Enhance Business Client Relationships with PriorityClient

PriorityClient.com enables businesses to enhance their relationships with their clients at a more personal level. Imagine having a service that would mail greeting cards to your preferred clients  birthdays, important occasions, and holidays.

Your client will never know it didn't come directly from you. They even personalize it by having your digital signature printed on the cards for that personal touch. You can choose from a variety of cards and gifts to send. They have created five different categories which allow you to organize your clients and send gift card certificates as well.

Quite simple how it works: once you sign up, add your clients, select what you want to send during birthdays or holidays and they will do the rest. You will also receive an email notification on the day of their birthday to remind you of it.

We've all seen card services for consumers but rarely do you hear of a Business - Client relationship service.

Layoff Announcement via Email

This past Monday, March 9, 2009, one of my former employers sent a company wide layoff announcement via email. Sadly some of my friends were impacted by this layoff. Given the state of the US economy we have all grown accustom to layoff news. It is happening everywhere, touching every industry; however, prior to this week Mercury Insurance Services, LLC, founded in 1962, had never resorted to layoffs. I could ask a lot of questions about this business decision, most of which are not answered in their press release. The one question that weighs on my mind is why did they choose to communicate this business decision via email?

Perhaps companies feel this is accepted email etiquette. For some companies, maybe. But you need to know that prior to mid 2002 90% of Mercury employees did not even have personal computers, they worked with dumb green terminals. That's right,no email, no word processing software, no internet access...they spent eight hours a day in their cubicles connecting to a mainframe to perform and produce their work product - underwriting policies or adjusting claims. In 2001 I was named the project manager to bring Mercury employees into the 21st century. One of the biggest project battles was convincing senior management that the employees should have and use email. I won the battle and this week I learned that senior management used email to announce a company wide layoff. What a difference seven years can make!

Generally technology is wonderful for the work environment, but have we technically progressed to the point that it is considered acceptable to deliver life altering news via a cold email? Let's remember that this startling news negatively impacted those who were not laid off, as well as those who were. I read an interesting article on this subject that I invite you to read: "Is There Such a Thing as a Good Layoff?"

Today I dedicate this blog post to all Mercury employees, those who were fired and those who were retained. In September 2004, when I resigned from Mercury I sent a good-bye letter to those whom I had worked with over my almost seven year tenure. And because I had managed many company wide projects this letter went to many employees. In that letter I shared the following thoughts, which ironically are still pertinent today:

---As I leave you, I tried to think of the best advice I could offer you as individuals and as a group. It came to me that what I have always tried to impart to you is to question each request as if your life depended on it. Do not be afraid to stand your ground for the betterment of your work ethic and the company. In other words, do the right thing. A few years ago, I saw a movie, "The Winslow Boy", and in the closing scene a defense attorney states: "I wept today because right had been done." When questioned by the defendant's sister, "Not justice?" to this the attorney replied, "No, not justice. Right. Easy to do 'justice'. Very hard to do 'right'."

In these difficult times, can we all just try to do right?

Good night and good luck!


March 10, 2009 5:14 PM EDT

In a Form 8-K, Mercury General Corp. (NYSE: MCY) announced that on March 9, 2009, the Company took action to eliminate approximately 360 employee positions or 7% of the Company's workforce in an ongoing effort to improve its cost structure. The Company expects to record a charge, in the first quarter of 2009, of approximately $8 million for severance and other employee termination costs in connection with the reduction in workforce, all of which will result in future cash expenditures. The total annualized pre-tax cost savings that are expected to result from the employee reductions is estimated to be approximately $22 million.March 10, 2009 5:14 PM EDT

Blogging is the voice of your Business

Writing a Weblog is one thing, writing a good one is something else altogether! Some people write a blog for themselves and others write them to appeal to a particular audience. It is the latter which I am concerned with, reaching out to the people so they will read what you have to say; when people finish reading your post you want them to have a desire to come back for more. Know Your Audience! Seth Godin says "You only get one chance to make a second impression".

The key to blogging is choosing a topic, once you have chosen your platform you need to reinforce it with good content. One's topic and content should appeal to a targeted audience in the field of what you are trying to sell. Most websites today, especially business websites, have a blog affiliated with their site. It gives companies the ability to reach out and have a conversation with their consumers. It is what I like to call "injecting life into your website". What was once inanimate is now animate, people can get involved in the conversation like never before; this gives the consumer a "it's all about you" feeling, and by giving the consumer the feeling of involvement you can go a long way .

Whats good for the blog, is great for the website! Once you have created something worth reading you want to make your blog's presence on the internet greater; in other words you want your audience to be able to find your blog even if they have never read or heard of your blog before. The thing worth noting is that blogging is a means to an end; when people find your Weblog (the means), they also find your website (the end). Google rewards you for a good blog and they reward your website even more for one!

Blogs are the perfect ingredient to making a high page rank in Google! Blogs are updated more often then websites which allows them to be "spider'd" more often by search-engines. Coupled with great topics and content, loyal readers equals high page rank. Keeping search engines in mind is the key to people finding your blog, and thus finding your website; keywords and key phrases are of great importance because ultimately it is those which allow search engines to find your blog and place it where it belongs for your target audience to locate your information. Create a list of keywords you want to be found for and incorporate them into each of your blog posts. The title you assign to your post is the most important place for you to implement your keywords/phrases; search engines place all lot of value on the title of your web page; therefore, how you title your blog post is of great importance for the fact that your blog is a web page in itself.

In summation I believe that there is not one right way to go about creating a Weblog, but there are definitely wrong ways. You will not become an expert blogger overnight and patience will be in order to become successful. As long a you update your Weblog often while always keeping in mind rich content that directly relates to the topic at hand you will succeed. It is completely acceptable to refer to other blogs for guidance as far as ideas and content; look for what's worked for other people and find a way to make it work for you and your company. Blogging is the voice of your business...it is your billboard on the internet highway!