner of the SBA. The mission of SCORE is to support SMBs, including Freelance professionals, with mentoring and educational workshops.

More than 13,000 active and retired business professionals, all of whom have entrepreneurship or senior-level corporate experience, volunteer their time and contribute their expertise to regularly meet with their SCORE clients to mentor and coach aspiring and established SMB owners. Mentors work with their clients to address issues and communicate best practices related to starting and growing a business, including writing a business plan, developing products, devising marketing strategies, financial management and business financing options, operations and hiring staff. Clients may connect with a SCORE mentor either virtually or face2face. Furthermore, SCORE presents a wide range of services including training, webinars, online workshops, courses on demand, and a library of online resources.

The SBA also supports female entrepreneurs at its Women’s Business Centers and focuses on veterans of both genders at its Veteran’s Business Development Offices, which operate in all 50 states. Members of Native American tribal communities, along with Native Hawaiians and Native Alaskans, may choose to work with the Office of Native American Affairs, which is also an SBA-sponsored program. Outside of the SBA, Native American current or aspiring business owners and Freelance professionals might also investigate The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development in Mesa, AZ and/or the Native American Development Corporation of Billings, MT.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: ©skynesher/Getty Images

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Let’s Optimize Your Website Chatbot

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Over the past several years, you’ve most likely noticed that chatbots have become a standard feature, particularly on corporate websites. Whether the user is a prospect on a buyer’s journey, searching for basic product info, or a customer looking to resolve a (hopefully!) quick service request, maybe an exchange or return, experimenting with the generative AI powered resource known as chatbot seems reasonable to many. After all, if it appears that you’ll be able to transact your business more quickly and easily, why not give it a try?

But unfortunately, many users have been disappointed by what they expected would be a good experience with a time-saving new technology. A survey conducted in 2023 found that while 68% of business website visitors have interacted with a chatbot just 35% agree that most of the time, the chatbot helped them achieve their mission. Meanwhile, 77% of users felt their chatbot experience was frustrating.

Duly noted but nevertheless, the corporate bosses are determined to making GenAI adoption a success. They’ve decided that chatbots are the future and the future is now; they envision chatbot as the portal where customers and prospects will access product information, register complaints and obtain refunds or exchanges—all without the assistance of the company’s (paid) employees, BTW.

The bosses are fully aware that these often mundane interactions are critical to customer satisfaction and loyalty, brand image and sales but as of now, users are reporting that their chatbot interactions are lacking. The 2023 survey referenced above also showed that 88% of business website visitors would rather speak with a human customer service agent via telephone when seeking information or resolving a problem, clearly indicating that today’s chatbot is in need of refinement. The current fixes don’t always work, according to users, resulting in what could be a great resource to come up short because the solutions that users want aren’t programmed into the thing. If the corporate champions of generative AI chatbots would like to realize its full value—and I suspect that even disappointed users would agree that the potential value of generative AI chatbot is considerable—the customer experience must be prioritized when programming and implementing the technology.

Customer service and IT teams are on notice to fix chatbot problems and fortunately, they are beginning to realize that the chatbot challenge isn’t primarily technological—it’s psychological. It seems obvious that chatbot developers would be greatly assisted by researching and verifying the solutions that users want and their expectations regarding the overall chatbot experience. In a 2024 survey, 85% of customer service leaders reported that they are currently exploring more user-friendly chatbot solutions.

So, Freelancer friend—does your website have a chatbot or have you, like me, hesitated to adopt a resource that ought to be a good thing, but your own user experience with the technology hasn’t lived up to your expectations? Or maybe those of you who have installed a website or social media chatbot might like to improve the experience? If you’d like to refine the responses, visit the Frequently Asked Questions document, which is the knowledge base for the chatbot. You’ll be able to make edits there and the chatbot will integrate the new information in its responses. Below are enhancements you may want to incorporate as you work to optimize your company’s chatbot experience and facilitate user satisfaction, enhance the perception of your brand and drive sales.

Conversational tone preferred

Research has shown that up to 35%  of customers behave differently when interacting with chatbots, as compared to a human agent, because interacting with a machine feels less personal. Make your chatbot communications more personal and welcoming by programming the system to respond like a friendly and efficient human customer service agent. A conversational yet professional tone, appropriate expressions of empathy (“I’m sorry to hear that”) and giving other common responses that (“How does that sound?”) can encourage users to feel comfortable and trust their chatbot interaction, behaviors that contribute to a positive customer experience. Also, creating a human-like avatar and giving it a name makes users feel that your chatbot is more relatable and trustworthy.

