Today DaveOJ and I decided to have our lunch in a local stores restaurant. It was obvious the waitress was friendly but not very good at taking our order, definitely not very fast and the restaurant was almost empty and she could not remember who had ordered what so gave me the drink intended for DaveOJ. This prompted us to chat about why organizations hired people and either decided not to train them or when they were trained did not excell at the job they were trained to do. DaveOJ suggested it had a lot to do with the type of job and also the salary involved.

Speaking as someone who has worked in a store and the salary was defintely not any more than minimum wage I do know from experience that anyone off the street could do the job I used to do. How do I know that? It was pointed out to me on many occasions by the manager of the store. But, I learn fast, and when I do something I do it well, very well in fact, and not everyone is like me. I noticed on occasion that some of the staff did not do their work well and some even showed they cared very little for the customers. I often saw customers walk away without making a sale because of those reasons. I wonder how much revenue is lost and how many customers went away and referred their friends or family to this store or any other store that lacked great customer service and great products?

Why not employ staff who actually want the job offered, would enjoy the work and train those staff, if needed and thus offer the customers excellence and the money paid to the employee in wages and training would quickly be paid back with the increase in  sales? It sounds so simple but more often than not my way is not adopted and this has to change. With the social media opening up so many opportunities to let organizations know when they are doing well or not so well, millions of people are now making choices because of the experiences of others and this impacts the organizations greatly.

I really believe that this is not rocket science it is so simple a child could work it out and until organizations realise this they will continue on a spiralling path downwards never to return.

I know how it feels because I have been there and done it! I could talk about doing it but I did it, so I know what you are feeling, the struggle you  feel every day when things don’t go according to plan, how difficult it is to keep motivated, believe me I do know. The thing is people pick up on your excitement, or lack of it and your passion or lack of it, and we tend to act differently on line sometimes to the person we are off line.

As a people person I watch, listen and keep an eye on how other successful people succeed, I learn a lot and sometimes sigh a lot, not everyone does it right, all of the time. What is most disturbing though is this blinkered view of social media platforms, especially Facebook. I can still see you whether you are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, I can see how you present yourself, how you appear to other people, how you interract.  If we take me as an example, I have the Linda Ockwell-Jenner Facebook Page and what you see is what you get online or off. I have a mixture of family, friends and business connections.  Some days I might be ranting about something in the newspaper and another day I might gently hint that I am giving up alcohol because I attended a party. What I don’t do is go overboard and say things I might regret the next day, or even be read by someone who might be looking at me as a possible keynote speaker for their event. What you put on  Facebook stays on Facebook and can be read and passed on to people you might not even know. This is not a privacy issue, this is about conducting yourself in such a way that you never let yourself down.

I know for a fact that LinkedIn in particular is the place where most recruiters go now to find possible candidates for jobs, so these same recruiters may even be your friend on Facebook, but you may have forgotten that fact. It’s ok to have a great reputation on LinkedIn, but that same reputation has to stand true on Facebook, or people may start to wonder exactly who you really are.

Ideally never pretend to be someone you are not, on the other hand always be aware that your friends might be the path to your success in some degree and how you interract on Facebook can also be a factor in your future success. Another example could be if I am friends with someone on Facebook and they message me privately to let me know one of their friends is interested in me speaking at their conference. I then go and talk about this possibility on Facebook, but it would have been better if I had waited to see if I got the gig and  then announced it to the world in a passionate and productive manner.I know I look at people I connect with on Facebook and this offers me an idea of who they are and it could be a good or bad thing, so obvioiusly people do it to you also. You are being watched, nothing to be scared about just remember to conduct yourself in a manner to be proud of and be authentic to who you are.

Do I have to even name the company who became famous mostly because they had a secure solution to sending emails via a phone? I think not. You should all be aware of the recent controversy concerning the security of this organizations customers data, if not go read the newspapers or listen to the news on the T.V. Keeping up with this kind of information can really help you decide which smartphone to purchase and any facts that might make your decision easier. There are so many smartphones out there now, how do you make your mind up?

The company in question evidently have,in the past, compromised  with governments in certain countries or found ways to keep its system secure for business  users, and I think this is where the strength of this particular smartphone has been secure, until now. Security is important, but some countries like to keep an eye out on what is going on, say no more as I am not getting into that particular debate. But, if this particular company compromises in some areas, does this mean they may lose credibility and trust with the customers who do not want a compromise for fear of a breach in security?

Ultimately this is a win win and a no win situation, and by that I mean the extra publicity can do no harm and I doubt everyone will stop purchasing this particular product. On the other hand some customers may decide to walk away. What I advocate is working on a list of your needs when you do purchase any product, but in this case a smartphone. Know your budget and the main reason you need this product and chose according to your lifestyle, budget and particular likes and dislikes. Do not make this a complicated process and always make sure to ask the questions you need answered and do not be put off if someone suggests you don’t need the answers you are looking for. It’s your money, your time and your purchase, so therefore, your choice.

