Business Coaching

We’v all heard the expression that time is money. But new research shows that for potential customers, time spent waiting could mean they’ll spend their time – and money – elsewhere.

A study done by Professor Dan Zakay at Tel Aviv University shows that even if people have committed to buying a product, a long wait time or a long line to buy could reverse their decision.

“When people are waiting in line, they have already committed to buying something, but because they don’t like to wait, that commitment can change,” Prof. Zakay explained to PhysOrg.com. “The value of waiting, so to speak, is worth billions of dollars. Clients are easy to lose and hard to keep, especially when customers call in to buy something.”

Customers want to feel like the company they’re waiting for feels their time is valuable. There are some clever ways to make customers feel this way; for example, at amusement parks, lines for rides should be fragmented into segments, so the line doesn’t look as long as a long, straight line might be.

To avoid losing customers, incorporate Zakay’s findings into your own business. Even letting customers know they might have to wait a bit or giving them coffee or cookies while they wait could go a long way, therefore, retaining their loyalty.

Remember, it’s not always about the product itself…customer service is a very important part of business, too.

Will a newspaper be an ancient artifact soon?

Just like the times…they just can’t stop changing.

As we’ve said before, the businesses that make it through the recession aren’t necessarily the most successful ones to begin with or the biggest, but those that adapt. This is something a lot of businesses and business owners seem to be having a hard time grasping. At the same time, several different industries are changing rapidly during this rough economic period, making some businesses even harder to stay afloat. For example, newspapers, magazines and print journalism are at risk of becoming extinct.

According to the latest Integrated Newspaper Audience finding from Scarborough Research, in its recently released Scarborough USA study, 74% of U.S. adults, nearly 171 million people, read a newspaper, in print or online, during the past week. The study examined newspaper readership, which captures media patterns and other consumer behaviors of adults across the country, and found that newspapers are still read in print or online by a critical mass of adults in the U.S. on a daily and weekly basis.

Gary Meo, Scarborough Research’s Senior Vice President of Print and Digital Media Services, notes that “While our data does show that print newspaper readership is slowly declining… given the fragmentation of media choices, printed newspapers are holding onto their audiences relatively well… ”

The analysis of data indicated that newspapers are being read by a majority of adults in print and online, but also that these Integrated Newspaper Audiences continue to attract educated, affluent readers. In an average week:
• 79% of adults employed in white collar positions read a newspaper in print or online
• 82% of adults with household incomes of $100,000 or more read a printed newspaper in print or online
• 84% of adults who are college graduates or who have advanced degrees read a printed newspaper in print or online

So…are newspapers really dying? They still might be…the findings say people read print OR online newspapers. Maybe newspapers are growing in the online sector, as the media industry seems like it’s moving that way.

What do you think? Can print news make a comeback? Or is everything going online? And, a more interesting question, could business coaching help some print companies stay afloat?

Last year was a huge year for social media. All sorts of sites gained massive popularity – Twitter and Digg, for example – and

Now that it’s 2010, let’s look back and see how social media sites changed the way some things were done:

Sales: Dell has tracked over $6.5 million in revenue to Twitter. Yes, it’s possible to track sales from Twitter…but Twitter is still in its infancy; Dell earned $61 billion last year, so its Twitter sales aren’t that much in the scheme of things…however, it does prove that social media is having an effect on sales — so much so, that companies can now track sales that stem from Twitter.

Local marketing: How did you find out about that restaurant? Did a friend share it as their Facebook status? Were you walking down the street with your iPhone out and saw it on Yelp’s Monocle or Urbanspoon’s Scope? Did someone Twitter about it, and their Twitter feed is linked to their Facebook and LinkedIn statuses, so all those networks saw it? Social media greatly helped people find out where people were, and it also helped people find local hot spots. The fusion of mobile, social and local started to create real opportunities to change consumer behavior. What was true for early adopters in 2009 will apply in the years ahead…and new applications and ways to market various products and services will probably pop up, too.

Death: We now mourn in public. Michael Jackson inspired millions — billions? — to grieve openly. Friends and strangers opened about Brittany Murphy, Billy Mays and DJ AM.

News-sourcing: As early as 2004, journalists were embracing blogs as a legitimate news source, and not surprisingly, they were among the first to embrace Twitter. Will they similarly lead the charge with every latest and greatest social media platform? Using these platforms as sources and to find and get news opened the door to ways for the media to interact with their audience.

Celebrity Access: In January, Ashton Kutcher joined Twitter. He was followed by Ellen DeGeneres,Oprah, wife Demi Moore,. We got to see what they saw, from Chris Brown’s view of 90,000 fans in Manila to Chad Ochocinco’s view of his opponents’ football field. Vin Diesel posts a couple of times a month on his Facebook page, where he has over 7 million fans. And after Kanye West grabbed the microphone from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, he apologized on his blog. John Mayer moved on from constant MySpace updates to constant tweeting. Yes, there are ghost tweeters and plenty of opacity, but now that fans have this direct, personal, and even unfiltered access, it’s not going away.