Adam Kirk Smith

- A. Smith Blog - Leadership in Life

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Books and Other Stuff

I have missed writing here on the blog, but much has happened. We had our beautiful daughter Audrey on July 7th of 2019, and she has changed our lives forever. With two children it was much different, being able to play man-on-man defense, but now we must play zone coverage, having three. We are officially outnumbered…

Not only has my time been consumed with our new addition, but I am also working on my second book on the subject of competition. More on this throughout 2020.

But maybe even more noticeable than my lack of writing here on the blog is my disappearance from social media for the most part over the past year or so. I didn’t want to add to the ever-growing noise, because there’s enough of that. Plus, in the grand scheme of things, who really cares? Sure, I have a few fans, but they email me to see how I’m doing if they need me.

Whether we’re talking about people who share too much on social media or people that try to fake their lifestyle with extravagant purchases, we all have a mental image of social media gone wrong. I became exhausted with the machine that others tell me I need to subscribe to, so instead of competing, I bowed out for a while. I needed a break from it all, as I think we all do. With plastering my life across social media for more than a decade, I merely felt the need to try the opposite to see what results I might produce, and I’m happy with the outcome.

People tell me I need to stay on social media all the time so I grow my numbers so I can sell more books, and so the never-ending cycle continues. I hate feeling that I am part of “the machine”.

Putting my time where it matters most is always my intention, although that’s not always what happens. I now answer email maybe once a week, post on social media maybe once a month, and have been able to write and read more often. Uninterrupted time with family happens more often and has strengthened our bond. Life seems simpler, less stressful, and my mind is less cluttered. I am grateful for peace.

So, what does this mean for the future of my writing, podcasting, etc.? Here’s my official answer for those who are interested: I personally will be posting at least one article per month here on my blog. I will no longer be accepting guest posts here on the blog for quite some time. I will be posting on social media as I see fit, but definitely not as often as I did at one time. And as far as podcasting is concerned, I will start back at some point, and will let you know when that happens.

The main thing that I will be working on this year is my new book and will keep you updated when the time comes. Just know that I really dislike the entire book promo part, and wish that I could write a book and people would know to buy it without me saying anything, but I guess it doesn’t work that way…

Anyway, here are a few books that I read for a second time to begin the new year:

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

What are your favorite books?

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Close Listening & Other Customer Service Strategies

This is a guest post from Daniel Matthews. He is a writer and musician from Boise, Idaho, who specializes in entrepreneurship, business, tech, and writing on just about any idea that captivates him. You can find him on Twitter.

Information is flowing to businesses all the time. Customers are constantly telling businesses what they think about them either directly or indirectly. Conversations on social media, comments, reviews, and communication via helplines all enable brands to gather customer feedback. 

However, that’s only the first step to customer service improvements and, ultimately, growth. Businesses have to take what they learn one step further to actually improve the customer service experience. Here’s how companies can keep customers happy.

Gather Feedback as Early as Possible

You can start gathering feedback about your brand, product or service in the early stages before you’ve officially released anything to the public. Ask a small group of current customers, potential customers, industry experts, or influencers to test the product and provide you with honest feedback. You may not like what you hear, and it may require major changes before moving forward, but it’s better to find out now instead of later.

Practice Close Listening

Close listening means that you listen to what the customer is saying, understand it, and then clarify that you understand what they’ve said. Agents should ask questions to get to the root of customer queries and issues. 

When customers are angry, they are generally upset for a reason, and that reason may not be obvious in the heat of the moment. Close listening goes beyond that to understand the core problem and take action, whether than be to change things like company policies or product design. 

Your response shows that you truly hear and care about what customers say. Close listening is particularly important if a customer has been injured or hurt by a product. Even one instance involving an injury should raise an alarm about potential issues to prevent as soon as possible.

Direct the Narrative Through Your Responses

Businesses can’t control what customers say about them, but they don’t have to be at the whim of those comments and reviews, either. When a customer leaves a negative review, it’s important to respond to them as soon as possible and in a public way. That way, other customers can see that your company faces issues head-on. 

Customers don’t want to feel like they’re alone, and they want to know that their problems will be given attention. They don’t expect perfection from businesses, but they do expect to be treated well as customers.

Provide the Same Level of Support Online and Offline

Businesses that only pay attention to customers when they make public complaints can get a reputation for poor customer service. Customers want to feel like they’re important no matter where they are — whether that be in a store, talking with a support agent on the phone, or posting a review on social media. Businesses should communicate in the same way no matter who is (or is not) going to see it. Companies have to be consistent in their customer service in order to be trustworthy.

Give Certain Customers a Point Person

Customers who are having a complex issue may have to call customer service several times. If they have to wait through a menu and explain their situation to a new agent every single time, they’ll quickly get upset with the company. At that point, you risk having an unhappy customer or losing them completely. 

