So, What Does Your Company Do?

The Tuesday after Labor Day is kind of like January 2nd for me. It's the official start of the Fall Season, whatever that may mean for you. After years of living in New York, it means new art gallery and museum shows, the season of "serious" films, new restaurant openings. It's also the day when my school year would start which instilled a strong sensory memory that kicks in every year and makes me want to buy new notebooks, pens, pencils, and crayons.

So, I always welcome it as if it were a new year, but with the quickened energy that is part of the brisk autumn weather, regardless of temps in the 90's.

All this is a preamble to a renewed commitment to write on a more regular basis and publish here. Most days, there's so many ideas for posts flitting through my head, after reading another blog, an article, whatever and like many others, I'm sure, make a mental note that I'll write about that 'later' only to not make that happen. No more!

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So, I saw a Twitter post this morning -

"New rule w/ vendors. If you can't tell me in one page (exec. summary), you can't do biz w/ me. I am happy to delve in further if I have Qs."

A few minutes later, I got a new email in my inbox in response to a Website inquiry I'd made last week asking for more information to understand exactly what the company had to offer.

"Our mission is to create a competitive advantage for small and medium-sized retailers like you by providing them with everything they need for achieving retail business success.

To help us better address your specific need and goals, please provide the following information:
Revenue band: Under $1M, $1 to $2M, $2 to $5M, Over $5M
Once we have this information, the appropriate consultant will contact you to setup a convenient time and date to dicuss your needs."

I understand the need to qualify a prospect. But, I'm not even a prospect at this point in time. The mission statement says the obvious, but says nothing. I'm not a retailer per se. I'm investigating different tools for my clients.

I still don't know exactly what they do. And, it's already gotten to be too much

I recently changed my elevator pitch. Now, when people ask me what we do, my response is, "We help our clients send massive quantities of email responsibly and successfully and then, make sense of all the resulting data."

Pretty simple and straightforward. Most people now ask me for advice, for more information specific to their own needs (pain points) relative to their marketing goals, a more complete explanation of all the services we can offer.

Nice, huh?

What would you like to know about us?

Walk the Talk Mid-Week Motivator

I don't know about you, but I really appreciate daily reminders/motivations/affirmations/whatever, especially since the buck stops at my desk. Consequently, I've subscribed to a few regular M-F newsletters to help get me going in the mornings. Certainly, they don't all hit it every day, but they do jump start that internal cheerleader who reminds me of what's important.

So, this morning when I opened the WalktheTalk.com newsletter, I read this list.


OUR CHARACTER IS SHOWN BY…

The jokes we CHOOSE to share…and not to share.
The derogatory terms we CHOOSE to use…and refuse to use.
The promises we CHOOSE to break…and the ones we keep.
The rumors we CHOOSE to spread…and those we ignore.
The resources we CHOOSE to waste…and those we use wisely.
The lies we CHOOSE to tell…and not to tell.
The responsibilities we CHOOSE to accept…and those we shirk.
The courtesies we CHOOSE to extend…and fail to extend.
The efforts we CHOOSE to put forth…and not put forth.
The quality we CHOOSE to provide…and the corners we cut.
The information we CHOOSE to share…and that which we hoard.
The listening we CHOOSE to do and not do.
The respect we CHOOSE to give…and fail to give.
The helpful hands we CHOOSE to extend…and those we keep in our pockets.

As I read each one, I thought about how it applied to me personally, then how it fits into my professional life, as a company owner, a service provider, and an evangelist of the customer experience.

I don't think the "rules" for great customer service can be expressed any more eloquently than in those used above that define character.

A New School Year

It doesn't matter how many years it's been since I last sat in classroom. The arrival of September, officially heraled by Labor Day is the new year even more surely than January 1st. So, it is right and fitting, apropos, that we launch the first chapter of the new Private Label InterActive bright and early in September.

PrivateLabel Mail is changing names and will henceforth be known as Venntive. Nope, that's not a typo.

Venn is the name of an Eglish logician who introduced Venn diagrams (1834-1923). Venn diagrams are usually those overlapping circles with common shared areas, especially the center where all the circles overlap and share one common area.

Venn also happens to be Norwegian for a companion and equal, someone who knows and likes another person very well, or a person who acts in a friendly and generous way to people, etc. he or she does not know.

Over the years, PrivateLabel Mail has grown a very nice CRM (Customer Relationship Management) module that makes it unique among email marketing solutions as well as CRM solutions. It is truly a turnkey, pre-integrated, suite of tools that enable small companies to have an affordable, SaaS (Web-based) solution with CRM, sales forecasting, A/P and A/R, and enterprise-level email marketing tools.

We feel Venntive better describes what this great piece of software delivers. For those of you who are current clients using PrivateLabel Mail, nothing much changes for you except the name and the logo at the bottom of the broadcasts you send. We ask that you eventually transition over to logging in to your accounts at the new Venntive site, but the PrivateLabel Mail login remains in place.

If you have not explored all the tools that are included with your email marketing account, please email to schedule a phone conversation and a demo of all that you could also be doing with your account.