Special consulting offer to improve your customer service skills

February is (finally) the first busy month of the business year. After the long winter holidays, it is time to be back in the business. Most probably, your customers are thinking the same, waiting for you not only better products, but also higher standards of customer service excellence.

The last year, following my own direct experiences with good or bad customer service and my consulting work for a couple of years in this domain, I wrote a book dedicated to help those working in this very demanding domain. 

The book is available on Kindle and offers a couple of simple and useful advices for those looking to improve the quality of their customer service, in order to get more customers and better reviews. Regardless of how cheap and good quality products you are offering, as long as you don't answer the questions of your customers, or ignore to address their specific demands, your business will suffer a serious setback. As a job seeker in this domain, if you think that working in this domain is very easy, you might need to go through this book to find some better customer service job descriptions.

My book will help you:

- to improve the quality of your customer service that will lead to more sales and business branding;

- to learn what is the best strategy answering the needs of your company;

- to identify the mistakes and get a new boost into the new business year

What you will learn:

- practical tips about how to answer e-mails requests

- best introductions and basic communication for online businesses, regardless of the domain of activity

- how to manage communication crisis 

- basic information about successfully using social media

- how to create customer friendly websites

The main target includes small and medium sized online businesses, looking to improve the quality of their customer service. It also offers useful tips to those interested to go successfully through customer service interview questions.

In the next weeks, I am offering promotional prices for one-on-one consulting via Skype for those interested to improve and launch their professional customer service departments or careers.

I am waiting for your e-mails and feedback at 

findtherightwordblog (at) gmail (dot) com

Let's keep in touch with good news!

Book review: Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives and Other Introverts, by Joanna Penn

I am not an introvert - at least in more than 95% of the cases - and from time to time, I may enjoy the idea of public speaking, but in the majority of cases, I don't like it at all. I mostly enjoy the pleasure of writing, the spontaneity of putting my words on paper or MWord, eventually editing it from time to time, but without the pressure of being good and flawless, as the video or public speaking requires.

I remember more than one academic conferences when I was not interested at all to speak and almost failed to present in a clear way all my ideas and conclusions. Obviously, I have a problem and decided long ago to solve the problem before another serious public speaking presence.

Joanna Penn's book, Public speaking for authors, creatives and other introverts arrived on my Kindle at an interesting time when I not only will be back on the track of the academic conferences but also I consider some public speaking assignments on social media and PR. 

The book is an excellent handbook covering everything one should know about public speaking. Advanced or beginner, with experience of failures or with a successful record, we all need to learn more how to find a better positioning for being successful and being requested for more assignments. At the first sight, some may dare to say that everyone can speak for hours, but try to do it yourself and you will know what does it mean to feel helpful and scared to death. By the way, speaking in public is considered the second biggest humanity fears, after death.

As a professional challenge, public speaking, as in the case of the writing jobs, needs to be focused on sending a message and have a mission. It means usually going out of the comfort zone, but a successful journey implies that one knows his/her domain and is ready to use this knowledge to help others to succeed. "You have an opportunity to change lives", is the main mission of the speaker.

The main advantage of the book is the focus on the checking list that the public speaker should have in mind: from the preparation of the speech, the soft to be used, pre-speaking rituals, the necessary information about the structure of the audience and its expectations, all the technicalities that easily can ruin hours and even months of preparation. Joanna Penn not only shares her tips and experiences, but also interviewed people knowledgeable about this complicated yet fascinating type of business. 

I completely agree with the author that: "Speaking is about leading the audience through a journey". A good presentation is outlining the experience of the speaker, while keeping authentic and being ready to answer the needs and curiosities of the audience. I often went to public speaking events spending more than one hour listening over an over again the same things that were dear to the speaker but completely indifferent to the audience. 

This book is both for beginners or advanced speakers, people looking for a change in their career and not sure how they can start. Joanna Penn will help them not only to set up a good slideshare, but also how to pitch themselves, how to negotiate a contract - "To be considered a professional speaker, you need to be making money from actually speaking, so changing a fee for services is important" - and how to further do the online branding and marketing for getting more speaking opportunities. 

A very useful handbook that helped me to clarify some of my objectives and to organize my public speaking agenda. 

What is SEPA?

Those who have a bank account in the euro-zone received probably since the last half of 2013 several announcements from their bank regarding the changes to take place from 2014, once the introduction of SEPA. 

SEPA stands for the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) and is aimed to offer a simplified transfer between euro accounts in the most part of the European area. It includes the 28 EU member countries, plus the 4 EFTA members - Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, as well as Monaco and San Marino. 

