YOUR DREAM IS WAITING

If you haven’t already… do yourself a huge SERVICE by buying the book DO THE WORK by: Steven Pressfield .  It will unlock your mind, and do your body wonders. One of the best personal development books I have ever read.

I just wanted to post this…. for no other reason then to share. It’s pretty damn cool….

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741

War of Art (Steven Pressfield)

This is probably one of the the coolest and most interactive sites I have ever seen.  Watch it in google chrome for a full experience.  Make sure you watch the whole thing and enjoy.  Let me know your thoughts.  Is this a start of something relatively “new” … full immersible online experiences?

www.thewildernessdowntown.com

ItsVeronicaK

After a month 1/2 break from my blog, clothing company and contract marketing…I am back.  Why was I M.I.A. for so long? I wouldn’t really say I was “gone”.. but more like sitting back and collecting my thoughts, while brewing a new pot of creativity. I think it was a healthy and much needed mental break.  However, make no mistake that my hands were still in all my companies and my mind still at work…. it wasn’t a total break.

On to the topic.  The Power of Positive Thinking.  Although a FANTASTIC book, thats not what I referring to with this post. I wanted to talk a little bit about this quote I stumbled over when browsing the Internet (as usual).

“A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and a successful outcome of every situation and action. Whatever the mind expects, it finds.” -Remez Sasson

 Lately work has become increasingly harder to find.  If anyone does social media marketing, they too know the struggles and uphill battles of landing large enough contracts to stay afloat for X amount of time.

However, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.  Throughout time the power of positive thinking has proven to be more effective then just a “feel good drag”. The power of positive thinking has actually changed lives and taken entrepreneurs of all types from rags to riches.  From the streets to a house.  From a small business entity to a multi-million dollar enterprise.  I don’t think people realize that (borrowing the quote above) “whatever the mind expects, it finds”.  If you are constantly being positive and literally closing your eyes and picturing your dreams, and success, your mind will find it.  Soon positive thinking won’t be such a conscious effort, but a daily occurrence being applied to all aspects of your life.  From the minute you wake up, until the minute you lay your head for a nights sleep you should be continually thinking about all possible ways to achieve your entrepreneurial goals.  You should be thinking not about the trials and tribulations that you inevitably face ahead, but how you will over come them.  You will be surprised at the results you might find. 

Try writing down your goals on a few different pieces of paper.  Write them clear and concise. Put one of the papers in your wallet or purse.  Another next to your bed.  Another on your refrigerator.  Another in your cars glove box.  The get into the routine of reading your goals every morning you wake up.  It should be the first thing you do when your eyes open and the last thing you do before your eyes close at night.  Take the goals out of your wallet or purse periodically throughout the day and read them over and over.  Continually thinking of how you WILL achieve these goals. 

The power of positive thinking is a beautiful (and powerful) thing.  

Over the past 5 years I have been a very loyal customer of the Vitamin Shoppe, spending hundreds of dollars a month on various health items, supplements and other goodies to keep me in tip-top shape.  I will say I never had any problem and always experienced great customer service from the website, to in-store employees. 

A few weeks ago, I bought a supplement from the Vitamin Shoppe in the Gaithersburg, Maryland store. After taking the (pills) for a few days, I realized I was experiencing bad side effects from the caffeine in the product. It was hurting my chest and making me have a shortness of breath. So, not thinking anything of it — I took it back to the shoppe for a STORE CREDIT to get some protein powder instead (which was more than the product in question).  When I walked in I was greeted properly and asked if I needed help.  After I told the sales associate what happened, I began to explain that I do not have the receipt for it but it was bought with my Vitamin Shoppe loyalty card and I have the credit card statement, etc.  HE THEN proceeded to tell me that in no-way can they do a return on this item because it was opened and used.  Which doesn’t matter if you have a receipt. But I didn’t.  So i explained, I have the credit card statement from that week to show the purchase and that it was bought with my loyalty card, so I figured they could look me up…. but of course that’s WAY BEYOND the technologies of the vitamin shoppe.  I was disgusted.  Here I am standing with a $45.00 product and the man telling me “there is nothing we can do”.  He never even apologized he just told me that tons of people have taken advantage of the old policy so they had to change it January 1st 2009.  Guess I missed the memo on the change from GREAT customer service to horrible.  What is the point of even using your loyalty card when buying goods from them if they can’t even track your purchases?  he wouldn’t even accept my credit card statement as PROOF!!!  Crazy huh?