Your chatbot can even “learn” to give understated compliments that can discreetly recommend purchases. In fact, many customers respond favorably to gentle endorsement of their choices (“Yes, this tie will look both fashionable and professional”) and up to 12.5% are inclined to accept chatbot purchasing recommendations. Still, be aware that attempting to make your chatbot too chummy by programming in what can be perceived as false flattery and a turn-off. Overly personal language triggers suspicion and makes customers feel manipulated. Keep the compliments fact-based, professional and aligned with the professional tone that customers expect from a chatbot.

Customers in a hurry want just the facts

Customers who are in a hurry, or those who are upset and feeling that expectations have not been met, just want to fix their problem, quickly and satisfactorily. Feelings of disappointment and frustration override the preference toward human-like chatbot responses. Research has found that dissatisfied customers were 23% less satisfied when met with conversational chatbot “empathy” when there is a problem to fix. At those times, customers prefer a straightforward, all-business chatbot interaction that is fast and efficient.

Furthermore, conversational responses can raise expectations and inadvertently heighten frustration if chatbot responses do not quickly and accurately produce problem resolution. It will be useful to program your chatbot to shift into all-business mode and respond quickly and clearly when frustration or urgency are detected. In high-stress situations, it’s better to not seem “human” at all.

Advertise accuracy

Advertising the potential benefits of using your chatbot is a good thing! Let visitors to your website or social media sites know that your chatbot is able to quickly and correctly answer questions and solve problems, save time and make accessing information easy. Broadcasting the likelihood of success generates the expectation of a positive experience, promotes trust in the chatbot and encourages customers and prospects to take a chance with your chatbot. Inviting website visitors to “try it, you’ll like it” can potentially increase chatbot engagement by up to 22%, according to a 2021 study.

This point was reinforced in another 2023 study of chatbot interactions that revealed when users engaged in identical conversations with human customer service agents and the chatbot, 8.5% reported they were less satisfied after using the chatbot. But when chatbot benefits were highlighted, for example, announcing 24/7 service availability, 37% of that same subject group reported they were more satisfied with the chatbot than with the slower, and less-available, human agents. Give your chatbot an enthusiastic endorsement and you’ll encourage its use.

Getting better all the time

The best way to improve the performance and acceptance of your chatbot is to help it get “smarter”. Research shows that users were up to 17% more likely to accept the chatbot’s suggestions when told that the chatbot is on a continuous learning curve and is not limited by a static algorithm that’s upgraded only intermittently. It seems a chatbot that’s “enrolled” in ongoing continuing education is favored over a presumably knowledgeable human customer service agent.

In other words, tell the world that your chatbot is always being improved with the ongoing addition of new information and user feedback. It’s like working with an enthusiastic young intern—users may be inclined to forgive occasional small errors and appreciate that each interaction will be better than the last. Without this explanation, some users might have limited confidence in this resource (perhaps a result of underwhelming, if not disappointing, chatbot experiences on other sites). Make the effort to optimize how your chatbot communicates by training the technology to deliver customer service that meets, or exceeds, user expectations. Finally, know that it is also important that human interaction should be available to your customers and prospects when they request it.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Dzmitry Auramchik

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Unspoken Desires: What B2B Clients Really Want

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The punchline of today’s story is that your clients say one thing and mean another. Surprise! Those of you who sell or provide B2B products or services know that prospects present themselves to Freelancers and sales reps as dispassionate decision-makers who demand value and aim to minimize costs as they operate in the harsh realities of tech company lay-offs, bank failures, inflation, war and the lingering aftershocks of the coronavirus shutdown. Oh, and they’d also like the products or services they buy to save them time, because time is money.

However Ron Friedman, PhD, a psychologist who studies human motivation, surveyed 2,128 office workers in the U.S, U.K, France, Germany, Spain and Italy discovered some additional, unspoken, motivations of office workers who purchase B2B products or services.

Friedman and his team found that B2B customers favor interactions that cater to certain psychological needs, even when satisfying those needs costs the company more money and time. The findings suggest that what humans really want are choice (control, power), meaningful connections with others (relatedness) and opportunities to grow skills that are important to them (mastery).

Let’s dive in to get more insights and understand how you can leverage these unspoken motivations as you and your prospective clients discuss your products and services.

Choice trumps problem-solving

When Friedman’s study subjects were asked if they prefer to discuss and potentially buy from a B2B services provider a single solution that can solve their problem or help achieve their goal, or be offered two or more potential solutions that they must evaluate and then select their preferred remedy, the ability to choose won out.

When a prospect is presented with a single, presumably effective, solution that’s expected to resolve the goal or problem at issue, time is automatically saved. Still, 58% of Friedman’s study subjects preferred the opportunity to choose and, it seems, the power that came with it. The ability to choose was considered desirable, even when going through the selection process did not provide additional benefits, e.g., better results or money and time saved.

