Driving With Slippers

15 Essential Open Source Tools for Windows Admins

drivingwithslippers — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:16:47 +0000

Isin't It Always?

Thanks to InfoWorld Media Group for this handy review.

From networking troubleshooting to security to performance analysis,

they’ve compiled a list of the top open source tools for your Windows-based systems. Read More

Dashing Toward Data

drivingwithslippers — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:01:14 +0000

Improved performance and communication as a result of weekly multichannel dashboards sounds like the Holy Grail. Phiippe Graner in DirectMarketingMag.com offers a starting point to consider.

The charts when combined, form a typical dashboard for a multichannel direct marketing business. To reiterate, it is important to build a dashboard that reflects your industry’s nuances and your company’s overall business goals. Adding critical metrics and removing columns that are not applicable to provide perspective on your business goals should be a priority for any department tasked with producing the weekly dashboard.

Nice to have something to develop into. Right now it’s “calls”, “conversations” and “sales”. It’s sure going to be great when we have performance measures based on web activity. Our Vitamin C email broadcast in conjunction with Mosnter Follow up is our fist step into metrics.

The Birth Of A Word

drivingwithslippers — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 12:11:45 +0000

The Birth Of A Word from TED

Hispanic Community Still Largely Untapped for Supplements

drivingwithslippers — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 11:36:52 +0000

Author: Sheldon Baker

Source: Baker Dillon Group

Sheldon Baker Senior Partner
Baker Dillon Group Sheldon Baker has been developing brands and marketing programs in the dietary supplement industry for 20 years. He is also a contributing writer to several supplement and foods publications and hosts an online television talk show that features many supplement industry health leaders. He can be contacted at Info@BakerDillon.com.

Several years ago, a dietary supplement client said all their target markets had been exhausted. When I inquired about the Hispanic community, there was silence. Then they said, “We haven’t marketed to those people.”
More recently, a functional foods client thought it would be a good idea to tap the Hispanic marketplace. They ran a print ad in a Spanish language magazine and to their surprise the phone started ringing off the hook. But there was a problem. The company had no telemarketers who could speak Spanish. Obviously, while the promise of expanding sales to the Hispanic community may be beneficial to some companies, there are several areas that need to be addressed before launching a full scale marketing campaign.
Bi-lingual packaging, collateral and a website, as well as a Spanish-speaking staff are mandatory for targeting the Hispanic community. And don’t forget social media. There are more Hispanics involved online than there has ever been in the past decade. Hispanics in the social media age are now involved in watching videos, listening to music, communicating through social networking and creating content to publish online. Social media is one of the key sources of information for Hispanics.
There are more social media sites with Spanish content arriving online and the responses are met with great enthusiasm by Hispanic communities. Many of the larger social networking sites are creating Spanish versions of their websites to allow for the portion of non-English speaking users to have access to their websites and content. This plays well into Hispanic marketing 2.0 and companies wishing to offer social media platforms for their Spanish-speaking users. Hispanics in the social media age are redefining the standards for marketing and advertising throughout the Internet enabled world.
More than 66 percent of Latinos in America would be more inclined to buy products and services from companies and 64.7 percent would be even more loyal to companies that demonstrate a strong and visible commitment to the Hispanic community, according to a recent national telephone survey of 1,100 employed adult Hispanic consumers conducted on behalf of the management consulting firm Garcia Trujillo LLC.
“Hispanics in the U.S. will no doubt impact health and wellness trends,” says Ray Wolfson, president of The Matrix Group in New Jersey, whose company advises many supplement and food manufacturing companies about retail product placement. “Many Hispanics come from cultures that value traditional remedies. They have a predilection for “natural” remedies and have a negative attitude toward traditional doctors and prescription drugs. Often in their home countries medical care was beyond their means due to cost factors. Those concerns have not disappeared.” says Wolfson.
According to the dLife Foundation, diabetes is one of the most serious health challenges facing Hispanics and Latinos in the United States. It is the sixth leading cause of death within the community and the fourth leading cause of death among Hispanic women and Hispanic elderly. Hispanics and Latinos are at a higher risk of developing and dying from diabetes, and twice as likely as other populations to experience complications such as heart disease, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney disease, amputations and nerve damage.
The National Diabetes Education Program reported that 10.4 percent of Hispanics/Latinos ages 20 years or older have been diagnosed with diabetes. And among Hispanics/Latinos, diabetes prevalence rates are 8.2 percent for Cubans, 11.9 percent for Mexican Americans, and 12.6 percent for Puerto Ricans.
“Although many companies continue to make investments in building their brands and their business strategically in the Hispanic market, our survey shows a significant gap in companies’ ability to engage and build equity with the fastest growing demographic in America,” said Charles Garcia, Garcia Trujillo CEO and a director of Winn-Dixie Stores.
“It’s no secret that the Hispanic population is the fastest growing segment in the United States and that consumer base is an integral part of the marketplace with close to $1 trillion in buying power,” says Karena Dillon, president of Baker Dillon Group, a leading dietary supplement and food brand marketing firm based in Northern California, and president of the Consultants Association for the Natural Products Industry.
“If you’re not effectively marketing your product or service to the Hispanic community, you’re missing out on reaching over 45 million potential customers,” Dillon added.

