Your DISC personality type affects what your customer service models are and how we can use them to our advantage. When it comes to customer service for our small businesses though, oftentimes we throw that information out the window and forget it!

In a brief synopsis of the DISC personality types, “D” stands for driver, direct and determined, “I” stands for intuitive, inspiring and interacting, “S” stands for stable, steady and supportive and “C” stands for cautious, compliant and careful. Find out more about DISC personality types and small business marketing.

It is always important to me that my small business marketing customers and ongoing clients are happy. That is the easy part, this wish. To make great customers service a GOAL we need to put some milestones and metrics behind it. If great customer service is a goal for your company, you need to look at your CUSTOMERS not at YOUR COMPANY to make it happen. And how does this match the DISC?

Customer Service Done By Personality Types

High “D” business owners are very direct and to the point, frequently solving problems or delegating, but not following up to make sure that their customer is happy. They tend to focus on the task of fixing something after the fact rather than finding out what caused the problem in the first place. High “D” business owners need to be especially aware that everyone does not think that just doing their work is enough, they must keep their customers in the loop throughout the entire process.

High “I” small business owners tend to have the best intentions about doing great work, only fixing problems after the fact. That having been said, they tend to lack the focus required to make sure that the entire project is done and putting systems in place so that their customers know what has been completed. They should be aware that their clients are often disappointed when promised work or solutions are not forthcoming.

High “S” small business owners will set their customer service plans up, making sure that everyone is going to be happy with their product or service. A High “S” is probably the best person in your organization to delegate to handle customer service. Their caring attitude and genuinely want to help get things done right or fix problems will shine throughout their work with your customers.

High “C” are generally the opposite of High “D” business owners; they have ALL the systems and forms in place to document milestones and resolve problems. Watch out though, as their process can tend to be overwhelming for the other personality types to encounter. “C’s” will often have a process by which customer service requests, complaints or queries are implemented and processed. If they are not careful, the system can become so rigid as to not allow for human error or for changes that might benefit their clients in the long run.

Customer Service Received By Personality Types

The High “C” process of customer service can be VERY hard for “D’s” to comprehend. The thought of filling out forms or navigating to the right department through complicated phone systems is onerous to this aggressive bunch. You might want to consider having a “Press 0 to get an operator” or a human who can walk through the process of your forms for them, rather than having them get even more upset on the way to your customer service help. A human voice on the other end of the line will make your “I’s” and “S’s” happier also.

As stated, high “I” clients will also want to talk to a person. Sending an email, text or just leaving a message will not make the “I” feel like you have done the best job for them, even if you got everything handled in a timely manner. Additionally, by not speaking to them directly, you leave a door open for this situation to be ongoing and for them to feel left out in the cold. Sending them links to FAQ sections and self-help videos will not make “I” happy with the your company.

High “S” clients are not looking for amazing solutions or fanfare. They just want to work with someone who REALLY does handle their account or problem when they say they will. There is very little screaming and yelling with an “S”, BUT you can lose their faith in you if you do not follow through on promises that you make. High “S’s” do not want to change companies or vendors so a little bit of customer service will go a long way!

High “C” clients need A LOT of documentation before, during and after the fact. They will be happiest when they get a detailed account of the work that is completed and if there are problems, a list of proposed solutions. You CAN use email, FAQs, knowledge bases and other non-human types of services for a “C”, as many times they can solve the problem themselves. If there are problems, they are going to want to know what went wrong and what steps you are taking so that it will not happen again in the future.

In Conclusion

As a small business owner, knowing your (and your client’s) personality type can help you to avoid costly Customer Service mistakes. DO NOT assume that your customers want to be treated the way that you want to be treated! Having systems in place for notifying them of your progress or issues that cover ALL the personality types is vital for retaining customers. This is definitely not a one size fits all area of your business. Be sure that if you do not possess the correct skills, you hire someone who does!

Related posts:

1. DISC Personality Types and Small Business Marketing
2. Small Business Marketing – GREAT Customer Service
3. Is Customer Service Letting Your Lead Gen Down – Lowes VS Home Depot

You have a million things you HAVE to do TODAY. You need to finish your paperwork, call some clients, send a newsletter, read an article, do some more paperwork, call that icky client, start your taxes, arggg!

I can tell you that there are probably only two or three things that you HAVE to do today to grow your business, sell something or get a new prospect. Those are the only things you HAVE to do today! (If you owe money to the IRS you may HAVE to talk to them today – you have my permission!)

So if you only have a few things you HAVE to do, you must WANT to do all that other busy work you have set up for yourself, right? We humans are funny creatures, we like to keep busy, to feel needed, to do important work. If we have lots to do we can justify to ourselves not getting some vital things done.

That ends today people! Today you need to figure out the top 3 things that you need to do for your business and EVERY day, before you do anything else, those things have to be done!

For my business, my top three things are:

1. Lead generating – writing blog posts, attending mastermind sessions, writing articles, emailing prospects
2. Strategic planning – getting the systems in place so that when opportunity knocks I am ready
3. Writing Ebooks or speaking in person – this is my actual physical work!

