One reason people get frustrated is because they get anxious.

And they often get anxious, as related to business, because they don’t have information.

With that said, start to keep an eye out for your customers anxiety.

When you notice they are getting anxious, do your best to alleviate it before it turns to frustration.

Let me be clear in saying that I have never seen Nicole Spears resume.

Nor have I ever met her in person.

But I’ve had some interaction with her online, and she appears to be extremely driven, which is something I value.

From what I know she’s a Junior PR major at Ohio University, and she’s clearly learned a thing or two along the way.

My first encounter with Nicole was when she sent a tweet to @KetchumPR, an account I manage. To make a long story short, that tweet led to a series of tweets that prompted her to do something that allowed her to meet the CEO of Ketchum at an event. That experience then gave her the opportunity to write a guest blog post for Ketchum titled, “How a College Student Caught the Attention of Ketchum’s CEO.”

Did you catch that? She managed to not only meet the CEO, but also scored a guest blog post for one of the largest communication firms in the world.

If you’re in PR, or are in the general business world, you know that relationships are crucial. And Nicole could be teaching Relationships 101 or Business Networking 101 with her eyes closed.

I knew she was different, but when I received her holiday card that pretty much sealed the deal.

• She sent a card in the mail. [Bonus points.]
• It included a nice message, and also a reminder about previous interaction. [Refreshed my memory about the relationship.]
• It also included her business card. [A professional touch.]

Again, I’ve never seen her professional work outside of the blog post previously mentioned, but she’s good. I just know it. And if you have the opportunity to hire her, do it. She’s going to be great.

I went to eat lunch at deli near Times Square on Wednesday, and it happens to be a place I’ve frequented quite often given its proximity to my office. While I ate, the manager came over to say hi, and as we chatted I glanced at a homeless man standing in side the deli that had locked eyes with me.

Once the manager left the homeless guy came over to me and said, “Were you talking about me?” I of course said no, but then he kept repeating himself, all while getting louder and more aggressive in tone and body language.

I’ve been around tons of homeless people, and have been in my share of vicarious situations, especially while helping clean up depressed neighborhoods, and these situations don’t normally make me nervous, but this one did.

Maybe it was his tone. Maybe it was how close he was to me. Maybe it’s the random acts of violence that have been all over the news. Who knows. [Read more...]

LinkedIn has released a number of website updates as of late, and there’s one in particular that has to do with Pages that you don’t want to overlook.

LinkedIn Pages, in general, are often forgotten about when it comes to content distribution platforms, which is unfortunate given that many pages, especially for larger organizations, can build up quite a following.

But, let’s assume using a LinkedIn page is part of your content distribution plan. The social network has now added a targeting feature to all page updates, and it’s actually pretty darn good. Here’s a quick look at the new targeted updates on LinkedIn. Note: click images to enlarge them.

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I’ve not mentioned it on this site yet, but I’ve created a small t-shirt brand called The Home T that is an extension of my fashion blog Fashables.

The website is TheHomeT.com and it was my first experience with building an ecommerce site. To make life easier I went with an out of the box version called Shopify that has a number of themes and makes it remotely easy to add products and take payments.

But the fun stops there.

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Customer service. It’s something I’m big on, and I promise this isn’t a mean spirited post, but it is a perfect example of how companies need to choose “the right response” when attending to consumer complaints.

I’ll let a string of emails take you through what happened. The first of which you’ll see below was my response to an invitation from West Elm – the furniture store – to attend an event at one of their stores.

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For years bloggers have been vying for the respect of brands and traditional media, but this post will highlight yet again bloggers aren’t always respected.

Before you continue reading, know that I’m a long-time blogger across multiple disciplines, so… I’m “inside the family” on this topic. Here we go.

I recently reached out to a number of fashion bloggers to inquire about advertising on their website. I inquired for a personal project, and it’s nothing remotely controversial or anything of the sorts.

Of the eight I emailed, guess how many I heard back from?

One.

What’s even better than that? That one blogger couldn’t tell me what I could get for X amount of advertising dollars and wouldn’t even begin to brainstorm options.

What a joke. When did getting free publicity become easier than buying advertising?

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I recently found myself researching various psychotherapy websites for a project, and was almost dumbfounded by what I saw. Sure, I found some good websites, but a vast majority looked like they were created in 1998, and I’ll explain a bit later why this is wildly detrimental.

It’s amazing that psychotherapists help us understand things about ourselves and how we tick, yet, many of their websites don’t tap human behavior/needs to allow themselves to better connect with potential patients.

Again, I’ve looked at a ton of psychotherapists websites and in doing so have decided that there are six fundamental things these types of websites should have. And these aren’t “bells and whistle” type things; they are what I’d consider the must haves for any successful psychotherapist website that converts.

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