These customers should have a point person who they can easily contact through a direct line. Even better is if that point person contacts the customer — so long as they do so when they say they will. For customer issues that have been escalated, it’s best if the point person is a manager or supervisor instead of a regular agent.

Provide Technical and Product Support

Customers can’t be satisfied or pleased with products they’re unable to use. One role of customer success managers and the customer support department overall is to provide technical and product support so that the customer can actually reap the benefits of what they’ve purchased. 

That means that support agents have to be experts in the products or services you sell — if they can’t teach your customers how to use them, who can? Take the time to provide agents with the training necessary for them to answer customer questions accurately and thoroughly. 

Build a Knowledge Base

The more you work with and listen to customers, the more you’ll realize that many of them have the same issues. Maybe they have trouble navigating part of your website, or they seem to run into trouble with a particular product. 

If you find that you’re answering the same questions and solving the same problems over and over, build a knowledge base that customers can use on their own. You’ll empower customers to solve issues through self-service. This is more convenient for them, and you’ll alleviate the pressure put on your customer service department. Your agents can then be free to handle more in-depth issues or to work directly with VIP clients.

A customer service department is only as strong as its agents. Without happy agents who are willing to provide stellar support, your customers won’t be treated the way they should. Clarify your expectations and empower agents to go above and beyond for the sake of the customer experience. Your customers will thank you through positive reviews and brand loyalty.

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How Word-of-Mouth Marketing Can Generate More Leads

This a guest post from Adrian Johansen. Adrian resides in the Pacific Northwest. She loves sharing her knowledge with others, and learning from them as well! You can find more of her writing on twitter

Online ads are becoming painfully annoying, and more people have gathered a sort of instinct to immediately close out of the obvious ads. With the arrival of interactive social media, word-of-mouth marketing has also evolved, and new social communities have emerged in the online world.

The role of social media, online presence, and word of mouth are becoming essential to strong business cash flow for local and national businesses. Social media posts aren’t just for individual people with a personal agenda. Social media as a whole has come to play an increasingly crucial role for businesses, marketing, and social society. The online world can make or break a business reputation in a matter of minutes.

Marketing and Current Issues

The way current issues are handled can blossom or mangle reputations. In government, public administrators fill the role of making sure departments are not only well understood but well-funded in future election cycles. How public officials choose to communicate with an angry public about relevant issues requires unbiased skilland balancing what the public wants to hear versus how much can actually be done.  

Marketers can find that combining word-of-mouth, peer-to-peer programs and more activity related marketing (like customer reviews) will leverage the overall impact of their marketing efforts.

When it comes to taking advice on what to purchase and where, people are more easily influenced by personal friends and family. Taking advice from what is displayed in a news feed is becoming more common in social media, especially when a friend shares it. When a company targets a fan base the word can spread like wildfire reaching hundreds, or sometimes even thousands of viewers.

Joining the Club 

For marketers, this is the first time they’ve been able to readily plug-in to the real, uncultivated, word-of-mouth conversations of the consumer.

Concerns, questions, opinions, likes, dislikes — these have all been pushed into the public space, leaving marketers with a goldmine of information, ripe for exploration and exploitation. 

This data is allowing digital marketers to quickly predict where their target audiences are headed. According to Villanova University, “[social media] allows brands to converse with their target audiences in real time, engaging in conversation rather than simply broadcasting messages that may or may not be relevant to consumers.” They can tap into open communities like Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook to see what a wide array of people are talking about, while collecting invaluable facts and figures along the way.

Ten years ago, this kind of consumer information would not only be far more costly and cumbersome to obtain, it would almost assuredly be gathered using tiered market research techniques. These techniques don’t offer the same truthful transparency of naturally occurring word-of-mouth.

Today, marketers can obtain real-time insights by using social media to tap the word-of-mouth musings of nearly any demographic they might be trying to reach across the globe.

Is It Reliable?

Whether it’s being used for marketing, sales or something else entirely, oral communication has been the primary method of discussing and describing all matters of significance (and insignificance) in communities across the globe. But while the power of word-of-mouth marketing remains unchanged, the means in which we take advantage of it has. The internet, above all, has radically transformed how we utilize communication as a means of marketing. 

When it comes to making buying decisions, people turn to their community for recommendations before purchasing any kind of good or service. Consumers will default to the opinions of their friends, family, colleagues, and social peers with far greater frequency than they’ll listen to even the most polished marketing pitch. And to be fair, why wouldn’t they? It’s the marketer’s job to become a trusted source.

With the amount of content (digital or otherwise) besieging consumers on a daily basis, how can they be expected to distinguish the good from the bad or the false from the true? This is where word of mouth marketing gets a second take; it jumps, and it feels more genuine.