On the Write Road

In the Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade, there is a scene in which Indy must choose the Holy Grail from a sea of chalices in all shapes and colors. Before choosing, the Grail knight warns Indy, "But choose wisely, for while the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you. "

So what does this have to do with owning a business? Well when hiring an online vendor to provide you with a service you must, like Indy, choose wisely. OK, so you won't wither and die if you make the wrong choice but you may lose money and valuable time.

Even though an e-commerce site may say they are time-saving remember that people must process your order. If the company's process is poor you may experience mix ups, mistakes, or delays. Here are two experiences Melody and I had with online vendors. I did not supply a name for the first vendor. For the second vendor I did since I hope this post benefits them.

Vendor One--How Not to Satisfy Customers

Melody and I wanted to create a folded card mailer to print and then mail to clients. We received a recommendation to go to a Web site I will call Company A. Company A is an e-commerce site that provides printing and direct mailing services. They have a tool that you use to produce your card right from your desktop. Then they print and mail your cards to your customers.

The process seemed fairly simple, create the inside of our mailer using their simple tool and upload our artwork for the front page and for the logo. Before printing anything, Company A needed to approve the logo and coverartwork. I uploaded the logo and waited for approval. I waited a week and then sent an email to a customer service person whom I had initially contacted asking what had happened. He apologized, said for some reason it "wasn't in the que", and then approved the logo.

Company A's approval of the cover was even more riddled with delays and mix ups. By now, I was irritated because weeks had passed. I just wanted the darn thing printed.

The next step was to request that Company A print one test mailer. On their site, I paid $5.00 to have one mailer printed. After waiting a week, I sent another email to customer service and never heard back. At this point, I decided I had wasted enough time and would find a local printer and have them print the mailer for me.

Vendor Two - How to Have Happy Customers Who Write Good Things About You

Melody and I are sponsors for the upcoming Third Annual San Francisco Bay Area
Training & Development Expo so we wanted to order some giveaways. I chose to purchase the giveaways from Pinnacle Promotions, which sells promotional items and apparel. From their site, I ordered 250 pens and screen sweeps that were personalized. Within 3 minutes (and I am not exaggerating) a woman from their art department called, went over the order, and told me to expect an email containing an art proof and order confirmation with details on price and shipping. The NEXT DAY they emailed the art proof. When I approved the order, I promptly received another email stating they would proceed immediately on my order and when it would be mailed to me. Exactly on the stated day I received the pens and the screen sweep, which looked great.

Moral of the story: I had a bad experience with Company A and will not recommend them to anyone else. However, I had a great experience with Pinnacle Promotions. Next time I choose an online vendor, I think I will try and get more then one referral and study their Web site for happy customer testimonials.

First photo by Sean Rogers
Second photo by Stewart
Third photo by Tod Baker

Posted in: choosing a vendor, online vendors, small business administration on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 2 comments    

According to the Small Business Administration, two-thirds of new businesses survive for at least two years, and only 44 percent survive at least four years. The exact reason for their failure is unknown but there are certain fatal errors that can sink your company. One of them is ineffective marketing and self-promotion. Customers won't be calling or emailing you if they don't know you exist. So Melody and I needed to make Write on Time visible.

On TechScribe's website http://www.techscribe.co.uk/ta/promoting_tech_writing.htm, Mike Unwalla, owner of this writing business based in the United Kingdom, lists the advertising and publicity methods he uses to promote his business. In addition, he summarizes which methods have worked and which ones have not. I thought Mike's list was a good starting point for a WoTS (Write on Time Solutions) marketing plan. After reading through Mike's promotional strategies, I created my own list.

Here are my ideas:

• Attend targeted professional meetings to network.
• Attend targeted professional conferences as a vendor to market our business.
• Speak at professional organizations such as Society for Technical Communication (STC), Chamber of Commerce, or the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO).
• Become known as an expert in our field by writing articles for magazines or newspapers.
• Create a signature and append it to all outgoing email messages. Include our name, our company name, our website address, and contact information.
• Create a contact list of potential clients and send a mailer to them advertising our new business.
• Email a newsletter periodically to clients on our contact list.
• Create a website.
• Create a blog.

Once we created the list, we began implementing each item. In upcoming posts, Melody and I will write about our marketing experiences, such as producing a simple mailer which is a nightmare.

Posted in: advertising, marketing, networking, promoting, small business administration, TechScribe, write on time solutions on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 0 comments