While juggling a dozen or so active projects, I’ve also had my hands tied with some big tings (that’s “big things” for those of you who are not “wit it”). Part of this pocket of work includes cleaning up, reorganizing, and formalizing the structure of my personal business and that of my agency. It’s a fairly tedious and administrative process, and I’ve only just scratched the tip of this dirty, dirty iceberg. However, I wanted to share with all of you some of the things that have been on my to-do list lately as I think it holds a lot of value to freelancepreneurs (my corny amalgamation of freelancer + entrepreneur) that are just starting out, or have been running the show informally for some time and want to look at formalizing some of it.

The story thus far…

Let me take a step back and give you a better picture what my setup. I’m a web designer architect who owns and runs a creative agency (a corporation) that does web, print and brand services for small to medium sized businesses. While I own the agency, I’m not formally an employee of it (don’t worry about the technicalities of why). And neither are my partners who also own equal parts of the business. Up until recently, I was really just a ‘floater’ who was raking in revenue from a corporation without formally belonging to any company.

I hired an accountant at the beginning of the year to help me take care of my personal income tax filings (one of my smartest moves to date). He informed me that, to play nice with the government, there are a handful of housekeeping items I needed to do that would inevitably have me formalize a freelancing business on my own (separate from my agency/corporation). Hopefully this list will help out some of you, as it was certainly an eye-opener for me.

Note #1: The general concepts are universal, but some of the specific amounts and rules will definitely vary for places outside of Canada. So if you’re not operating in Canada, be sure reference your local set of regulations.

Note #2: I’m not an accountant and I’m not a lawyer. Please bear that in mind as I try to describe to you my accontant’s recommendations to the best of my understanding and interpretation (which hopefully isn’t far off from the truth). :)

Here we go! Grab your taskpad and follow the checklist after the jump!

1. Formalize the business

As mentioned, up until recently, I was making money without formally belonging to any company. But as the money I made became more significant, it became more and more important for me to clean things up and formalize the business. Essentially, I was told, if I wasn’t an employee of my agency, then I needed to be an employee of another corporation, a partner in a partnership, or a sole proprietor of a business and incur revenue through that entity. In my case (and in most freelancers’ cases), setting up a sole proprietorship made the most sense.

The best part about setting up a sole proprietorship is that there’s nothing you need to do. Unless you want to have some kind of branded business name, then there was nothing to register and by default, the sole proprietorship was already created by the very act of me doing business. I didn’t bother registering for a business name, so the Verne Ho sole proprietorship was [formally] born.

2. Register for a GST number

“Will you make more than $30,000 in 2008?”, my accountant asked. I proudly responded with a “Yes”, followed by a “….I better” after-thought. The purpose of the question was to determine whether I needed a GST number. The [Canadian] rule is that if a business makes over $30,000 a year, it is required that they charge GST on their services. So, just like my agency has a GST number, I needed to get one for my sole proprietorship. I hopped online and found the Business Registration Online checklist (or BRO for short… which I can’t see why nobody finds funny). A quick and semi-painless 15 minutes of online forms later, I had myself a GST number and a business number (which gets automatically created for you during the process).

3. Get a separate bank account and credit card

The next recommendation my accountant made was to get a new bank account and credit card that would be used for all transactions relating to my sole proprietorship. It’s a bit of an extra hassle to manage a few more accounts, but the purpose of doing so is to keep business records clean and separate from personal ones.

After setting everything up and getting everything activated (which took a week or two), I started transferring a lot of my bills that had to do with my business over to my new credit card. Phone, internet, and hosting accounts were all thrown over to the business card. Future paycheques from my agency will also now be deposited in my new bank account. And when I need to pay myself, I just transfer the funds to my personal account.

4. Keep clean records of all other transactions and expenses

The same idea applies for all other aspects of the personal business: keep as many records as possible and keep them as organized as possible. For example, an important element in being able to claim a percentage of my car lease, insurance bill and gas expense is to keep a log of the business use of the car. Every meeting I drive to, I take note of how far I travelled. At the end of the year, the number of kilometres I’ve travelled for business divided by the total kilometres for the year gives me the percentage that I can claim from my car expenses.

Pretty much any transaction that results from my business is now tracked and organized to be passed onto my accountant at the end of the year. Whether you have an accountant already or are looking to get one, clean records will make their job a lot easier and will cut down on the hours they charge you for.

