I’m all about efficiency, and yesterday I got to thinking…

Why isn’t there a breed of grass that stops growing at an inch tall to prevent the need to cut it?

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Are there any two words more important to a consumer than “customer service”? Well…. “free” and “stuff” when put together have their appeal, I suppose. Anyway…I’m a big customer service person.

Three weeks ago, before traveling to Toronto for the virtual assistance conference I spoke at, I scheduled an appointment for a hair cut. I just wanted to have myself looking all sleek and shiny - nothing dramatic.

“Just a trim,” is what I told the hair dresser. Because I had a very specific time frame to get my do do-ed, I wasn’t able to get an appointment with my regular stylist. Not a big deal, since I only wanted a trim.

I have very thick hair, and hair dressers are always having to thin it out. When this particular stylist asked me if I wanted it thinned, I told her that’s what Teresa always does (my regular gal) so she started to cut. However, apparently, thinning to this person meant layering. Before I knew what was happening, the hair I was planning to grow out a bit was being chopped into short layers right on the top of my head. I hate layers in my hair. I have some curl in my hair, and when it’s layered, because I have two young children and zero free time, I can’t do anything with it myself and it just ends up looking disheveled all the time.

When she was all finished, I grimaced at my reflection. I’ve never had a situation in a hair dresser’s chair where I wanted to cry, until that day. I told her I just didn’t like it, and asked if she could do something to fix it. It made me feel like I looked ten years older, and here I was just wanting to feel and look good for my conference. She looked at me, kind of puzzled, like she didn’t really know what to do, and then started cutting again.

I decided I would try it out, see if a few days would make any difference about the way I felt about it.

It didn’t work. Two and a half weeks later, I couldn’t look in the mirror. It was just awful. I made a call to the hair salon and explained that I had a hair cut a couple weeks prior and needed to get it fixed. My appointment was scheduled for Saturday morning (yesterday).

I was so happy to see Teresa. When I sat in her chair, the owner of the shop came over and apologized for the mis-communication and told me there would be no charge for my new do. I was shocked, really. I mean…was it the hair dresser’s fault that I didn’t like the haircut? Maybe it would have been great for someone else. Hair is such a personal, individual thing. The shop owner didn’t have to say anything. She didn’t even have to come over to chat with Teresa about the situation. But she did. She made me feel important. Told me she was just glad I came back, and that with two small children at home it’s important that I feel “hot”.  (At that point, I would have been happy with “not ugly”.)

Anyway, Teresa somehow cut my hair until it looked like I had more than when I started. She did a great job, and I left her a huge tip because it felt wrong to leave without paying.

THAT’s customer service. That experience will have me telling everyone I know (with hair) to check out Picasso’s in Charlottetown. The gal that cut my hair originally was a great hair dresser, it was partially my fault that I didn’t communicate properly what I was wanting. I don’t know. All I know, is that the shop owner went out of her way to ensure I was happy.

What do you do when someone’s not satisfied with the service or product you provide? Do you guarantee your work? Do you go out of your way to make sure that a customer never walks away unhappy? I hope so, because unhappy customers have huge mouths.

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As an entrepreneur, you presumably put a lot of thought into naming your business. I sure did. It’s a very big decision. You have to try the name on for awhile and see how it feels. You have to write it out and see how painful it will be to write down a million times in the future. You have to see if it will continue to suit you as you grow. Will it make sense when you tell someone your domain name over the phone? (With my name, I always have to say “Mann with two ‘n’s and no, it’s m-a-d-e, not m-a-i-d.”)

Twenty years ago (yes, it has been two decades) the New Kids on the Block appeared on the scene, weakening young girls knees everywhere. They were five young guys who have been credited with starting off the boy band craze in the 90s. (They seem to disagree, saying there were lots of boy bands around before them and perhaps they were the first “white” boy band. ) Whatever they were, they were a phenomenon. I was absolutely nuts over them. I spent every dollar I had on their tapes, ‘Teen Beat’ magazines with posters of them, earrings, t-shirts, even socks and sunglasses. I had a club and we had t-shirts and binders…spending lunch hours swooning over our favorite ‘Kid’. It’s really a good thing that twelve year old girls can’t get tattooed, cause you can bet I’d have the NKOTB logo somewhere on my person.

