Lisbeth Calandrino::

I wrote last week about Hulu, and wanted to provide some recent stats that you might not be familiar with.

• 55+ age group are most Hulu viewers: 47% in March 2008.
• 130+ Content providers on Hulu. NBC, Fox, Sesame Street, Comedy Central, Sony, MGM, Lionsgate and content produced specifically for the Web.
• 1250+ Titles of free shows and movies offered. Examples, Lost in Translation, all Force One, The Office, Family Guy, 30 rock, House, Arrested Development
• 125 Hulu employees in offices in Los Angeles, New York, Beijing and Chicago.
• 7.8 million site visitors in February — a 55% jump from January likely due to Alec Baldwin Superbowl commercial.

Pretty incredible! The site is clearly giving T.V. a run for its money.

A new report from Nielsen Online suggests that Twitter hasn't yet reached a level of growth that can sustain the service, according to the research firm's mathematical model. Despite the explosive popularity of the messaging service, Nielsen data indicates more than 60 percent of Twitter users that visit the site in a given month do not return the following month.

So how can Twitter benefit your business? A funny thing happened the other day. A woman in my seminar said she was dying to meet Barry Manilow. So I "tweeted" precisely that — meaning I put a message out on the Twitter wire asking about Barry Manilow. Before I knew it, there was a tweet back telling me where Barry was starring! Okay, so Barry isn’t your thing and you don’t care where he is, but suppose you had a problem and you wanted to get some information, where would you do? I now know I would go to Twitter.

How to use Twitter?

Start thinking of Twitter as an educational resource. Get into the habit of asking people for email addresses, their Facebook page and their Twitter page. Now you have it. So it feels strange because you still don’t know why you’re asking. A store owner of note told me the other day after three months of haphazardly going to Facebook, he knows has a sense of its value. Why, because he is asking all of his customers to "be his friend" — a statement he still finds rather silly, but he has lots of lots of friends. You know, friends and friends of friends. I know for many of you it seems like a secret society, but I guarantee if you think about how it can help your business your thinking will change. Follow people and get them to follow you.

Twitter is a way to network. I received an email from someone I am following and they thanked me for my reply to their Tweet. (A short update of 140 characters or less). How can it be bad? Start following and leaving Tweets. The pluses are:

• It's a good way to keep in touch with clients and friends. A very quick way.
• You can get notified of events, deals, specials. Information from companies that might be useful to you.
• Setting up an account is simple; start by following me, www.twitter.com/Lizzc, leave me comments and ideas.

And now, a little terminology lesson to help you navigate the ins and outs of Twitter:

• Hashtag: Discloses the topic of your tweet by prefixing a word with a hash symbol, (i.e. #nbaplayoffs or #nfdraft.) Helps users find updates on specific subjects.
• Nudge: A notification sent to a user’s phone asking them to tweet.
• RT:Short for re-tweets. Users add RT in a tweet if they are reposting from another’s tweet.
• Twackle: Websites with sports-related Twitter updates and organizes the tweets by events.
• Tweetup: When Twitter users meet face-to-face
• TwitPic: Allows user to post photos to Twitter.
• Twitterati: Term used by the A-listers on Twitter.

Still not sure what it all means? You’re not the only one. I hope when Microsoft does a spell-check update they put in Twitter terms!

Resources

• Gissur Simonarson Online
• The Times Online: Technology
• BusinessWeek: Feedroom

Sure, everyone knows that if your business is going to survive, it will have to change. That doesn’t mean you have to like it. In fact, maybe whining about it is good for you.Everyone has to change except you and me. Why — because we’re right and we know what’s good for everyone else. Why won’t they get on board instead of getting in my way.

Well, maybe it’s not them. Could it be you?

How you view and treat people has a lot to do with the outcome of the situation.  Just because people don’t agree with you doesn’t mean they won’t change. Maybe they don’t see or understand why the change is coming now. The best thing you can do is adjust your mindset and attempt to understand the people and the situation around you.

People not agreeing with you? Maybe that's a good thing — a way to help you "tweak" necessary changes in your thinking. Even the most difficult of naysayers may have valuable insight into the situation. Before you start firing those for not agreeing with you, consider what is going on around you.

