Why is CustomerCradle in business ?

CustomerCradle Logo

CustomerCradle Logo

CustomerCradle is in business because we believe that business operators should not have to guess whether their radio ads, flyers and TV spots are working.

CustomerCradle is in business because we believe that brick and mortar business, the kind of businesses that answer the phone and deal with walk-in customers, deserve just as good business insight and analytical software as online businesses.

CustomerCradle is in business because we believe that as business operators become more familiar with website metrics and online advertising analytics they will come to expect similar fact based management tools for all aspects of their business.

Sam Howley CustomerCradle Co-Founder

Sam Howley CustomerCradle Co-Founder

Let us know what you think. Email us.

Thanks,

Sam Howley,

CustomerCradle Co-Founder

Canberra, Australia

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August 24, 2010 | Sam Howley | No Comments »

Ideas for getting more clients

1. Take the next step in self promotion

Many of us are naturally a little shy about self promotion.  Well maybe it’s time you started handing out a summary sheet describing additional available services to all your clients.  Maybe it’s time you started getting your staff to ask every client “are there any additional services we could be providing for you”.  Maybe it’s time you got marketing signage on the side of you car.  Maybe it’s time you joined some local business networking groups or started one.

Each of these specific suggestions may not apply to you, but the general principle does, get out of your comfort zone and try that promotional activity you had considered but put off.  It’s almost certainly not going to be irrevocable, if it doesn’t work or doesn’t feel right then stop.

2. Find ways to give more value

Is there some paperwork that many of your clients need that you aren’t providing them but could be ? Is there some piece of information that many of your client need that you don’t provide ?

A great way to make an impression, to get your client talking about your service, is to surprise them with that little bit extra that they didn’t expect.

Is there something interesting or useful or special you can put in your waiting room that will stand out in the memories of your clients ?

You know the usual customer service attentions that everyone gives ? An email or card on a clients birthday, asking the people in the waiting room if they would like a coffee.  Well they were not always standard practice, someone, someone like you, invented them in order to set their business apart.

What can you do to provide that little bit of extra value to your clients and set your business apart ? The surest path to more clients is happy existing clients.

3. Ask your clients how you can reach more people in their industry

“Ok, so that’s all complete now.  Just before you go can I just ask you a question.  We are looking to expand and grow this business. Do you have any suggestions on how we can reach out to other people in your industry ?”

If you are not regularly asking this question already I guarantee you will get informative, unexpected responses.

“Well a there is a networking group that meets…”,  ”In this area there is a website that…”, “A lot of people subscribe to…” etc

4. Study what the competition are doing and what people in your industry overseas are doing

Information arbitrage is a high margin business indeed. You should know what your competitor down the street is doing to grow his business but there is also a huge opportunity to look for innovators on the other side of the world.

Is there some additional service that people in your industry in Europe, America or Australia have started offering that is not yet standard in your neck of the woods ? Look around for innovations that are working in other parts of the world in your industry and think about how you could introduce them to your business.

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August 23, 2010 | Sam Howley | No Comments »

Marketing an Accounting Practice, Ideas To Get You Thinking

At CustomerCradle we’re not experts in marketing accounting practices, we just provide the tools that allow you to collect the information you need to become one, but perhaps we can provide some ideas that will get you thinking.

Niches

It’s been said that if you claim to be perfect for everyone people will think you are perfect for no one.  The first step to getting more clients could be to select a specific type of client, a specific business type, and to focus on them.

Who are you biggest, most profitable, happiest clients ? How could you target their industries.  Maybe you could ask them!

Ask your clients what they want and expect from an accountant. No really, ask them.

You probably think you know what your clients expect from your business.  You’re probably wrong.  There are almost certainly clients who have additional needs that are not being met or who were surprised by an aspect of your service.

If it feels awkward to ask them directly you could outsource a telephone or email survey asking for feedback, people may open up more freely with a third party.

This approach is strongly inline with the CustomerCradle Ethos : Get the facts, don’t guess if you want success.

Make is clear to all that you want to improve

You’ve probably experienced being in a bad restaurant with unenthusiastic staff and disorganized order taking. Perhaps you’ve complained or mentioned to the manager that service wasn’t up to par. Most often though you probably didn’t, it would have been a hassle and if the manager really cared he should be able to see the dysfunction.

Obviously your business isn’t like that, but the little example illustrates that people will generally only help you if you are seen to be helping yourself.

What can you do to make it even more clear to your staff and clients that you want to grow and improve your practice ?  Do you have a client feedback form ? Do you ask for feedback on your stationary ? Do you have an easy complaints process so that clients feel free to raise problems ? Do you have reading material available and on display that shows you are committed to learning and improvement ?

You may be surprised at the suggestions and help you get when you’ve let people know that you are trying to grow.

Well that’s all we’ve got for the moment, as always drop us an email or leave a comment, we’d love to hear from you.

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August 20, 2010 | Sam Howley | No Comments »

Growing a Business – The Captain’s Dilema

One of the biggest challenges in growing a business is the unsettling uncertainty.

It’s like being the captain of a ship in the middle of the ocean.  You haven’t arrived at the destination yet and two possibilities exist.  Either you are heading in the wrong direction or you are heading the right direction you just haven’t gone far enough yet.