Connection overrules time

Most prospects didn’t mind that extra time was spent to review and evaluate the available options that guide their choice of a solution. Although waiting for a human being to reply to an email or pick up the phone might require twice the time and provided no other benefits (in either case, participants were assured their problem would be solved), waiting twice as long to speak with a human being was preferred by nearly three-quarters of participants (74%).

Furthermore, respondents much prefer to know who they’re doing business with. When asked to rate what they consider to be satisfactory or unsatisfactory customer service delivered by the sales reps and other service providers they interact with, study subjects rated just 33% of vendors they didn’t really know as providing “satisfactory” service, but 70% of vendors who received “satisfactory” ratings were known personally by the respondents. In other words, the experience of close connection and impressions of good service are linked.

Experiences that expand horizons

Human beings enjoy learning new skills and being exposed to new experiences. It makes life interesting and expands our horizons. It’s good for self-esteem. Keep that affinity for learning in mind as you discuss your product or service with prospects as you simultaneously show respect for their expertise.

The process of acknowledging the prospect’s skill set, I.e., mastery, and providing a learning opportunity starts when you offer the choice of potential solutions to the problem or pathways to achieving the goal, as noted above.

When you are hired to work on a project (another empowering choice that the prospect, now a client, gets to make) and carrying out the client’s preferred solution, you can as well satisfy the (unspoken) desire to learn by giving him/her an inside look at how you apply the solution and make it work. For your client, this can appeal to the desire to keep his/her skills up to date in a rapidly changing economy and workplace.

What might these findings tell us about the rising popularity of marketing automation? Freelancers and other business owners have used the software to facilitate engagement and bring in point-of- service online sales. New and returning clients have gravitated to contactless interactions where, other than choice, psychological motives are not addressed.

Since 70% of Friedman’s survey respondents feel positively about customer service interactions when they are handled by someone they know, that does leave 30% who are OK working with someone they don’t know (contactless engagement). Also, the power of choice remains, which is an important factor for most.

Finally, prospects who explore your products and services on your website or social media platforms always have the option to contact you (or your team) and initiate direct conversations when choice, connection that may lead to relatedness and learning opportunities that expand mastery can take place.

Thanks for reading and welcome spring!

Kim

Image: © Netflix/ Mark Bourdillon. L-R Matt Lucas, Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood and Noel Fielding of The Great British Baking Show illustrate our unspoken desires.

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Pulling Out of A Slump

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It can be argued that periodic downturns are endemic to the business cycle. Companies large and small will eventually suffer through a downturn, a slump, in sales revenues and profit. A slump is always worrisome but some are seasonable and therefore predictable. That means you can prepare.

Landscaping services expect the demand for lawn and garden maintenance to drop during the winter months. To supplement cash-flow and position the company for year-round customer value, owners of landscaping concerns are known to retool for snow removal when gardens are dormant.

But for most businesses, unfortunately, a slump will occur unexpectedly and for no immediately obvious reason, such as the appearance of a competitor or a difficult economy. If the struggling business is to survive, corrective action must be taken soon. Reversing a sales trend that’s negative or flat is a formidable challenge, a high-stakes test of the resoucefulness and strategic vision of the company leadership. A turnaound, rather a bigger deal than a pivot, may be needed to turn the tide. Or not.

Freelancers typically do not have the financial wherewithal to bring in a management consultant to diagnose the problem and recommend solutions. Freelance consultants need a Do It Yourself remedy and that’s what we’ll talk about today. As usual, the solution you seek will probably be found in data and knowledge you already own and have access to. Your company’s Key Performance Indicators (determine which ones tell the story) and revelations shared by your customers will most likely steer you to both the correct diagnosis plus cost-effective strategies to halt the slump and stimulate revenue.

When to respond

A slump may be a sudden or gradual phenomenon and caused by any number of factors, including a national or regional economic downturn, the introduction of a compelling new technology, a large-scale health crisis, even a vote in your state legislature. If your top line gross revenues show a decline of 10 % or more (or flatline) for three consecutive months and you are unable to understand why revenue is dropping, recognize that your business is in a slump and you cannot ignore the problem.

The cause

If you’re in a slump, it’s important to identify the cause (single or plural). Did something happen in the industry, or in the local or national economy (like a widespread or a war)? Has business been adversely impacted by the shift to Work From Home, because your customers are no longer in the office five days a week and connecting with them has become difficult? Whatever the cause may be, it’s important to know what went wrong and decide if a work-around would make sense, or if a fundamental change should be made. In some cases, it will be necessary to assess your entire operation. It will be wise to consider the following possibilities:

  • Evolving customer tastes or priorities
  • Business model weakness
  • Powerful competitor
  • Economic factors

The cure

You will likely find that customer feedback is essential to the discovery process. Seeking out the wisdom that your customers can provide will guarantee that you’ll develop a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the marketplace and that understanding will lead to an effective solution. A more nuanced understanding of the marketplace can also help you to develop products and services that customers actually want and need.

