Posts tagged as:

customers

What Corporate Can Learn From Small Business

January 26, 2011

I was recently interviewed by a local magazine and the interviewer asked me this question: “You worked with a wide range of clients, from family-owned businesses to several Fortune 500 companies, what have you learned from both?” I think the answer to that question merits a post. I learned that both business models have a [...]

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Why You’re Feeling Business Fatigue

January 19, 2011

What do you think? Does this apply to you? Related Posts: 3 Ways to Stop Overcommitting Are You A Crystal or A Magnifying Glass Why Your Business Isn’t Changing Alicia Arenas is a business coach and corporate trainer. When she’s not singing or song-writing, she helps her entrepreneurs increase their sales through coaching and her [...]

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Small Business Gift Giving

December 30, 2010

I visited a client the first week of December. I walked into his office and sitting on his desk were boxes of cookies, candy, pretzels and Harry and David. You know what he said to me? “I’ve got a ton of this stuff. Take whatever you want.” Stuff? Someone spent their hard earned money buying [...]

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What I’ve Learned From Rejection

June 4, 2010

Have you ever faced rejection? Perhaps your cold calling hit a dead end or your proposals have been rejected? Some people told me I shouldn’t write this post. Their concern was that I might look bad or I might discredit myself by telling this story. But the truth is that we all face rejection. And [...]

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3 Ways To Stop Overcommitting

May 17, 2010

I spoke with a friend (and small business owner) who is ready to pull out the little hair he still has left in his head. He is a solopreneur with a rapidly growing business (great) who keeps saying yes to new projects (not so great) and is operating consistently on four hours of sleep, suffering [...]

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Thank You For Your Complaint

May 4, 2010

A few years ago, my husband bought a car battery from O’Reilly’s Auto Store which included a warranty. This weekend, the battery died and he took it to the O’Reilly’s location where he made his purchase. The manager of this location looked at my husband with suspicion and questioned (in a decidedly non-customer friendly manner) [...]

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Smores and Sales

April 19, 2010

This is a big week at Sanera as I’m starting a third Sanera Camp (small business boot camp) class in two days. As I’ve been preparing for it, the idea of customer experience is in all my thoughts. Last December, my friend and blogger, Michael Long, asked me to write about this very topic. Even [...]

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The Next Social Media Revolution

March 15, 2010

Forgive the long post intended for social media geeks like me. There is a second revolution coming in social media. In its early stages, social media was the revolution in and of itself. From a business perspective, social media was about establishing better means of communication and connection with customers. “Find them where they are.” [...]

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2010 What Ifs

January 6, 2010

A preview to my San Antonio Business Building Boot Camp, January 13, 2010: One of the things I love about Twitter is the ability to connect and speak with people I never would have met otherwise. This week I had the fortunate experience of speaking with two super-intelligent business owners: Patty Farmer of Envoy Mortgage [...]

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Beach Houses And Business Planning

December 28, 2009

When you started your business, did you do it because you wanted to work 80 hours a week? When you took the plunge, was it your hope that you would never see your family? Did you want to lose sleep, lose hair and make Tums your own personal food group? Of course not. Most small [...]

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It’s Easy To Be Extraordinary

December 21, 2009

I went to a Christmas bazaar and there was a table full of jewelry goodies. In fact, there were a couple of tables with jewelry goodies. But I stopped at this one because of the woman’s smile. She was engaging without being sales-y:  she asked about me, whether or not I was ready for Christmas [...]

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How To Create An Irrelevant Brand

December 9, 2009

None of us ever wakes up, looks in the mirror and says, “Today, my goal is to be irrelevant.” When you go to a networking event or a Tweetup you don’t introduce yourself by saying “Hi. My name is Rose Pineda. I’m a mortgage lender with Mortgages Are Us and I’m irrelevant.” Of course not! [...]

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Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein And Sheryl Crow

December 2, 2009

If you want to succeed, you better commit this quote to memory: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Now, you can decide if you want to be on “Team Ben” or “Team Al,” because no one seems to be quite sure if Benjamin Franklin [...]

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Vampires Friends And Sales

October 29, 2009

So I’ve got a couple of friends who are emotional vampires. Take “Sherry” for example. We started out as great friends! We’d laugh together, shop together, support each other and just hang out. Something started changing though. Sherry started having drama in her life. Serious drama. This happened, that happened and “it’s so terrible.” Over [...]

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Is Winning Everything

October 20, 2009

October, 1996, an upset happened in the boxing world that no one expected. Heavy-weight champion Evander Holyfield hit Mike Tyson, knocked him out and Evander won the much anticipated match.The media, the fans and Mike all asked for a rematch. They got it on June 28, 1997. It was a $100 million rematch. We had [...]

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Please Dont Like Me

September 17, 2009

This is one of my favorite scenes from the movie “Ocean’s Eleven.” This is where Rusty (played by Brad Pitt) is instructing the newbie Linus (Matt Damon) how to con the casino owner. Ever felt that way? Just like Rusty, well-meaning people in your life will tell you what you need to do to be [...]

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Are You Being A Zax

September 11, 2009

As a child, you might recall reading the Dr. Seuss story called “The Zax” in which two Zax found themselves coming from opposite directions only to come face to face; neither of them were willing to budge or to change. As one Zax stated “For I live by a rule that I learned as a [...]

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The Secondary Guest at Disney World

August 18, 2009

August 17, 2009 (Day 1) – 5:35 pm This was the first day of formal training in the Disney Institute program. We are getting a behind-the-scenes peek at what Disney does that makes them so successful. After six hours of training, it is a little difficult for me to decide which golden nugget I should [...]

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Why Not

August 3, 2009

The Power of “Why not?” Who would have thought that two simple words, when phrased as a question could contain so much power. Many courageous people asked themselves this question (most likely in the face of resistance) and the world has not been the same since. Think about these statements and the passion with which [...]

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Tools Twitter And Foundations

July 22, 2009

I had the opportunity to attend the San Antonio Tweet Camp last Saturday. What a great experience! We had people from Austin, Corpus Christi and even Houston attend. If you click on this link, you’ll find expert sessions from Michael Long (aka The Red Recruiter) and more. One of my favorite presenters was Colleen Pence [...]

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