5. Invoice your corporation

Naturally, the end goal of doing all of this is to get paid. So to do so, at the end of each month (or whatever payment schedule you work off of), my personal business will invoice my agency. Yes, essentially, this means that I’m invoicing myself, but this ensures that the transaction of me getting paid is a legitimate one in the eyes of the government. This is also where a great tool like FreshBooks comes in hand!

And since I have a GST number registered, I have to add the extra 5% tax on top of the subtotal of the invoice. It may seem like I have to charge more to my agency now, but in reality, businesses that pay taxes on transactions get to claim it all back. Likewise, while I’m gaining an extra 5% on each invoice, at the end of the year, I owe that accumulated amount to the government. So in the end, it all nets out to be the same.

As a sidenote, if you’re like me, and have only registered for a GST number halfway through the year, and are only implementing this invoicing process midway through the year as well, know that you do not have to charge GST on previously performed services if the total accumulated earnings year to date does not exceed $30,000. However, services invoiced for after the effective date of the GST number must include tax. Hope that made sense.

* * *

So as you can see, it’s been a busy few months going through some of these administrative hurdles while managing a big tub of projects. There’s still plenty more to tackle on the agency side (details I’ll continue to keep hush hush for now) but in the mean time, I’m happy to say that I’ve gotten through the basics.

It wasn’t until about a year ago that I acknowledged the fact that I was actually a freelancer (I just always used the more traditional ‘entrepreneur’ label), but it’s a label I’ve grown to carry proudly. :)

Verne Ho, Esquire Freelancer

I have, however, encountered a few problems with presenting mock-ups to clients. As web-savvy individuals, it’s quite easy to grasp and understand the concept that mock-ups are simply static images that depict what a site would look like. What I’ve found though is that, for everyone else, the idea is incredibly difficult to wrap their mind around.

I always make it as clear as I can that what they are looking at is a static and flat image of their potential site design. Still, I always get questions and comments around:

• How do I edit the text on this?
• How come I can’t highlight text?
• The website is too small (occurs because the browser has shrunken the image by default)!
• I don’t like the white space that surrounds the site.
• Can we center the site?

To some extent, I can understand the confusion. They’re looking at something that looks like a website that is inside a browser. But oddly enough… it doesn’t act like a website. What’s going on?!

Today’s appeal to the wisdom of the crowds:

How do you present mock-ups to your clients?

The following thoughts on how to improve my situation have already occurred to me:

• Place the image on a webpage? People can probably better identify an image when it appears as they normally see them.
• Use some kind of web-based application to showcase mock-ups? It reinforces the idea that it’s something on ‘display’ and is not a live example.
• Export mock-ups in PDF? That way they’re not viewing it in a browser, so there’s less expectations for it to function like a website.
• Skip photoshop and design in HTML? I actually used to do this before I became more comfortable with Photoshop. There are a few debates on this one, and I think it comes down to whatever process best enables your creativity.

Your wisdom on what to do with my troublesome client proved to be so impressive that I wanted to throw this one to you as well. So, how do you manage mock-ups?

Even if you’re not a designer, I’d love to hear about how you present drafts to your clients. Go!

Conversation after conversation, we’ve continued to jump through the hoops to offer reassurance that we are indeed a professional and committed creative agency. Reference lists, case studies, contracts in blood - nothing has really deterred this client from treating us like we were his nephews looking for something crafty to do between airings of Sesame Street and Full House.

I think it’s perfectly acceptable and understandable that a client needs a bit of reassurance before engaging a party for services and in most cases, I’m more than happy to provide evidence when questions of past successes arise. However, I can say for certain that it’s not common for our commitment and dedication to the business, the client, and even the craft to be questioned. It’s almost insulting.

The million dollar question of this post:

Where do you draw the line when working to gain the faith, trust and respect of your clients?

Metrics, past work, and written contracts are fair game. Beyond that, I’m inclined to say that, as the client, you must take a leap of faith. It’s the same leap of faith you take when you drop off your clothes to the dry cleaners, trusting that they will still be open for business the next day. And for the same reason you don’t question your dry cleaner on whether they’ll ditch their cleaning business tomorrow to pursue their real dream job of touring with Cirque du Soleil, you don’t question the commitment of your creative agency to delivering creative - especially when they’ve demonstrated a strong track record of happy clients that already implicitly serve as evidence of the commitment in question.

