Latest Entries

If you want to market by email - learn the rules.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - by Jim Mosier

You know, I have long suffered from a condition that makes me easily annoyed with people who don't have at least a little respect for my personal e-mail address.

As many of you know, I have been known to buy a house or two in my time for investment purposes. As such, I am a member of a Real Estate Investors Association. During our meetings, new investors who are trying to build up a list of contacts are always asking for cards or passing out email list sign-up forms. I have no problem at all with this practice as I think it is a great way to build a network.. However, where I am going with this is that there should be some certification required before people are allowed to send out a message with over just a few recipients. ESPECIALLY if it is a marketing message.

Let me phrase it differently: Putting a group of recipients that don't know each other in the "TO:" box of a message instead of the "BCC:" box of a message should be a crime. This is one of my biggest pet peeves - ever - and it seems there is always a new batch of nitwits that don't have the common sense to figure it out. I mean, really, it's bad enough that every time I buy a product online I have to search the page for that conveniently pre-checked box that subscribes me to another newsletter that I don't want.. Why should I have to be constantly replying to people and explaining to them that there are some simple rules you should follow, out of common courtesy, when sending an email.

SO:

I have come up with what I think could be a polite, but effective way to curb this. Instead of replying with my normal, canned response, I have come up with a new response. Here it is:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your message, but I think you might have have broken one of the rules.

Please visit: http://www.pleaselearntherules.com/

Thank you and regards.

Yes, as you may have guessed, I also created the Please Learn The Rules web site. Now before you go on ranting about how much time I must have on my hands, consider that I have about a half hour in putting that site online (most of which was re-wording the text several times so people don't get offended). Then think of how much time it takes to skim through 40 or 50 emails a day that you have no interest in, just to find out you have no interest in them. In that respect, you could say I did it for the benefit of everyone.

Feel free to send along any rule-breakers you come across to the site also. Let's take back our inboxes and spread the word!

Thanks for your time.

Take control of your domain - its yours!
Tuesday, May 06, 2008 - by Jim Mosier

Wow. This is one of those blog entries that I really hate to write. The reason I hate writing it is that it is very real situation that happens probably a lot more than even I think. What warrants it as this weeks topic of a rant is that a friend and client of mine is going through it as we speak.

I am sure you heard of the “bargain” companies that offer a “free domain name” with their hosting services. The catch is that when you try to leave, you find that you never really owned your domain at all and you can’t take it with you. This little trick has been around for a while now, and I would hope that anyone reading this would smell this scheme from a mile away and steer clear of it.

Well that’s not really what happened here, but the end result is the same, and in this case leaves me scratching my head. You see in this case, my friend/client is the legal registrant of the domain but still seems to be powerless to change the contacts and/or transfer it to another registrar.

Before I go too far, (and sorry for making an example out of you, {name removed for privacy}) I just want to make one statement to anyone who did not register their own domain name: GET YOUR DOMAIN NAME UNDER YOUR NAME AND CONTROL, NOW! I don’t care who registered it for you if it was a web developer, your “computer guy” or even uncle Fred.

Here is the story: This particular client purchased a highly customized version of my Premier Sites database system. At the time, a quick WHOIS showed me that his “computer guy” owned his domain. I mentioned to him that he should get it put in his name – and he did – or so he thought.

Here we are over a year later and we determine we need to make some changes to his nameserver records. No big deal, right? Well, as it turns out, even though he is the “registrant” of the domain, all of the “contacts” for the domain remained as his computer guy.

It just so happens that at the same time there is some billing disagreement between them and the computer guy basically refuses to make any changes.. or.. get this.. even approve a transfer to another registrar.

Obviously your first thought is “Well, let’s just write a little letter and get it changed. After all, I *AM* the registrant, right?” Wrong.

Interestingly enough – guess who the registrar is? You guessed it. The computer guy. He is part of some domain reseller program, who, when calling the “parent” company listens quietly to your request then tells you contact your reseller.

Gee, thanks.

Will he get his domain back? Yes – but it will be a potentially nasty fight. You see ICANN has rules about people hijacking domains, but they are all geared towards someone who takes someone else’s trademark and tries to sell it back to them. In this case, the client is even the legal registrant – so none of the normal ICANN rules apply.

Fortunately, the client and I have identified a couple of options, although neither are particularly attractive, he WILL get his domain back.. eventually.

I will do my best to keep all of you that are interested updated on the outcome of this – but please, Please, PLEASE – I am BEGGING you – Check the ownership and Administrative contact for your domain names and make sure it is YOU.

Sorry for the rant, but I hope it saves you some money and frustration in the future.

Thanks for your time.

Lets Talk About Listening
Tuesday, January 08, 2008 - by Jim Mosier

I write about this a lot - and rightfully so - I believe it is one of the most fundamental things that a business can do to increase sales, customer satisfaction, ROI, TCO, IRR or whatever acronym or metric you want to use. Why do I believe this? Because I have proven it.

The topic: LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!

Your customers will tell you what they want - but most of the time they won't make you listen to them. One of the things that I always try to help my clients do is find ways to measure the wants and needs of their customers. Not just the customers you like and maybe have a chummy relationship with, but even those that you might feel are a little more of a pain to deal with. Have you ever given thought to why they might be a pain in the first place? Usually they will tell you.

In his book The Magic of Thinking Big, David Schwartz tells us that Big people monopolize the listening and small people monopolize the talking. In all of my reading, I have found listening to your customer to be one of the most common qualities that all marjor business success stories have in common.

In all this talk about listening, I keep talking about your customers. I'm not talking about just your current customers, although that's a good start. You should also look into capturing the opinions of customers that decide not to do business with you. Even better, find out what happened to those customers who have done business with you before but don't anymore. You might think you know the answer already, but ask anyway. I have found that many times people are surprised at what they find!

Another strategy is to talk to the folks that are on the front lines with the customer like your delivery driver, customer service rep or salesperson - find out what they think - get their opinion on how you're doing as well. Make it anonymous if you want - you are looking for honesty not praise here. Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart once flew his aircraft to Mt. Pleasant, Texas and parked it with instructions to the copilot to meet him 100 or so miles down the road. He then flagged down a Wal-Mart semi-truck and rode the rest of the way to "chat with the driver." When asked about it, he said that it "seemed like so much fun" and that he had learned much.

In business today, you have the ability to collect and process an enormous amount of information. Perhaps I should rephrase that - you have always had the ability to collect the information - but through a strong systems strategy, you have the ability to store, organize, search and act upon the information you collect. Customer feedback is a crucial part of this cycle. Why do you think that just about any time you buy something online these days you get a questionairre in your email a few days later?

Think about it.

Mosier Information Services In The News
Monday, January 07, 2008 - by Jim Mosier

The Ledger, our local paper here in Lakeland did a series of articles on Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization for today's edition of its Polk County Business Journal. I got a call from one of their writers, Lorrie Walker and decided to volunteer myself as well as Tina, my search engine guru, to give her a brief interview. We answered all of her questions and to our surprise, we were mentioned in not one or two, but three articles!

I don't usually get much local press so I thought that I would go ahead and post some links to the articles so you could take a look in case you don't live in the area and didn't get the print edition.

Here they are...

Internet Marketing Levels Business Playing Field

Want a Presence on the Web? It All Comes Down to Search Engines

and last but not least:

To Build Better Customer Relationships, Start a Blog