If you are a realtor, yours may look like this:

• Lead generating – holding open houses, blogging about a neighborhood, sending out emails to your database, sending a newsletter, calling your prospects or clients and asking for referrals, attending network events
• Strategic planning – organizing your calendar, targeting neighborhoods or niches, working on your database, setting up automatic emails to your prospects
• Actual Realtor Work – taking listings, signing buyer broker agreements, showing houses, servicing your listings, writing contracts, negotiating contracts, and attending closings

Doing anything other than those things is a waste of your valuable time! You need to make sure that something from those lists is on your calendar every day!

Write these things out and hang them on the wall. Anytime something comes in that seems urgent, hold it up to your list and see if it something you HAVE to do…you may be surprised how much you have been doing that is unnecessary busywork that you just have a habit of doing.

Related posts:

1. Entrepreneur Marketing Focus and Motivation
2. Where should you spend your time?
3. Website and Blog Design – The Wrong Things

People ask me ALL the time how they can do the things that I recommend! Whether I am saying that they should comment on other people’s blog posts, read lots of different blogs or sign up for Twitter, frequently they say that they have NO TIME for all that “work” on the internet!

Well I can honestly say that Twitter is one of the easiest ways to add to your lead generating tool box! Just go to www.twitter.com and sign up.

Some suggestions:

• Pick a good name that people will either recognize (I am TARAdactyl of course) or is descriptive of your business like the MeekTeam or is descriptive of your industry like REMarketer.
• Have a good picture or avatar, I can’t tell you how many faces I see that are not recognizable but I sure knew when the bloodhound blog guys come by as they have a droopy old bloodhound as their picture.
• Fill out your profile – if someone does come by to check you out you need to make sure you sound interesting. For the meantime, just put something, you can come back and finesse this later if you don’t have time now!

To keep track of all the blogs I like I have a secret! I use Google’s free tool to have my homepage show me things that I might find interesting. If I am super busy I just hop on the regular Google search and do whatever is needed BUT if I am looking for great posts to comment on or ideas to jump off of for a blog post – nothing is better!

I have done a video to show you how to use Twitter to lead generate and how to add a site into the Google homepage reader – enjoy!

For more great Lead Generating Tips visit Thrive Client Contact System!

Related posts:

1. Twitter Tools – How To Use Twitter Effectively!
2. Lead Generating – What Is A Lead And Are You Following Up?
3. Small Business Lead Generating Sales Funnel

Time is money. I know, it is trite but true! I had a client ask me today if I thought she should spend some of her time on adding her real estate listings to a website. (See my response on Active Rain)

It made me think about what I spend my precious time on. Sometimes I spend time with my friends and favorite clients (good), sometimes I spend it lead generating (good), sometimes I spend it writing blog posts (good) and sometimes I spend it doing something that ultimately does not benefit my business (bad).

When I was an active Realtor I got lots of emails from companies that would “let” me post my listings on their site. They would then sell that feed to other sites who wanted real estate listings. While it did give my listings more exposure, I could have done that all day, everyday, rather than spending my time doing actual things that could sell my listings like contacting other realtors, marketing the home, attending pitch sessions, holding open houses and a million other things besides posting my listings on sites that had no traffic.

Are you doing something that you “could” do rather than stuff you “should” do? DO NOT get me wrong, I am an early adopter who likes to try new marketing efforts BUT if what I am doing does not benefit me dollar for time then I should focus on dollar productive activities and save my energy for things that have a chance of working for me!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Marketing Where Do You Find The Time
2. Time Management – As In Where Does It Go?
3. Focus Schmocus – How to get things done!

So Mary Dado of Business Writing, Ink and I have been on a whirlwind tour of 4 South Florida Keller Williams market centers. We went down there to talk about the Fab 5 Contest our region is having and the 33 Touch Program that we developed to go along with it. What the heck is a Fab 5 Contest you ask?!!?

Our region of 29 offices is competing to be the best at sales and lead generation! We KNOW that if we call, email and direct mail to enough people our business will grow. (On a side note – I LOVE lead generating because it gives you the chance to have people call you, it gets you lots of opportunities and it allows you work with only people you like and can truly help!)

Marketing Frequency

100 Calls – You should be making (at least) 100 calls to your sphere, your clients, your prospects and your vendors each month. This ALWAYS seemed overwhelming to me, but now that I am doing it, not so much! I made 12 calls in one day, got two opportunities and one appointment – go figure!

Email – You should email your database each month. This is FREE and if you send interesting and relevant info, people will enjoy getting your emails. I do not advocate sending more than two emails per month unless you are working with a targeted group like investors, since you can overwhelm them and get on the “send to trash immediately” list! If you send a weekly newsletter and do not have a huge drop off rate for your list, you can send two emails IN ADDITION to the newsletter because that will be your baseline for starting.