On a personal level, I was involved with a project that was destined to fail. The product was just too different for the market — and way ahead of its time. The person who was spearheading the project had very strong opinions and was well-liked and respected. It was obvious to me that much of the agreement was due to the person's position rather than the marketability of the product. As the focus group leader I picked up underlying feelings that were not positive to the project. When I related this information my comments were considered negative and "in the way" of moving forward. Rather than question the information from the focus groups or listen to those closest to the project, the person  pushed the project through and a great deal of money was lost by the investors.

Success in anything is often due to "timing and economic climate" — it is not always advantageous to be first. Being first can be costly and not always a competitive advantage. In this case, waiting a year or two to introduce the project would have made a huge difference.  For interesting insights on "timing," pick up a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s wonderful book, Outliers.

Make sure everyone is told about the changes and how they will be affected. Change is complicated. Often times those who initiate the changes forget that many of those most affected by the changes haven't had enough time to think about what the changes will mean to them or don't even really understand anything about the changes. Consider the part-time worker who just vaguely hears about the change or the person who is the farthest from the decision maker. "There are few things that can shatter a person's view of the world like the discovery that all that was thought to be true no longer holds," says Wayne Hurlbert, consultant out of Winnipeg, Canada. To find out that everything one knows is wrong can be devastating news for many people. It doesn't have to be that way.

Explain how the change is in line with the business mission. Change, if presented right, just means the next step in your business plan. It's important to explain to everyone how the changes will affect not only employees but their customers. Remember, we are all here to serve the customers. If it's the next step for the customer it's the next step for us.

Listen to those around you. Often time owners don't listen to those closest to the customers. It's not unusual for owners to purchase products or attend trade shows without any of their sales staff. What you're seeing as resistance to change may be just the people around you voicing valuable opinions. For a clear picture, your feedback loop needs to be open, not closed. As I recall from history, the court jester was often asked his opinion because his ideas were always "out of the box."

Welcome challenging ideas from your employees. Maybe your employees aren't being stubborn; maybe those thoughts which appear to be challenges to your ideas will actually lead to new and better solutions. Remember those closest to the  problems have an insight that is much different than the vision from 35,000 feet.

• Business World Blog
• Change Management

I watched an interesting interview recently with Jason Kilar, the CEO of  Hulu. For those of you who "don’t Hulu," the Web site was launched in March 2008 for viewing in the United States. Basically, it’s a service that broadcasts previously-shown T.V. shows and movies and has become quite the competitor with television. Hulu — which comes from a Chinese proverb which means "the holder of precious things" — began its advertising campaign during NBC's Super Bowl XLIII with an ad starring Alec Baldwin. Now, there are more than 200 advertisers.

Here's how the Economist describes the rise of Hulu:

Hulu provides a combination of content and convention which ultimately attracts customers.  What does it mean to you? Mainly that television participation is shrinking. The day following its Super Bowl ad, Hulu attracted 1,082 brand mentions online (a 259% increase). According to Nielsen’s BlogPulse, Hulu also generated  448 shared links after it's first ad — i.e. bloggers who passed along a link to the site.  Socialmedia.com even crowned Hulu as the winner of the "TweetBowl".

This is an example of viral marketing at its best. It isn’t like the Swine flu and there are no shots for it. Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

So let’s say you are looking for your favorite Saturday Night Live programs. Go to Hulu and you will find plenty of shows to watch. So now you know what your customers are watching and why they aren’t watching your commercials. If you can watch your "favorites" maybe you don’t need to pay for cable?

"The world has turned completely upside down," Kilar told the Economist.  "I find that very inspiring. Others might be scared out of their wits. But to me, this is the way media always should have been."

What does it mean to those of you advertising?

It just further supports the notion that advertising is changing. Many of you are commenting on how TV viewing is down. As you can see, there are lots of reasons for this. Most of it is connected to non-traditional ways of viewing, namely video. It is essential that you start asking your customers for their email addresses. You might phrase it as such: "We would like your emails so we can notify you of special offers or events that we are hosting." Collect emails from your Chamber of Commerce attendees, your Kiwanis members or any other place you hang out.