I don’t recall what happened to NKOTB, but they have reunited and are going on a reunion tour this summer. How exciting! And how brilliant. Their concerts are selling out, and why wouldn’t they be? They already have a huge fan base, made up of 25-35 year old women who have been loyal to them for 20 years. We have more money now to sink into their music and concert tickets and we still love them…even if our husbands think we’re dorks.

My point here is that perhaps the name “New Kids on the Block” wasn’t brilliant. It seems odd to choose a name that will not make sense after a couple of top ten hits. How ‘new’ can you be when you’ve been on the charts for a few years? And now with the guys ranging in age from 35-40 something, they sure aren’t kids anymore. I wonder if they’re sorry they chose that name. It doesn’t seem to be hurting them much, but it seems kind of silly to see a bunch of 40 year old men called the New Kids.

Anyway, think about your name before you brand yourself

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If you read my blog regularly, you know I have a deep love of the Food Network. Because I have two little ones in my house, I rarely get to watch anymore, except at night when they don’t need to be watching Max and Ruby. Although the best cooking shows aren’t on then, the more interesting ones are including my very mostest favorite one - Kitchen Nightmares. I think I’ve developed a crush on the show’s star (the very intense Gordon Ramsay) but that’s beside the point. I come away from each one hour episode with a new business lesson that can be applied to my virtual assistant business.

Last night’s episode had Ramsay trying to rescue Lela’s , a “fine dining” restaurant that served instant mashed potatoes and frozen vegetables. Not so fine, right? The restaurant was only eight months old and failing desperately. There were problems with staff members stealing, being loud and rowdy in the kitchen while diners could hear, a lack of leadership from the owner, and a very bad menu without one single fresh item on it. After his initial tasting of the restaurant’s  dishes (many of which were not available that day) and comments on the multiple spelling errors on the menu, he went to scout out the neighborhood to poll locals.

Many hadn’t ever visited the restaurant because it was out of their price range, and everyone wanted a place where they could just feel comfortable and eat good food at a good price.

He quickly found out that a “fine dining” restaurant was not going to fly in a neighborhood made up of either homeless people or young people without much of an expendable income. When he looked at the other restaurants in the community, the one thing missing was a place where people could just order a burger or another casual and affordable meal. He completely changed the look, feel, and menu of Lela’s. People loved it.

Are you trying to sell your service or product to a demographic that will never buy in? Or are you offering the same service to the same target market as fifteen other companies? You need to either niche yourself or differentiate. Take a look at your target market. What are their pain points? What do they need that nobody else is offering them? Can you provide this service?

Turns out that Lela’s was  in too deep a hole to get out of, even with the experience, charm and good looks of Gordon Ramsay. That doesn’t mean this approach wouldn’t have worked, I believe it would have. You have to give your audience what they want. Even if it’s the lowly cheeseburger. Just make it the best damn cheeseburger anyone has ever tasted. If that’s what people want, why bother trying to perfect your lobster bisque recipe?

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We are all familiar with the story. Winter is coming and the little industrial ants are busy hunting and gathering food for the long cold months of being holed up in their hill. Their minds are focused on one thing - getting food. It’s what they need to sustain themselves and no matter how well they stock their little ant cupboards, they keep going and going until they’re forced to stop. Through the winter months, they’ll have lots of little ant snacks to enjoy while watching Grey’s Entomology on their little ant TVs.

Meanwhile, the ‘live in the moment’ grasshopper has a full belly and doesn’t feel the need to prepare for the winter. He’s out dancing and hopping…in the grass…poking fun at the busy little ants and wondering why they don’t just relax a bit.

Some entrepreneurs are ants, and some are grasshoppers. If you think of leads as food - fuel you need to thrive - this will make much more sense. A business that depends on leads must never stop generating them. Even if you don’t feel hungry for new business today, things can be dramatically different tomorrow. Winter could be just around the corner.

Are you marketing your business even when you have a full roster of clients? Or are you waiting for the day when the snow flies and you’re starving?

In the fable of the ant and the grasshopper, the hospitable ants took the grasshopper in, gave him something to eat and I think they had a big party or something. Unfortunately, this is business, and I don’t know many business ants that would share their hard earned leads with a hungry  business grasshopper.

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