One way to check whether you are taking the correct action to grow your business is to look at other more successful businesses.  Have they done what you are doing ?  Have they done a lot more of it ? If so that would seem to be a strong indication that you need to double down, you need to keep pushing forward, you need to raise the main sail.  (How’s that for a metaphor rich sentence :) ).

Another way to know whether you are on the right course is to know in detail how your business is preforming this week as compared to last week. That was a large part of the reason that we made CustomerCradle.

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Preparing for a 60 second pitch on This Week In Startups with Jason Calacanis

I was lucky enough to get to pitch CustomerCradle on the This Week In Startups podcast with Jason Calacanis and Brian Alvey.

We got some great feedback and I was happy with how the pitch went. The video below will start at our pitch, 31 minutes in.

In case other people might get some value out of it here are some of what I did to prepare for the pitch.

Google Image Search for “Funny”

I knew I had at least twenty minutes until I would be on so I was watching the streaming show live. I noticed I was getting more and more nervous and so I closed the browser tab with the show and instead went to Google Image Search and typed in ‘funny’. This totally loosened me up.  When the skype call came through for my pitch on the show it felt more like a one on one call rather than me appearing in front of lots of people.

Kill You Darlings

It was really difficult to cut the pitch down to 60 seconds.  There were so many things I wanted to talk about but when you have only sixty seconds you have only sixty seconds. I believe there is a saying in creative writing that you have to “kill your darlings”, meaning sometimes you have to remove characters and plot elements that you really like in order to make the core story more clear.

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

I practiced the pitch a lot in the two days preceding the show.

Creating the pitch was valuable in itself

My CustomerCradle partner Ryan pointed out that the very act of creating the 60 second pitch provided a valuable opportunity to focus on what we see as the opportunities and benefits of CustomerCradle. One word that was emphasized in the pitch that we don’t use enough when marketing CustomerCradle and talking to potential users is ‘workflow’.

Thinking back to all our discussions with business operators they haven’t been using the word but it’s a large part of what they have been talking about. It’s not enough to do what they need, we have to do what they need in a way that can easily be inserted into their current patterns of behavior. This is an area we have a real advantage over some of the other available options, we should make it more clear.

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August 16, 2010 | Sam Howley | 1 Comment »

Technology Startups – It’s time to go into reverse

There are two worlds, online and offline.

So far all our effort has gone into thinking about how to translate offline behavior into online behavior.

We buy things on the street – How can we buy things online ?
We hang out with our friends at social gatherings – How can we hang out with our friends online ?
We flirt and date – How can we flirt and date online ?
We advertise on radio, TV, flyers and street signage – How can we advertise online ?

This thinking has lead to massive progress.  Not only are we able to do many of the things we’ve always done in the ‘real world’ online but many of the activities are better suited to the online world and so they have actually been improved.

But the times they are a-changing.  The online world is now mature enough to have developed it’s own behaviors.  There is an opportunity to go into reverse and look at what online behavior can be translated to the ‘real world’.

Online everything comes to us – Offline we queue and go to the counter.

Surely in the restaurants of the future we will order and pay without leaving the table and without wait staff coming to us.  What would an in-table touchscreen ordering system look like for an expensive, classy restaurant ?  Bill splitting is hard, surely there is a technological solution.

Online we can re-play, re-read and re-watch – Offline amazing stuff happens and is then lost forever

The vast majority of discussion in the vast majority of business meetings is completely lost by the end of the meeting.

Why don’t pool tables at bars have instant replay screens built into the light shade ? $0.50 to replay the last 10 seconds, so you can watch that amazing shot or copy it to your flash drive.

Why aren’t there cheap ‘instant replay’ camera devices you can set up at your local amateur cricket / baseball game ?

Online we can associate based on common interest – Offline it can be difficult to find out if you have a common interest with the people around you

meetup.com is on the case.

Online we have access to massive choice – How can we increase choice offline ?

Surely universities, clothes shops, cinemas and the like will only be around in 30 years if they are able to compete with the almost infinite choice available online.

Online we have access to research / background information in a few clicks and keystrokes – What offline activities would benefit from having more information available ?

How could you collect real time statistics at local sports events ?  How could you make reviews of thousands of wines available at thousands of restaurants so you could make a more informed choice as you sit at the table.  How could you make the average cost of specific auto repair jobs available to customers as they stand in the auto-repair shop waiting for a quote ?

Online we are able to publish our ideas very easily – What’s the ‘away from the computer’ equivalent of a blog ?

Are shop fronts and street signage going to change to become more information rich as businesses compete based on ideas ? Will the accountant’s window contains a large screen display giving his philosophy on how to manage your money ?

This idea is the heart of CustomerCradle.  We want to be google analytics for offline / “real world” businesses.

Web businesses have an amazing set of tools for analysing their interactions with customers and potential customers.  Would any web business worth it’s salt not track and monitor where visitors were coming from ? Of course not.

Yet what about offline ‘real world’ businesses ?  How many accountants, travel agents, printing companies, fitness clubs and the like have hard data on where their customers heard about them and how well inquiries are being converted into sales ?  How many are able to compare that data to their peers ? Some, but not many.   Because it’s hard to collect, hard to collate and hard to analyse.

Offline businesses may never be able to do analytics as easily as online businesses but they sure as eggs is eggs should be able to do it easier than they can now.

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August 11, 2010 | Sam Howley | 1 Comment »