Although it isn’t new, I wanted to stress that this “commemorative month” is, in fact, recognized by the U.S. government; it isn’t just made up by activist groups. National Disability Employment Awareness Month was established by Congress in 1988 in an effort “to increase the public’s awareness of the contributions and skills of American workers with disabilities.”  The Department of Labor’s website says that “various programs carried out throughout the month also highlight the specific employment barriers that still need to be addressed and removed.”

Before you walk away—because I know this doesn’t apply to everyone right now—I want to point out some things I’d come across within recent months that may surprise you.  There are major advantages to employing people with disabilities, as I’ve found, and a clip by ABC delves into the deep-rooted issues with stigmatization and speaking up that still exist.

Employing disabled people has hidden benefits.

1. Creativity – thinking ‘outside the box’

Creativity and innovation—the ability to think “outside the box”—are principle forces for businesses of all sizes. The business that can overcome obstacles and build upon its foundation in new ways is the one that sees the greatest and fastest gains. A hidden benefit of employing people with disabilities, their ability to think outside the box is seen but not understood. Books and company profiles that illustrate the astounding benefits of creative people are published by the week, so employees who utilize their creativity on a daily basis can be extra valuable to your business and your bottom line.

2. Possible tax deductions

Given that I’m not a tax expert, I can’t say much on this, but since I’m a pro at finding information, I can provide you with this handy link from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  It details the Disabled Access Tax Credit, which may be of great interest to any small business owner, as well as two other tax credits.

3. More loyalty – lower turnover, absenteeism and tardiness

Many case studies have been quoted, and I see this as something that makes sense but is easy to overlook.  People with disabilities tend to be more genuinely appreciative of the opportunity to work, whereas sixteen-year-olds will balk at parents’ demands for getting a job and plenty of people complain about their jobs everyday.  Not only do disabled people show more company loyalty, but that dedication flows through their fellow employees before long. One of my favorite case studies (Carolina Fine Snacks) shows a 75% drop in turnover, a 15% drop in absenteeism, and a 30% drop in tardiness (from 30% to zero, if you can imagine).  The company also saw a rise in productivity of about 35%.

4. More productivity and possibly fewer sick days

Along with less financial burden of issues like turnover, absenteeism and tardiness, businesses employing people with disabilities see increased productivity.  Even more, a major consulting firm that works with disabled people reports that some of their staff—85% of whom are disabled—haven’t taken any sick days in five years.

5. Better attitudes of employees and customers

You may be inspired by the disabled people you know because they’ve overcome a lot in life.  Many people are inspired to do more, if only because they’d feel guilty for taking life for granted.  On a Roll Sandwich Shop has seen mostly positive interaction between customers and employees since employing disabled people.

How would you respond?

Check out this video clip by ABC in which a rude customer is set up with a disabled bagger at a grocery store.  Both of them are actors, but the session was designed to look at how others would react.  As has been explained through the case study of On a Roll, customers won’t likely respond to your employees this way, but it’s disheartening to know that plenty of people still will not stand up for others.  The cashier risks losing her job if she speaks up, but the other customers can certainly bring attention to this kind of behavior.  And they’ll be heralded for it:  Watch the clip.

There is surely more that can be said on the topic, but keep these basic resources and heartwarming stories around to remind you that there really is no reason for inequality in your workplace.  For some light reading, be sure to check out the two revisions to the Americans with Disabilities Act that were just published earlier this month.  Of course it isn’t light reading, but that so much information is available and ignored is something to think about.

I’m sure I’ll have more comments to make on this topic as time goes on, but what are your thoughts? Do you have disabled people on your team, and if so, in what ways have you noticed them making a positive difference? Do these positives outweigh the potential barriers or costs involved in making your workplace accessible?

What’s the most ridiculous complaint you’ve recently heard?  How did the customer service representative fielding the complaint handle it?  With a sympathetic nod, followed by eye rolling and mimicking behind the customer’s back?

What if I told you that a customer’s complaint no longer falls on deaf ears by decision of the company receiving the complaint? With consumer advocacy groups growing stronger by the day and outlets for complaints popping up by the minute, the complaint you try to ignore will probably come back to haunt you. I subscribe to a number of magazines, both online and in print, and one of them is Money magazine, which has an article in its most recent issue on getting complaints resolved. So why is this relevant?