This week has been pretty stressful for me, and yes I know I created my own stress before you say it. The thing is I like to be treated with respect, I like people to consider my feelings and I am a good person. I treat others how I wish to be treated and that is fair. Unfortunately I do not always get treated fairly, but in the comfort and safety of my own home I do have choices. When the home telephone rang at lunch time a few days ago I answered politely and was subjected to what I first thought was a recorded message. A woman was offering me information, I had no idea who she was, and then she was barraging me with questions and I still had no idea who she was. I finally managed to ask who she was, and she shared her first name and place of work but could not care less who I was because she had no idea of my first or last name.

What eventually happened was I was so angry and upset with this call from someone who was very rude and nasty to me I spent my time finding out who she was so I could ask for an apology. Eventually I did track her down, but was met with more rudeness and the third time I talked with someone who apparently was her spokesperson who denied the calls ever happened and pointed me in another direction.

There is no point me telling the whole story, as it is still an ongoing drama, but I wanted to share with you all how this can impact not only the innocent people like me who answers these kinds of calls but also the organization these people are working for. When I worked the 3 jobs I was for all intents and purposes representing the company, and their brand and their reputation. Ultimately if an employee does not act in the best interests of the organization they are employed by not only does it mean customers could be lost via word of mouth, but the employee could face dismissal.

No matter how badly we want the sale, no matter if we detest the job we are employed to do, we have taken on the responsibility and trust of the person who employed us and I believe we should never abuse that gift. In this day and age with the economy not being the best it can be everyone is struggling to keep their heads above water and make a decent living.

Where customer service is concerned I am the best! I treat everyone I come into contact with equally, with respect and the best I can offer and I expect the same back. I do not blame the organizations for employing people who do not treat the customers with excellent customer service. But I do encourage other people to do what I do, let the organization know there is a problem and maybe, just maybe they can save one customer.

Today is another day, I have another cause to fight, and I will move on, one voice may be deemed a whisper, but one whisper can be heard by many.

Another example for a long time would be websites, we think of our website as a window to the world, so we dress our web site appropriately, or not, whatever takes our fancy! My point is some well known brands do have more choice than the lesser known ones, and it is OK to take a chance and gamble with an idea but be careful you don’t lose credibility or clientele.

That brings me nicely to the idea of dressing our social media windows. What you may ask is that? Well, when you sign up for a Twitter account you are asked to provide a name, a profile, a photo/logo and this is in essence your window dressing made easy. The social media sites provide you with a template and you add the bits you want to and leave out the bits you chose to.

On the other hand the clever window dressers will do their best, even with a template of sorts to dress their window in a unique and interesting way to draw more attention to themselves. This could be in the form of a really wow profile that compels people to want to know more about the person, or a photo that is friendly and welcomes people to connect to them.

We do have the lazy window dressers who prefer to stay anonymous and this will work in some cases, especially if your brand is well known, but in most cases people walk straight past your window. Remember when you went to look for that shiny new car you wanted to buy and you got to the dealership and found out that they were closed early so all you could do was stare at your dream car through the window? Imagine if the car was dirty, and scratched and looked sad and falling apart? Would you be temped to buy it? No is the answer.

It may seem like I am always talking about being dressed when writing articles about successful social media efforts, whether you are naked online or have not dress your social media window, it all comes down to how you want to be perceived.

I love to dress my social media windows and I always look my best and that draws people to me and they want to find out more about me and connect with me.

As a business development coach I wonder why people focus so much on making a certain number of connections versus taking the time to actually connect with fewer connections and building the all important relationships we talk about all the time.

My article asked if you are a trophy hunter and how many trophies you have on your wall. This could be taken to mean Facebook in particular because we do have “walls” there. Once we have our trophies do we polish them and leave them be?

So you now have 500 members what happens next? What would be wonderful and very beneficial to everyone with groups here on Facebook would be for us all to connect via email, Skype, face to face etc and find out how we can help each other. We may not actually want to connect with everyone in the real sense of the word, but doing nothing other than displaying our trophies really leads to nothing.

Next time you are inspired by someone who is successful in their business look at how they did it, what they did and ask if they will mentor you, but do not decide to become them! We all have our own unique and special gifts but some of us do not believe in ourselves or have the passion to work hard to make our dreams a reality.

An example could be if you admire a business who offers printing to small business owners, and they are successful, have found a way that works for them, but part of their success is who they are and how they treat their customers. They offer excellent customer service, follow up and like to connect with their customers on a regular basis. Obviously you can take whatever works for you from that, but if you are not excellent with customer service, or do not like following up you will not achieve the same success the other business did, in the same way, because you are not like them.

Make your branding YOU, make your branding your own, make your uniqueness stand out, be yourself! So when I said do you have your own Bandwagon or are you jumping on someone elses, the question I am asking is, do you want to build your own business, or do you want to make it easy by trying to be like a successful business you know!