Direct Mail – I know, direct mail is dead, everyone is using the internet and emails. Except they aren’t. There are many segments of the population that are not online 24/7 to read your information. Also there are people (like me) who get a gagillion emails a day and delete most of them unless they are TREMENDOUSLY relevant. If you send a mailing out to people’s home address (preferably) they will see it and notice it. If you send relevant info they might even stick it on their fridge! Make it a personal note and watch out!

Learning Something

So I was roaming around “pontificating” as Mary Dado says (meaning she can’t get me to keep my mouth shut if I can get 5 people in a room to listen to me!) During these sessions with other Realtors, I asked what they were doing to grow their business. I got LOTS of great answers and learned a few new tricks!

It reminded me that NO ONE knows how to do everything! I make sure to surround myself with interesting people, who cumulatively might know ALMOST everything. We have a “Mega Chicks” mastermind group with 6 intelligent, determined women. I have an internet mastermind group every other week. I hang out with people who are smarter and funnier than I am so that I can learn from them. I ask for help and appreciate when I get it.

Some of the people that we talked to were VERY receptive to trying something that might make their business better. They were not POSITIVE that it would work but were willing to give it a shot – hey what do they have to lose? And they might wind up with a thriving business in a tough economy.

On the other hand, some of the people were SURE that it was not for them. They would NEVER send anything out, or they would NEVER make 100 calls, or they had tried this before and it did not work at all. They didn’t want to be accountable to anyone else for having said they would do something. If this is YOUR knee jerk reaction, is it holding you back? Could you TRY doing something different and SEE if MIGHT work rather than rejecting it out of hand?

I was just sitting here wondering if that was too strong a statement against people who have a closed mind (I don’t want to offend someone I might have met in the last couple of days). But then I realized they won’t be interested or open minded enough to read my blog anyways…:)

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Do What You Do and They Can Do What They Do! I know this seems very deep and cryptic BUT it is true!

I was with some of my favorite investor realtors today (Fred Collis & Larry Arth) today and we got to talking about what we can do to generate more leads (their idea of a great lead is Bird Dog who can help them get the word out about real estate investment opportunities). Fred was talking about how his coach keeps giving him tasks which he doesn’t always complete. I think the operative part of that is his coach GIVES him tasks.

I have taught a BUNCH of agents lead generating. In each class I ask the agents and small business owners what they are currently doing. They ALWAYS say that doesn’t matter, that they want to know WHAT to do. I ALWAYS say that they will really only do what they do right now, but more!

If they make calls, they will make calls to more or different people, but they will NOT start blogging on a daily basis if they don’t like to write. If they blog every day and send tons of emails but NEVER pick up the phone, they will not suddenly start making 20 phone calls a day! (I KNOW – there are always exceptions to the rule BUT generally people will do what they do!)

What brought this home for me today was the developer we met with! He is a GREAT charismatic speaker who has been able in the past to sell LOTS because he was able to talk with each client personally in either seminars or on the phone. We are working to market these programs to LOTS of Bird Dogs who have LOTS of clients – there is NO WAY he can talk to 50 clients of 50 Bird Dogs (or over 2,500 people!).

We developed a way to get standardized info out and also to allow him to “talk” to people via a webinar on the internet! We will also record him so he can get his message out via MP3s. Even though these are great ideas, we also need to develop marketing materials for Larry and Fred to get out to the Bird Dogs. The developer never had to do this before because he talked to everyone directly and he isn’t very excited about doing it now BUT to grow the number of people they can reach he will have to adapt or go extinct!

The great thing about this situation is that the Developer has hired us to help him market to new people while maintaining the practices that made him successful in the past! If you are NEVER going to do something then hire someone else to do it so you can concentrate on doing the “fun” tasks you like to do!

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So I was reading a blog post this week about asking for business*. Basically the author said that too many times online we have all this great information available and OF COURSE someone would know to send you an email to request your services! But do you ask them directly? Do you ask for the business the way that you would if you were face to face? I always joked around about “three copies press hard”, meaning that I was staying until I got a listing agreement unless it was a listing I wanted to turn down.

I am also very good in person about explaining the next steps in the process. “After we do the analysis of your needs I will send you a written inspection report by Tuesday” or “I will call you on Thursday to set up a time for the photographer to come out”.  Online we forget to set expectations and so sometimes inadvertantly disappoint people who are expecting a certain level of service. If your auto responder says you will get back within the next 24 hours and fail to mention that you take weekends off, they could be VERY put out when you answer their Friday email on Monday morning!

This time I have practiced what I am preaching! I have added a “Hire Me” button and listed some of my services. In the future I will have a cool email form with a dropdown box so they can tell me exactly what they are interested in and I can capture their contact information BUT for now at least they know I want them to call me! I will also have additional products  with cool links to flyers so they can see everything I have to offer, but what if they want to hire me before then?

DO NOT wait until everything is perfect before you start. Start today. I am including a variety of “hire me” buttons for you to use on your site! Please feel free to copy any of them and put it on your site so someone can hire YOU! All I ask is that you post a comment here so we can all see your site with the “hire me” button!!!!

* If it was your post please let me know and I will add a link!!!!

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