If you don’t respect the party you’re engaging enough to take that small remaining leap of faith, then you’re better off working with someone else. That’s my take on it.

What would you do?

Two Tuesdays ago I spent my night at the Danforth Music Hall to watch Lifehouse on their Toronto stop. The concert was amazing, but that’s besides the point. In addition to all the auditory sensations that night, what really caught my eye were the lights. Alternating palettes of vibrant colors that were tied together perfectly gave the concert a stunning light show that truly augmented the whole musical experience. The visual stimulation was like porn for artists and designers in the form of bright, bright lights.

Naturally, I had to share it with all of you. Hope it brings you some inspiration!

For me, it started with drawing. Before marketing, entrepreneurship, web design, the internet even - there was just drawing. Unfortunately I sort of fell out of it midway through highschool and traded in my 2B pencil for a mouse, keyboard, and 56k dial-up connection. It was a natural evolution for me, but still, it’s always fun to get back to the basics.

A few weeks ago, in preparation for the much-anticipated Game 4 of the Raptors vs. Magics NBA playoff game (which we scored tickets to), my girlfriend and I got the kooky idea of making a sign. Not just any sign though, a legendary sign. For me, it was a chance to dust off the old artist wings I put away so long ago and really get back into what has essentially shaped me into who I am today.

We took pictures along the way and because I’ve always been fascinated at “the making of” processes, I thought I would share them with you. And plus, we were both fairly proud of our work at the end of the day, so we thought it’d be something worth showing off a bit. :)

Enjoy! Drawings by yours truly, coloring by the lovely and talented Cheryl.

If you need the story behind the sign, read this.

Our sign landed us on the jumbotron for a good 10 seconds or so, and some friends told us we got some air time on tv too. As for the game itself, let’s just say the sign was the best part.

Yes, I’ve been absent for some time. But for those of you who have been paying attention (all 3 of you), you’ll know that if I’m absent here it usually means I’m drowning in work elsewhere. But have no fear, I’m alive (for the time being) and am just making a much needed visit to the surface for some air.

What have I been up to? A crap load. Remember what I said about the up-and-down nature of the freelancer lifestyle? Yea, it’s definitely an up time. In fact, it’s getting up-er as we speak.

But I thought I’d leave you all a quick update on a few items so that you don’t feel neglected and start to hate me. So here goes (in no particular order)…

FITC

I wanted to do a full write-up on my experience at FITC but after some thought (and some serious lack of time and energy), I realized it wasn’t worth it. In all honesty, the 4-day conference fell below my expectations. It was very Flash-focused this year, which is fine, but in many of the presentations there seemed to be a lack of enthusiasm for the material being presented. But there were still a handful of sessions that I really enjoyed - namely that of Grupo W (”The Madness of Interaction”), Gmunk (”Gmunk Kickdown 08″), and Joshua Davis (”New Works”).

Musical inspiration

It’s the season of [awesome] concerts as I’ve had the privilege to be in the musical presence of my favorite artists: Jason Mraz (last Sunday), Lifehouse (last night), and Jack Johnson (August 3). Music has always been my second creative love and immersing myself in live tunes is a truly inspiring experience. Aside from the auditory sensations, I came away from last night’s Lifehouse concert with some pretty sick visual stimuli as well. I’ll be sharing them in a later post.

Taxes!

As you know, today is the last day of tax season. If you haven’t filed your taxes yet, you’re either fortunate enough to not owe the government anything, or you’re now panicing because I’ve just reminded you that you have to do your taxes. This year was the first year I’ve had to incorporate my business transactions into my personal tax process and I’ve learned a lot in the process. I wanted to do a write-up on some of the things I’ve learned (i.e. rule #1: get an accountant), but I realize that it would have very little relevance now that tax season has passed. If anybody shows enough interest, I’ll do the write up. Otherwise, I’ll save it for next year.

I’m on the WinMo train

To satisfy my tech itch, I recently swapped my Blackberry 8320 Curve with a HTC Touch. I’m big on productivity and staying connected so any new phone I get must perform well on both counts. Of course the big difference between the Blackberry Curve and the HTC Touch is that the latter runs on Windows Mobile. While I still very much have my old MS juices running through me, I’ve always been reluctant to jump into WinMo because of poor market reviews of the mobile OS. I was told that version 6 (which is what the Touch came loaded with) is a leap ahead of its predecessors, and that the newly released 6.1 is even better. Comparing the two devices, they are both great business tools. WinMo has the one-up however because it syncs perfectly with my Outlook data and can run Word, Excel, and PowerPoint seamlessly through its Pocket Office suite. Ironically though, WinMo blows as a phone. I have a post in the works for those of you who are looking to add a smartphone to your on-the-go arsenal and are contemplating between Blackberry and Windows Mobile. And no, the iPhone is not part of that comparison.