The process of adjustment and building of the infrastructure started in 2008. With a single bank account used for transactions all over the European space, SEPA aims to turn the payments into domestic currency exchanges, one of the most important objectives of using euro as the main and finally, unique, European currency. The immediate advantage, besides simplicity, is the possibility to reduce the overall costs of transfer that usually used to be expensive. It also encourages inter-country businesses, that used to be deterred by the high costs of transactions.

As in the case of many other big European approaches, communication is key, but some companies, especially in the Eastern part of the continent, may complain that don't have enough information about what SEPA means. But most probably till the end of the year, the majority of European businesses will be fully aware of it, by using it on a regular basis. 

Saying 'good bye' to Freelancer.com (and to other online platforms too)

It was about time and the beginning of the year is the best opportunity for taking inspired decisions. After almost two interesting years of online freelancing, I decided that my profile on Freelancer.com is no more relevant for what I am interesting to build in the next months.

Yesterday, after checking the last job offers for my skills and even made the effort to submit my interest for two of them, I decided that it is about time to finish this relationship. 

To be honest, I am grateful to Freelancer.com for a couple of good projects that helped me to improve my writing skills, and also to set up some very good partnerships, one of them continuing for two years. I had good times, when editing, translating and writing contracts kept me busy for days till late in the night. I enjoyed working on different projects, challenging myself to know more about so different topics as IT industry, fashion or cooking. I discovered the pleasure of doing academic editing, that lead me to the idea of writing a new book and who knows, launching my own business one day. I also loved to do translations for a while and I learned as well how to sell myself properly in order to convince a client that I am the best out of a group of more than 20 persons that requested to be picked up.

On the other hand, I had enough more than once of working for customers that forgot to pay or simply deleted their profile after they received the work, of characters that refused to pay the convened price or that were unable to explain in a proper and simple language what they are looking for. 

From a year to another, the network improved considerable and new features were added in order to prevent scams, but the overall level of the project was kept under the average life standards of the poor Western world. A couple of weeks ago, I discussed with a potential client about an editing work that he wanted me to do for around $15. More than 3 hours of work, correcting the language and also adding eventually references for less than the price of a cleaning work! 

My decision to request the suspension of my account - you need to request for a support ticket as they need to check if you don't have debts or pending issues with the clients - was less spontaneous that it might look at the first time. It is the result of a lot of frustration and mediocre successes that from now on, I don't want to deal with.

I don't mean that I will continue to watch the jobs on other platforms. At the beginning of my online writing adventures, I also followed other platforms and the results were equally disappointing: a scam on the then oDesk, and a lot of time wasted on Elance. Too much ado for nothing!

However, for anyone at the beginning of the online career, including for young graduates and students looking to do some small jobs for some extra money for parties, trips or books, online marketplaces are strongly recommended. But, don't expect wonders and be ready to deal at least with one scam once in a while.

I am thankful for the great moment and learned a lot from the bad ones. Time to move to a different level of my career!

The branding lesson of a small shop in Anwerp

In the last 12 months, travel played an important part in my life, hence my focus on my travel writing and photography instead of my usual social media and branding topics on this blog. However, as usual, travel gives me an opportunity to discover new social media and cultural practices, to get in touch with interesting people and use the opportunity of spending time in a new environment for finding answers to my old questions.

One of the main things I enjoy while being abroad, is to test the customer service and to notice how the companies and especially small shops are promoting themselves in a very competitive environment. 

Two months ago, I visited the beautiful city of Antwerp and, as usual, I stopped by to a small bookstore in the Jewish area, where I needed to purchase some important books that I cannot find in my side of Europe. After over 40 minutes of searching and considering how many books I can carry with me for the next hours, I decided for a couple of titles and some children books and went to the counter to pay. There, my books were checked and on the last page of each was glued a little sticker with the name of the bookstore, its address and a telephone number. From now on, when someone will have a look to my books, they will see for sure from where I purchased them and eventually, how they can have their own too.

It is a very simple and classical trick, as easy as the usual address of your blog that you add to every official e-mail exchange with your business partners or sponsors or potential collaborations. The costs of ordering the small bumper stickers are minimal and the effects are long-lasting. This is the kind of branding made with heart and without an impressive investment. You don't need to pay advertising in big newspapers or even on websites targeting your audience. Read in the family and shared with friends, the books are always carrying a little mention about your business and this can matter more than some fabulous mention in the media. At least for a medium-sized business, such a local strategy can work successfully, at least for a while and as long as your customers are happy with your products. And if the 'products' are books, consider it a partial success. 