Handling customer complaints the right way

Suppose sales decrease dramatically one week, and you haven’t heard about any recent events or competition—it just seems random, but it’s really starting to hurt your bottom line. Finally, something tips you off to what is showing up about your company on Twitter. One customer had an unusually bad experience while working with your employees, and they’re so livid that they’ve taken to making nonsensical accusations about how your company operates. What is a business owner to do? For starters, you can’t get away with ignoring it anymore.  Send over a simple tweet that says, “Sorry about your rough experience; please understand that this is very atypical for our company.  We strive for excellent customer service, so I’d like to personally offer you a free ______.” It’s quite likely that the customer will feel satisfied and won’t even take you up on your offer.

Be where your customers are

Set up a search within Tweetdeck or your preferred Twitter module to consistently check for your company’s name to pop up. Be the first to comment on tweets about your company, whether good or bad, to show your commitment and garner new fans. Set up a Facebook business page and open the discussion board for fielding questions and complaints; try to catch questions before they become complaints. Be sure that you have up-to-date information on well-known sites like The Consumerist, and consistently check the other consumer sites mentioned in the Money article: complaint.com, complaintsboard.com, consumeraffairs.com, my3cents.com, pissedconsumer.com, and ripoffreport.com. You can also open up communication via a service like Get Satisfaction, which gives your company a full online customer service department for a small monthly fee. Don’t try to hide your mistakes. Just make sure your solutions out-shine the complaints and you’ll be loved all the more.

Bear in mind what it’s like to be on BOTH sides

This concept is too easy to overlook, and it applies to every person, business owner or not. When dealing with customers or training your employees to deal with customers, remember what it’s like to be on the other end, feeling unimportant, ignored or tired of arguing with customer service reps. Yes, it’s downright painful to be nice to someone who has not the decency to approach you or your employees civilly, but you’d be surprised by how quickly they’ll calm down if you don’t lash back. Often enough, the customer is confused or frustrated, and they’re just looking for answers or help; that’s what customer service is for. Of course, on the flip side, we should remember what it’s like to be faced with a rude customer who can’t seem to make his/her point without an assortment of profanities. Don’t be “that guy/girl” and you’ll get more cooperation with other service people.

I might admit to being a bit of a Google “fan girl,” but in fairness, they’ve recently rolled out two exciting new features, one for your mail and one for your searching/research.

Gmail Priority Mail

I’ve had the opportunity to play around with this new setup quite a bit and do find it easier to manage my inbox; primarily, I find it easier to pick out the things I want to trash in an instant. It may seem a little backward, but it helps tremendously: I log into my Gmail account and the first section I have set up is of “Important and unread” emails, the second section is of “Important” emails, the third of “Unread” emails, and “Everything else” is in the final section of my inbox. I pay most attention to the first and third sections because I immediately read the emails in the first section and almost always trash the things in the third.

For example, I subscribe to emails from a number of clothing, electronics, and office supplies stores so that I can see what sales and new products are being offered. But since I don’t need to purchase these items every single week—and since funds would dry up very quickly if I tried—I delete most of these emails before even reading them. With “normal” Gmail (as though it’s taboo to use “normal” programs), I had to sift through a mess of emails to find those that were unwanted, but with Priority Mail, I move straight into the “Unread [and Unimportant]” email section and go to town with the delete button! Similarly, I now see emails from friends and family, as well as those from my banks as soon as I log into Gmail. In the “Important and unread” section, they’re bold and marked with yellow tags, so I can’t miss them.

We can probably assume that it will be five years before Microsoft latches onto this kind of automatic organization/prioritization for Outlook, but I can’t wait until Mozilla can incorporate this into Thunderbird. And yes, I enjoy picking on giant corporations

Instant Google Search

Thought your Google searches were pretty fast, eh? Just yesterday, Google unveiled the new Google Instant, which hasn’t hit everyone just yet—but you’ll see it soon enough. WBAL points out that small businesses could be stung if instant results hit too quickly on major brands, but honestly, unless someone types into the search box “small business that manufactures shoes,” they’re always more likely to see Nike and Adidas before they’ll see the start-up.

With Google Instant, you’ll see something similar to the way Google used to fill in the search box with queries that it assumed you’d be looking for, but now it won’t stop and refresh every second or two. Instead, the suggestions will change instantly with each letter you type.