If the customer doesn’t have an email, aim to get their mailing address.

Remember, there’s a huge difference in price—direct mail vs direct email. Post your video on Facebook and your blog and you’ve moved way up!

How about creating your own video email campaign to send to your customers? Are there other non traditional advertising channels are available to you?

How many of you out there are "Huluing?" What do you think?

Need some help with viral marketing? Give me a call and let’s brainstorm.

Resources

• Watch feature films free of charge at Hulu.com | The Cheapskate …
• Nielsen
  Online» » Hulu – One to Watch in 2009
• Here
  Comes The YouTube-Hulu-Cable
  Collision Course
• The Six
  Simple Principles of Viral Marketing

Everything I read and have thought about suggests that happy salespeople make happy customers. Lately I have begun to question that theory.  I know this sounds strange but I have been many places, seen happy people — or happily appearing — and they don’t seem to be doing any more for their customers than unhappy ones. A study by Cornell University in conjunction with  Fortune Magazine using the American Satisfaction Index measuring satisfaction  indicates in "some cases" a link between happy employees and happy customers. Another study conducted by Academy of Management Journal intimated that positive employee attitudes, in "some environments" directly effect attitudes.

What bothers me is "some cases" and in "some environments."

Why not "all" cases and "all" environments? Well, because it just isn’t so all the time — and it can't be. An interesting article by Rosa Chun and Gary Davies from the Manchester Business School in the UK believes this to be the case. Actually they call the idea that happy employees always make happy customer is "wishful thinking." I knew I had a problem as do many other business owners. Most businesses would like to believe it's so but it "just ain’t necessarily so" (I think that’s the name of an old jazz tune). In fact their study showed the factors that increased customer satisfaction actually decreased employee satisfaction. So, who makes who happy and is it important?

In order to run a good business, you first have to know what "good business" is. To make money and have repeat business, customers must be satisfied. Granted some customers are a lot harder to please than others and some appear to not be interested in being satisfied, but that’s another story.

But there is plenty of data to suggest a link between happy customers and higher profits. What makes it work?

If satisfied customers are your goal then you will have to first define what satisfied means. Is a satisfied customer one who pays the bill on time, writes you a glowing testimonial or sends you a referral? It’s easy to see how these connections can make you money.  Creating satisfied customers is certainly a worthwhile goal — it's doubtful that an unhappy customer will shop in your store.

Once you determine what you want you will have to teach it to your salespeople. Once you teach them, watch to see that they do it right.This is the place where many businesses fail; they fail in accountability 101– keeping  track and rewarding performance. I knew a retailer — now out of business for the third time — who was never interested in making customers happy. Everyone including the salespeople knew his philosophy: get the money and get out of town. The US is a pretty big country and last I heard he was considering another journey around the perimeter.

Nordstom, on the other hand, has a long history of accountability to their customers.  From the legendary story of a Nordstrom representative taking back a set of tires from a disgruntled customer (Nordstrom doesn't even sell tires), to their policy of having associates come out from behind the counter to hand you your purchase, make eye contact and thank you by name, Nordstrom continues to live a philosophy of accountability and of service.

No More Excuses Fast Company
It is appropriate to reward employees for doing a job well; in fact tying customer service to your employees' paychecks is a great way to  "produce" happy customers. Too many businesses talk about providing customer service but don’t hold their employees accountable.

Salespeople are rewarded for producing sales, not necessarily happy customers. Occasionally I shop at this fancy clothing store; they really have the most interesting and unusual clothing. The salespeople are happy but that happiness never translates to how they treat me. A year ago I had an allergy attack in the store while looking at some dresses and my friend ran to the drug store to get me an antihistamine to stop the rash that suddenly was creeping from my arms to the rest of my body. It was  quite obvious that I was in distress but the best they could do was offer me a cup of coffee as they went back to their chit chat.

Remember, in business as in life, you get what you reward.

Resources

• Employee Happiness Isn’t Enough to Satisfy Customers
• AccountAbility