customers

Why did I want to do it?

Four years ago when I first had an idea that I wanted to start a new company, I really had a very ideological concept developing within me about giving back to others while still finding a way to make a living. In general, I really like people, don’t get me wrong, I have had some very interesting relationships with people as well, but still feel the majority of people in their core are good and decent.

I wanted to be able to serve people in a way that was meaningful and use some of my core strengths and the knowledge I have obtained over 25 years in the workforce and 28 years investing time in technology. So it only made sense that the computer and its various uses including Web development and now social media would become a big part of what this company, networktask.com and its web division BrightWeb Marketing, would do.

What I thought was this, we can fix a computer, we can help people with their network, we can create a website based around what the customer’s products and services are, but I have always felt that giving the customer some of the power back would help them understand why our services were necessary. In some cases we would be teaching these customers things we would otherwise be charging them for. But I had greater goals in mind, I wanted to earn the trust of people. If you earn the trust of others, there is nothing more rewarding you will do in your lifetime!

The philosophy was simple, don’t try to make all of your money on a few customers who have very little information about what you do. Instead educate them to become more efficient and have a better understanding of how the technology works so they can help themselves when it is possible to do so and rely on the professionals when they know things are out of their scope of knowledge. My thought was, and always has been, that I would prefer to have more customers not just a few core customers who need me.

Something I continue to preach over and over again, whether you’re talking about management, services, processes its all just about people. If you take care of the people the people always take care of you!

So how do you educate the customer?

Regardless of the type of product and services that you offer, be prepared to explain the necessity in detail and also be prepared to avoid the hard sell. I know how difficult this is, for some, closing sales is your means to an end, however the education has produced more work for me. It doesn’t always produce immediate results, but building relationships rarely ever does.

Want details? Here you go!

We currently have a small classroom in our office that holds roughly 10 to 12 people. We have started to offer some instructional courses on topics ranging from search engine marketing, social media, Microsoft office tools, how networks work… Etc. for some of the classes we charge a small fee, other classes we offer for free. Share the Knowledge!

How does the company and customer BOTH benefit from this?

Lets give the example of Search Engine Marketing classes:

In the area in which we live our target by necessity is small business, we do not have a major business needing our services in our region. Small business people know their core business better than I could ever know it. Unless I spend the time to understand a small businesses at an expense to them, I could never do them justice. However, if we educate them on how these processes work and how to do things the right way they become a guide for the services we can provide that do not match their skill set, such as web design. It becomes much more affordable for small business to pay us to make adjustments and make suggestions on their wishes than to run a campaign for them. Now we still have small business who wish to pay us to run the complete campaign, but they do so now with the knowledge of the process and why it is so detailed and costly. This gives them a solid appreciation of that expense. Nothing makes people happier than knowing they have made a choice based on information, not out of necessity and their lack of information.

End Result?

Because of this word-of-mouth has produced the results I hope for. We now have a very solid footprint of customers in our small region, including some of the biggest names in this area and the majority of this work came from customers who were happy with our approach. Not sure many of our competitors feel the same!

I’ve made it a goal in my life to find a way to help others. This does not mean I cannot make a decent living doing so, in fact our company remains healthy in its fourth year.

I hope this helps you!