How to plan your career switch

Everyone is talking or considering at least once the month a 'career switch' nowadays. As a travel blogger, I read regularly successful stories of people that gave up their corporate life, packed a small luggage and decided to go around the world. The main incentive is to discover yourself, enjoy the beautiful world and end up the slavery of a 9 to 5 office work, regardless hot much 0s you have in your account.

Theoretically, I cannot agree more. I am also one of those who after more than 15 years of carefully planned career - I started to see my 'future' since the last years of high-school and carefully worked my way through it - decided that freelance writing work from home and more travel - after a lot of travels before - is what makes me happy and accomplished. 

My career switch was not tremendously dramatic, compared to those who decided to become writers after a career on the financial markets or engineering. After I've read the diary of Virginia Woolf at 16, I knew that I want to spend the rest of my life writing. It took me some time till I discovered what I really wanted to write about, but I did not waste any moment of my life to learn more and read even more. And to travel. 

After a master degree and a PhD, a short career in consulting and PR and even diplomacy, that helped to get skills extremely useful for my travel writing projects, I gave up the business life and for one year I did nothing else but reading for improving my English skills and imagination. Learning to breath and realize what are my real priorities was not easy, but I wanted to succeed and this is what it happened. Doing those things that I never had the time to do before as I was always busy, working to meet deadlines or simply killing time waiting till a messy boss is reading the 100th mail on the same topic sent in less than 24 hours. 

When reading the beautiful success stories about the smooth career switch, one can really dream that everything can be done within a matter of months or even weeks. But, believe me, especially if you want to jump from a profession to another, the first positive signs can be seen only after 2 full years of intensive work. Whatever tempting leaving your cubicle now may be, be sure that you don't jump into the abyss of poverty and financial and social limitations. As long as you have some savings and some ideas for a limited amount of time of work daily, you can start planning carefully your next steps. 

I will tell you a little secret: as long as you see how things are put into motion and your work is appreciated and you feel deeply happy and grateful for your decision, nothing can stop you to continue doing better and better. You should never forget though to be genuine and work hard. Career switch doesn't mean retiring, but working double to achieve your real potential.

Those interested to start a blogging career will be interested to check my coming next eBook, available on Amazon.com in maximum 10 days!

Keep in touch with good news!

Planning and writing

When I have to chose between writing and marketing my content, I feel bothered. I love to write and bring more interesting topics for my blogs, but after a couple of years of modest blogging, I realized that without a minimal plan of marketing my content I will not reach any audience at all. It could be sad, deceiving, a reason for infinite philosophical complains and meditation, but this is the reality and denying it is one's own risk. 

As I deeply hope that sooner or later my blogging career will bring me a significant income, I need to think more than ever to marketing tips. The problem is the amount of time I need to spend from a platform to another. And another amount of time to keep in touch with the latest discoveries in terms of SEO, Google Ads, content marketing. Also, I need to be at least one hour the day present on social media, to share interesting information and to engage my audience. Lucky me that I am a fast writer and reader, but at the end of the day, I realize that my writing plan was not kept and I still have a lot of delayed blog posts.

What is to be done? What can I do in order to achieve the right balance between quality writing and the best methods for reaching more and more people. At the end of the day, when I want to start a long term collaboration, my readership and ranking will matter considerably in a favourable decision. Enough with the autistic attitude that kept me away from a big readership. I need to be seen and read and I need more and more comments from my readers. But, I also need quality...

I had coped with those rhetorical questions for a while, especially in the last days, when I realized how much I want to bring more and more travel stories on my travel blog. I feel how the words in my notebook lost their patience and made me responsible for the delay of bringing them into the online life. Meanwhile, I was too busy updating pictures on Pinterest, and participating to chats on Twitter. Plus, I needed to see how my Google+ campaign is going - excellent, with a better dynamic that in the case of Facebook. 

In the morning, up early for finishing all my writing dreams till the middle of the day, I decided to keep quiet and follow my priorities. Which are offering more quality writing content that can be later on shared over and over again on social media. In order to build a strategy, I need to have the main elements of it, isn't it? This is what I promise to do in order to avoid the negative tensions of being unhappy with myself. Thus, I will spend one day writing intensively and updating my blogs and the rest of the week running around the web and find the right audience. 

At the end of the day, everyone will be happy, I hope!