Sheldon Baker Senior Partner, Baker Dillon Group P.O. Box 689
Clovis, CA 93613
p: (559) 325-7191
f: (559) 325-7195
SBaker@BakerDillon.com
www.BakerDillon.com

7 Types of Web Videos that Work for Businesses

drivingwithslippers — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 11:32:29 +0000

By Chris Sturk

Today’s new media landscape can be utilized to better serve your business

Have you embraced new technologies and trends within the online publishing environment?

By now we’ve all heard about the benefits of online components like social media; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ are all utilized to build closer relationships and portray a sense of transparency. Yet, the technology that can be used and shared on these social platforms is often overlooked.

I am of course talking about the inclusion of online video throughout the digital landscape – from blogs to social networks and beyond.

Web videos help to aid in the social and relationship building process. They are widely viewed by the online community because they bring a visual component to content. It seems only natural to embrace web video, as it provides audio and visual components to create a more humanly experience.

Are you already using web videos online? If so, how are you doing it? What video types have you been embracing to adequately serve your business?

Patrick Hughes, New Media Producer at Mequoda Group, has created a list of seven video types that can be used to assist online businesses.

Seven video types for online business

Video type #1: Product demo videos - If you are an online publisher or content marketer with a lot of products, video demos might be a great solution in generating more revenue. Most potential buyers want to see how something works before they purchase it. Video is the savior in this process, as it is otherwise very difficult to provide demonstrations online without video.

Video type #2: Promotional videos - Sales letters and pictures can help in selling a product, but they can only present so much. A video can aid in the sales process by showcasing the product or service and generate a personal connection.

Video type #3: Training videos (external & internal) - As stated, training videos can be used internally or externally, to train employees or clients. If your business deals with strategies or processes that have a visual component, video can greatly help in the teaching process.

Video type #4: Quick, fun viral videos - These type of web videos can help show a different side to your organization. Plus, you never know when something will go viral – which leads to a lot of brand visibility.

Video type #5: Staff videos - As another way to build relationships and show transparency, staff videos help show the public who your company is from the inside out.

Video type #6: Podcasts or video blogs - Online publishers are quite accustomed to presenting content through the written word. To change the pace and reach additional audience members on another level, video podcasts or video blogs can be used as a premium content format.

Video type #7: Testimonials – Video testimonials are great to shoot at live events. Start by finding someone willing to speak in front of the camera, and then capture their first-hand account of the event as it’s completely fresh in their mind. These testimonials can be used as promotional materials for future events with similar topics.

If you want to learn more about these seven video types, and have the opportunity to ask questions to Mequoda’s New Media Producer Patrick Hughes, join us for our upcoming Web Video 101 for Publishers webinar.

The Birth Of A Word

drivingwithslippers — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:09:49 +0000

The Birth Of A Word

A Yogi’s Requiem

drivingwithslippers — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 07:35:03 +0000

Came across a clipping from the LA Times upon the passing of my teacher, Yogi Bhajan.

He was responsible for naming me “:Gurumantra” and getting me to wear a white turban.

He wasn’t kidding when he said we could get high on our breath. Talk about moving some energy! Kundalini Yoga. Many branches, one source.

‘Graphene Earns Its Stripes’ – New Nanoscale Electronic State Discovered On Graphene Sheets

drivingwithslippers — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:59:19 +0000

Researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) have discovered electronic stripes, called ‘charge density waves’, on the surface of the graphene sheets that make up a graphitic superconductor. This is the first time these stripes have been seen on graphene, and the finding is likely to have profound implications for the exploitation of this recently discovered material, which scientists believe will play a key role in the future of nanotechnology. The discovery is reported in Nature Communications, 29th November.

