We Can Make a Difference.... One Person at a Time!

There is no doubt things are difficult for most Americans these days, there isn't one of us that doesn't know of a family member or friend that is out of work, on the verge of losing their house or cutting back out of fear of what is next. I was recently at an industry trade show where folks were grousing about the economy and sluggish sales. Overall energy in the room was low as people were on autopilot or "just getting by".

I had the privilege of engaging in conversation with a complete stranger and when the conversation turned to him, his response was intriguing "Me and my family are focusing on performing one random act of kindness each day" He continued on to say "with all the negativity and fear that we are being exposed to everyday, me, my wife and two children have decided to take a stand and each day practice random acts of kindness with strangers in an effort to help make a difference and brighten up a person's day". Needless to say, I was humbled.

It reminded me of a story I heard some time ago:

One day a man was walking down the beach when he noticed a figure in the distance. As he got closer, he realized the figure was that of a boy picking up something and gently tossing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy asked, "what are you doing?"

The boy replied, "Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them back, they will die"

"Son", the man said scanning the beach, "don't you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can't possibly make a difference"

After listening politely, the boy bend down and picked up another starfish and threw it into the surf. Then smiling, the boy said "I made a difference for that one!"

Most likely after reading this story, you remember hearing it before or perhaps a similar story. Sometimes we need to hear these stories over and over again to remind us that we can make a difference and change the world, one act of kindness at a time!.

©Kellie D’Andrea & Associates
Want to use this article in your newsletter or web site?You can, just include this complete blurb with it: Kellie D'Andrea is the creator of the BLAST system and publishes "The Marketing Edge" a FREE award winning ezine for small business owners who want to gain the competitive edge with strategic marketing and branding techniques that actually work. Find out the 23 Common Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs make with a FREE report offered at http://www.kelliedandrea.com/.

5 Steps to Continuous Improvement

The driving force behind Japanese culture is the philosophy of Kaizen or in translation, continuous improvement. Kaizen is a daily process of applying ideas that gradually bring you closer to an improvement and can be applied at work or in life. When applied to the workplace, Kaizen can deliver significant results through tiny actions in areas of productivity, employee morale and safety. Companies that embrace this philosophy encourage people at all levels, from the CEO down to evaluate their surroundings and work processes and implement suggestions to improve workflow, standards and process. The end result is that improvements eventually lead to better quality, better productivity and higher profits.

Below are 5 Steps to help you use Kaizen in your organization:

1. Define a Problem

If no problems existed, then there is no potential for improvement. First step is to recognize that a problem does exist. Most times the people who create the problem are not sensitive to it since they are not inconvenienced by it every day and nobody wants to admit that they created a problem. Think positive and look at a problem as an opportunity for improvement rather than an issue.

2. Create a Standard

If you don’t have a standard, how can you improve upon it or know that you are improving? There must be a standard of measure for everything in your business, whether it is a worker, machine, process or manager. There has to be a baseline measurement that exists so you continually grow to surpass that standard.

3. Develop 3 – 5 Good Ideas

Once you have identified the problem and the standard that you need to improve upon, the next step in the process is to develop 3 to 5 good ideas. Ones that pass the PCST (personal common sense test). These ideas can come from anywhere within the organization through a suggestion system where people can share their ideas. This will improve morale and let the employees buy into the process through participation. Once you have all the suggestions, select the best 3 to 5. Select the ones that are easily implemented and will yield results within 120 days.

4. Implement Ideas

Kaizen is all about action. You selected the best 3 to 5 ideas that will yield a result within 120 days because it is all about gradual and continuous improvement. Most companies have grandiose ideas and want to solve world hunger in 120 days, the approach we want you to take is to start buying a hungry man a sandwich.


5. Go back to step 1

The last step of the process is to start it over again – hence the word continuous. The goal is to pick your ideas and implement them within 120 days and then implement another set of ideas after that and again and again and again.


In Kaizen, you do not have to focus on grand ideas. In fact the best results and the best ideas are usually the smaller ones because they can be implemented easily and employees will be motivated and begin to like the winning feeling. Once they have that feeling in their gut, they will want more and more and more an eventually bring your organization to the highest level of efficiency.


©2009 Kellie D’Andrea & Associates


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You can, just include this complete blurb with it: Kellie D'Andrea is the creator of the BLAST system and publishes "The Marketing Edge" a FREE award winning ezine for small business owners who want to gain the competitive edge with strategic marketing techniques that actually work. Find out the 23 Common Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs make with a FREE report offered at www.kelliedandrea.com.

Is Customer Service is the New Marketing?

I was browsing the web and came across an advertisement for a 1 day seminar called Customer Service is the New Marketing. I was intrigued by the title since I firmly believe that customer service should be a part of your marketing strategy. As a small business owner and a marketing consultant, I have found that providing a strong customer service base at your businesses, word of mouth will take off and you customers will reward you with relaying their positive experiences to their friends, families and business associates each chance they get.