When preparing to reach out to your customers, make contact through various channels—emails, call-outs in your blog or newsletter, calls-to-action posted to your website and social media platforms. Customer surveys and invitations to join (30-60 minute) conference or video calls can yield a wealth of boots-on-the-ground insights and you’ll be almost certain to obtain actionable information. Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are ideal venues for this type of research. For example, Twitter Spaces is a feature that allows users to create a chatroom-like environment with a group of people.

Keep in mind, however, that while customer feedback can be very helpful as you search for the cause of your business slump and can as well be very useful as you engineer a pivot or a turnaround for the business, blindly following customer suggestions is not recommended. The customers’ money is not on the line and neither do they see the big picture of the business and its challenges-—you do. Have the confidence to use your own judgment and expertise to make what you interpret as the best decisions for your entity.

In sum, good KPI data and customer feedback should be essential components of any business’s intention to understand and resolve a significant business challenge. An assessment of business conditions, industry trends and customer feedback re: their priorities, goals and preferences can inform any tweaking of products or services you might undertake, the pivot or turnaround you may follow to pull the business back from the brink and position your venture for the greatest success its ever experienced.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © AF Archive/Alamy. John Dimech (as Daud) struggles to escape quicksand in Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

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Will the “Great Resignation” be Great for Freelancers?

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Americans are quitting their jobs. In behavior apparently ignited during the significant chunk of time spent away from offices as a result of the coronavirus shutdown, a surprising number of American workers have decided that they’re not going back to business as usual.

A LinkedIn survey revealed that 46 % of respondents felt that the time spent at home — either on lay-off or working remotely — during the pandemic shutdown led them to rethink their current work situation. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that during April, May and June 2021, 11.5 million workers gave notice. The February 2021 Microsoft Workplace Confidence Index survey of more than 30,000 workers showed that 41 % of American workers are considering quitting; that number increases to 54 % when looking solely at Gen-Z employees. If that’s not enough, a new Gallup survey found that 48 % of workers are actively job-hunting.

Upwork, the online marketplace for Freelance assignments, released a report in August 2021, “The Great Resignation: From Full-time to Freelance,” yet another examination of why American professionals are leaving, or seriously thinking of leaving, their current full-time employment. As many businesses anticipate a return of their employees to the office, sometimes on a limited basis, the survey of 4,000 workers showed that some professional-level employees are not willing to surrender their WFH work-life balance. Approximately 9 million pandemic WFH employees, 17% of professionals, apparently would consider looking for another job if forced to return to the office on a full-time, or even part-time, basis.

Needless to say the “Great Resignation,” as the phenomenon was named by Anthony Klotz, Associate Professor of Management at Texas A & M University, has the potential to create significant disruption for many organizations if it should come to pass in the way that several studies indicate. Already, workforce development experts are advising in particular mid-size organizations, who cannot compete for talent in the way that big businesses are able to do, to find an opportunity in the instability and tap the power of the growing on-demand workforce—Freelance consultants, that is.

Rather than scrambling to hire employees on short notice, company leaders would be better served by supplementing their teams with talented Freelancers—you and me, my friend—who own the skills needed to successfully tackle any project, from designing eye-catching websites, to managing a multi-platform social media campaign, to conducting comprehensive research projects. Instead of paying both high salaries and benefits for full-time employees, mid-size organizations can access top-drawer Freelance talent on a per project basis and keep overhead down as they achieve objectives.

No doubt many company leaders will first attempt to squeeze more work out of current employees, but that all-too-common default behavior probably won’t fly anymore. In fact, that habit could partly explain why valuable team members quit. The bosses will be nervous and may not know where to turn. Still, deciding to outsource and bring in Freelance talent may quickly be seen as inevitable.

So how might Freelancers cash in on the “Great Resignation?” Carpe diem—-you know how to do that! Start by putting yourself in the shoes of an employer who has a mission-critical project, a deadline and a team that’s down two key players. Below are sources that would be familiar to employers looking for Freelance talent so that an important job will get done. You’ll also find a credibility building resource that when you commit to using it will showcase you as a very attractive candidate to hire.

