That Computer Guy

A man called Seth Godin once wrote a very good book about a Purple Cow. If you haven’t read it, I’d highly recommend it. It’s about making your business remarkable. And with today’s marketplace becoming increasingly crowded, it’s an advantage you could find useful.

So, how do you get remarkable? Well, it’s a lot easier than you think; take this incident from last week…

Without a power supply for his Dell notebook, a client called asking if I could help. After a large number of calls to various outlets drawing blanks, I finally got this semi-result:

We’ve got generic ones in stock, but I need you to confirm the precise model number before I can sell you one. If it’s the wrong one and your notebook blows up, that’s not going to be good. The manufacturer, Targus, have a special phone number for just that information. It’s on their website.

Now by this time, I’m getting a bit edgy, and one of my eyelids is starting to twitch. But happily, the call to Targus made everything good in the world again:

Me: Hi, I’d like to know what model number power supply I need for an Inspiron 6400?”
Targus: “Sure, we recommend the APA64AU for that particular notebook.”

Providing a dedicated number that went straight through to a human being, and the answer I needed in under 10 seconds. In today’s world, that’s a Purple Cow.

Getting the Purple Cow to visit your paddock isn’t all that difficult; here’s 3 suggestions based on Seth’s ideas:

1. Have a look at your customer base – who are the most profitable? Target a premium service at these groups.
2. Think small. Take the ‘We’ & ‘Our’, turn it into something personal and connect with your customers.
3. Give away your services free to one client, if they can refer five more to you within a certain time frame.

Why not leave me a comment, and tell me how you made your business remarkable today…

In a recent conversation with a friend who also runs his own tech support company, I discovered that we both share similar ideas when it comes to company image, branding and domain names.

Take this scenario:

You spend x amount of dollars every year advertising your business in Yellow Pages, the local classifieds, maybe even some online advertising. You might have a nice website for people to come and look at, and your car or van has one of those one-way-view stickers across the back screen.

That’s a pretty tidy investment.

And then your potential customer sees something like this:

MikesBusinessName@hotmail.com

Customer response: FAIL.

This is your brand, your image, your professionalism you are representing. And by using a free email address or one supplied by your internet provider, your business looks as professional as a Saturday sausage sizzle.

There is of course another reason to get your own domain name: when the day comes that you want or need to change your internet provider (and trust me, it does), that address and all the sometime clients that may have used it in the past?  They’re gone baby, GONE.

(Let me guess, you can afford to be throwing away potential clients right now, can’t you?)

So if that’s you in the scenario above – GET A DOMAIN NAME!

Seriously, it’s going to cost you around the same as a week’s advertising in the classifieds. And if you need help setting it up to route your email, get in touch via the contact form.