Sometimes Important Business Tasks Can Get Overlooked

Many times a small business will overlook something important. With us, one of those extremely important things has been customer retention. Don't get me wrong, our work speaks for itself and many of our customers have been coming back for years. The retention I'm talking about are those fringe individuals or companies we neglected because we were either, too busy or too lazy to take the time and keep up relations. The customer came in for a minor piece of fabrication and we let them get pushed to the bottom of the pile, assuming they would never come back anyway. However, those are the customers who may give your name to a friend or family member, making them a powerful resource to keep communicating with.

Earlier this week I received a call from a company called Intuit Demandforce. We have used Quickbooks for invoicing, so getting a call from a company in the Intuit family is not out of the ordinary. Most of these calls I will greet and pass on because they are just an introduction to get you in the door, nothing more. Yet, this one seemed a little different. I got the sense they really wanted to show me what the service could offer, I wasn't feeling sold to. Could be a testament to the sales person on the end of the line but, I felt the risk was worth it and agreed to a web share about the Demand Force service.

From the Demandforce website:

Keeping up with all of the changes in technology and online services is hard, but you need to communicate and market like the big boys or your business won't survive. Demandforce is here to help.
 
We take an award winning communication portfolio, with easy to use <a>online reputation tools and our broad consumer network, to become the marketing team your business needs.

The web share went well and after seeing what Demandforce had to offer I decided to give them a shot. Our account went live today and I am very excited to see how the service will help business over the next month. I really like the people I have dealt with so far, giving me a personal experience you don't get with many online businesses. Everyone genuinely seemed to care about us succeeding with the program.

Updates to follow :)

originally posted on our Facebook Page 

ISM Manufacturing September - Business Insider

ISM's monthly report on the American manufacturing sector is out. The headline index from the report unexpectedly rose to 56.2 from August's 55.7 reading. Economists predicted the index would fall to 55.0.

Any number above 50 indicates expansion while a sub-50 reading indicates contraction, so today's report suggests that the pace of expansion in American manufacturing accelerated last month...READ MORE

I try and keep an eye on how things are progressing in the manufacturing sector even though we are the tiniest of cogs in the wheel. Any information is good information in my opinion.  

The news also gave me a chance to try out the Squarespace "Post to Squarespace" button that can be used to post items such as the ISM manufacturing numbers to your blog quickly and easily. I don't hate it.

Source: American Manufacturing Is On A Roll (Business Insider)