  • LinkedIn Populate as many categories of your profile as possible and be certain to include examples of your best work. If you haven’t participated in ProFinder, the service where employers solicit Freelancers for projects, create a profile and be prepared to quickly respond to employer requests. Only five Freelancers may bid on a project.
  • Upwork and Fiverr These gig worker marketplaces seem to be more welcoming to web designers and IT programmers, but I was hired for a writing project on Upwork three years ago. To get hired, you must search for and pursue assignments and at Upwork, you’ll wind up paying a small fee to bid on a job.
  • Help a Reporter Out. Prospective employers will surely type your company name into a search engine to see what comes up. In addition to great content that you’ve written and your social media sites, include as well your insightful quotes that have appeared in relevant publications. Quotes are an excellent way to demonstrate your know-how and convince prospects that you’re a good hire. https://www.helpareporter.com/sources/

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: An office in Palo Alto, CA circa 2000

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5 Genius Questions for Your Customer Survey

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Every business owner or leader must study his/her customers (or potential customers for those in start-up or new product launch mode) and gather as much potentially useful information about them as possible. The first and greatest commandment of business is “know thy customer” and the research must continue for the life of the business. We can never stop learning.

The important matter of measuring customer satisfaction and customer loyalty became the life’s work of Frederick F. Reichheld, now an Emeritus Director of the Boston, MA consulting firm Bain and Company, also the founder of its Loyalty practice and author of The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth (2006). Reichheld reported that it took two years of studying customer satisfaction and customer loyalty survey responses and correlating those responses to actual customer behavior—i.e., purchases and referrals made and then linking customer behavior to growth—to discover that a single survey question can reliably predict sales revenue growth.

The big reveal question does not directly address either customer satisfaction or customer loyalty. Rather, it simply inquires about customers’ willingness to recommend a product or service to someone else. While other factors besides customer loyalty play a role in driving a company’s growth—economic or industry expansion, a product or service line that reflects the needs and tastes of current and prospective customers, good financial management and so on—repeat business and good word of mouth are indisputably two of the most important drivers of sales revenue growth and in general, no company can be profitable without them.

Loyal customers talk up a company to friends, family and colleagues. Their recommendations are among the truest demonstrations of loyalty because the customer puts his/her own reputation on the line when making them. Customers will risk their reputations only if they feel intense loyalty.

The customer experience is, I am certain, another significant factor in a customer’s willingness to recommend a business and many actions contribute to that experience. Marketing Departments point survey questions toward metrics they control, such as brand image, pricing and product features and benefits. But a customer’s willingness to recommend a business is also connected to how well the customer is treated by the front line employees—are they friendly (but not intrusive)? Are they helpful?

According to Reichheld’s findings, customer loyalty differs subtly but substantively from customer satisfaction. Gauging loyalty by way of the usual customer-satisfaction survey questions is not helpful. His research indicates that customer satisfaction lacks a consistently demonstrable connection to customer behavior and growth. Reichheld says it is difficult to identify a sufficiently strong correlation between high customer satisfaction scores and outstanding sales growth. “The question ‘How satisfied are you with (company X’s) overall performance?’ is a relatively weak predictor of growth,” he says.

One of the main takeaways from Reichheld’s research is that companies can keep customer surveys simple. The most basic surveys, providing that the right questions are asked, can allow companies to obtain timely data that is actionable. Reichheld goes so far to assert that a customer feedback program should be viewed not as “market research” but as an operating management tool. Below are five of Reichheld’s survey questions.

  • How likely is it that you would recommend (company X) to a friend or colleague?
  • How likely is it that you will continue to purchase products/services from (company X)?
  • How strongly do you agree that (company X) makes it easy for you to do business with it?
  • If you were selecting a similar provider for the first time, how likely is it that you would you choose (company X)?
  • How satisfied are you with (company X) overall performance?

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: (l-r) Phyllis Povah, Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford in The Women (1939). Sales girl Crawford is showing her customers the fictitious fragrance “Summer Rain.”

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Survey Discussion: How Freelancers Market Our Services (2016 – 2017)

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Today we have recommendations on how Freelance consultants and small business owners can implement as needed the results of a survey of 1,700 of our peers that was conducted in December 2016 by FreshBooks, a Toronto company that sells cloud based accounting solutions designed for Freelance professionals and small business owners http://FreshBooks.com .

Given the limited time that Freelancers and small business owners have available to devote to new client acquisition and once we’ve accepted the fact that the pool of new clients must be constantly replenished, it is essential that what we do has a very good chance of delivering the necessary results.

The survey indicates that devoting one’s marketing activities to tactics that are ranked as highly effective across all three age cohorts and then diversifying the tactics utilized, has the potential to reap tangible benefits for all age cohorts, despite the fact that each has a clear preference for certain activities and an ROI track record to defend those practices.

Exceeding client expectations of the work you are hired to do is the recipe for obtaining referrals from satisfied clients. Building relationships with peers that you meet at the chamber of commerce, on volunteer boards, at the gym, or at your religious institution, for example, is often a highly successful marketing and business development tactic for Baby Boomers, with 67% relying on referrals to find new clients. The ability to obtain referrals from business and personal relationships will become more accessible to Generation X and Millennials over time, as their personal and client relationships expand.  There is no more effective advertising than word of mouth.