When I left the store visibly upset, I quickly pulled out the trusty iPhone and looked up the corporate number.  They told me that returns are decided on a store level but that “the store manager, should honor it for you since you are a valued customer”.  Well guess what.. he didn’t honor anything. 

Vitamin Shoppe just lost a extremely loyal customer of over 5 years.  Looks like I should have stuck with ordering from online vitamin retailers like Nutrition Express, who actually will bend over backwards for the customers they have.  I just got greedy and didn’t want to wait for the shipping time, now I know how valuable that wait can be.

Moral of the story…..

Customer service goes a long way these days.  I can’t stress that enough. How one bad experience (like the one I just bitched about) can literally ruin the loyalty with that customer forever, which it did.  I will never go back, especially after never receiving an apology from the in-store staff.  You might be saying well Vitamin Shoppe is a multi-million dollar company, what do they care if you don’t go back?  Well the answer is, they might not care.  They might not ever find out.  But the point is - word of mouth is the most powerful marketing and communication tool ever. And always will be.  And I promise, that anyone close to me will hear this story and think twice about stopping by to pick any items up from them from here on out.  

I have owned and operated my own companies for the last 3 1/2 years and I will say that without extremely down to earth and HONEST customer service, I wouldn’t be where I am today.  I would do anything to make my customers happy.  If I EVER  got a complaint, I would do anything I could to make the situation right.  Anything.  Because losing one customer can end up meaning the loss of 100.  So if you own, operate or work for a company or small business, make sure you place special emphasis on customer service.  If you really can’t do anything to fix the situation, a simple apology to the customer and a future discount, or some sort of incentive to come back goes a long way.  In this day in age, if a customer has one bad experience, they won’t stick around.  They will high tail it to another business who actually WANTS, that persons business.

I am amazed by what happened today. I hope everyone of you re-evaluate your customer service routines and place special emphasis and TLC on every single one of your customers, big or small. 

Tony Robbins

I frequently get asked questions from former colleagues, friends and family members about various aspects of online e-business and entrepreneurship… one question I was asked today by a 16 year old kid trying to start a music management business, was important enough for me to share with you.

Q: “When is the best time to start a company?”

A: I think the best time to start is right after you graduate college and/or graduate school. A lot of elders will tell you that you are too young or don’t have enough experience to start a company so, let me use a example about bumble bees.

A very successful entrepreneur with a science background once told me that “due to the shape and odd size it should be impossible for bumblebees to fly.”  He paused and finished by saying “However, the bumblebees don’t know this so they continue to fly on in blissful ignorance.” Now you may be wondering what bumblebees have to do with starting a company after you graduate college. Your answer is above. You see bumblebees should not be able to fly, but they don’t know that so they continue on defying the odds and flying around while people who study bumblebees look on in awe. When you graduate college you are well equipped with knowledge yes; but are you ready to fly (start a viable business)?  The answer is most likely no. However time and time again young entrepreneurs with huge dreams have defied the odds, just like bumble bees. Let’s take Seth Berger for example. He is the founder and former CEO of AND 1, which is a company specializing in basketball apparel and shoes. Berger started AND 1 in the early 1990’s after he completed graduate school. He didn’t know what he was going in the initial start up and even admits that. Berger also said in an interview with Knowledge@Wharton when speaking about starting his company at such a young age “I think it’s a huge opportunity. Whenever I speak with [students], I always try to tell them, you should start your business now, before you have a bunch of experience, because what your experience will tell you is what you can’t accomplish.” What Seth Berger just said is an incredible example of exactly what I am talking about to you in this blog post. When you graduate school, start a company and set your sights on success while eliminating the option of failure, you don’t know any better and your chances of succeeding increase dramatically. Have you ever looked back on something saying “How the hell did I do that? That was crazy!” Well just remember you don’t know you can’t fly. You don’t know that you probably should gain a hell of a lot more “real world” experience before starting your venture. All you know is what you want it, bad. You want to fly. You have your eye on the prize. What is the prize?  Success.

It’s that simple.

If you want it bad enough, the rest will fall into place.  So in the spirit of sounding totally cliche, spread your wings and fly. Even if you don’t know how to.

Live Inspired,

Robb