This tells you right up front, you are more than a customer. We are looking for a relationship.

It is the little things that count. Recently, I was out to dinner with a couple of buddies catching up at a small restaurant with outside dining.  During the course of dinner five different people came to our table to check in on us to make sure everything was good. This was a deliberate customer service technique, while developing a “team” working environment who all had a desire to serve.  Will we be going back?  You bet!  Did we leave favorable comments on social media, YES!  It was a great experience.  Isn’t that someplace you would like to go?

So, let’s stop for a minute and ask a couple of questions.

Is there a “Team” environment in your work place?

Do you have service after the sale? Heck, do you have service during the sale?

What are you doing to make sure you and your employees are delivering a level of service that BLOWS people away? Makes them want to talk about you and share the experience.

Businesses have a habit of spending a great deal of money to find new customers only to have little or no effort on retaining them or expanding their relationship beyond their first needs.

In one of my first sales leadership positions, I found myself in the middle of the Mojave Desert with a 35-year mining business.  So how do you sell more rocks to a marketplace that already considers you one of the industry leaders?

Service, Education and a Relationship

After learning how to drill rock, crush rock, truck rock, everything I could about rock and the seventeen (17) different natural colors of rock we mined, I set out to meet our clients who covered the entire west coast.

Over the course of six months our team was able to increase sales by over 30%, which was achieved by sharing and educating with our clients, face-to-face.  We discovered that our clients were aware of only a fraction of our products.

We live in an amazing time, with technology that has both helped us do business better and some could make an argument that has hurt the way we do business.

Take a moment to down shift and ask yourself…Would you like to be treated as a stranger or a friend?  Odds are you would prefer the relationship.

Take steps to make change, it will make a difference.

Late last year, Facebook introduced Timeline to individual users to replace Profiles. There was much speculation then about whether Facebook would also implement the new layout with business pages. Many of us were surprised at how quickly Facebook did just that.

Page owners have from now until March 30 to make the change to Timeline voluntarily. After that date, Facebook will release Timeline to all business Pages.

Have you seen our new Timeline?

Read the entire story at Practical Ecommerce

Working with Greg was easy and enjoyable. The tasks of building a website can be quite stressful and daunting, especially for those doing it for the first time, and Greg was very efficient at easing the stress and helping to work together for the common goal. One of the advantages I appreciated most about working with Greg was his ability to challenge us mentally. He helped us think outside the box and view specific situations from another point of view. This is extremely important in the development phase, as we built the site with the “reader” in mind instead of just focusing on we wanted on our site. Greg consistently introduced creative and productive ideas focused on our ways to help our business. His communication was outstanding and he consistently made himself available to focus on our needs.

My company and I value Swift Business Solutions commitment, professionalism, and quality of services provided, and look forward to a long lasting relationship in the future.

Pack & Company Real Estate

Wishing you the many
blessings of Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving

• 4 pounds sweet potatoes (about 7 medium)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• Coarse salt and ground pepper

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prick sweet potatoes all over with a fork. Place on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until very tender when pierced with a knife, 1 hour.
• When cool enough to handle, halve sweet potatoes. With a spoon, scoop out fresh (discard skins); transfer to a food processor.
• Add butter and syrup; process until smooth.
• Season with salt and pepper. Serve warm.

Compliments of MarthaStewart.com

Read the entire story at Tech Crunch ~ Link

1. Have a passion for your business or your job – It is pretty important that you like what you do and will most definitely make life more enjoyable. Ask yourself this simple question. Would you buy from you?  Remember, you have one first impression! Make it count, you never know who your next customer might be.
2. Show you can be trusted – Sure people want a good deal, but not at the expense of being able to trust who they are doing business with.
   Recently, I saw the movie Courageous. In this movie Javier (played by Robert Amaya) was up for a promotion. All he had to do was commit to fudge on some numbers every now and then and the job would be his. After considering the needed commitment to gain the pay raise, he declined making the commitment to be untrustworthy. Only to learn that it was a test from his employer, that five other interviewee’s failed. His honesty won him the respect of the owner and the new position.
3. Be flexible, except with core values – It is a given that plans and strategies will need to change. Being flexible is a huge advantage over some larger competitors. Core values and business practices should not be part of this flexibility, no mater what the demand for profits is.
4. No Guts, No Glory – Everyone that has achieved any level of success, has also endured a fair amount of failures. Step outside of your box, be seen and take calculated risks. “In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” ~ Bill Cosby

These are just a few of the thoughts we keep close to the vest here at Swift.  Please feel free to share some of yours.

“The website had to meet a couple of needs we saw developing, unique menu differences between the stores and showcase the variety of our Express Pizza combos and the twelve different Monster SJ Submarine sandwiches. We wanted our customers to be able to see and taste our food as they considered their options. People can surf our Pizza Gallery, Submarine Gallery and get a good idea of what they will be getting when they order from The Pepperoni Express chain.

Greg and his team, did just that!

The Swift Team now plays a big role in providing website traffic data and has started overseeing our social media interaction. They have allowed us to focus on what is going on in our stores, while they manage our marketing efforts. It is a great partnership! Greg and his team bring a can do attitude, a unique approach and a refreshing perspective that is very helpful. It is a great partnership! ”

Does your website need some updating? Perhaps you are buried working in your business and can use a team like ours to assist you with web presence or deployment of other marketing efforts including management of social media. If so, please contact us by simply calling or emailing today.