Millennials have made hay with content marketing tactics and 42% of the age cohort use that marketing tactic. I will guess that a certain percentage of what is called email marketing, which has an adoption rate of 24% across the three age groups, overlaps with content marketing because email is how newsletters are sent. Generation X and especially Baby Boomers are advised to step up the use of content marketing if for no other reason than several surveys have demonstrated its satisfactory ROI.

Content marketing is poised to surpass the use of paid advertising because it seems that B2B prospects find advertisements insufficiently credible or engaging and they have gravitated to the brand story approach that is content marketing. Commissioning a marketing case study to put on one’s website and can be used in other marketing activities, is another highly effective method of content marketing (but it is not inexpensive).

Public speaking in the form of teaching, speaking, training (and I will stretch to say it also includes podcasts, webinars and appearing on a panel as speaker or moderator) is acknowledged by 39% of  survey participants across all three cohorts as being a highly effective marketing tactic and I respectfully suggest that you adopt the practice if you have not already done so.

It may be a little intimidating for Millennials to assume the role of expert, but appearing as a guest on a webinar or podcast seems less of a stretch than teaching business courses or speaking at professional association meetings. Your diarist is in the Baby Boom generation and I’ve done a fair amount of teaching and speaking over the years, but I’ve never directly received either a client or referral from any engagement. Rather, prospective clients are always seem impressed when I mention those activities, so be advised that you may see your teaching and speaking ROI indirectly.

Finally, since the survey explored financial management, we might pause and consider that topic as well. While only 20% of survey responders financed their businesses with bank loans, that doesn’t mean that they don’t need help managing the business finances (and their personal finances).  One third of the responders has a relationship with a bank and yet 52% report that they feel big banks are not a good fit for small business owners and Freelance consultants.

Survey findings indicate that Freelancers and small business owners with the greatest financial acumen operate the most successful ventures and enjoyed self-employment the most.  That description applied to 25% of responders.  Overall, responders are wary and uninformed about new financial software that might help them better understand and optimize their financial record-keeping data and learn how to use either what they already own, or software they could buy, and learn to understand and manage the financial aspects of their businesses.

The FreshBooks people recommend that Freelancers and small business owners invest in financial management training.  Courses are either regularly or sporadically available at adult learning centers, libraries, business networking groups, professional associations and the Small Business Administration.  https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/manage/manage-your-finances-business-credit

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: Falmouth (MA) Road Race August 21, 2016 courtesy of Joseph Cavanaugh

 

 

 

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Survey Results: How Freelancers Market Our Services (2016 – 2017)

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Hello everyone and welcome to post-summertime reality.  We’re heading into the fourth quarter and whether or not you’re on track to meet your 2017 earnings goal, the time for a big push to help you end the year strong has arrived.  Marketing will play a big role in your revenue-generating strategy, but as was discussed in my August 15 post, do what you can to create a marketing budget so that your clever strategies and tactics will make it off the drawing board Your Marketing Plan Is Meaningless Until You Assign A Budget

In this post, I’ll share the results of what appears to be a credible survey of 1,700 Freelancers and small business owners that was conducted in December 2016 by FreshBooks, a Toronto company that sells cloud-based accounting solutions designed for Freelance professionals and small business owners  http://freshbooks.com.  Let’s look at what the folks at FreshBooks have to tell us about the practices, priorities and challenges of Freelance consultants and small business owners:

Who were the survey participants?

  • 65% male and 35% female
  • 51% Baby Boomers (age 50 + years);  34% Generation X (age 35 – 49 years);           15% Millennials (age < 35 years)
  • 65% have earned at least a Bachelor’s degree
  • 55% operate as Sole Proprietors, with no formal legal business structure
  • < 10 employees in the business
  • 15% in business < 2 years
  • 42% have no retirement account (median survey age was 50 years)
  • 23% earned < $20K in 2016
  • 23% earned $21K – $50K in 2016
  • 29% earned $51K – $100K in 2016
  • 24% earned $101K + in 2016

What kinds of marketing tactics are most often used?

Tactics considered most effective:

  • 67% ask for referrals, from clients or personal relationships
  • 47% have referral partners (e.g., at business association networking groups)
  • 39% speak and/or teach
  • 23 % use content marketing (especially blogs and newsletters)

Tactics considered somewhat effective:

  • 51% attend industry/ professional association events
  • 48% join business networking associations (e.g., chambers of commerce)
  • 44% entertain prospects (anything from coffee to drinks and dinner)
  • 44% use social media marketing
  • 24% use email marketing

Tactics considered least effective:

  • 32% purchase ads in print or online publications
  • 19% post on industry online forums (e.g., LinkedIn groups)

Age has a statistically significant impact on the types of marketing tactics employed and on the success rate of those tactics.  Baby Boomers have a much better success rate obtaining referrals, probably because they’ve lived long enough to develop those types of relationships.  Millennials have great success with content marketing and social media, no doubt because they grew up with the internet and they’re comfortable and adept with online communications.