Graphene is a material made up of a single sheet of carbon atoms just one atom thick, and is found in the marks made by a graphite pencil. Graphene has remarkable physical properties and therefore has great technological potential, for example, in transparent electrodes for flat screen TVs, in fast energy-efficient transistors, and in ultra-strong composite materials. Scientists are now devoting huge efforts to understand and control the properties of this material.

The LCN team donated extra electrons to a graphene surface by sliding calcium metal atoms underneath it. One would normally expect these additional electrons to spread out evenly on the graphene surface, just as oil spreads out on water. But by using an instrument known as a scanning tunneling microscope, which can image individual atoms, the researchers have found that the extra electrons arrange themselves spontaneously into nanometer-scale stripes. This unexpected behavior demonstrates that the electrons can have a life of their own which is not connected directly to the underlying atoms. The results inspire many new directions for both science and technology. For example, they suggest a new method for manipulating and encoding information, where binary zeros and ones correspond to stripes running from north to south and running from east to west respectively.

Full bibliographic information“Charge density waves in the graphene sheets of the superconductor CaC6”, K.C. Rahnejat, C.A. Howard, N.E. Shuttleworth, S.R, Schofield, K. Iwaya, C.F. Hirjibehedin, Ch. Renner, G. Aeppli, M. Ellerby, Nature Communications, 2011, accepted, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1574.

Attached files

Electronic stripes, called ‘charge density waves’, on the surface of a graphitic superconductor. (Credit: K.A. Rahnejat)

Lost A Sale? It All Started With How You Greeted Your Customer

drivingwithslippers — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 06:37:45 +0000

Bob Phibbs paints an unpleasant picture of what bad manners looks like in a retail setting.

Your custom motorcycle and you hurtle down Wilshire Boulevard. You turn around at the intersection and stop in front of an apartment building.

You grab your precious cargo – two extra large meat lovers’ pizzas with extra cheese and extra sausage, and hurry into the building.

Within moments you have bounded to the second floor to knock on your friend’s door 20 minutes before the start of the game – the semifinals of the NCAA Division I basketball tournament. No one answers.

You can hear the TV on but no one comes to the door. You wait, then cautiously enter and see two of your friends talking. They stop and notice you, but go on talking.

You shut the door, take off your leather jacket and go up to them. “Hey,” one says and looks past you. The other looks at the counter and yells, “Hey the pizza is here!” and they all run over as if you weren’t there.

How would you feel?

Well that’s how first timers might feel entering your store or showroom when they are ignored.

That’s how many salespeople ultimately lose sales opportunities.

If a friend knocked on your front door, how would you answer? “May I help you?”, “I’ll be with you in a minute?”, “Finding everything ok?”, of course not! Yet, the curt actions of poor clerks often give that message. As their excuse for not greeting a customer, some trainees tell me, “But I don’t like to be bothered when I shop. I like to be left alone.”

Well introvert, retail is not about what you want. It is about what customers want. Leaving the customer alone costs your company big money. 80% of customers never return to businesses due to perceived indifference from staff. 80% want to be noticed. 100% want a friendly greeting.

Greeting anyone with “Good afternoon, welcome to (your store name) feel free to look around and I’ll be right back,” is not pushy, it’s good manners and the first step to making a successful sale. Doing it within 15 seconds is the best (that’s not that long – try counting as you walk in to your store.)

Sometimes employees size up the customer long before they actually say anything to them. I used to have an employee like this – he felt he could “read” everyone and if they were just looking, he’d let someone else wait on them. It would be like the hostess of your local diner giving the Prime Rib menu to only those she felt could afford it, while the others got the menu with hot dogs. That comes from their personality but that’s another post…

If you’re with a customer and another walks in, first ask the person you’re helping, “Would you mind if I greet this person, I’ll be right back?” Any reasonable person will say, “Yes.” When you meet the new customer, greet her with, “Good morning! Welcome to (your store name). While I’m with another customer, please look around and I’ll be right back.”

No reasonable person will be offended and you can go back to your first customer. The person who entered can relax and look around and the first customer doesn’t feel you abandoned them.

The best salespeople make big sales by developing warm relationships that start with a friendly greeting. Whether they are white, black, straight, gay, single, a couple, a mom, etc. They’re all purple and their money is green.

If you don’t perform this first step of a sale properly- greeting them like they are coming to your home, you often make your job as a salesperson much harder.