What’s even better is that the entire page of search results is just as instant. The “News for…” section, the “Images/Videos for…” section, the “Sponsored Links” on both the mid-section and the right, everything changes in the blink of an eye to match whatever you seem to be typing. As Google puts it, you don’t want search-as-you-type, “you really want search-before-you-type.”

You should be saving 2-5 seconds with every search you run on Google, so over the course of the rest of your life, you’ll save a good chunk of time.

How have these tools helped you in day-to-day business, or how will they affect you?

Dare I make a joke about getting your money’s worth out of these two? Yes, they’re free as always. Powerful tools at no cost. So how have they helped you shave time off of the monotony to allow for more productivity and/or more fun?! If you haven’t experienced the new toys, then how do you suspect they’ll help in the future? Maybe you do a lot of research throughout the day, or maybe you just get a lot of emails… Whatever the case, leave a comment for us below!

Free programs are becoming increasingly popular, and among them are free email clients. Microsoft Outlook is costly (more than it’s worth, in my personal opinion) and is known to be somewhat clunky. As a side note, I found an article that seems to be a good source for Outlook fixes. The good thing is that some services like Google’s Gmail are phenomenal, and Mozilla—the people who created Firefox, which is consistently rated the top internet browser—has Thunderbird. Thunderbird is actually quite similar to Outlook in appearance and general functions, but I’ve had greater success in keeping Thunderbird organized and working smoothly than I have with Outlook. The one downfall I’ve encountered, though, is the more-than-occasional warning message that states “this message may be a scam.” Different from spam messages, scam messages would be those that are trying to lure you in and eat at your wallet in many cases.

Well, it’s good to know that Thunderbird is watching my back and will warn me when a message may be trying to trick me into some scheme. So what’s the problem here? A well-known issue, the message pops up at times even when the recipient has added the sender to his/her address book, and the message will be displayed with each email from the particular sender, no matter how many times the recipient has click the “Not a Scam” button.

How the recipient can work around the “scam” warning

Say you’re receiving regular emails from a publication to which you are a subscriber—likely, a publication that is giving you some kind of information to help you run your business and make more money—and while you know that the emails are perfectly legitimate, Thunderbird keeps flagging them as scams. And if it were to start flagging multiple valid senders, you might start feeling annoyed.

The easiest solution is to disable the feature. Go to “Tools -> Options… -> Security -> E-mail Scams” and uncheck the only option on that page, which is pretty self-explanatory. Be advised, however, that this will disable the feature for all messages, no matter who the sender. So you’re on your own for separating scams from legitimate emails.

One way that was found by a Thunderbird whiz (he isn’t a hired programmer) is to edit Thunderbird’s configuration. When editing anything in the main configuration panel, you should be careful that you don’t inadvertently change anything else, and Thunderbird will remind you of this in a sec.

Changing Thunderbird’s configuration to whitelist non-scammers

Now go to “Tools -> Options… -> Advanced” and click the button that says “Config Editor…” Thunderbird will immediately tell you to only proceed if you are certain of what you’re doing. In most cases, you’re probably only going in here with explicit instructions to solve a particular problem, so go ahead and say “I’ll be careful, I promise!” (Do this by clicking the button; others nearby may think strange things if you say it out loud to your computer )

Find the line that says “mail.trusteddomains” and double-click on it. In the pop-up box, type the addresses you’d like to have whitelisted, separated by a single comma (i.e. “lymelightwebs.com,mozilla.org,mozilla.com”). Again, this was found by another techie who knows Thunderbird well but is not working for them; as I haven’t tried it long enough, I can’t totally vouch for its validity as a solution. But it hasn’t harmed my Thunderbird, so no worries there.

Developers—and support—from all over

One thing that Mozilla stresses is that there are thousands of people all over the world working on its projects, Firefox and Thunderbird. What this means to you: It probably gets hectic, so the developers may not be able to focus on things like the scam filter; but there are people all over the place who can help. One place to start is, of course, right here because you have others who know the language and can search out the answers that may be hard to find.

Companies such as Google operate in much the same way, employing so many people from all over. This, along with the fact that these companies make a lot of open-source (read: modifiable by some techies) software, means that there is far greater possibility for improvements. Quick ones, at that. Upgrades and add-ons are constantly available for these programs. So the questions that begs being asked: Is Microsoft doomed? Personally, I’d say…absolutely.