Millennial Generation preferred marketing tactics:

  • 42% Content marketing
  • 30% Social media
  • 30% Referrals

Baby Boom Generation preferred marketing tactics:

  • 47% Referrals
  • 26% Content marketing
  • 22% Social media

Finally, marketing and sales are the mechanisms that promote market share and revenue growth and put the venture on the road to earning the desired profit margins that will secure its financial standing.  Yet, small business owners and Freelance consultants devote little time to business development (i.e., prospecting for new client acquisitions). which is supported by the right marketing strategies and tactics.  Most feel that signing new clients and retaining them is difficult:

  • 65% feel they need to find new clients
  • 85% consider business development a challenge
  • 75% devote less than one-quarter of their time to business development
  • 51% feel that they’re too busy with client work to prospect or sell
  • 40% devote one-tenth or less of their time to prospecting
  • 37% are uncomfortable selling
  • 25% feel they’ve found the right balance between making sales calls and performing client work

In order to build and sustain the business, it is necessary to attract and retain clients that you can reliably bill at a certain minimum amount; figure out how to describe and sell a value proposition that makes your services appear desirable to a critical mass of clients; performing client projects that you can price to ensure the desired profit margin; and effectively managing the business’ financial strategies.  As was discussed in my August 22 post, Only Those Who Have Money Can Borrow Money , the survey also examined the access to capital that Freelance consultants and small business owners have, or don’t have:

  • 20% used bank financing to launch their ventures
  • 25% were turned down for business
  • 52% feel that big banks are not designed to serve the needs of Freelancers or small business owners

Next week we’ll weave together the threads laid out here,  examine and analyze the picture that emerges and use some small data to help our respective business ventures get big ROI as we enter the fourth quarter.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Japanese surfer works his plan to win gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics   Photograph: Kyodo News (2017)

 

 

 

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5 Customer Survey Questions That Work

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Every once in a while, it makes sense to address your client feedback metric, so that you will receive some lived-experience insight into your operation’s strengths and weaknesses.  You need to learn what can be done better, which service delivery or other operational processes might be simplified and what clients would like to see more of.

The smartest way to begin the client feedback process is to decide what you want to know and what purpose that information will serve.  Are you trying to develop new products or services, so that you’ll be able to give clients what they want before they know they want it? Or is business dwindling and you’re in damage control mode, attempting to win back clients?

Some market research questions are best explored through the eyes of clients and others around the conference table with your leadership team (or maybe your front-line staff, who have loads of on-the-ground experience that they’d love to share). Let’s examine when it makes sense to query your clients and when you’ll learn more from in-house research.  Given below are five standard yet very clever survey questions, some that apply to clients and others that apply to you and your team:

  1. What are the challenges that clients (in a given industry or category) are facing?
  2. Which of these problems is our organization equipped to address?
  3. What solutions are we offering now and what can we/should we add, re-tool, or quit?
  4. How effective are our solutions—what do clients most often hire us to do?
  5. What do we do next?

Note that questions 1 and 4 would best be put to your clients and that questions 2, 3 & 5 involve business strategy and would be addressed in-house, once you’ve spoken with selected clients to figure out questions 1 and 4.

How you conduct the client survey deserves some thought, as well. It might be best for Freelance consultants and small business owners to run a low-key survey by setting up an environment that enables comfortable and candid conversation.  Consider making the process informal and perhaps even seemingly impromptu.  Larger companies may feel comfortable running a formal focus group, perhaps facilitated by an outside market research firm.

Question 1: What are the primary challenges facing your client’s organization?

Whether the client comes to you or you go the client, start by asking a “how are things going in your office” question, or inquire about the next big project or objective (whether or not it would involve your organization). Find out what’s going on and let the client talk.

Questions 2 and 3: Which challenges do you want to solve? How will that be done?

Given the expertise and resources you have, coupled with the client’s inclination to contract for the necessary billable hours, which additional client challenges might you be asked to take on (or what can you cleverly propose to be hired to do)? Can your organization successfully deliver the desired outcomes, or will you need to subcontract some portion? Can you learn how clients are managing these responsibilities now? Is there a competitor who gets hired to do that work , or is nothing being done because the client isn’t sure what to do, or lacks the budget to complete the job?

Question 4: Have our solutions satisfactorily resolved the clients’ challenges?