I’m not going anywhere

Thank you for all the kind people that emailed me about my biggest mistakes. Apparently, it might have come off that I was leaving my business behind, but if you read carefully I’m simply making changes to it. It’s a really exciting time for me as I’m just starting to get knee-deep in the planning process of the next big thing. So you can all rest assured that I’m not going anywhere.

Back to work! Thanks for staying tuned in.

This will be my first design-related conference and I’m really looking forward to putting faces to some of the big names in the industry. I’m also happy to be attending and meeting up with a few brilliant people as well - namely Nick of N.Design and Damian of Depthskins. If any of you are planning on heading down as well, get in touch with me and maybe we can grab a drink and share some oohs and ahhs.

I’ll be armed with my camera and an itchy trigger finger so I should have a good dose of photos and footage from the event, which I will try to share with all of you as the days go by.

Stay tuned!

It’s not very often that a business gets a chance to tear down everything and start again. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears go into developing the brand, reputation, networks, clients, PR (for the SEOers), and basically every other grain of what you call your business - so much that “starting over” is a concept that is usually quite foreign to most. But let’s entertain ourselves for a bit, shall we?

What if you had the opportunity to do it all again? Over the years, months, weeks, and days that you’ve been a business owner (yes, this applies to you freelancers as well), you’ve picked up an immense amount of new knowledge. Knowledge that sometimes helps you realize that some of the things you’ve done were not the right things to do. Knowledge that sometimes makes you think, if I could do it again, this is how I’d do it.

So what would you change? What would your business look like if you were to start it again today? What were your biggest mistakes and what have you learned?

To get the ball rolling, here’s a few of my biggest business mistakes:

• Not setting aside budgets for internal work: Budgets for client work are a no-brainer and are easy to justify. Why shouldn’t internal work have the same rationale? Your brand, website, and products are all important assets that, when properly invested in, will offer a [bigger] return.
• The ‘we can do that’ mentality: Every small agency’s tagline should be “we can do that” - not because it’s a good strategy, but because you end up saying it so much that you it might as well be a tagline. Trying to take on too many things outside your realm of expertise will thin out your business and leave you delivering less than mediocre results.
• Not having a hiring strategy: When you first start out, your business doesn’t need 30 sets of hands. It probably doesn’t even need 10. What’s more important to focus on is getting the right set of hands to work with you to build the business and more importantly, to run and execute the business and bring in the revenue. Partnering with a developer to match your design skills = great idea. Hiring a team of designers before you even have an established flow of work coming through = bad idea.
• Not having a growth strategy: Hiring is part of this, but a bigger part is having a plan for how your business will grow in 1, 5, or 10 years. If you’re a lemonade stand, you should have a plan on how you will grow your business into some kind of industry leader in lemonade production or distribution (for example). Without a growth strategy, you’ll always just be that same lemonade stand at the front of your house (or in my case, that lemonade stand with a really thirsty neighbor - thanks Satish).

These, and many more, are considerations that I’ll keep in mind as I begin to build the next instance of the agency.

What about you? Leave your biggest mistakes in the comments and share what you’d do differently if you could start over again (if anything).

PS - As further support that this is an important topic to consider, Naomi from the IttyBiz factory has also recently asked the same question to her readers. Check out her blog if you haven’t already - it’s one of the most entertaining and insightful small business blogs around.

This organic (for lack of a better term) lifestyle is what drives many down this path. And for the most part it’s fantastic; work hard when you need it, relax when you don’t. It’s the flexibility that a desk job, suit and tie, and a 9-to-5 schedule just doesn’t grant you the privilege of having.

On the other hand, it can catch many unsuspectingly, hitting the hardest with those who haven’t yet internalized the fundamental nature of the career they’ve chosen. There are bills to pay. Mouths to feed. Girlfriends to pamper. Friends to entertain. Parents to prove wrong.

Firstly - take a breather. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. (Say it a couple more times if you need to) Good? Good.

