Archive for July 2010
The Future of Toll Booths
Business is being reshaped online, it has to, the very way of survival is change, it is however, doing a poor job of translating it to traditional business forms. What I call the OLD Business Model still needs to be looked after, but it also needs to be transformed and reshaped to adopt the online mentality if it’s to survive. No longer can we use the phrase, ” we’ve always done it this way”, if someone says it, they should be fired on the spot. It sounds harsh but, if that person has influence, the future of that business is and will be in jeopardy if they stay with that thinking.
Toll Booths are the mechanism for getting paid, online & off, it’s the way of the business world. These toll booths are being reshaped, they are becoming more & more invisible to the consumer. This seamless trend will continue to the point we may not know when we’ve actually paid for anything! The strategic alliances, the partnerships, and the stand-alones must make paying for goods & services effortless in order to make the experience positive. Not unlike the Apple example, iTunes has made buying music almost painless but not completely. You still have to download an application and you still have to have a valid account with a healthy balance in it before you can feel the benefit. Plus, it’s a closed system, you don’t get to touch it, feel it or make changes to it. Still, this toll booth is better than no start to the future of toll booths, and probably one of the best examples to date.
My son recently purchased eye glasses online, it was a great experience, and he saved money to boot! It was a simple three step process, choose your contacts & or designer frames, enter your prescription & customize your order, and then see the savings delivered to your door. It took him less than a week to get his new glasses, he put them on and they were perfect. The company is called Clearly Contacts, a Canadian company that is making it easy to buy glass & contacts, and they accept PayPal as a means of payment! In the future, we will have our eyes tested online so we don’t have to drive to the optometrist to get the prescription.
Soon there will be a secured cookie mechanism, a cert if you will, it will eliminate the actual payment click of the mouse step, it will be similar to the RFID chip. It will be a Secured Digital RFID Cookie that will handle the payment process for you. Of course, you will have to approve it, but as web browsers die, other technologies of viewing websites will make this process even easier.
The current build of toll booth is still too cumbersome, a link to PayPal or another means of making payment needs to be hidden from plain site, making the experience better. The current method makes you feel like you have been violated, or you’ve left the house unlocked, I need to feel things are well looked after, I don’t need to see it. The experience is everything for the user, much like Attention is to the seller. Attention is the new currency for anyone or any business selling products and services online. The problem is, getting that attention is going to get harder and harder, and it’s also going to be extremely difficult to keep that attention. One way of helping the cause, make paying for your products & services as easy as possible. Don’t ask users to fill out a LONG form, requesting name, address, phone numbers and so on, that will be the death of you. Find ways to make the toll booth invisible, and above all, an experience they can’t stop talking about in a positive way.
Where you put the toll booth matters, the experience users have using your site & toll booth will be the difference maker. The future of toll booths? Simple, hide them, embed them, make them work seamlessly online and you will have a winner. Better yet, you’ll get attention, and that means good things for you and your business.
We Need The Small Victories Too
Have you ever found yourself day dreaming, you see some people and they seem to have it all going for them, and they make everything look so easy. We all have people like that in our lives, we see the grass greener in those people, they’re luckier, they get all the breaks, and you don’t. Come on, admit it, you’ve done it, and you’ve probably done that your entire life! I know I have at times, and I’m 52 years old, and have been around a short bit, which means I have probably thought it a million times over the course of my life. There’s a problem with that kind of self talk, many problems actually, far too many and they are far too deep.
Negative self-talk takes us to a place where fear can get a firm grip on us, it can immobilize us, and we start the downward spiral of feeling sorry for ourselves in a heartbeat. You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this, walk with me a bit.
I’ve had many careers, jobs, and have been on my own over the years, and I can tell you that self-talk is critical to your success. I don’t mean getting yourself all jacked up with unrealistic expectations, they will almost always fail, and when things don’t go as planned, you’ll lose your momentum. I didn’t say, don’t have big dreams, that’s not what I’m saying. Big dreams need to be broken down into manageable parts & goals, why, because we need the little victories to keep us going.
Those people in your life, or the ones you might know, aren’t as happy as you think they are, and I’m certain things weren’t as easy as you perceive them to be, they too needed the little victories to get them to where they are today. I struggle daily with not having enough small victories to keep me in a happy place, to keep me motivated, I have to get out of my comfort zone most of the time to get them. I hate that!
I’m willing to wager that when you find yourself having these little envy chats, it’s almost always related to money. I hate money actually, there I’ve said it. Money makes us focus on all the wrong things, it distracts us from whats really important. I’ll let you decide what’s important to you, but what’s important to me is my wife & two boys. I have never heard anyone say on their death bed, I wish I had more money. They will say, and I mean everytime….I wish I had spent more time with _________,you fill in the blank.