Order Sales RX: The Five Parts to a Successful Sale video training program by Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor to learn all the steps to making more sales more often.

Merchandising: How To Attract Retail Customers Without Discounting

Retail Holiday Sales Tip: Stop the Transfers

How Events In Japan Will Impact Luxury Brands

← Personality Test: Can You Make An Amiable A Top Salesperson?

3 Responses to “Lost a Sale? It All Started With How You Greeted Your Customer”

Jeffrey Summers says:

October 6, 2011 at 5:57 pm

Amen Bob! It never ceases to amaze me how many ‘experts’ preach the Golden Rule. But you are right, it’s not about how WE want to be treated. It’s about how GUESTS want to be treated. Good post.

Reply
- bobphibbs says:
  
  October 6, 2011 at 7:51 pm
  
  Thanks Jeffrey for noticing that sentence as the key and thanks for commenting!
  
  Reply
Heather Strang says:

October 7, 2011 at 7:36 pm

Bob,
Love your intro here – it was very catching and illustrated the point perfectly. I can’t tell you how often this happens (well, maybe I can, since you know all about this!). A friendly greeting makes all the difference. I normally like to be “left alone” when I shop, but I LOVE friendly salespeople. I bought a lot of product at Lush Cosmetics about a month ago when the sales gal was so incredibly friendly and helpful. And I had come in to look. I never felt like she was selling me – just being a friend. It’s amazing what a good personality and warmth can do for retail sales.

-Heather

Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

A New Way to Cut Health Care Costs Playing The “Is It Healthy?” Game

drivingwithslippers — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:37:42 +0000

Once you absorb the impact of the health dividends Reliable Production Machining and Welding achieved you might find yourself wondering how the rest of us can join together to cut out the middleman and still maintain access to the preventative care that offers the largest, long lasting effects.

There’s more to the story I’m sure, but it has the three key elements for success: connect, contribute and collaborate. This weeks “Is It Healthy?” Game Business Innovator. The clincher was what employees said they liked about it. Designed for health and healthy it is. Can it really be that basic? Congrats on the health savings dividend per employee from playing the “Is It Healthy?” Game.

Virgin Health Miles takes a novel approach to getting desired health results with the biggest impacts to the challenges of each of their clients’ needs using incentives and the power of social networks to drive measurable health results.

Organizations that promote employee health and well-being are 3½ times more likely to encourage creativity and innovation, according to research by Right Management, the people who know that one third of employees eat lunch at their desks. I can attest to that. Yesterday I met two hospital health workers who not only confessed to being guilty as charged, but one was actually eating hers while we chatted.

How Can We Use Adult Learning Principles in Our Training? Relevance is a key element and speaks to what the training is designed to achieve. What about how adults process information? Some are auditory, some visual or kinesthetic in terms of primary information processing pathways. It would seem that by simply addressing those modalities in training content would also be a value added enhancement, but would no doubt be a good predictor of successful implementation and adoption of the training.

The total cost of health care for a typical family of four covered by a preferred provider plan (PPO) is $19,393, an increase of $1,319, or 7.3% over 2010.

Even though the rate of increase is slowing from prior years, it has taken fewer than nine years for such costs to more than double. In 2002, the cost of health care for the typical family of four was $9,235 according to the 2011 Millimen Medical Index.

Counties and municipalities are building alliances, with institutions and businesses and are actively looking for ways of sharing data, providing programs and opening community clinics to facilitate the type of health care needed by the community. That includes multi-lingual, and multi cultural audiences. Language, literacy and laziness are a devastating social handicap and they are lurking in all our communities.

We can see the writing on the wall. The good news is there are some easy, engaging and effective ways to play the “Is It Healthy?” Game and have everyone come out winners.

Driving With Slippers

15 Essential Open Source Tools for Windows Admins

Dashing Toward Data

The Birth Of A Word

Hispanic Community Still Largely Untapped for Supplements

7 Types of Web Videos that Work for Businesses

Today’s new media landscape can be utilized to better serve your business

Seven video types for online business

The Birth Of A Word

A Yogi’s Requiem

‘Graphene Earns Its Stripes’ – New Nanoscale Electronic State Discovered On Graphene Sheets

Lost A Sale? It All Started With How You Greeted Your Customer

Related posts:

3 Responses to “Lost a Sale? It All Started With How You Greeted Your Customer”

Leave a Reply

Search Our Website

Recent Blog Posts

Blog Topics

A New Way to Cut Health Care Costs Playing The “Is It Healthy?” Game