It’s time to see your downtime for what it really is - a blessing. When work dies, the world doesn’t stop turning. On the contrary, there are plenty of other useful things you can do to take advantage of these moments, some of which will also ensure you have less of these downtimes going forward (for those who are still uneasy). Here’s a small list of suggestions of things to do the next time clients give you a moment of rest.

Clear out your feed reader

If you’re like me, while you’re in your busy mode, you’ll fall behind in your RSS feed reading. And when your Google Reader (or whichever reader you use) looks worse than your inbox, it’s time to do some clearing out. Catch up on all the good reads you’ve missed and try to go Feed Reader Zero (the feed reader equivalent of the Inbox Zero strategy) on the RSS world.

Tip: If you’re a chronic RSS subscriber and have trouble keeping up with new reads, use categories to help you prioritize. Google Reader gives me the ability to tag/categorize my feeds so that I can tell which are design or entrepreneur-related (which I read the most), and which are aggregated feeds from sites like Digg, CSS Globe, and Design Float (which I like to read when I have time, but otherwise ignore by hitting ‘mark all as read’ when I only want the best of the best). I even have a tag for Favorites which I always read first - it’s essentially my daily must-reads.

Clean your office

After the storm has cleared, it could be time to do a bit of office cleaning. Trash the hundreds of sticky notes that line the side of your monitor and the dozen Tim Horton’s cups whose rims are just rolled enough to disappointingly read “AY AGAIN” (I’m 1/14 by the way). When you’ve got a few minutes it’s always a good idea to get organized again and reset yourself for the next load of work coming in.

Update your blog

Unfortunately, this blog sometimes takes a hit when things get hectic in my life. But the moment I get some downtime I always check in to see how things are going and to perform some of my regular maintenance tasks. I’ll read all the new comments and do my best to respond to everyone or I’ll get cracking on writing a new post. Most recently I made the upgrade from WordPress 2.3.3 to the wonderful and much talked-about 2.5. If you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you to update your own site (download here, release notes here).

Do your taxes

It’s that time of the year again! As much as we all hate to do them, it’s a good idea to get your taxes out of the way while you still have time to. This year will be my first year not only doing it myself but also incorporating a significant amount of new factors from my business into the tax process. I’m doing my best to get going early, and so should you. If you’re in Canada, your return must be filed on or before April 30, 2008 (I’m not sure how it differs elsewhere).

Side note: Can anybody recommend a private accounting/tax firm in Toronto that has experience dealing with small business owners?

Inspire yourself

Working hard over a long period of time can sometimes wear you and your creativity down. So when you get a chance, head out to your local museum or art gallery to take in a fresh perspective. Looking for something more contemporary? Inspire yourself by taking a stroll through the beautiful landscape of a park or the glorious skyscrapers of the downtown core. Often times, just breaking out of your regular environment and surrounding yourself with new faces and objects will freshen you up and breathe new life into you and your over-worked mind.

Read a book

This one remains on my to-do list but I know a lot of people who like to unwind by reading a new book in their downtime. Reading a book helps to keep your literary skills sharp and also fits equally well in the small pockets of free time you get at the end of each day or in the longer periods of downtime. So pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read (for me it’s Timothy Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek… ironic, I know) and finally find your way past that first page!

Work on personal projects

This is by far my favorite way to spend my downtime. With so much brain crack running through my veins, it’s truly a blessing when I have the opportunity to work on personal projects. In your case, think about some of the projects that you’ve always wanted to do - if your clients have momentarily stopped knocking at your door, now’s the time to do them! If you don’t have any projects in mind already, come up with one that will push you to learn new skills or test the limits of your current ones.

Build supplementary channels of revenue

Similar to the last suggestion, a great way to ensure your downtime doesn’t go completely wasted (financially speaking), you can spend some time developing projects or strategies that will help you rake in some recurring supplementary revenue. Whether it’s through selling ad space or free WordPress themes, setting up a low-maintenance side gig can help ease the tension in time’s when client work isn’t filling your schedule.

Do some business planning

What better way to combat your business’ downtime than to plan for how to avoid it in the future? Downtime is great for helping you finally sit down and plan out the next move in your business’ growth strategy. Or it’s a good time to work on the next marketing campaign. Or it’s even a good time to just update the website with the new work you’ve been doing. Take the time and work on building the business while you’re not so busy running it.