Excellent customer service is the lifeblood of any business and a very critical piece to success when facing a bad economy and many competitors. You can offer promotions and slash prices to bring in as many new customers as you want, but unless you can get some of those customers to come back, your business won’t be profitable for long. Good customer service is all about bringing customers back. And about sending them away happy – happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.

Below are the ten golden rules for Excellent Customer Service:

1. Answer your phone
2. Don’t make promises unless you WILL keep them
3. Listen to your customers
4. Deal with complaints
5. Be helpful – even if there’s no immediate profit in it
6. Train your staff to be ALWAYS helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable
7. Take the extra step
8. Throw in something extra
9. Keep in touch – you don’t want your customers to forget you
10. The customer IS always right, even when they are wrong



©2009 Kellie D’Andrea & Associates





Want to use this article in your newsletter or web site?

You can, just include this complete blurb with it: Kellie D'Andrea is the creator of the BLAST system and publishes "The Marketing Edge" a FREE award winning ezine for small business owners who want to gain the competitive edge with strategic marketing techniques that actually work. Find out the 23 Common Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs make with a FREE report offered at http://www.kelliedandrea.com/.

5 Thoughts when Creating a Customer Service Strategy

Many companies work each year on their strategic plans including how to evolve their technology solutions, their marketing positions and how to become more efficient in operations. They work diligently each year on putting together annual budgets and resource plans but how often do they put together a customer service strategy? A plan that focuses on knowing what your clients want, what their pain points are and what their needs for efficiencies are.

Some tips:

1) Know you customer at different levels

Don't just focus on one single point of contact. Each position within a client firm has different needs. go the extra mile, learn what your customers challenges are at different points within the organization. People move around, the more you know about your customers and the more people you stay in contact with, the stronger relationship you will have with your customer.

2) Establish a group who owns the high level relationship

A customer service group that focuses on the relationship rather than the day to day problem resolution or service delivery is integral to a successful customer service strategy. Set up performance metrics and a customer communication plan and hold this team accountable for the success of the relationship.

3) Develop a customer scorecard or metrics to manage and evaluate success

By establishing a set of expectations in the beginning and agreeing on how you will be measured makes it easier to track your accomplishments. By creating metrics and service standards, it is easy to highlight you positives. How many times do you get in trouble with a customer over a single mistake? Most people live in the moment and may need to be reminded of all the good.

4) Make sure your executive team reaches out

Customers want to feel special. Have a communication plan that requires the CEO or President to reach out to say hello or to check up on how the company is performing. And not just to the customer CEO, have them reach out to your day to day contact... it will make them feel special.

5) Always ask how you can improve

Markets, trends and industry change daily. Not to mention the players in your field. Always inquire about your performance and always be prepared to make changes. What worked yesterday might not work today. What was one individual preference may not be the next.. The key is to keep communicating and be very responsive to your customers changing needs.

©2009 Kellie D’Andrea & Associates


Want to use this article in your newsletter or web site?

You can, just include this complete blurb with it: Kellie D'Andrea is the creator of the BLAST system and publishes "The Marketing Edge" a FREE award winning ezine for small business owners who want to gain the competitive edge with strategic marketing techniques that actually work. Find out the 23 Common Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs make with a FREE report offered at www.kelliedandrea.com.

3 Ways to BLAST your Profits in your Local Market

Nothing motivates people into buying your products and services like a special event or promotion geared just towards them. How many local shop owners or retailers are wasting their time away in their stores rather than "working their market". Products and services are bought based upon need, knowledge and trust. All traits of a relationship so get out there and let people know who you are and give them an opportunity to build trust in your organization or store location based upon you as an individual. You won’t regret it!

Here are 5 ideas to consider. Choose one that will work with your business and give it a try or try them all……

1. Local schools. Contact all the local schools in your area and create a promotion that is specific to them. For example, offer a % off coupon or discount for any student’s family that comes into your store. Be creative and make it worthwhile for the school, donate a % of the proceeds back or offer your product as the incentive for completing a task – a book-a-thon; completion of a test; a charity goal – whatever, just make it fun and make it beneficial for you, the students and the school. The best part about partnering with your local school is that you have an inexpensive way to advertise. Most schools have hundreds of students and communicate with the families via giving the student information to bring home. Supply them with flyers with the details of the promotion and coupon or incentive to buy something from you and “blast” FREE advertising.

2. Charity organizations. Team up with a local charity and design a program that is attractive and gives them the potential to earn a lot of money for their cause. Everybody likes to help out a charity and here is a great way to get your name out and show a side charitable side of you and your business. Your local marketing are the folks that buy from you, engaging them in a common goal will help you build trust, bring awareness to you and your brand and alert people to where your business is located. Charities have a long list of contacts and you want to make sure they contribute to the marketing of the event by sending out communications to their list in addition to alerting the media. Offer to handle that for them. Anything you can do to draw attention and to help out, will pay you back in profits in the long run. An event can be anything…be creative. A client of mine – a local ice cream store created and decorated an ice cream cake specifically for Breast Cancer Awareness and hosted an Ice Cream Social at their store and promoted the event and gave back a % of the proceeds to the charity. Send out press releases. Contact the local chamber and schools and alert them to the event, hang flyers and contact your local news anchors and “blast” FREE publicity.