Google Gmail – I use Gmail accounts for all personal and some professional email.

Mozilla Thunderbird – My business emails are pulled into Thunderbird so that they aren’t forwarded from my website’s server. Note that Thunderbird does not provide new email accounts.

Catch up on Trends by reading parts one (starting out with Google Trends) and two (diving into more details) of the series.  Google Trends is a fascinating tool for helping you pinpoint keywords for SEO (search engine optimization) of your website.

Exporting your Google Trends data

Exporting is quite easy, though understanding what you’ve exported may not seem as simple. By clicking the small blue plus sign to the left of “Export this page as a CSV file” (under the subregions/cities/languages sections), you can choose to export your .csv file with relative or fixed scaling. A .cvs file can be opened with Microsoft Excel, Open Office Calc, Google Docs, or another spreadsheet application.

When working with email newsletters for clients, we export to .csv files so that the names, email addresses and other information are easy for clients to sort. So you may see these files more often than with Google Trends.

For right now, we’ll say you want to see the “fixed scaling” report because it is likely easier to read. Your browser should have automatically downloaded a small file called “trends.csv,” so go ahead and open that.

Understanding standard deviation

One of the first things you may notice about the chart is that for each search term, there is one column labeled with the term and one labeled as “std error” (indeed, I might call an STD an error, but this is a little different). This oddball column is to account for “standard error” or “standard deviation,” which in layman’s terms means “plus or minus.” So you see that for a particular week, one search term has a ranking of .6 on your scale and a standard error of 2%. This means that the position given to the term during this week of .6 is accurate +/- 2% of that .6. Generally speaking—and for our sake of finding some keywords to use—the standard deviation will not be important.

Reading the “fixed scaling” Trends report

The information in the “fixed scaling” report is generally based on information from January of 2004, and the 1.00 mark doesn’t change with time as it does with relative scaling; therefore, you can trace the numbers and compare them to one another. These numbers still don’t look like much, though. Putting them in a graph (in Excel, select the data and select “Insert -> Line Graph”) will make it all much easier to read. Ideally, you don’t even need the graph to include the standard error columns because seeing the minor changes in standard error over time is even less useful to us than is seeing the percentages for standard error. Again, because this is fixed scaling, you can certainly look down the line and see precisely how it’s been moving over the course of your selected time period.

Putting your SEO keywords into practice

After you’ve run as many keywords and phrases in as many ways possible, take some time to figure out how you should proceed with your website and other marketing. Quite possibly, the things you assumed were the best descriptions of your work or company are not being searched nearly as often as the more simplistic versions. The people who are looking for you are doing so because they don’t know your field—they don’t know the industry buzzwords or what your work is technically called. If they did, they wouldn’t need you.

For my company, we’re more technically web developers because the additional programming that we do behind the scenes is what sets us apart from others who only do design work. But who would really assume that they need a web developer? Thus, my results are quite predictable. Similarly, for entrepreneurs who haven’t yet realized that they need a website or for those who aren’t sure how to start, I broaden our keywords to include things like “starting business” and of course “small business.”

Your own results with these keywords

Do you have any revelations to share since playing around with Google Trends? Have you found from your website statistics that people are hitting your website based on certain keywords that you didn’t expect to see? Did you at least find this three-part series on using Trends helpful? Leave a comment below!

Has your brain been wracked enough yet? Well either way, it’s time for round two! If you haven’t, be sure you read part 1 of “Google Trends helps you reach your target market” to get caught up – we’re looking at this very useful, free tool and how it helps us get past the first step of finding keywords for our websites. Let’s jump right in…

Your keywords in the news

Beneath the graph that we were looking at last week, the Search Volume Index Graph, is the News Reference Volume graph. This graph isn’t scaled the same way that the Search Volume graph is; so while you don’t need to look as deeply into this one, you do need to remember to switch modes when looking at either one. Instead of using relative comparisons for plotting the lines, the News Reference Volume graph simply shows you when there was an increase or a decrease in the number of news stories about your keywords. Notice that there are no numbers on the axes of this graph and that it follows the time frame you have selected. In my case, December 2009 saw the largest decrease in the number of news stories about web design and May 2010 saw the largest increase in the number of news stories about web design.