Get a head start on the sales cycle

Again related to the above point, it’s a good idea to make use of the downtime and start building new leads. Check the job boards for new postings or follow-up with some of the clients you had to turn away while you were busy. This point is more of an essential thing to do rather than just a suggestion - it’s key to ensuring that your downtime is really just a temporary period that occurs once and a while (only when it happens frequently do you need to start worrying).

Network

For all those times you wish you could get out and interact with people the old fashioned way (that is, with the other person physically standing in front of you), you should use your downtime to get out to local events and network. Events like Case Camp (or any of its sister events that follow the X Camp naming convention) happen frequently and are a great place to meet and talk with like-minded individuals. It’s also a good place to find new leads, which adds to the above point.

Relax

And when you just feel like taking a day off and kicking your feet up (at some place other than your desk hopefully), relaxing is another valued option to consider when you have downtime. You’ve been working so hard lately that you’ve missed meals, neglected friends, and have totally steered off from your commitment to the gym, so why not catch up on some of those things and taking a momentary leave from work? You’re guaranteed to return fresher and more energized to tackle the next storm.

I hope this article has helped you see your downtime in a new light! If there are other things you like to do to make the most of your downtime, I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

Live life. And pay attention.

Yes, it’s that simple (sometimes). Remember that long before we become marketers or business people, we are customers. As customers we engage and interpret a number of different experiences every time we interact with the outside world. With each interaction we pick out the good and the bad - maybe not consciously, but we definitely form preferences over time. These day-to-day preferences form a goldmine of customer insights for you to leverage. All you have to do is pay more attention to what you like and don’t like and right away you’ll start to figure out things that you and your business can do to help serve others better.

Not convinced? Let me give you a few examples.

Godiva

My girlfriend and I dropped in to a Godiva not too long ago to pick up some chocolates for my grandpa’s birthday. If you’ve ever had the pleasure to visit a Godiva store, you’ll know that they have a large assortment of truffles, biscuits, and sweets otherwise known to most people as simply ‘chocolates’. And to uphold their fancy-shmancy brand as a high-class chocolatier, their products often get blessed with fancy-shmancy names that are usually hard to pronounce and sound a little funny when you finally get it off your tongue (or maybe I’m just immature).

On this one occasion, I decided to ask the young lady behind the counter how to pronounce the name of a chocolate, after having struggled with it a bit (the exact name of the chocolate has escaped me now). The young lady smiled at me and happily told me “it’s whatever you want to call it”. Really? Apparently, she explained, employees of Godiva are not allowed to correct customers when they mispronounce the name of their products. Wow, I thought. Even in an age where branding is so crucial, this company has put it aside in an effort to make the customer not feel like an ass. Sweet (pun intended).

Customer Insight: Speak the language of your customers. Your customers weren’t trained by your company and likely have very little experience in your industry. As a result, they form their own vernacular to describe your products and services, using terms that make sense and that become familiar to them. So rather than try to force your customers to adapt to your language, learn to speak theirs. Whether you offer web development services, haircuts, or chocolates, chances are, your customers will feel a lot more comfortable using their own words.

Dollarama

I made a quick visit to the dollar store in search of a combination lock for my gym locker. This one particular dollar store was the mother of all dollar stores with nearly 30 aisles of pure cheap crap. You can imagine the challenge I faced in trying to find what I was looking for. Was it in school supplies or hardware? In any case, I was on the search for a store clerk to help guide my way. Passing every single aisle, I finally found one near the back. “Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find combination locks?” I asked. She looked at me puzzled and nervous. “I don’t know. Can you ask somebody else?” I looked around, “There is nobody else.” “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

I stared at her for a good 5 seconds, confused by her response. I ended up leaving the store and going to Wal-Mart.

Customer Insight: The words “I don’t know” should not be in your vocabulary when serving customers. At least not without the words “but let me find out” coming after it. Your customers rely on you to help them find what they’re looking for. It’s your job to know how to help, and it’s equally your job to find out when you don’t know how to help. The kind of service that sounds like “I don’t know” leaves me with a horribly unhelpful experience and the thought that the products aren’t the only things discounted in the store.

I initially had another 4 stories to share but this post is getting a bit lengthy. The point I’m trying to get across is that every one of our days are filled with handfuls of good and bad service experiences. Use these experiences to guide your business and the way you serve your customers and you’ll be bound for success and positive reviews.

What insights have you picked up?