By Manpreet Singh

The weekly meeting can be one of the most important parts of a small business’ operation. The meeting has the power to set the mood for the rest of the week and skyrocket productivity around the entire office, if done correctly. The problem arises when the leader doesn’t know how to properly conduct the meeting, causing it to drag on and key points to be lost in trivial discussions. At TalkLocal, we found the key to conducting more productive meetings lies in organization. Here are a few tips to keep your meetings organized and allow you to get important points across.

Have an itinerary for your meeting

Know what you want to discuss going into the meeting. Distribute an outline when the meeting begins and go over each of the points with your team. This will help employees in the meeting to prepare their own ideas and suggestions around the general frame you want to conduct the meeting in. On top of this, the meeting is less likely to go off track if people know what needs to be discussed going into it.

Send out information ahead of time

If you know that there’s something you want to specifically discuss in a meeting – whether it’s a new business model, a new type of system you want to introduce, etc. – send out as much information ahead of time as possible. Suggest ways to discuss a given issue in this pre-meeting outline as well; make sure people are well-informed on the content you intend to discuss and the way you intend to conduct the meeting.

Keep meetings brief

Meetings without a set end time have the potential to drag on for hours and accomplish little. To fix this problem before it happens, send out an email brief before the meeting establishing a start and end time. If everyone knows beforehand how long a meeting will last, they will keep their points concise and only speak when they feel they have something important to share.

Delegate “problem issues” to committees

A common occurrence in business meetings is having a particular issue ignite a heavy debate among those present. These arguments, while they might be warranted, have the potential to drag a meeting on longer than it needs to be and derail it from the original agenda. If one of these issues comes up, delegate finding a solution to a committee of members who seem most passionate about it at the meeting. This will allow the meeting to move on and for the problem to eventually be solved by a competent and driven team.

Assess how productive the meeting was at the end

After the meeting is completed, take note of how successful it was. Compare the start and end time you wished to achieve and the tasks you wished to accomplish with the actual runtime of the meeting and how many tasks you were able to complete. Experiment with how you run your meeting until you find a model that works best for you!

It’s almost April 1st, so be prepared for a barrage of pranks. In the spirit of the tricks we know our friends and coworkers are bound to pull on us, we reached out to small businesses we work for and asked them if they’ve experienced any dirty business tricks lately while trying to generate leads. Here are a couple of the dirtiest lead generation scams our customers have experienced while working with other companies.

The “Google Representative” 

Austin-based HVAC repair company Climate Control experienced a seriously dirty telephone solicitation trick when trying to get advertising space on Google. Owner David Bustamite claims, “A sales rep, supposedly from Google, will call and say for a few hundred dollars they will put you at the top of the list when people go online to seek an a/c company.”

David explains, “You give them your credit card number and then it takes several months before it even happens, and then you go online and find out it was a scam.” To protect yourself from this classic trick with serious consequences, don’t always believe the guy on the phone without doing research on where he’s calling from.

Pay Now, Get Traffic Later Never

NJF Electrical Services experienced a dirty trick of the web traffic optimization trade when he commissioned a revamp of his website to get more views on the internet. Owner Nicholas Ferraro explains, “I had purchased a new website and service with a promise of an increase in traffic by using their service and web design at a premium cost, only to get my account charged monthly and under delivered services.”

The ROI for Nicholas and his company clearly did not match what the website traffic consultant had promised, thus revealing the service as a scam.

With dirty tricks plaguing the lead generation industry, it’s always nice to have a breath of fresh, non-scammy air. If your small business needs free leads in real-time, without any of the dishonesty the businesses above experienced, check out TalkLocal.

Real-time technology can set your business apart from the competition in all the right ways. Automating the delivery of information as soon as it becomes available makes your service or product much more useful; here’s a brief look at why and how.

Real-time technology can make the service you provide easier to access. This can be seen in how real-time updates are affecting public transportation in many cities. Apps which incorporate real-time transit data have allowed riders to know where buses are at that given moment compared to a commuter’s stop. Experts say these apps make public transportation more accessible and, in theory, should increase ridership. If a person knows that information about a given product or service is a click away, the service becomes more accessible and more marketable to them. We’ve seen this at TalkLocal; there was a a boost in our customer base after we began providing real-time information on the leads we provide contractors.