What the news is saying about you

Maybe they aren’t talking about you, but if you look to the right of the two graphs, you see a list of news headlines with their sources and publish dates. This is in no way a conclusive list of news headlines, as A) these correspond only to points in time when Google picked up on a notable spike in related news stories, and B) these particular stories have been drawn at random from all related stories published around the specific point in time. For example: In early October 2009, there was a spike in news stories about web design, so Google Trends marked it with the flag B. This happens to be at a time when there was a relative increase in the number of general searched on “web design.”

My guess in this case is that the two are hardly related. The news story that was automatically picked from that time period is about a script that allows Ubuntu users to use Mozilla Firefox. Ubuntu isn’t really a news-maker and the script allowing Ubuntu to run Firefox probably wouldn’t have led the masses to search for web designers. Just a guess

Similarly, news flag D happens to mark a point when searches on “web design” began to decline (relative to the entire year). A news story about a web design company creating 40 jobs when Americans are struggling to find jobs is likely not the cause of the decline, so it’s safe to say that this randomly chosen news article is not quite indicative of the time. As you see, you don’t need to live by this news section of Google Trends.

You can click on “More news results” under that list to be taken to Google News, where Google will have already searched your keywords for all the news that has been published about them.

Where in the world…

Where are these people who are looking for you? And do you need to learn some quick Russian to be able to get a hold of them? Look below the graphs and news section and you’ll see sections for subregions, cities and languages. Google explains this one best: “Google Trends uses IP address information from our server logs to make a best guess about where queries originated. Language information is determined by the language version of the Google site where the search originated.”

It’s possible that these results won’t be 100% accurate, as “Trends” is using its best guess, but it may be helpful to look into these results. To determine top-ranking regions and cities, Google Trends divides the number of searches on your keyword from each region by the total number of searched from the region. So if there are X number of searches coming out of Las Vegas, NV, and Y number of them are on “web design,” then Google Trends works out the math in Y/X and ranks Las Vegas among other cities using the same math each time.

What do you think so far?

Now that you know a little more about this powerful, free Google tool, see what kinds of information you can glean from all of these aspects and how the information can help you. If you’d like some additional insight or more help with the tool, leave a comment here or email me (jayme@lymelightwebs.com). And if you’ve come up with astounding information or other helpful tips, comment below!

Next up, we’ll export our data and analyze it to find the right set of keywords.

Today’s post is more of a how-to, designed to help you familiarize yourself with a neat Google tool that will guide you toward an answer to the question:  ”Knowing that I can rank better in search engines by writing about the things people are searching for, how do I find out what the heck they’re searching for?!”

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts put in full-time hours to conquer the intricate aspects of optimization for their clients, so while there is no definitive answer, there is Google Trends.  ”Trends” lets you search up to five terms at a time, and from there, it draws a line graph to compare how often those terms are searched by Google users.  It breaks the information down into which geographical areas are searching for those terms most, and it also points out a few online news headlines that were running during the specified period of time.

I’ll run through what Google Trends does and then explain how this can help you.

Search Query / Queries

Upon opening the Google Trends home page, you’ll still feel right at home with the Google logo atop a standard search box and some gibberish at the bottom of the page (the categories are self-explanatory).  Start by typing two search phrases into the box, keeping in mind what you think your potential customers are looking for.  I’m looking to first compare “web design” with “web development.”  Click “Search Trends.”

Settings / Filters

Before diving into the results, it’s important to look at the light blue bar stretching across the top.  My recommendation is to limit your search by region to “United States” and by time period to anything less than the pre-filled “All Years.”  I’m going with the past 12 months.  After the page reloads, a subregion field becomes available so you can also choose a specific state.  For instance, if you’re an architecture design firm that only operates within Arizona, then you’ll want to choose the subregion of Arizona.

Search Results: Line Graph

Note that you need to be signed into your Google account to view the numbers or to export the data.  The one thing to bear in mind when looking at the line graph is that it is relative, so all changes in the slopes of the lines are based on the average of the ‘baseline’ search query during the specified period of time  (I’ll explain).  The numbers on the graph represent the mathematical relativity, moreso than the actual number of searches.