What project did the client hire you to do? What are the projects that your organization is most often hired to do? How does do clients feel about your performance—is your expertise and ability to deliver the service trusted and respected by clients? Does it seem that you’ll receive more business from several of your clients, on a similar project or another type?

Question 5: What do you do next, based on client responses?

Now here is the judgment call for you and the team. The essence of the process is interpreting the data compiled.  What can you realistically do, based on the responses from clients in questions 1 and 4 and the opportunities and strengths within your organization, as noted in questions 2, 3 and 5?

Remember, it is most likely possible to beta test a new or re-tooled service  with a trusted client who would receive a reduced project fee in exchange for helping your organization to perfect the business model.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

 

 

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Freelancers: We Are the Future

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Presented for your perusal are relevant statistics and observations gleaned from the third annual “Freelancing in America” survey, conducted by the Freelancer’s Union.  According to the organization, “Freelancing in America” is the largest and most comprehensive measure of independent workers conducted in the U.S.

Who we are

In 2015 55 million of our fellow citizens, representing 35% of the nation’s workforce,  participated in the Freelance economy to greater or lesser degree and we earned $1 trillion.  The survey found that 63 % of us were Freelancers by choice, rather than by necessity, and we enjoy this way of working.  Freelancers reported feeling positive about our work and 79 % preferred Freelancing to traditional employment.  We’re much more likely than our traditionally employed counterparts to feel respected, empowered and engaged in our working environment.  The survey assigned categories to different types Freelancing:

  1. Independent contractors (35 %, 19.1 million) — Full-time Freelance Consultants whose only income is derived from client work.
  2. Diversified workers (28 %, 15.2 million)– Freelance Consultants who regularly do client work, but provide themselves a guaranteed income floor by working part-time (maybe as an adjunct professor at a local college or maybe as a bartender and possibly both!).
  3. Moonlighters (25 %, 13.5 million)– those who take occasional side projects along with their traditional employment.
  4. Freelance business owners (7 %, 3.6 million)– Full-time Freelance Consultants who put together a more-or-less permanent team to form a consultancy, so that more complex and lucrative client work can be taken on.
  5. Temporary workers (7 %, 3.6 million)

What we like

Flexibility is a huge perceived benefit for the majority of Freelance Consultants and 60 % felt that a Freelance Consulting career is a respectable choice.  Further, more than 50 % of workers who left full-time employment to join the Freelance economy were able to earn more money within the first year of Freelancing.  46 % of us raised our project fees/hourly rates in 2015 and 54 % said they planned to do so in 2016.

Serious challenges

Money is an issue for Freelancers.  Survey respondents reported that adequate billable hours, negotiating fair project fees or hourly rates and receiving timely payment of invoices (or receiving full payment of accounts receivable) could be problematic.  On average, full-time Freelance Consultants obtain 36 billable hours/week. When the billable hourly rate or project fee is considered inadequate,  cash-flow is impacted and there can be a struggle to meet financial obligations.  As a result, the survey also found that debt is a real concern for us Freelancers.

Access to health insurance and retirement benefits remain major concerns.  Full-time Freelance Consultants rank medical and dental insurance as a primary concern; 20 % of us have no health insurance.  Of those who had health insurance, 54 % faced increased premium rates or deductibles in 2015 as compared to 2014.

Surprisingly, the matter of retirement funding was not addressed by the survey.  Freelance Consultants, unless we are moonlighters who have full-time traditional employment or we’re married to a spouse who receives that important benefit, must completely self-fund our retirement and many millions of us do not have the income to build a worthwhile retirement account. Please see my recent post on retirement planning for Freelancers Exit Strategy: The Retirement Plan

Shaping the future

As traditional full-time, middle class paying employment continues to disappear, the ranks of Freelance Consultants can only increase, making us a fast-growing segment of the American workforce.  Sadly, politicians have paid no attention whatsoever to either our special challenges or our voting-bloc potential.

85 % of survey respondents said that they planned to vote in the 2016 election cycle.  If that statistic can be applied to the entirety of Freelance Consultants in this country (and I feel it is unrealistically optimistic) it would represent nearly 47 million voters, more than enough to influence a presidential election.  70 % of survey respondents would appreciate candidates and political representatives addressing Freelancer needs, because no matter how lovely things may be for the chosen few who command lucrative project fees, Freelance Consultants (and most part-time workers) are vulnerable.

The holiday season approaches and that means drastically fewer billable hours will be available to the vast majority of us, as many clients limit work from about December 15 to January 2.  We will not receive holiday pay for Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Day.  How do we fund our retirement accounts and buy health insurance when it may be all we can do to cover basic living expenses? We need political representation, advocates and activism.  The Freelancer’s Union is what we have now.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/business/freelancers-union-tackles-concerns-of-independent-workers.html

Thanks for reading,

Kim