Here are three types of apps that can incorporate real-time responsiveness into your business:

Tasks Management Apps Like Asana

You may already know that Asana is great for organization. But it’s also a useful, free way to send project updates to your customers for those big projects. Simply create an Asana project for each booked service or repair, and detail the different steps in the project as subtasks. Then, invite the customer to follow that project. As you’re working, go to the Asana app and check off each step of the process as it’s completed. Your customer will receive a real-time notification on your progress, even if they’re at work or on the go. You can even add details so that they have a written record of those really hard to understand processes.

Keep your Customers Updated on Your Arrival Time With Waze

From pizza joints to UPS deliveries to service booking websites, corporations are using GPS technology to track deliveries and arrival times. In fact, lots of local consumers are booking services through expensive third-party apps for the privilege of tools like tracking business arrival times. Rather than paying subscription fees to access customers who require those amenities, use free navigation and traffic app Waze. With Waze, you can tell customers you’re on your way with the click of a button. If you’re a tow company, you can even see where there might be cars parked on the side of the road in your area in real time. Just invite your customers to download the app just like they do those booking websites. That is, if they haven’t already.

TalkLocal – Real Leads in Real Time

If a person knows that information about a given product or service is a click away, the service becomes more accessible and marketable to them. At TalkLocal we saw a boost in our customer base after we began providing real-time information on the leads we give contractors making our service more accessible and convenient.

Here at Talklocal we see the opportunity we provide business owners, the ability to know about potential customers who need a service immediately after they request it, as a unique service we offer to our clients and vwe would not have been able to provide without real-time technology.

Some people view the use of “real-time” in a service description redundant. This negative perception could not be further from the truth. The implementation of real-time technology, delivering information as it becomes available, in a company’s service or product can set your business apart from the competition in all the right ways.

Here at TalkLocal, we incorporated real-time data into our lead generation service and it produced amazing results. Here are the top three benefits of incorporating real-time technology into how you run your business:

Relevancy

Timely communication is important to any business and as such, real-time technology can assist you in the relevancy of any conversations you have. In business, the relevancy of the information you communicate to your customers can make all the difference in your success. If the information you send isn’t delivered in a timely manner, you lose your context and relevance with your customers and your business will plummet. Real-time technology allows you to deliver data or information instantly and therefore, you maintain the attention of your customer base. At TalkLocal, we deliver our leads using this real-time technology as they come in, making the potential jobs we connect our customers with relevant to how they run their small businesses.

Accessibility

Real-time technology can make the service you provide easier to access. An example of this can be seen with how real-time updates effected public transportation in many cities. Apps which incorporate real-time transit data have allowed riders to know where buses are at that given moment compared to their stop. This real-time information allows users to plan their trips based on the location of their bus in regards to them. Experts say these apps make public transportation more accessible and, in theory, should increase ridership. If a person knows that information about a given product or service is a click away, the service becomes more accessible and more marketable to them. We’ve seen this at TalkLocal as we saw a boost in our customer base after we began providing real-time information on the leads we provide contractors making our service more accessible and convenient.

Opportunity

The speed of your information thanks to real-time technology can provide you, the service provider, and your customers with a sense of opportunity. Knowing about data and information as it becomes available opens doors to all kinds of possibilities for users. This opportunity can provide many potential customers for the service provider that uses real-time tech. At Talklocal, we see the opportunity we provide business owners – knowing about potential customers who need a service immediately after the customer requests it – as providing us with many customers we would not have been able to acquire without real-time technology.

Real-time technology is can be a great asset to any business and we hope that you give these ideas a chance to increase your own business’ success.

Written by Paul Murskov

Social media is an excellent way to connect with your customers and inspire brand loyalty. However, the public, immediate, and interconnected nature of social media poses unique customer service challenges. Deal with a negative post or tweet the wrong way and it could be shared and retweeted to hundreds or thousands of prospective customers in minutes.  So, when managing your company’s social media profiles, you must be quick and competent when responding to negative comments on social media. To handle these miniature PR crises in the most mature, professional way possible, take these seven steps.