So in my example, “web design” is my first term and is therefore the ‘baseline’ term, situated around the 1.00 mark; the results for “web development” will be relative to the results for “web design.”  I can now see that people have been statistically five times more likely to search “web design” than “web development” because the latter scored merely a .20, compared to the former’s score of 1.00.

This part will seem even more baffling, but remember that the entire graph is based on relativity.  Each line fluctuates according to changes from the average for the specified period of time.  In my example, to say that fewer people searched for “web design” in December 2009 than in January 2010 is not exactly what’s read from the graph.  Rather, December 2009 saw far fewer of these searches than was average for all of the past twelve months, and January 2010 saw a slight increase in the number of these searches for this time period.  I can still assume that more people were looking for web design in January than in December, but the actual drop/incline is relative to the year’s average.

Now I know that I can relax more during the holiday season because people won’t be looking for me (they’ll be looking for sales)

You can change which term becomes the ‘baseline’ using the drop-down under the graph.  By making “web development” the baseline, you can see more easily how relativity is working.  ”Web development” is now ranked 1.00, and “web design” is suddenly ranked 5.10 because “Trends” is still showing us that people have been five times more likely to search “web design” than “web development.”

Play around with the chart alone for now, trying out different words and phrases that relate to your business in a way that others’ may be thinking.  Ask the people around you:  ”If you were in the market for _________, what words or phrases would you be using to search online?”  You may be surprised at the names and comparisons people come up with in their searching, especially if you’re selling a service.  Another tip:  Use keywords that are problem-based, not solution-based.  People are going to jump online and tell Google about their problems because they don’t always know what solutions exist.  You want to come up in the search results as being the solution they need, no matter how they go about searching for you.

Bear this in mind as we now move on to part 2! You can also jump to part 3 for exporting your data.

Small Business Trends has an article by Kare Anderson that explains how to see your store through your customers’ eyes to improve sales.  It’s a fairly lengthy article, but it’s a good read, as it seems to be an all-inclusive list of things to think about when working with your employees to better serve your customers.

I’ve worked for two stores in my life: one national clothing retailer that makes millions in profit and one two-store, local supermarket that pulls in a fraction of what the other makes.  Guess which one maintains a strict plan that closely parallels Anderson’s plan for welcoming and handling customers?  This isn’t a trick question; indeed, the national chain follows Anderson’s points almost perfectly.

Realizing that this isn’t the ideal comparison, the focus of my article isn’t the comparison, but rather the customer service aspect of running a store of any kind.

While it may seem unnecessary or even silly to care about the smile or the phone greeting—or perhaps some of these tips seem too pushy—remember that the titans have already learned these simple tricks, and they’re better off for it.

Specifically, this national chain that I had worked for drilled into the brains of new employees the “HOOOT” method of engaging customers (and encouraging customers to buy more).

• H = Hello: Greet the customer with a smile, even if you’re folding t-shirts or talking with another customer.
• O = Observe: Pay attention to what the customer is wearing and carrying when s/he comes into the store, for two reasons.

1. Sales:  You might easily figure out what colors, styles, brands, activities or people interest the customer, allowing you to target your sales in a less pushy way.  You already know they’ll be interested!
2. Loss Prevention:  Pay attention to any bags or baggy garments, as well as how full the bags appear to be.  By the time the customer passes the registers to leave the store, make an effort to gauge any change in the fullness of bags or clothes.  Be aware that you’ll run into trouble with the law for false accusations of theft, but you may be able to strike up conversation before they leave as a last effort to check on the bags or clothes.

• O = Open the conversation: As the customer is browsing, feel free to engage them in friendly conversation to learn more about them and what they’re looking to buy.
• O = Open-ended questions: Ask open-ended questions to keep the conversation rolling and pay attention to the answers.  ”Yes-or-no” questions make it difficult for you to glean ideas on complementary items.
• T = Thank you: Whether the customer has bought anything or not, take the time to thank them, if just for stopping in.  It’ll be the last thing they remember about your store and may lead them to think of you when they’re looking to shop elsewhere.

A few other customer-friendly tips I had picked up from the retail store:

• Remember the 80/10/10 Rule:

  80% percent of customers will steal if given the chance, 10% will never steal, and 10% will always steal.  Eighty percent is a huge bracket, so don’t give them the reason or chance to steal!  Get them talking, laughing or (if you sell food items) eating.  They’ll like you too much.  Just being greeted by an employee triggers the sense that someone is watching, so a would-be thief may think twice.