So what are those little victories, sometimes we can’t recognize them because we are focusing on the wrong things, or we’re distracted. Most of the time, these little victories are as simple as writing a Blog Post, a chance meeting with someone you never thought you would meet, an opportunity to help someone, it could be a phone call that helps you secure the next project or job. They could be even smaller, telling your wife & kids how much you love them, thank your neighbor for letting you use the lawn mower. But for most of us, it’s usually business related, that’s where the little victories really gets us charged up. Why? Probably because we made money, and we like money. Money is what we measure success by, I think we need to get back to something more valuable for measuring success.
I know in my business, I need to have something positive happen everyday when it comes to cash-flow, when it doesn’t, I start the bad self-talk. We all do it, I’m a failure, what could I have done different, or better? Recognize the questions, we start asking what we did wrong instead of what we did right, and what the next right step should be! One of the problems is, we rely on our own knowledge to solve problems, and you know what? We don’t know, what we don’t know. Success always requires other people, they are the ones who give us perspective and possibly vision. They are also the ones that give us those small victories 9 times out of 10.
I have found over the years, other people helped move me along to the next step, they either encouraged my, gave me an idea, and more importantly, they believed in me. It’s the affirmations, it’s the validation of others that gives us the courage to stand in the gap when times are bad, so we can stand tall with our chin up. Don’t believe me, watch this video and tell me what happens to you while you are watching it.
So, everytime you catch yourself thinking how someone has it better than you, is doing better than you, is smarter than you, STOP IT! Find out what motivates you, and then list the small victories you need from it. Yes, it’s hard work, life is hard work and it sucks, but you are not different than everyone else, why? We all need the small victories too.
Long & McQuade does Customer Service Right!
Every once and awhile I write about my experiences with customer service, I tend to share more bad stories than good, but today I have good story.
This past week has been a blur for me but thats a good thing I think. July 1st was Canada’s 143rd Birthday and every year there is a huge parade in my community, and every year I do all can to avoid that parade. I don’t like crowds much, especially ones that create traffic problems, it just gets me wound up for some reason. Ya I get it, large crowds always equals traffic problems. OK, let’s get on with why I’m writing about Long & McQuade.
I belong to church here in Abbotsford, Cedar Brook Church, we decided this year that we would put a float in the Parade, we hired a new Pastor and he is working to build a higher profile for the church. A team was assembled, before we knew it, there were over 40 people helping decorate, organize and join us on the long walk down main street on July 1st, 2010.
Before all the hoopla, a few weeks earlier I went to Long & McQuade to see how much it would cost to rent speakers and a small mixer board for our float, so we could run canned music. I got a quote of $28, I said what? I can remember when I was in that business back in the day it would cost over $200! I said book it.l would say
Jump ahead to the parade, we were decorating the float at 7AM, setting up sound equipment and so on. I hooked up the speakers and CD player and was having some volume issues, I discovered there was an input / output problem and SHAZAM! as @prosperitygal would say, we had sound. But there was a problem with one of the speakers, a Tweeter was blown and it rattled like a rock in a can, it was very sad. I was able to turn off the Tweeter for the most part and run Bass only. It was too late to get the speaker replaced because Long & McQuade were closed, so we made due with one side very much lower in volume than the other.
Now under normal circumstances most people would lose a gasket and just run with speaker and then cry about it all day to anyone who would listen. We did not do that, we just ran it a low volume but ran the other side HOT, it worked out well in the end because the Judges for the parade were on the side the good speaker was on. The parade was great fun, all went well, but we haven’t heard back if we won 1st, 2nd or 3rd for the float judging : )
Today, July 2nd, I returned the gear and then shared the problem of the speaker. The clerk helping me was awesome, we hooked the speaker in question up and was able to reproduce the problem. He then looked at me and said, what do you want to do? I said what? (in shock of course) He said, what do you want to do? I threw the ball back at him and said, what are my options? They were, get my money back or he would give me a gift certificate. I said, just give me the certificate, it’s easier and faster too. The clerk went to the back room and handed my a $50 certificate, I said, this too much, I only spent $28 in the first place. He said, we’re sorry you had any kind of problems period, and we want to see you come back.
I’m still a little stunned, it’s not significant amount of money, but the thought and act was huge in my books, credibility is everything folks, remember that when dealing with people around you. Long & McQuade, you did customer service right today, we’ll be back, and we will tell many what you did today. Many Blessings on you.