1.    Try to catch complaints before they get posted. At TalkLocal, we once had to leverage social media to resolve a complaint with Comcast’s internet service. The company could have spared itself the embarrassment of a negative Youtube video if they had just gotten back to us when we contacted them directly. The moral of the story is that people will often reach out to you with complaints before they take them public, so watch your phone and email.

2.    Timing is everything. A sluggish response to an upset commenter is easily misinterpreted as you ignoring them. Have a same-day deadline for responding to social media complaints; delegating a monitoring role to an employee or Google Alerts can help you stay timely.

3.    Don’t feed the trolls. The social media sphere contains some aimless, generally anonymous provocateurs known as “trolls”.They are the rabid wildlife of the internet; a nuisance that comes with the territory. You should not concern yourself with trolling comments; just delete them if you have time. Look for bigotry, extreme obscenity, and irrelevance as indicators that an angry comment is a troll and not a legitimate issue.

4.    Only delete trolling comments, and NEVER “return fire” at any angry posts. Deleting a legitimate complaint implies that you refuse to resolve the issue. The only thing worse is escalating an angry comment with more anger, an extremely immature move. In short, do not respond to angry commenters while agitated. If somebody pushed your buttons, take a few deep breaths and calm down before dealing with them.

5.    Sound like a person. Now that automated customer service is so common, there’s a risk of responding to comments in a way that sounds computerized even if it isn’t. Make sure that you sincerely empathize with an upset commenter, and mention details of their complaint in your first response.

6.    Offer a customized solution. Answer their specific complaint, and make sure you’re not just referring them to customer service or a webpage. This has the double benefit of proving you’re not a robot and satisfying the upset commenter as quickly as possible.

7.    Know when it’s time to move the conversation elsewhere. While it’s nice to show off how much you care about your commenters’ concerns, more than 3 back-and-forths with someone will just bury other people’s comments and carries the danger of catastrophic public escalation. If the conversation is getting long, it’s better to respectfully move to a private venue like phone, email or chat.

In summary, the best policy on angry social media comments is to be prompt, useful, and compassionate— in other words, just be a grownup about it. If your business has any informative or entertaining stories about social media complaints, we’d love to hear them.

By Paul Murskov

Leads can be hard to come by in the contracting business, and sometimes service professionals make bad moves finding new jobs. In this day and age there are hundreds of consumer protection resources, but contractors can be manipulated too. Below are three contractor horror stories that started with an honest search for work, and then turned ugly.

Dietz’s Defamation Debacle

Sometimes a random lead really is too good to be true. When Christopher Dietz found a home renovation job from a high school classmate, he happily set to work, completing the project “in a workmanlike manner.” Soon, however, his relationship with the client turned sour. It started with a lack of pay. Then she demanded additional free work, angrily locking him out of the house when he refused.

Then the Yelp smear campaign started. After losing upwards of half a million dollars of revenue to slanderous online reviews, Dietz ended up having to go to court to save his business and his name from his nightmare lead.

“Went Into My Account and Pillaged”

The forum of ConsumerAffairs tells a cautionary tale about unscreened lead aggregators. Dozens of contractors have stories of losing thousands of dollars in hidden fees to such companies over nonexistent leads, some of which claim to originate from vacant homes.

Other grievances include dishonest business reviewing practices; one contractor claims that his old reviews were displayed on a competitor’s account after he canceled his.

A Contractor, Not a Counselor

Matt Lederer’s contracting business in Chicago learned the hard way what can happen when a job comes from a lead who hasn’t actually decided what they want done. For Lederer, a simple condo renovation turned into a drawn-out power struggle between the client’s family members over details of the job.

In the end, he lost valuable work time trying to act as a mediator, and was left with dissatisfied customers despite his high-quality work.

All three of these horror stories have something in common: The contractors could have avoided them by screening their leads. Having a clear picture of who a prospect is and what they want is an invaluable safeguard against falling victim to leads that are troublesome, dishonest, or just plain crazy.

At TalkLocal, we hope you’ll protect your business through due diligence on prospective jobs. If you’re looking for cost-efficient leads that won’t screw you over, we’re here to help.