3. Create a giveaway or contest. People love to win. We are a nation of competitive people and are drawn to ways that we can have fun and win a prize no matter how big or small. Create a giveaway or a contest and make it fun for everyone. A client of mine raffled off a large flat screen TV but in order to be included in the raffle you first needed to buy something but second you needed to sing when you entered the store. At first it was strange but as everyone started to laugh and enjoy themselves, others joined in and before we knew it, the word spread and “blast” NEW customers. People want to be on the winning team and they want to have a good time so create one and the customers will come.

©2009 Kellie D’Andrea & Associates


Want to use this article in your newsletter or web site?

You can, just include this complete blurb with it: Kellie D'Andrea is the creator of the BLAST system and publishes "The Marketing Edge" a FREE award winning ezine for small business owners who want to gain the competitive edge with strategic marketing tand branding techniques that actually work. Find out the 23 Common Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs make with a FREE report offered at www.kelliedandrea.com.

5 Tips to Becoming a Networking Rockstar!

Networking is a tool that will put you on the path towards success. Business are grown from the personal relationships we develop throughout our career and being able to reach out and build positive business connections can be the single most important step you can take in building and marketing your business. So why don't more entrepreneurs network? - Fear.

Remember as a kid being afraid to be the last one picked for kickball. Remember being afraid that when you went to a new school, you wouldn't make any friends. These memories are with us today as adults and the idea of going into a room of strangers to introduce themselves leaves a pit in the bottom of their stomach and can be classified up there with the fear of public speaking.

I have put together some tips to help overcome those fears at your next networking event because the right connections with the right people can maximize your business position and provide you with insight and opportunities that are guaranteed to boost your profits.


1. Enter the room like you just got off the red carpet!

Confidence is infectious. When you enter into a room like you are comfortable in you skin, smiling and approachable, everyone will be wondering "who is that". More importantly, if you don't end up seeking these guest out, they will seek you out. The great thing is that most people in that room do not know you, your background or what you stand for, here is a great opportunity to create the Confident You and live it at your next networking event. The positive energy you will be projecting outward will come back to you tenfold.


2. Remember to warm up before your performance.

Most likely your nerves are giving you the jitters and you just made it through the front door as confident as you could be but are struggling with how long you could hold on to it. You best course of action is to warm up with a friendly “fan”. After you enter, circle the room (which will also work off an excess nervous energy) and seek out the individual that looks just as terrified as you feel and introduce yourself. A simple question or observation will do the trick “Wow, it looks like we have some good turnout tonight”, Don’t you think? By the way, I am <>> and you are? What brings you here? Once you break the ice with one friendly fan, a renewed energy will surface and you will find yourself opening up to others and finding common interest. Remember to ask a lot of questions and be truly interested in the conversation and the connections will come.

3. Let your Roadies do the work.

As you make friends, bring them along. There is safety in numbers and friends are usually connected. Make it a priority to connect with the people they know. It will ease the fear of the unknown and provide you with something in common to talk about. Once you connect , join the organization and attend the events that your friends do. Before you know it, you have a complete social network of individuals and professionals who you will become more familiar with and more comfortable with. With each new friend, you network should grow 10 times.


4. Use the newest recording technology.

Social media sites are a great way to communicate and to stay connected during the times between your face to face events. Facebook, Linked In and Twitter are easy to use and a great way to send out blast updates on what you have been up to and to comment on others. In addition to your “offline” networking, mastering social media sites is a great way to leverage your connections, expand your network beyond your local area and build relationships one post at a time.


5. Build up your fan base -Follow up, Follow up, Follow Up.

You have connected with many people, found common interest and exchanged business cards. Make sure to follow up ASAP. A great tip is to send out your V card which houses all of your electronic information in outlook and can be sent and uploaded into your new connections outlook. If you discovered that this person can help you, make plans to keep in touch over time so you do not lose that connection. Relationships are built one day at a time through consistency, genuine interest and friendship. If you remember all the skills you developed as a child when you found a new friend than you want to use those skills with your adult friend. Always keep them updated on what you are doing, make plans for lunch and offer to help out when needed.



©2009 Kellie D’Andrea & Associates
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Want to use this article in your newsletter or web site?

You can, just include this complete blurb with it: Kellie D'Andrea publishes "The Marketing Edge" a FREE award winning ezine for small business owners who want to gain the competitive edge with strategic maketing techniuqes that actually work. Find out the 23 Common Mistakes Most Entreprenuars make at http://www.kelliedandrea.com/