• Talk to your coworkers when customers can be involved:

  There’s a strange sense of satisfaction that comes from being allowed into others’ conversations.  We would often start (purposefully loud) conversations about the items sold in the store or related music, movies and games.  Making eye contact with or even shifting the conversation’s attention to the customers makes the them feel at home.  Who knows – maybe they’ll be inclined to stick around and spend more money

The supermarket wasn’t struggling to stay open – they made their share of money – but since they never invested the time into fully preparing their employees for “coddling” customers, as Anderson puts it, they may never know just how much they could grow.  Likewise, it’s a topic you may want to visit.

Take some time to physically go through your store (too many managers are out-of-sight and only think they know what’s going on by what they see in security cameras) and pay attention to how employees are handling customers.  Most importantly, as one of the biggest complaints is lack of attention, notice whether your employees are giving your customers the attention they deserve!

In what ways is your store or company striving in making a difference to its customers?  What things have you noticed other companies doing wrong or doing right when it comes to customer focus?

Glance at this article from Entrepreneur.com by George Cloutier about why he thinks the ruthless dictator wins in the small business world. Raises your blood pressure, doesn’t it? It raises mine, but mostly in outrage, knowing that there are people out there who are, in my opinion, misled into this kind of extreme thinking.

I do agree with some of Cloutier’s points:

• - Your opinion, as the business owner, counts most and employees’ opinions should be welcomed (although Cloutier doesn’t necessarily say “welcomed”).
• - Plans should be executed as flawlessly as possible.
• - Employees should be rewarded based on performance and held accountable for what they do.
• - Employees should absolutely know that you’re there, in the trenches with them.

But notice that these are all points that fit in with the opposite line of thinking, as well: They all encourage teamwork and healthy respect.

Companies that “do it right” in making their employees a major part of their business—treating them well, respecting their ideas and taking the time to listen to them—are constantly doted upon in business publications as “the best places to work.”  Baltimore Magazine featured the “Best Places To Work 2010” and CNN Money wrote about the “100 Best Companies to Work for [2010].” With the likes of Johns Hopkins, McCormick, Google and DreamWorks presented on lists of companies that cater to their employees, why would Cloutier argue?

Indeed, there is no room in a company for a wishy-washy pseudo-leader, but with the right set of skills and personal traits, it isn’t difficult to find the right balance of no-nonsense and compassion toward your employees.

Fear does not equal respect. It may be a good motivator, but it isn’t always the best. We as people want to feel guided and led, but we will almost instinctively fight back if we feel threatened or overwhelmed.

The kicker is Cloutier’s suggestion to tell your employees to obey, not think. How many of today’s biggest companies (especially in technology) do you think would have survived if their employees weren’t allowed to think? You are one person. You simply cannot think of everything, but your employees can probably help. The wisest leader utilizes others’ ideas and transforms them collectively into “the next big thing.”

I do feel that Cloutier’s ‘tough love’ approach is necessary to an extent, but this article crosses a line. What do you think? If you’ve read it, what do you think of his book, Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing?

The laws surrounding unpaid internship may seem vague, but they’re actually so specific that it could almost feel intimidating. One part of this law to focus on is that “unpaid interns cannot do any work that contributes to a company’s operations,” according to business.gov. “This includes any tasks that help you run your business, like documenting inventory, filing papers, answering emails, etc.”

And the government doesn’t care if training is to the company’s detriment, either

A bakery, as depicted in the example provided by business.gov, can have an unpaid intern decorate a sheet of cookies that will not be sold. Yep, the government is very specific on this one. Moreover, many states allow for any employee—not just the intern—to bring attention to authorities if the company fails to abide by this law.

There are six parts to the law covering unpaid internships (#4 emphasized by me, as it’s the tricky one):

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainee;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the completion of the training period; and
6. The employer and the trainee understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

This isn’t to say that unpaid interns are worthless, but it does mean that you’re better off paying them. It’s still cheap labor, and it’s also a chance to check out potential employees.

Read the article from Entrepreneur, “Summer Interns: Are Small Businesses Flirting with Disaster?” as well as business.gov’s bit on unpaid internship laws.

Have you brought in an unpaid intern?  What were your experiences?  Were you completely informed about the laws surrounding the internship?